It is right and proper that our last days in London are straight out of some 19th century novel of manners (and summertime). The sky is high and blue, the privet blossoms so fragrant the roses are fighting for attention. Every flower is blooming, the boxwood is such a deep green it is nearly blue and the hollyhocks (hollyhocks, in a city!) are waving like fly fishing poles in the breeze.
Emma and I took a last walk down Portobello Road. We said goodbye to the fruit and veg lady and she gave us peaches. I shook hands with my lovely Indian news agent and he gave me a diet coke. My flower seller handed me a slightly bedraggled white peony and said, “You’ll be back, love.” Emma picked up a couple of flippy summer dresses at a market stall and I (gasp) bought a bikini (it’s gun metal grey, not some Hawaii 5-0 number) in a fit of optimism. We tried on ridiculous straw hats (every one made us look like Jason Mraz in drag) and England-themed sunglasses and had some lunch. Then we strolled home along the back routes so we could sniff every rose that overhung the side walk. We must have looked like nutters performing some kind of insane ritual: walk, stop, reach, pull sniff, release, repeat.
I am writing this post by hand because my computer is at the hotel and I am sitting at the kitchen counter in our echoing house. I’ll transfer it, spelling mistakes and all tomorrow morning before we get on the plane. We’ll be wearing our smart traveling clothes as Mother AmEx flies us first class on our final home leave. It feels kind of like the last meal of a condemned family.
Of course, I don ‘t really mean that. it is time to return. Except, this morning I met my friend Fiona to do something you can only do here and I burst into tears in the middle of Sloane Square. What did you do? you ask. Why, I went to Rigby and Peller (brassiere-makers to the Queen) to be fitted for some incredibly lovely bras (David gave me a gift certificate and a hint). Here’s what happens (look away now if you’re the sensitive type). You are lead into the hushed interior of the shop and then into a small room and told to remove your shirt and current bra–in my case a slightly gray white Marks and Spencer number. The fitter steps back (screams) and eyes your less than perky girls. “Right,” she says, “I’ll be back in a tick.” I look at Fiona, who only wears Rigby and Peller. She is perched, gracefully, on an improbably small chair. She smiles and says “Isn’t this fun, Darling!” And it’s just beginning. Back comes the fitter with a confection of lace and bows draped across her wrist. I am not wearing that I think, and where’s the tape measure? She holds the bra–or what to me looks like a kind of miniature wedding dress–up. “Hold out your arms, Madam.” I do as I’m told and she slips the straps on. “Now, lean over and shake yourself in.” Oh, the horror. Fine, I do that, too. She fastens the back, gently taps the excess breast into the cup (it’s really just a bit of my side she’s cajoling into the bra). I turn to look in the mirror and I see a princess. Well, a princess who rules a topless, middle-aged kingdom. My, I think, who would ever cover one of these with clothes?
Let’s just say that a half an hour and 200 plus pounds later I am walking up Sloane Street toward home, four frothy meringuey bras burning a silky hole in my bag. I see an elegant woman as I turn down Hans Place for a last look at the boys old school. She looks at the bag, a deep maroon, unmarked, unlabeled but clearly recognizable to the sisterhood of the traveling brassieres and nods approvingly as she sweeps past.
But I digress. I am, it seems, the princess of (topless) Digresslandia. It is after six now and I am sitting in our empty house drinking wine (pink, provencal, very cold) out of a plastic cup. It’s all we have but if David saw me he’d be horrified. Plastic! This is the man, after all, who went out and bought me two pillows at Peter Jones (the Sloane Ranger’s preferred department store, and mine) this afternoon because our hotel pillows are lumpy feather blocks and make my neck hurt. Still, the wine is deliscious as is the last bag of crisps–salt and vinegar. Our friend Mary joins us for a final drink overlooking the garden. Mary has been babysitting for all our children since Will was born and she was just eleven. She is one of six capable children and completely unflappable. Tonight, she has biked over from work and to me looks about as beautiful as the roses she leans her bike against. She’s a grown up now and has just met an Italian man who thinks she is as extraordinary as we do.
I went for my final swim in my thimble pool–it was oddly empty except for the lone bandaid that seemed to follow me lap after lap. I got all underwater huffy about it until I realized it was mine. I sat on the bench in Avondale Park on the way back to read my book for a few minutes. I used to do that now and then when the weather was fine. I like to watch the dogs romp–there are a lot of Staffordshire terriers in our neighborhood and I love their barrel chests and broad faces. It was nice to sit in the shade of a chestnut tree and read a chapter or two before home.
I drifted by the cafe looking for Sr. Frangible. No joy there. I walked or took the tube to get where I was going today (and to use up the last pence on my pass), I drove around the neighborhood a couple of times to see my favorite fancy houses and to make sure that when I pull out of the clam shell drive on the Cape I head to the wrong side of the road and veer–tires squealing like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, Emma screaming like Tippy Hedron in The Birds–back to the right.
Finally, tonight, in our hotel off Kensington Park Road, I will fall asleep to the church bells I have heard every night for nearly seven years.
Good Night London.
OK, now that I’ve typed that in, the evening really ended with a controlled shouting match in the restaurant because we are all so tired and emotional. Thankfully, there were only few other diners and I was able to leave in a huff without a hundred eyes staring at me. I marched back to our hotel, ate a Kit Kat (fine, two), cursed my children and my husband and fell asleep with earplugs so I wouldn’t hear David come in.
Sheesh, what a way to go.