I rang up my friend, but her daughter answered the phone.
“Emily,” I said, “fetch your mother for me.”
“Can’t,” the child replied. “Mums taken Gran to buy something sporty for her feet and elastic-waist jeans. Grans got a cruise coming up.”
I nearly let slip something unseemly in front of the child. Because not long ago, my friends mother had shuffled about with slow, dragging steps, hardly venturing further than the garden bench. And in a frail voice, shed often reminded everyone of her imminent demiseespecially when guests were over.
But my friend, Lucy, had grown weary of the gloom and wanted to distract her mother from such dreary talk. One spring, shed read about a tour for elderly folka trip through London and the countryside, with everything taken care of: loading, unloading, travel, even medical staff on hand to assist.
Her mother, bless her, resisted at first, certain this was a scheme to ship her off before she kicked the bucket. But eventually, she relentedespecially when her old chum, a fellow connoisseur of prescriptions and diagnoses, decided to join. After all, dying in company is ever so much livelier.
So off they wentone aged seventy-five, the other a touch olderwith strict instructions to behave. A brisk crew whisked them away to the airport and handed them over to the tour party bound for London.
The trip was splendid. Each day, Lucys mother phoned home on the mobile shed been given, chattering merrily about breakfasts, dinners, and sightseeing.
But trouble soon aroseconstipation struck. Hardly surprising: an elderly woman, unfamiliar food, and travel. Yet she found the topic too delicate for her fellow travellers. So she slipped into a chemists across the street, hoping for an enema.
The shop was small but terribly modernjars, creams, odd little instruments, some on a “help yourself” basis. She wandered in, peering at shelves, circling thrice, poking at items that might resemble what she neededthough they looked rather fantastical. But then, this was London! Civilisation!
The pharmacist watched her with growing bewilderment before offering, *”Parlez-vous français? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”*
She knew scraps of each*”hello,” “goodbye,”* even *”kaputt.”* But none of it helped. So she resorted to gesturespatting her backside, then shaping something round and long with her hands.
The pharmacists eyes bulged. He dashed out and returned with a grey-haired chap straight out of a Dickens noveltweed cap, pipe, and all. Turned out he was a Russian émigré, some long-fled noblemans descendant, who took his coffee at the café next door.
The truth emerged: this wasnt a chemists. It was a rather different sort of shop.
Yet when it dawned on her where she stood, she didnt gasp or flee. Instead, she quizzed the old gentleman*”Whats this? And that?”*some things even he didnt know. The shopkeeper, warming to the occasion, gave them a full tour.
At last, she sniffed. “Degenerates. Cant manage a thing by themselves. In my day, we needed no silly contraptions.”
“Quite right, madam,” the exiled nobleman agreed, thoroughly charmed.
She returned from London not just with souvenirs, but a new companion. They wrote, they rangnow theyre off again, perhaps to the Caribbean.
“Honestly,” Lucy grumbled over the phone, “his family rang to complainsays hes too old for gallivanting. I told them to mind their own grandfather! Hes the one leading Mum astray. Madness, isnt it? Youth and ageboth featherbrained.”
Meanwhile, the pair pack their cases, buy sporty shoes, elastic-waist trousers. A cruise awaits!
