We had our toenails painted, but that was at the end. In the beginning we met in the restaurant and were on rapid fire catch up before she’d made it to her seat. My dear friend who I go way back when with who only lives down the road but due to our packed lives it takes quarterly meetings at South Lodge to make sure we’re nurtured. We dragged ourselves upright to change and begin in the sauna; a whole privileged day of spa treatments, the timing could not have been better. Around the swimming lake a cluster of men, ripped and tattooed, tipping fifty and looking good for it, broad Essex voices and I imagined wildly successful businesses they’d grafted into life and sold for millions. Entrepreneurial spirit dripped from them like sweat. The huge outdoor jacuzzi in which the choice can be made to lie on bubbling racks or bob in underwater cages or lean on the infinity wall looking out upon fields held chattering women like us, men whose largesse had been commented on by their wives, and an older lone woman who let her sights drift to S as we moved through her work and I asked questions. The sun beat down as if it had forgotten autumn was coming.
Ice buckets and water and scented steam room where a couple talked in muted tones and the sudden lurch of hot metal gave a jump scare that made us laugh. Lunch of small plates and talking more widely, how do we justify what we do. Why what we do matters. Lying sleepily on sun loungers, hers in the shade, I could have slept right there, my system so tired. But a pedicure called. I’d never had one before. I pick my toes and bite my fingers and make up gives me claustrophobia.
We were shown to padded thrones, deep sinks, our masters of ceremony in spa day uniform, hair neat, hands in thin protective gloves, there was nothing these two had not seen and heard with women’s feet in their hands. They asked if we were sisters. We said, Yes. We often get asked that. We were brought ice cold cacao and coconut drinks. Mine almost slipped out of my hands. We talked aging. I said I smiled more. Thirty slightly painful scrubbed and rasped and filed and wrapped minutes later and voila, toes that looked rather chi-chi for once in their rough-booted lives. We tried to do as we were told and wait long enough for the polish to dry before resuming normal service but despite a late tea and snack and deeper reveals in the quiet of the restaurant again, the tables emptied of spa day bathrobes and slippers, mine still managed to be smudged by the time I got home. Normal service resumes.
Eleanor
