Back To The Eighties

Carrie had happy memories of the decade, along with some regrets . . .

THE village hall was lit up in a rainbow of neon disco lights and luminous helium balloons floated around the room. I Love The 80s was spelled out on a big glowing sign, and they’d even found a few giant Rubik’s cubes from somewhere and had placed one in each corner of the hall.

Carrie adjusted her hot pink bow-shaped hairband as she walked into the party, conscious suddenly of her bright yellow leggings, flowing blue shirt and polka-dot leg warmers.

She always felt nervous in large groups, but thankfully Tony was by her side. She could never have attended this party without him.

It wasn’t that Carrie wasn’t pleased for Michael and Fiona, the party hosts. It was a real achievement to be celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary, and what better than an Eightiesthemed party to mark the occasion and return to the decade in which they’d met?

Still, their special day felt acutely bittersweet. Had life worked out differently, Carrie and her ex-husband, Dominic, might have been planning a similar function of their own. It would have been their thirtieth anniversary this summer, too.

“I feel like a failure,” she had confided to her friend, Tony, when the invitation popped through her letter-box. “It says bring a plus one, which stings even more. I don’t even have a boyfriend I can take as a guest.”

“Carrie,” Tony began. His deep voice and mild Scottish accent always had a calming effect. “I should point out that your fantastic daughters and lovely home don’t scream failure at me.

“Let’s be divorcees and failures together,” he went on. “Why don’t you take me?”

“Brilliant idea,” Carrie replied.

Why on earth hadn’t she thought of that? Her friendship with Tony was pretty much the best thing that had come out of her internet dating experience. It seemed so funny now to think she’d met him on a date!

Carrie hadn’t been sure about entering the mysterious world of online dating, but working in a predominantly female office and her friends all happily married off, that chance encounter you read about in romantic novels felt unlikely to happen.

She still made the effort and always made sure her hair was neatly styled and lipstick applied when she went outdoors, even on the quickest trip to the local convenience store. After all, you never knew when a gorgeous man might be lurking around the cereal aisle.

Still, that storybook moment hadn’t happened yet.

The search for love online had to be worth a try and, after all, life post-divorce was proving to be quite a lonely place.

With the help of her daughters, Liv and Natalie, Carrie chose a selection of flattering though not misleading photographs and, having paid a subscription fee, uploaded them to the website Perfect Partner, a dating website aimed specifically at the over-fifties.

She wrote a few words about herself and made it clear she was searching for a man who not only shared her values and interests, but with whom she could feel that indefinable but unmissable connection – in other words, chemistry.

Yes, she was looking for those sizzling sparks that had fizzed and whistled when she’d first met Dominic.

They’d been inseparable back then, laughing and kissing at every opportunity.

Carrie could never forget the day they’d met, on a sunny afternoon mid-july at a travelling fun fair. He was a student and she was finishing her last year at college.

She’d caught his eye in the queue for the Ferris wheel and felt her stomach twist slightly in a way it hadn’t ever before when he gave a shy smile.

Dominic and his mates then asked if they could join Carrie and her friends on the fast-paced spinning Waltzer with its flashing disco lights and blaring Eighties music.

They’d sat next to each other in the car, and once the thrill ride started, Carrie had found herself ricocheting into Dominic and getting far closer to him than she’d ever intended.

His hand had closed over hers on the safety bar and didn’t move even when the ride slowed down.

Her stomach had continued to twist

and dive even though the ride was over, and as his shy smile turned into a wide grin, Carrie felt chemistry sizzle between them, going into overdrive as they made eye contact.

They’d married a few years later and travelled round Europe on a shoestring for their three-week honeymoon.

Babies and a mortgage had come along next and, somehow, in amongst child-raising and homemaking, the heat of their love had cooled.

Though they’d try to recreate it with the occasional night out away from the kids, the spark never properly re-ignited.

They realised, too, as they grew older, that they didn’t have much in common; only the children, really, and once the girls had grown up a bit and didn’t need them all the time, the love there just didn’t seem enough to bind them together any more.

Carrie became more and more interested in cookery. She attended classes and learned about world food, whilst Dominic took increasingly long trips out on his mountain bike, saying it was to escape the smells of garlic, chillies and mustard seeds filling the house.

Deep down they’d both known they just didn’t have very much to say to each other these days.

“Are you ready?” Tony asked, giving her elbow a friendly squeeze, bringing her back to the present. “Let’s rock the Eighties and have a great time!”

With her game face set, Carrie gave her friend a grateful smile back and together they went to greet the happy hosts and present them with their present of a white cushion embroidered with tiny pearls, which seemed a fitting gift for their 30-year achievement.

