I think the problem is, I don’t feel as if I’m fucked up at all, you see. In fact, I like to think I’ve finally got a handle on things. I also feel as though my years of maturity are conferring a range of exquisite pleasures, some subtle and acquired, some still as urgent and intense as those of youth. The wonderful thing about someone like Beata, is that she offers both kinds. And one of the subtle pleasures I’ve come to enjoy, when taking someone like her to a top hotel in a beautiful location for a spot of R and R, is the way she both does and doesn't belong…..
Young women like her don’t quite belong, because they were brought up in mean, over-crowded, state-built apartments from the Soviet era. They don’t belong because they normally live for a month on less than their fellow-guests are spending on a single night’s stay. If they moved to the UK, I suppose they’d be the kind of economic migrants rabid newspapers resent. Their fathers are labourers and lorry-drivers, their mothers clean offices in Austria. With her high cheek bones and waist-length, jet black hair, Beata looks exotic, like a beautiful gypsy. As individuals, they’re as different as can be; but they share being outsiders, arrivistes. And since I sometimes feel I spent my youth with my face pressed up against the cold glass, looking in, I’ve got an inkling of how it might be for them.
They shouldn’t really be there at all: though as long as they’re on my arm, they’re just out of reach of the other guests’ distain; protected by the power of my gold credit card, like a charm, a magic amulet.
“And for the miss?” the waiters say, deferentially, as they hover at our elbows, in the fancy restaurants of the Cap.
Beata is no slouch, speaking four languages, but French isn’t one of them. I translate the menu and she orders confidently, through me; sure of what she wants. Perhaps she does belong, after all.
Some women of the gorgeous variety compulsively charm concierges and drivers and maitre d’s - and usually, have them eating out of their hands. Another friend (let’s give her a pseudonym – Karolina – since I’m sure we’ll be meeting her again), invariably does this. She just can’t help herself. Being spoilt and special and knowing it, and being so un-British, she invariably queue-jumps, too; to my perpetual and enormous embarrassment. Beata doesn't like to stand out in that way; her looks are enough for her to be dealing with. And she's too demure, too self-contained to try and charm anyone - but then, she doesn’t need to - her diffidence is equally appealing. Everywhere we go, the male staff are in awe of her and fuss and fawn. Mind you, she’s not like these petite French women – she’s taller than the waiters in her heels – and most of it is leg. It’s something else, though. She’s not shy, exactly - but her quiet self-possession is very unassuming - and perhaps this is unexpected in someone so gorgeous. When we go out, she dresses carefully and well (though with no attempt to draw attention to particular assets) and she’s perfectly made-up, so that I feel she’s made an effort to look her best; but she has absolutely no pretensions, makes no attempt to big herself up at all. In the company of someone like me, she can quietly enjoy all this attention, as she does most aspects of these occasional luxurious trips abroad; but it’s no surprise that the rest of the time, she leads a very retiring existence.
(I’m being deliberately vague, here: at the expense of failing to give a rounded picture of people, precise facts, descriptions and private confidences about others won’t be repeated, however interesting, both because they’re confidential and might identify them.)
The previous year, I’d found myself in the lobby of another upmarket hotel – in Spain, this time – waiting for a cab, which had been called to take us into town for the evening. I was with Karolina on that occasion, and it was a much bigger hotel; so that there were quite a few groups of well-to-do guests, down from Madrid for the weekend, waiting for their chauffeured cars to arrive: the men in their Armani dj’s, the women ranging from youthful arm-candy like Karolina, in chic cocktail dresses and heels, to dolled-up matrons, in full-length evening gowns, weighed down by the family baubles.
“Will people think I’m like them?” she whispered in my ear.
Young women like her don’t quite belong, because they were brought up in mean, over-crowded, state-built apartments from the Soviet era. They don’t belong because they normally live for a month on less than their fellow-guests are spending on a single night’s stay. If they moved to the UK, I suppose they’d be the kind of economic migrants rabid newspapers resent. Their fathers are labourers and lorry-drivers, their mothers clean offices in Austria. With her high cheek bones and waist-length, jet black hair, Beata looks exotic, like a beautiful gypsy. As individuals, they’re as different as can be; but they share being outsiders, arrivistes. And since I sometimes feel I spent my youth with my face pressed up against the cold glass, looking in, I’ve got an inkling of how it might be for them.
They shouldn’t really be there at all: though as long as they’re on my arm, they’re just out of reach of the other guests’ distain; protected by the power of my gold credit card, like a charm, a magic amulet.
