I rang up my friend, but her daughter answered the phone.
“Emily,” I said, “fetch your mother.”
“Can’t,” the child replied. “Mum’s taken Gran shopping for trainers and elastic-waist jeans. Gran’s got a cruise coming up.”
I nearly swore aloud at the news, catching myself just in time with the little one listening. Because not long ago, my friends mother had shuffled about, barely making it to the garden bench, her voice frail as she prophesied her impending demiseespecially when guests were over.
My friend, Charlotte, had grown weary of the gloom hanging over the household, so shed hatched a plan to lift her mothers spirits. That spring, shed stumbled upon an advert for a seniors tourParis and beyond, all arranged: loading, unloading, transport, even nurses on hand to assist, if needed, not just with luggage but with the old dears themselves.
Gran, to her credit, resisted at first, convinced they were shipping her off to Paris to spare themselves the sight of her final days. But eventually, she relentedespecially when her longtime companion in ailments and prescriptions declared shed fancy a jaunt to the City of Light. After all, dying in good company sounded rather jolly.
So off they wentone seventy-five, the other a tad olderbundled up, admonished to behave, and delivered to the airport, where a sprightly crew whisked them away to be entertained on the Continent.
The trip was splendid. Gran phoned daily, chattering for an hour about breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and sightseeing. Yet one small hiccup arose: shed been struck by a bout of constipation. Hardly surprisingage, foreign food, the upheaval of travel. But discussing such matters with the tour group seemed indelicate.
So she slipped into a chemists across the street. It was tiny but impeccably modernjars, creams, peculiar devices, some on a “help yourself” basis. Gran prowled the shelves, circling three times, poking at anything resembling an enemathough the shapes were imaginative. But then, this was Paris!
The pharmacist watched, baffled, before offering help. “Parlez-vous français? Do you speak English? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
Grans linguistic prowess extended to “hello,” “goodbye,” andin German”kaput.” So she resorted to gestures, patting her backside, then miming something round and oblong. The mans eyes bulged; his mouth slackened. He fled, returning shortly with an elderly chap straight out of a Poirot noveltweed cap, pipe, impeccable Russian. A relic of White Russian aristocracy, it turned out, who took his coffee and croissant daily at the café next door.
The truth soon dawned: this was no chemists. It was a rather risqué establishment. The pharmacist, flustered, had summoned the old gentleman to decode Grans request. When realisation struck, Gran didnt gasp or flee. Instead, she peered around with keen interest. “Whats this? And that?” Even the translator faltered at some items. The pharmacist then gave them a brisk tour of his wares.
Gran sniffed. “Degenerates. Cant manage a thing without gadgets. In my day, we managed perfectly welland, between us, that toowithout all these silly contraptions, eh?”
“Quite right, madam,” the man agreed, admiringly.
So Gran returned from Europe not just with souvenirs, but a new correspondent. They wrote, they rang, and now theyre plotting a tripBahamas or the Caribbean, it hardly matters.
“No, just listen to this farce,” Charlotte groaned over the phone. “His children are calling from Paris, scandalisedtheir fathers too old for such escapades! I told them to mind their own grandfather. Hes the one leading Mum astray. Honestly, young or old, theyre all as daft as brushes.”
Meanwhile, the pair pack their cases, buy their trainers and elastic jeans. A cruise awaits!