Soon Carrie was bopping along to old favourites, in between snacking on cheese and pineapple sticks from the buffet and sipping a glass of ice-cold Lambrusco.

It was so long since she’d had a good old boogie and it felt great to move her limbs again in time with the familiar breaks and beats of a collection of Eighties classics.

Tony joined her on the dance floor, having caught up with some of his friends who happened to know Michael and Fiona, too.

His dance moves were hilarious, and soon the two of them were laughing so hard Carrie’s tummy began to ache.

She had never expected to meet such a wonderful friend through online dating, but in her pursuit of post-divorce chemistry, she’d unwittingly managed to find a soul mate of a different description.

She had liked Tony almost as soon as she saw him, with his friendly, welcoming smile and deep blue eyes surrounded by lots of laughter lines.

Carrie and Tony had quickly bonded over their interest in cooking and within half an hour were excitedly exchanging recipe ideas.

Carrie’s passion was curry whilst Tony was interested in Mediterranean food and had wasted no time in inviting her over for a meal.

They also loved long walks in the countryside. Carrie and her daughters rushed to the Lake District every summer to enjoy its picturesque scenery, whilst Tony and his son preferred the more dramatic beauty of the Scottish Highlands, not far from their home town.

“He works so well on paper,” Carrie had reported back to her friends. “But there’s something that’s not there. I don’t think I fancy him.”

Carrie was determined to uncover that sizzle that had sent sparks flying whenever she’d so much as thought about Dominic, and certainly didn’t want someone she felt lukewarm about.

After all, she was looking for a man to spend the rest of her life with. The split from Dominic had been traumatic enough – she didn’t want to risk it happening again.

Tony had laid his cards on the table quite quickly and told her over dinner on their second date that he could see potential between them.

But she’d had to tell him that, although she saw him becoming a really good friend, she didn’t feel confident in anything romantic forming between them.

Tony didn’t hide his disappointment and the evening had ended awkwardly, with Carrie booking a taxi home before she’d even finished her meal.

She’d missed Tony the following week and even wondered if she’d made the right decision. When he’d phoned to tell her that he’d hate to lose out on a great friendship, she’d been overjoyed.

It was testament to Tony’s character that he could put the rejection behind him and focus on being mates instead.

With anyone else, it would have probably felt uncomfortable, but ever the gentleman, Tony had never mentioned romance again.

They shared stories of subsequent dates with others, though neither of them had managed to meet that special someone as yet.

The evening wore on and, taking a break from dancing and spotting some sherbet sweets in the shape of flying saucers that she’d loved when she was young, Carrie left Tony dancing with his friends and walked over to the buffet to grab a couple and have a chat with some of the other guests.

“Your boyfriend’s gorgeous,” a lady who’d been introduced to her as Jen mentioned as they talked. She, too, was a divorcee.

“Boyfriend!” Carrie laughed. “No, we’re just mates.”

She looked over at Tony from across the hall. He had stopped dancing and was talking to his friends instead.

A neon amber light from the disco caught his head and for a moment his greying hair turned a glittering shade of silver. His eyes caught Carrie’s and he grinned.

Carrie would never have described Tony as gorgeous, though she had to admit that hearing Jen say as much had given her a bit of a jolt.

A jolt that felt somehow similar to that sizzling chemistry she’d felt three decades ago when, just like in a film, Dominic had first stepped into her life and, in the space of a heartbeat, transformed it from a neutral grey into sparkling technicolour.

She wasn’t eighteen any more. Perhaps that was where she’d been going wrong all this time. Adult life with all its responsibilities had shaped her into a very different person.

On thinking about it some more, Carrie supposed it followed that attraction was likely to feel different now, too.

Anyway, where had those butterflies and heady summer nights taken Carrie and Dominic?

She had learned the hard way that a relationship needed common ground, shared interests and mutual passions to withstand the demands of modern life.

As the truth began to dawn on her, that neon light which had bathed Tony in gold earlier switched angles and shone directly down on Carrie, and for a moment she was blinded by the strength of its dazzle.

By the time she could see again, Tony was standing in front of her with his arm outstretched.

“Shall we?” he asked. “I think it’s the last dance.”

As Carrie’s forehead grazed Tony’s shoulder and she felt the softness of his shirt and smelled the clean notes of citrus in his cologne, the butterflies in her stomach returned.

It was a sensation she thought she’d never feel again.

Carrie risked a peep at Tony and before long they were locked in each other’s gaze.

She wasn’t sure if it was her heart or Tony’s that was drumming so loudly, as in that moment, they had transformed into one. n