“And for the miss?” the waiters say, deferentially, as they hover at our elbows, in the fancy restaurants of the Cap.
Beata is no slouch, speaking four languages, but French isn’t one of them. I translate the menu and she orders confidently, through me; sure of what she wants. Perhaps she does belong, after all.
Some women of the gorgeous variety compulsively charm concierges and drivers and maitre d’s - and usually, have them eating out of their hands. Another friend (let’s give her a pseudonym – Karolina – since I’m sure we’ll be meeting her again), invariably does this. She just can’t help herself. Being spoilt and special and knowing it, and being so un-British, she invariably queue-jumps, too; to my perpetual and enormous embarrassment. Beata doesn't like to stand out in that way; her looks are enough for her to be dealing with. And she's too demure, too self-contained to try and charm anyone - but then, she doesn’t need to - her diffidence is equally appealing. Everywhere we go, the male staff are in awe of her and fuss and fawn. Mind you, she’s not like these petite French women – she’s taller than the waiters in her heels – and most of it is leg. It’s something else, though. She’s not shy, exactly - but her quiet self-possession is very unassuming - and perhaps this is unexpected in someone so gorgeous. When we go out, she dresses carefully and well (though with no attempt to draw attention to particular assets) and she’s perfectly made-up, so that I feel she’s made an effort to look her best; but she has absolutely no pretensions, makes no attempt to big herself up at all. In the company of someone like me, she can quietly enjoy all this attention, as she does most aspects of these occasional luxurious trips abroad; but it’s no surprise that the rest of the time, she leads a very retiring existence.
(I’m being deliberately vague, here: at the expense of failing to give a rounded picture of people, precise facts, descriptions and private confidences about others won’t be repeated, however interesting, both because they’re confidential and might identify them.)
The previous year, I’d found myself in the lobby of another upmarket hotel – in Spain, this time – waiting for a cab, which had been called to take us into town for the evening. I was with Karolina on that occasion, and it was a much bigger hotel; so that there were quite a few groups of well-to-do guests, down from Madrid for the weekend, waiting for their chauffeured cars to arrive: the men in their Armani dj’s, the women ranging from youthful arm-candy like Karolina, in chic cocktail dresses and heels, to dolled-up matrons, in full-length evening gowns, weighed down by the family baubles.
“Will people think I’m like them?” she whispered in my ear.
Is she cute, or what?
On a practical level, the answer was ‘not in those shoes’ – which I didn’t say, of course, though I rectified it the next day (yet another story for later…..). But what she’d meant, was ‘do I fit in - could I pass as wealthy?’
By some happy coincidence, she’d landed the right man for the job. On one side, my family were all servants; always the true custodians of good form - and usually such sticklers, they can spot a fraud at fifty paces. So there’s not much you can teach me about the nuances of correct behaviour or dress. She doesn’t appreciate that these folk are nouveau – and I wouldn’t want to fit in with them, anyway, wouldn’t want to be mistaken for them in a month of Sundays - but then, perhaps I have more choices. What you want to say at times like that, is: ‘who cares? - it doesn’t matter a damn, anyway – it’s only money, not health or happiness’. Come to that, I could also add something about all the rich women out there who’d give a fortune to have looks like hers; let alone what they’d give to have her youth. But Karolina knows that - they both know all that stuff. And who are you to say it doesn’t matter?
Yes, she’s half in love with this fraudulent five-star shit - the must-have naff designer gear, the C-list celebrity nightspots, the pretentious holiday places listed by Conde Nast, the unremarkable meals which cost a month’s salary where she comes from, the bling of cars and boats worth more than a house – it’s one reason why she's there. I like to think I’m a man of simple tastes, easily pleased; but I’m kidding myself: it isn’t really a simple business, getting the time-out to holiday with her, and it definitely isn’t easily achieved. Her aspirations may be equally complicated and the reasons for her attitudes equally profound.
So they’re a bit like Cinderella at the ball, both these women. (And though I’m too long in the tooth to play Prince Charming to their Cinders, I can be a fairy godfather - another of the pleasures conferred by age). With my help – and sure, from time to time, the help of other men like me - they can join the club: because they want it, because they’re hungry, because it’s their turn. And why ever not? They’re clever, ambitious, educated, sociable – and gorgeous. In short, they’re worth it. As Beata and I walked through the gilded lobby of that Riviera hotel, on our way out for the evening, I caught a glimpse of us in one of the big mirrors. After keeping it in a pigtail on the beach all day, her fabulous hair was loose again, earrings sparkling beneath. She was wearing light beige linen trousers and a matching jacket, with the palest green top and bra, which looked wonderful against her black hair and the beginnings of a tan. Anyone could walk by and be reflected; but like the mirror in Snow White, it can’t lie about who’s the fairest one of all: it’s been waiting for someone as perfect as her…..
