The Coming of Age. April Part 3

20th April. There is a new shoe shop in the High Street. I look longingly at some strappy sandals with twinkly bits on and killer heels. I wonder where on earth I would wear them. They wouldn’t be much good for taking the girls to the park in. Or coming back from the supermarket with several carrier bags of groceries. What about the trip to Tuscany next month with Julia? No, we shall be sightseeing. They would hurt. I would look ridiculous. They are expensive.

I am in the shoe shop asking the owner if she has any size 8. I think I am safe from my own impulses because mostly pretty shoes are not available in size 8, double E fitting. He disappears into the back of the shop and after five minutes, comes back with some gold sandals with low heels. They are not quite the ones I was yearning for but they are pretty and I start to try them on.

At this moment in comes next door neighbour Fran. I can tell immediately that she is in full politically correct mode. She is wearing a droopy T-shirt with no bra underneath. The T-shirt comes from the ethical shop - I've seen it in the window – it is all very pure, made of organically grown politically correct cotton in a porridge colour. I am wearing jeans which I know she disapproves of and a shirt from Marks & Spencer, an emporium which she also disapproves of. She has come in to buy some new shoes to go to a wedding she tells me.

Her eyes light upon the gold sandals. I think she is going to ask for a pair to try on herself. They would be perfect for a wedding, although ridiculous for me who am not going to a wedding or indeed, anywhere glamorous at all.

‘Are you going to buy those?’ she asks severely.

‘Well,’ I mutter, instantly defensive, ‘I haven’t tried them on yet.’

‘You can’t possibly buy anything like that. They are very bad for the feet and anyway, they are probably made by slave labour in the Philippines.’

The shop owner comes up to her and Fran asks if she could try on some of the clogs in the window. I can’t, for some reason, tell her that she can’t possibly wear clogs to go to a wedding, because, for all I know, the sort of wedding she is likely to go to, all the guests will be wearing clogs.

I slip on my gold sandals, hoping they will be too tight, because I know I can’t afford them. On the other hand, if they do fit, dare I buy them in the face of Fran’s disapproval? I feel I should be marked down as incorrigibly frivolous. If I don’t dare to buy them I shall have to live with myself as a craven coward.

Thanks goodness, they are too tight. My dilemma is resolved for me and I leave the shop. Though I suspect Fran has noted my triviality and is about to go and tell all her friends.

21st April. Val rings up to tell me she has seen Martin in Oxford in a little embroidered pill box hat like Bert Nutbean wears. Apparently it was embroidered with symbols from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. At least that is what Val thought. Her eyesight is not very good, rather like the rest of us. It could have been someone else entirely. Could it be him? Can he be sane?

I tell Val about Fran and the gold sandals.

‘I am surprised Martin didn’t go off with her,’ says Val, ‘they would have got on well.’

I think I am beginning to get over Martin. He used to be very peculiar about his clothes. He would buy garments in second hand shops and they were never either classic or trendy or smart but looked like something an old man would wear to go to a British Legion whist drive. He had problems placing himself in society. When he left me, he took to wearing black from head to toe. Now apparently he has gone into Nehru jackets and purple or peacock coloured trousers. And now may even be wearing a pillbox hat. I count my blessings.

25th April. Val, Julia and I are going to Poppy’s elegant house in the country. She is as impoverished as Val and I, but has managed to salvage more in the way of real estate from her three marriages. None of them were to academics.

This time it is my turn to drive. Julia navigates. The lanes in this part of the county all look remarkably similar and equally unfamiliar. I pull up outside a farm gate and read the name.

‘Gosh,’ I say, ‘ this is where the pink Rolls Royce met the tractor. Look, you can see where the hedge is damaged.’

‘Oh,’ says Julia, ‘it’s like being where Louisa Musgrave fell.’

Julia is very literary and has just finished re-reading Persuasion.

‘I wish I could be like you,’ said Val, ‘dedicated to knowledge.’

Val is always longing for self-improvement but, like me, usually gets sidetracked by life’s trivia.

Now we have found out where we are, we soon find out where we ought to be and are not too late.

Poppy has recovered remarkably from her brush with farmyard life. Although we tell her we have seen the site of her misfortune, Pink Rolls Royce is already history. She has completely rearranged her house in accordance with the principles of Feng Shui and is waiting for the promised up-turn in her life. In fact she thinks she may have already found it. She saw somebody in the town last time she came in who was very handsome. Dark, she said, with lovely brown eyes. And smart, he wore a leather jacket and had a long blue scarf tossed casually round his neck. He was obviously interested in her because she went to three different shops and when she looked round, he had followed her into all of them.
Julia looks sceptical.

Val and I look at each other.

‘Do you watch ER?’ said Val.

‘I have seen it. Oh, yes, yes,’ Poppy says, ‘he looks like that doctor.’

‘You are talking,’ say I, ‘about our doctor, the heavenly Dr Pude. He looks just like George Clooney.’

‘He has seen more of me than any other man’, says Val. ‘Last time I went to see him, he told me I had the body of a teenager.’

Val and I have been swimming together on occasions.
‘He was being kind,’ I said.

‘He is married,’ added Julia, ‘to Vera Buddle’s daughter.’

Poppy knows Vera Buddle. Everyone knows Vera Buddle.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I like the sound of any of that. I’ve never been out with a doctor. I’ve never quite liked the idea.’