The Coming of Age. May. Part 1.

lst May. The Reverend Scuffling, the modernist clergyman, inspired by the May Day Morris Dancing, has a new idea. He feels there is nothing much happening in the church or the town for that matter in August so he has decided to put on a pageant. This is to be based on several episodes in the town's history; one in which the spring which rises near the old grammar school ran red for several days and was reputed to cure all manner of diseases even in animals; all except for one man with boils on his arm. This man's cat had once killed the vicar's pet mouse and the spring did not work on him, so another version went. He died soon after and the ghost then haunted the vicarage for many years, allegedly, and had to be exorcised by twelve priests. The exorcism was followed by aritual which continued un the 19th century in which school children danced round the church of St Jude singing.

The Reverend Scuffling thought that these stories had great possibilities and almost everybody in the town and their pets, could be involved in it. He was very much in favour of inclusion. In August of course, it would help tourism. The mayor was very enthusiastic. So was Vera Buddle, who instantly got involved. Her husband had once had boils and one of her many grandchildren owned a pet rat which could 'stand in' for the mouse. I glean all this, except for the last bit about Vera Buddle, which came from Mavis, from the local paper.

2nd May. Today I am going to the airport. Julia and I are going on a week’s package tour to Tuscany. I agreed to this last year when I was feeling somewhat low but I have never spent that much time with Julia before. We are going to have to share a room. I hope it works and we don’t quarrel otherwise our Saturday Dining arrangement will be ruined and Val and Poppy would never forgive me.

I have spent the previous day decanting potions into small pots and packets. There seem to be more necessary things each year. As well as the usual sun cream, after-suncream, immodium and waspeze, I now have to think about Athletes foot cream; tweezers for those hairs that suddenly appear on my face; Kalms; Ibuprofen, cream and pills in case my hip plays up; antacid pills, Senokot, elastic stockings and haemorrhoid cream.

Julia has a large suitcase, and I later discover this is full of enormous bottles of eau de toilette, economy size cleanser and jumbo size hair spray. Julia is small and dainty, one of those women for whom men carry suitcases and thus, unlike me, has never thought about reducing her luggage to a carryable size. She is still back-combing her hair, as she must have done when she was a girl in the sixties. She thinks that my wearing a vest is quaintly old-fashioned, as I do her back-combed hair.

When we get to the airport we stand slightly to one side, looking at the queue for the Rome flight and sneaking surreptitious glances at other people’s luggage to see who is on the same tour. We both eye up two attractive older men hopefully, but they are too much together – and anyway are not doing a package. A lone man appears but goes straight to the ‘Business Class’ desk. We remind ourselves that we are going on a cultural tour of Tuscany, not on a singles holiday with Club Med. It is as well, we both agree later, that we have only come to see cathedrals, palaces and art galleries. Our party consists of about half a dozen middle-aged to elderly couples, one young couple, three pairs of women like ourselves, three women on their own and five elderly mothers with middle aged daughters.

After a long coach journey through the Italian night, we arrive at our hotel. Julia leaves her suitcase on the forecourt and walks in. The rest of us take our cases, and are shown our rooms. Then Julia and I go back for her suitcase. The rooms are cold and there is no food to be had until breakfast time. We tell ourselves that the enforced lack of calories is a good thing and will enable us to eat five courses at every meal for the next week in what the courier has told us is the proper Italian way.

3rd May. Although I am on holiday I make a tremendous effort to get to breakfast on time the following morning, only to find that everyone else is there before me, horribly lively and raring to go, except for Julia. She is still back-combing her hair.

I look round the room at the other tour members. They look the same as they did yesterday. The courier, we are to call her Mary, is sitting at a table with a handsome young man.

‘Where did he come from?’ I mutter enviously.

‘That’s our coach driver’, says the woman sitting on the same table, ‘Franco.’

The courier stands up and tells us what we are doing today. Franco is going to drive us into the village via the basilica in the morning. The coach will go at 9.30. It is now 8.30 a.m. Julia and I settle down to make up for last night’s lack of food. In ten minutes, the dining room is empty except for Franco, the courier, Julia and me. Five minutes later there is a queue forming in the front of the hotel.

‘I thought we didn’t have to be on the coach until 9.30.’ says Julia.

