The New Swimming Costume By Hilary Boyd

John is lovely… but Maggie’s not 21 any more and the long weekend in France he’s booked is giving her sleepless nights

Maggie lay awake at night, worrying – about a swimming costume. She owned an old black Speedo with a faded maroon flash on the side, which she’d had when Pete was alive, so it must be at least seven years old now.

It did fine for splashing in the freezing Cornish sea with the grandchildren, or for the aqua-aerobics class to which she was dragged – unwillingly – by her friend, Jill. But there was no way on this planet it would do for John Huntley.

John had walked into the deli – which she’d set up with her husband, Pete, nearly twenty years ago – early one morning, when the shop was empty. He’d ordered a black coffee and a beef and horseradish sandwich to take away.

“Do you know Harefield House?” he’d asked, waving a glossy estate agent’s brochure in the air.

Wow,he’shandsome, Maggie had thought, byanyone’sstandards. Tall, fit, tanned, thick grey hair, his laundered blue shirt matched his eyes – which lit up charmingly when she answered.

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t buy that, if I were you. They’ve been trying to flog the place for years and it’s haunted.”

She hadn’t meant to be so direct, but something about the man made her flustered. He’d raised an eyebrow.

“Not even worth a look? I’m not much of a believer in the supernatural.”

She’d blushed and busied herself with cutting his sandwich in half and wrapping it in greaseproof paper.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. The ghost is only rumour.”

So the long and short of it was that John – long-divorced, apparently – had asked her out for a drink. Maggie had nervously accepted. The next time he was down from London doing the rounds of the local agents, he had asked her out again. Maggie had accepted again – less nervously this time.

On the fourth date they had gone for a walk by the river. It was a beautiful early summer evening, everything calm and still, the air scented with honeysuckle that clung to the stone wall by the church.

They strolled by the water. Then John took her hand, swung her round to face him. There was a question in his blue eyes which Maggie must have silently answered, because he bent his head and kissed her gently on the lips.

Kissed her on the lips. Only the second man ever to do so, if you didn’t count a couple of teenage fumblings – Pete and Maggie had met at sixth form college, when both were seventeen.

She had been almost dizzy with pleasure at John’s kiss. But the pleasure had been followed swiftly by a biting sense of betrayal, which made her draw back as if he had actually stung her mouth.

It had been the day before Maggie’s fifty-fourth birthday – etched on her brain forever – when Pete had first complained of feeling ill. That winter had been unusually harsh, both of them exhausted by renovations they were doing to the delicatessen.

The extension Pete was so passionate about had taken longer, of course, than planned. Problems with drainage, problems with the party wall, problems with the builder – who was Pete’s cousin, but clearly not up to the job and a family rift was in the offing.

So when her husband had said he wasn’t feeling so good, she hadn’t taken it seriously.

“Probably a touch of flu,” the doctor had said, barely looking up from the notes on his screen. Pete was not a complainer. Maggie always said he moved too fast for bugs to catch him. But her husband had not got better.

When he was referred for tests, Pete was diagnosed with bowel cancer, Stage Four. Which meant, apparently, that he was riddled with it. So much for not being a complainer, Maggie had thought, bitterly. Within three months, he was dead. He hadn’t survived long enough to start chemo.

Maggie had worked on in the deli

after his death. She couldn’t think what else to do. Losing Pete was literally beyond belief.

Sal, their daughter, had been wonderful, her two granddaughters a loving distraction, her friends and customers nothing but kind. They all said the same thing: Time heals. Rubbish, she’d thought, it so doesn’t. So when John walked into the shop, three months ago now – and seven years since her husband’s death – Maggie had still been angry, still bewildered, still trapped in disbelief that Pete had gone.

John’s kiss by the river brought her up short. She didn’t want to forget. She didn’t want to be kissed.

Whether she liked it or not, however, time did begin to heal. But the more she wanted to be with John, the more she looked, perversely, for obstacles to their relationship. Obstacle one: John wasn’t serious. He’ s just playing with me, she assured herself. He won’t ring again. But he did ring. He kept ringing. Kept kissing her, too, although there was no suggestion of anything more. Yet. Obstacle two: Sal would object. “Wow, Mum. A boyfriend,” she said, eyes wide, when Maggie finally plucked up the courage to tell her.

“He’s not a ‘boyfriend’,” Maggie insisted, consumed with embarrassment. Sally laughed. “What is he then?” “A… I don’t know. A friend.” “Well, even if he is an actual boyfriend, I think it’s great.”

“You do?” Maggie was amazed, almost disappointed by her daughter’s reaction. Very much a daddy’s girl, she’d thought Sal would be gutted to see her with another man.

“I know how unhappy you’ve been, Mum,” Sally said, carefully. They seldom talked about Pete. Sal had often tried, but Maggie found it too hard and would be unable to stop herself from crying. She hated crying in front of her daughter.

Obstacle three: Jill would tell her she was being a silly old woman to think she could find romance at her age.

