Fanny Blake - Women of a Dangerous Age

To Robin, Matt, Nick and Spike

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

1

‘You’re going to India?’ Fiona had sounded as if Lou…

2

Delhi airport was teeming with people. Lou’s suitcase felt heavy…

3

The unearthly flickering light of the tiny TV screens set…

4

Lou’s eyes felt as if they’d been forcibly removed, sandpapered…

5

Standing in her walk-in closet, Ali looked around her. Everything…

6

Arriving at the studio the following morning, Ali immediately saw…

7

The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed…

8

When she woke the next morning, Lou’s head seemed to…

9

The Tube was jammed. People pressed up against one another,…

10

‘How could you have ended up on the same holiday…

11

By the time Lou arrived, the three rooms in the…

12

Beyond the shutters, the night was dark. Reflected back in…

13

As the day drew to a close, the two women…

14

Ali tugged harder. The retractable ladder didn’t move. Another even…

15

Ali was already fifteen minutes late. She pushed through the…

16

Under a washed-out blue sky, a gust of wind lifted…

17

Ten o’clock in the morning and Don and Ali were…

18

The fire was lit, the salad made and the smell…

19

They had almost completed their first lap of the park…

20

Lou clasped her coat to her as the wind screamed…

21

The chimp swung up to the glass, rolling back his…

22

The great joys of driving north late at night were…

23

Hooker took a tangerine taffeta dress off the rail, held…

24

The moment Lou dreaded had arrived.

25

Gardening was not Lou’s natural forte. When she and Hooker…

26

Ali was getting dressed when she heard the sound of…

27

The nearer she got to Don’s apartment block, the more…

28

At the sound of the door opening, Lou looked up…

29

Lou was watching the kitchen clock. Never had the second…

30

A month later, an ear-splitting din interrupted Lou’s dream, checking…

Acknowledgements

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About the Author

Other Books by Fanny Blake

Copyright

About the Publisher

‘You’re going to India?’ Fiona had sounded as if Lou was about to enter a dark labyrinth: fraught with danger and quite unsuitable.

‘Yes, I am.’ As she spoke, Lou had realised that was exactly what she was going to do. Going away would absolve her from all the problems of Christmas at home. She would escape from Hooker, their three children and her match-making friends who seemed to pursue their goal with an untimely and unwelcome fervour. Instead, she would separate the last thirty years of her life from the next thirty by getting out of the country – on her own.

Lou was enjoying for as long as possible the anticipation of the moment when she’d enter the Taj Mahal. Joining the scrum of tourists, she put the cloth overshoes provided for visitors over her functional but deeply unflattering walking sandals and climbed the steps towards the main entrance. Despite people crowding by her as she photographed the intricate inlaid marble-work, the interior was every bit as impressive as she had hoped. She skirted the tourists throwing coins down the steps to the tombs and followed the perimeter of the wall, admiring the detailed workmanship up close, looking up towards the solar motif in the dome. The noise made by schoolchildren experimenting with the echo was deafening. Twenty minutes later she emerged, squinting against the brightness and wishing for the umpteenth time that she hadn’t left her wide-brimmed sun hat and sunglasses in their last hotel, in Jaipur.

The clear blue sky was only interrupted by the winged silhouettes of kites soaring high above the white dome. Lou walked behind the mausoleum to stare across the dried-up Yamuna river bed, imagining Shah Jahan, imprisoned by his own son in the Agra Fort not far along the bank with only a view of the Taj to console him. When Mumtaz, his favourite wife, died giving birth to their fourteenth child, he had embarked on the task of creating this exquisite memorial to her. Twenty-two years and twenty thousand workmen and specialists later … Lou tried to imagine what it must be like to feel that strongly about someone after so many years of marriage. Some of the shine must surely have worn off with all those children. Three had proved quite enough for her and Hooker.

She found a quiet spot in the ornamental garden where she could sit on the grass. After a moment, she delved into her string bag for a bottle of water and the guidebook that smelled of the suntan lotion that had leaked onto it the day before. She peeled apart the couple of pages devoted to the Taj, then shut them. She could read later. The thing was to experience the place to its full in the short time she had.

Feeling a little less frazzled now she was in the shade of a tree, she watched the chipmunks race through the bushes. The sound of tourist chatter was broken by screeches from electric green parrots that swooped over her head. A group of Indian students asked in broken English if they could have their photo taken with her. She smiled into their camera, conscious of how different she must look to them, her lime green linen outfit and red scarf standing out against their drab trousers and white shirts, her fair skin and wild reddish hair providing such a contrast to their dark complexions.

Once they’d finished asking her about London, she went to hunt for her travelling companions. The sun beat down on the queue of tourists jostling to be snapped on ‘Diana’s bench’, with the Taj framed behind them. Demure Indian women in coloured saris rubbed shoulders with scruffy backpackers, neatly turned out schoolchildren and well-heeled Europeans and Americans on luxury tours. Lou was in two minds whether or not to join them. In exchange for a short wait, she’d have an ironically apt memento of her visit. Like Diana, alone in life. She was amused by the comparison, but only for a second. Come on, woman. Get over yourself. After all, whose choice is it that you’re on your own? Certainly not Hooker’s.

‘I’ll take yours,’ said a voice behind her, ‘if you’ll take mine.’

Lou turned to find one of the other two single women on the trip standing behind her. She knew her name was Ali but that was about it. During the previous ten days, as they’d journeyed from Udaipur to Jodphur and Jaipur, Ali had kept herself at a discreet distance from her fellow travellers. Not that she had been unpleasant, joining in with whatever was going on, but, when the opportunity arose, she’d bury herself in a book or separate herself from the group, going off to explore on her own. Wandering around a gallery of exquisite Indian miniatures, exploring the Amber or Merenghar Forts, the piled-high fabric emporiums or cluttered jewellery shops, Ali was always the last to tear herself away, as if not wanting to miss the slightest detail, sometimes sketching in her notebook or taking a final photograph. After dinner, she almost immediately retired to bed. Lou, on the other hand, had thrown herself into the group, keen to find out more about the people she was travelling with, wanting to share and compare everything new she was experiencing. She had nicknamed Ali ‘the cat who walked alone’, yet couldn’t help but be intrigued by her, the one person on the trip she’d failed to get to know. Ali was taller than Lou, younger, trimmer (not hard) and more elegant than her too. Not of course that any of these things could be held against her. Her oval face was framed by bobbed dark hair whose neat shiny finish gave away a small fortune spent on hairdressers and products. At that moment, she was looking at Lou, waiting for her answer.