‘Oh, they always do that,’ says the courier. ‘They all want the front seats.’

She knows a lot about Italy and Italian culture. We are entertained with the plots of The Leopard, Il Postino, The Betrothed, La Dolce Vita, Tosca and Cinema Paradiso as we bowl along in our coach. Luckily she has a soft, monotonous voice and we all go to sleep. I was pleased about this because I had not seen Il Postino and didn’t want to know the ending.

4th May. Orvieto. Four inches of hailstones do not deter Italian car drivers (luckily Franco is not like that) and several end up on the motor way facing the opposite way from that which they started. We are all frozen. There is a tour of the Cathedral but the guide is rather dull so, one by one, we creep away. You have to be decisive to do this. If you are one of the last half dozen you are stuck there and cannot, without being very rude or feigning acute appendicitis, escape.

One of the unattached women seems to be called Angela Rippon. She decides that Julia and I would be suitable companions and attaches herself to us. Unfortunately. She is younger than we are, as short as she is wide, and is never seen apart from several large carrier bags and a white satin flying helmet edged with fur. Today is the only day it looks anything but ridiculous.

5th May. Siena. It is warm and sunny. Julia and I feel wonderfully cosmopolitan sitting in the square where they hold the Palio eating coffee granitas. Thank goodness we have managed to lose Angela Rippon in a side street because she would definitely have detracted from the cosmopolitan chic we hope to project. She is a slow walker on account of the bags.

6th May. Florence. We have a splendid time in the Boboli gardens, but then get caught in a long queue for the only public loos. We are last back at the coach and everyone glares at us except Angela Rippon who apparently thinks that Franco’s surname is Lollobrigida, which she finds intensely interesting.

7th May. The height of our tour, a special visit to a Palazzo that is not open to the public. We cannot evade Angela Rippon. We are a little group of three, standing slightly apart, as the elegant countess, who has a name like Masolini and who is about to take on us a conducted tour, is giving her welcome speech. As soon as the countess finishes, Angela Rippon says in a broad accent ‘How do you get to own this sort of place?’ There is a quiver through the group.

‘You have a very famous name’ she adds, (‘She’s obviously obsessed with famous names,’ Julia mumbles to me, ‘just because she’s got one’.). ‘Where have I heard it before?’

Julia and I take several steps backwards so that the countess does not think we are friends of Angela Rippon.

‘She’s thinking of Mussolini,’ says Julia.

‘Or Pasolini?’ Say I.

‘Or Mascarpone?’ says Julia.

I wait for Mary our courier to chip in with full details of the careers and sad ends of Mussolini and Pasolini and possibly the plots of all the latter’s films but she merely says, quickly, ‘I think we must move on straight away.’

We have one day left for shopping, which Julia and I spend in a series of cafes and restaurants and then the visit is over.

8th May. Due to a strike of some sort, we are bussed back to the nearest city in two minibuses, there to catch a train to the airport. Mary drives our minibus. We are very impressed by her turns of speed and apparent knowledge of the city back streets. At first. We can all see the station and shout and point it out. There seems to be no way of getting to it except down a one way street with ‘no parking’ signs.

‘Are you sure this is all right?’ someone asks as she swerves into it the wrong way.

‘Nobody in Italy takes any notice of these,’ she says and wrenches the wheel over and brings the minibus to a standstill by a no-parking sign. The train to the airport is almost due and we all struggle out, and then wrestle our suitcases from where they have been piled in the back.

Two policemen on motorbikes appear as if by magic. As we all make our way hurriedly across the road, waving good bye to our helpful courier, we feel guilty about leaving her. She is smiling winsomely at the policemen and fluttering her hands. I forgive her for giving away the ending of every Italian novel and film and opera that I have never seen.

I am just manoeuvring my wheeled suitcase between two bollards when Angela Rippon still wearing her white satin flying helmet, struggling with a huge suitcase and an increased number of plastic bags wails ‘I can’t carry this. Can you help me’ she says?
‘Of course’, I say, and begin to switch my luggage around so as to have a free hand. Then I realise that she is not my child, not my ex-husband, not my mother and she is twenty years younger than I am. What am I doing?

‘Sorry,’ I say casually and stride across the road into the station forecourt leaving her jammed between the bollards Well there have to be some advantages in getting old and at that moment, I experience one of them.