However, Jill chuckled and said, “Well, Mags, if he’s got all his own teeth, no paunch and definitely no toenail fungus – you’ve got to maintain standards – then I’d say go for it.”

Maggie smiled, but it wasn’t the answer she’d been looking for. “You don’t think he’ll break my heart?” “He might. But, hey, you’ll have some fun before he does.” Maggie must have looked doubtful. “Are you worrying about the sex?” Obstaclefive, she thought, but said, “No.” Which was true as far as it went. She wasn’t worrying about it, because she couldn’t imagine it, taking her clothes off in front of a man who wasn’t Pete. “What, then?” Jill asked impatiently. “He’s asked me to go away with him

She was looking, PERVERSELY, for OBSTACLES to their RELATIONSHIP

for a long weekend, to the South of France.” Her voice sounded panicky, as if John were suggesting something horrifying, like whitewater rafting with crocodiles. “I’ll need a new cozzy.”

Jill laughed. “You certainly will. That black one’s ghastly.”

So she returned to Obstacle four: the swimming costume. Maggie was sixty-one. She’d let herself go since Pete died. She’d stopped worrying about her waist, done a fair amount of comfort-eating and consumed more white wine than usual over the past few years.

Although she rushed around the deli, she’d stopped the long treks into the surrounding hills that she and Pete enjoyed – Jill never walked anywhere if she could help it. So her previously neat figure was somewhat less neat now.

The costumes Maggie found on the racks all looked impossibly sleek and revealing. She selected three – all black – and proceeded bravely to the changing room. In the cruelly bright down-light, she stripped off and began to pull on the first. It felt as if she was squeezing herself into a piece of rubber tubing. The label muttered about “sculpting”, “firm control”, “flattering silhouette” – but the straps pulled uncomfortably on her shoulders, the foam cups seemed Amazonian, the legs revealingly high.

She turned to the mirror. The thing is, of course, that if you squash a torso into shape, the not-so-firm flesh has to go somewhere. Maggie’s sprouted out at the top and bulged alarmingly from the bottom – like a cream horn. Her skin looked pasty, upper thighs saggy, tummy still round, despite the titanic efforts of the swimsuit designer.

She wanted to cry. She did cry. Ripping off the offending garment, she didn’t bother with the others, just yanked on her jeans and top, relieved she’d covered up all that flesh, and almost ran from the cubicle, avoiding the eager eyes of the sales assistant.

“Do it online,” Sal advised, sensibly. “Then you can try them on at home.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad, you’ve got a lovely figure,” Jill said.

“France is going to be fantastic,” John said. “I can’t wait.”

Time was running out.

The hotel in Cap Ferrat is utterly, elegantly gorgeous. The most luxurious place Maggie has ever set foot in. She is blown away by the stunning view over the Med, the wide stone terraces baking in the sun, the immaculate white-painted bedrooms – John has booked one for her, one for him, he’s making no assumptions – and, of course, the infinity pool.

“Meet me on the terrace in half an hour?” John says, leaving her at her bedroom door. “We can have a chilled glass of something, a spot of lunch, then a swim in that fantastic pool.”

Maggie smiles her agreement. He reallyisheaven, she thinks as she unzips her carry-on, a breeze blowing in through the open balcony doors. Then her stomach clenches as she spies the swimsuit on top of her piled clothes.

It’s royal blue. There’s no control panel, only spaghetti straps and a sweetheart neckline, a ruched bit crossing the tummy.

Maggie, who by now has a layer of patchy fake tan all over her body – on Sal’s insistence – is marginally happier than she was, as she views her swimsuit-clad figure in the mirror. Oh, God, this is it, she thinks as she throws a kaftan over the top. This really is it.

John has already ordered the wine, a deliciously cold blush rosé. It goes straight to her head. They eat a scrumptious seafood salad, then ice cream and hot chocolate sauce, little cups of espresso coffee. They laugh together. Maggie feels a burst of happiness she thought she’d never experience again. Then John’s face falls, his expression suddenly anxious.

“O…K…,” he says, drawing out the word. “There’s something I have to warn you about.”

No! thinks Maggie. He’s going to say he has a wife in Potters Bar. Or cancer. He certainly looks shifty enough as she watches him take a deep breath.

“It’s my legs,” he says, twisting his napkin between his fingers. “They’re ridiculously long and skinny and white and my knees are incredibly huge and knobbly. People have laughed at them all my life.” He pauses. “They aren’t sexy. You won’t find them sexy.”

Maggie is having trouble controlling herself. And in the end she doesn’t. Sheer relief and joy burst from her in a resounding hoot of laughter.

“You think you have problems!” she gasps. “Wait till you see me in my cozzy. I haven’t slept for weeks, worrying.” John’s face relaxes slightly. “Seriously?” But Maggie can’t speak for laughing. By the time their ageing bodies hit the cool, white, silky sheets of his king-size bed that night, John is totally in love with Maggie’s soft, rounded tummy. And Maggie finds she simply adores John’s cute, knobbly knees. What a waste of time, all that worry.

“O…K… there’s SOMETHING I have to WARN YOU about,” he says