I felt I understood something then, which I hadn’t quite realised before, and so hadn’t been able to tell the adorable Karolina, when we were in Spain that time: that never mind anyone else, she was what the hotel was for. After all, they’re no great shakes, these places, without someone like her beside you. I tell friends and family I’m taking a little break on my own, but why on earth would you do that? Such sumptuous surroundings don’t mean a bloody thing, not to me; not if they don’t contain someone as bright and funny and lovely as Karolina. And that’s all this one’s for, too; with its mirrors and marble and gilt: to be a frame, a fitting backdrop for Beata as she passes through; whether she’s nearly-naked, like that first afternoon, or dressed for the evening. And because she’s beautiful, I reckon she’s got more right to be there than anyone. In one sense, she’s quite an ordinary young woman, from a small town in a much poorer country than France, a gatecrasher in one of the playgrounds of the seriously wealthy. But until her return flight is called at Nice Cote d’Azure in a few days’ time, she’s the belle of the ball - and worth all the hotels of the Riviera…..
Reactions to an older man and a younger woman vary a lot, I find; depending on how cosmopolitan the resort is and the number of stars the hotel possesses. Only Americans and folk from oop north assume they can address you without invitation and I stay away from ‘family’ hotels; the cool hauteur of the rich is a welcome respite, I find. Oddly, people don’t look contemptuous, which I would have expected before actually being in that situation (I know I tend to sneer, when I see some sad old git in a sports car). Some women of my own age can look a little miffed; that’s common: they give me a look of reproach, as if to say: ‘Oh come on - that’s cheating, you bastard – how on earth are we supposed to compete with that?’ And when I glance at Beata’s exposed midriff, which is, frankly, to die for; taut as a drum, I can understand where they’re coming from. Men, on the other hand, look a lot happier; as if I’m batting for their side.
I told Beata, over dinner, how much I appreciated her helping me with my mid-life crisis. It felt just right, I said; because this was how I’d imagined being older, when I was a teenager – being somewhere like this – though it was a million miles from my parochial existence in those days – and being there with someone like her. The soft ha’penny seems genuinely touched – ‘having a dream’ – even a simple material goal, is something both she and Karolina hold dear; perhaps because their childhood uniquely straddled the watershed of the Soviet and democratic eras, and their own teenage years coincided with a decade offering novel and unprecedented access to the freedoms, goods and tempting possibilities offered by Western Europe.
“And…” I added, on a lighter note, “we’re performing a valuable public service, too.”
This puzzled her, until I explained that when men my age saw me with a babe like her on my arm, I felt it cheered them up and gave them hope.
“And when their wives see us,” I went on, “it makes them buck their ideas up; they want to make sure their old man doesn’t get any funny ideas into his head and try for a younger model.”
This notion pleases and amuses her no end – perhaps it arms her against the looks which must follow her everywhere - lascivious, jealous, appreciative, curious.
And given the fun I’m having, administering this fillip to other middle-aged travellers, it’s a bit of a win-win situation all round.
On a practical level, the answer was ‘not in those shoes’ – which I didn’t say, of course, though I rectified it the next day (yet another story for later…..). But what she’d meant, was ‘do I fit in - could I pass as wealthy?’
By some happy coincidence, she’d landed the right man for the job. On one side, my family were all servants; always the true custodians of good form - and usually such sticklers, they can spot a fraud at fifty paces. So there’s not much you can teach me about the nuances of correct behaviour or dress. She doesn’t appreciate that these folk are nouveau – and I wouldn’t want to fit in with them, anyway, wouldn’t want to be mistaken for them in a month of Sundays - but then, perhaps I have more choices. What you want to say at times like that, is: ‘who cares? - it doesn’t matter a damn, anyway – it’s only money, not health or happiness’. Come to that, I could also add something about all the rich women out there who’d give a fortune to have looks like hers; let alone what they’d give to have her youth. But Karolina knows that - they both know all that stuff. And who are you to say it doesn’t matter?
