Free Vintage Babes by Elizabeth Oldfield Page B

He’s an actor, but decided to do personal training in between jobs and was starting up. Max went into the bar afterwards, got talking to Duncan, explained he needed a sponsor and Duncan offered to help. Forty pounds a week seems a lot now,’ she said, returning to her money problems, ‘but I need to keep in shape. Extra weight adds years and –’ She changed tack. ‘Max also gives nutrition advice and lifestyle advice and, well, the guy just makes me feel so fantastic.’
    ‘And if the Brothers Gruesome have suggested you get rid, that sounds all the more reason to keep him. Couldn’t you get a couple of friends to join in the work-outs and so cut the cost?’ I suggested.
    ‘I guess Max’d go along with that. Would you be interested?’
    ‘Me?’ I said, in surprise.
    I was a stranger and if she needed to ask a stranger to join her in the classes, then she couldn’t have any close female friends. How odd. How sad. I have a cosy social circle. Some of the girls – these are fifty-something girls, you understand – I went to school with, others are chums I’ve made over the years.
    ‘With one of your friends,’ she said.
    I thought fast; thought of how I would like to exercise and thought of Jenny who was forever fretting over her desire to lose some weight. I also thought of Steve Lingard, and how I would need to ask him if I could have the time off. Life had been so much simpler when there had only been Eric to deal with.
    ‘Yes, though I’ll need to check with her. And with my boss.’
    ‘Do that, and I’ll check with Max to see if he’s agreeable. He comes Tuesday and Thursday mornings, nine to ten.’
    ‘Sounds fine. I’ll be in touch,’ I said, and took out my tape recorder. ‘Now about the obituary.’
     
    My food shopping done, I waited in the checkout queue. Listening to Tina Kincaid talk about her husband, it had become clear how much she had depended upon him. He may have been a ‘crazy old twit’, yet now there was a gaping hole in her life. She seemed destined to seriously miss the cash and practical day-by-day support he had provided, but how much would she miss the actual man? Had she adored him, as Duncan had claimed, or was it his pampering which had appealed? Did it matter? If she had married Duncan because he was Old Man Moneybags, he had wed his ‘child bride’ because she was glamorous and made his friends pea-green with envy. It had been a mutually beneficial arrangement.
    And where did sex come into things? Had it come into things? Duncan may have been quick to imply a vigorous lovelife, but Tina’s reference to him being ‘like a father’ gave a different impression.
    Whatever her feelings for her husband, one thing Tina genuinely did care about was getting old. But if you’re a head-turner in your youth, it must be grim when your looks start to fade. Every line which appears will seem like graffiti. And if you believe your looks are your only asset, then your self-esteem is doomed to dwindle.
    Age doesn’t bother me. Not too much. Okay, I would’ve done a deal with Beelzebub to stick at twenty-nine, but I certainly don’t intend to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’ for the rest of my life. What’s the point when we all grow old and snuff it anyway? Funny thing is, while the face I see in the mirror is no spring chicken and my body’s starting to succumb to the law of gravity, inside I don’t feel any different to how I felt at forty. Or thirty. Granted, I don’t care so much about people’s opinions – I’ve realised that not everyone is going to like me and I won’t like everyone – but basically I feel the same. There’s no sense of approaching blue-rinsed oblivion or disappearing into a black hole when I reach sixty.
    On the contrary, I reckon there’s all to play for in my next decade. When I retire, I plan to write a book. A best-seller which will cover me in literary glory and earn vast royalties. And be made into a film starring