Yes, she’s half in love with this fraudulent five-star shit - the must-have naff designer gear, the C-list celebrity nightspots, the pretentious holiday places listed by Conde Nast, the unremarkable meals which cost a month’s salary where she comes from, the bling of cars and boats worth more than a house – it’s one reason why she's there. I like to think I’m a man of simple tastes, easily pleased; but I’m kidding myself: it isn’t really a simple business, getting the time-out to holiday with her, and it definitely isn’t easily achieved. Her aspirations may be equally complicated and the reasons for her attitudes equally profound.
So they’re a bit like Cinderella at the ball, both these women. (And though I’m too long in the tooth to play Prince Charming to their Cinders, I can be a fairy godfather - another of the pleasures conferred by age). With my help – and sure, from time to time, the help of other men like me - they can join the club: because they want it, because they’re hungry, because it’s their turn. And why ever not? They’re clever, ambitious, educated, sociable – and gorgeous. In short, they’re worth it. As Beata and I walked through the gilded lobby of that Riviera hotel, on our way out for the evening, I caught a glimpse of us in one of the big mirrors. After keeping it in a pigtail on the beach all day, her fabulous hair was loose again, earrings sparkling beneath. She was wearing light beige linen trousers and a matching jacket, with the palest green top and bra, which looked wonderful against her black hair and the beginnings of a tan. Anyone could walk by and be reflected; but like the mirror in Snow White, it can’t lie about who’s the fairest one of all: it’s been waiting for someone as perfect as her…..
I felt I understood something then, which I hadn’t quite realised before, and so hadn’t been able to tell the adorable Karolina, when we were in Spain that time: that never mind anyone else, she was what the hotel was for. After all, they’re no great shakes, these places, without someone like her beside you. I tell friends and family I’m taking a little break on my own, but why on earth would you do that? Such sumptuous surroundings don’t mean a bloody thing, not to me; not if they don’t contain someone as bright and funny and lovely as Karolina. And that’s all this one’s for, too; with its mirrors and marble and gilt: to be a frame, a fitting backdrop for Beata as she passes through; whether she’s nearly-naked, like that first afternoon, or dressed for the evening. And because she’s beautiful, I reckon she’s got more right to be there than anyone. In one sense, she’s quite an ordinary young woman, from a small town in a much poorer country than France, a gatecrasher in one of the playgrounds of the seriously wealthy. But until her return flight is called at Nice Cote d’Azure in a few days’ time, she’s the belle of the ball - and worth all the hotels of the Riviera…..
Reactions to an older man and a younger woman vary a lot, I find; depending on how cosmopolitan the resort is and the number of stars the hotel possesses. Only Americans and folk from oop north assume they can address you without invitation and I stay away from ‘family’ hotels; the cool hauteur of the rich is a welcome respite, I find. Oddly, people don’t look contemptuous, which I would have expected before actually being in that situation (I know I tend to sneer, when I see some sad old git in a sports car). Some women of my own age can look a little miffed; that’s common: they give me a look of reproach, as if to say: ‘Oh come on - that’s cheating, you bastard – how on earth are we supposed to compete with that?’ And when I glance at Beata’s exposed midriff, which is, frankly, to die for; taut as a drum, I can understand where they’re coming from. Men, on the other hand, look a lot happier; as if I’m batting for their side.
I told Beata, over dinner, how much I appreciated her helping me with my mid-life crisis. It felt just right, I said; because this was how I’d imagined being older, when I was a teenager – being somewhere like this – though it was a million miles from my parochial existence in those days – and being there with someone like her. The soft ha’penny seems genuinely touched – ‘having a dream’ – even a simple material goal, is something both she and Karolina hold dear; perhaps because their childhood uniquely straddled the watershed of the Soviet and democratic eras, and their own teenage years coincided with a decade offering novel and unprecedented access to the freedoms, goods and tempting possibilities offered by Western Europe.
“And…” I added, on a lighter note, “we’re performing a valuable public service, too.”
This puzzled her, until I explained that when men my age saw me with a babe like her on my arm, I felt it cheered them up and gave them hope.
“And when their wives see us,” I went on, “it makes them buck their ideas up; they want to make sure their old man doesn’t get any funny ideas into his head and try for a younger model.”
This notion pleases and amuses her no end – perhaps it arms her against the looks which must follow her everywhere - lascivious, jealous, appreciative, curious.
And given the fun I’m having, administering this fillip to other middle-aged travellers, it’s a bit of a win-win situation all round.
