(20/20)A Peaceful Retirement Read Online Free PDF Page B

James to find the way from the front of the hotel to its car park at the rear.
    Although he himself would have very little time for exploring, he had hired a small Fiat, to be delivered in the morning, so that Amy and I could do so.
    'Do you know,' he exclaimed when he met us later at the hotel, 'it is exactly three-quarters of a mile from the front door to the hotel car park.'
    'It can't be!' protested Amy. 'It's only at the end of the garden.'
    'One way streets,' replied James, holding up a finger just as the taxi driver had done. 'Always one way!'

    James was picked up each morning at nine o'clock. Two other men who were attending the conference were already in the car when it arrived, and we knew we should not see James again, most days, until the evening.
    Amy and I found each day falling into a very pleasant pattern. After James' departure to work, we took a stroll to one of the famous places we had been looking forward to visiting for so long.
    We soon discovered that there was enough to relish in the Duomo, Santa Croce and the Uffizi, to keep us engrossed for years rather than our meagre allotment of days available. But we wandered about these lovely buildings, and many others, for about two hours each morning when, satiated with art and history, we would sit in one of the piazzas and refresh ourselves with coffee.
    After that we would return to the hotel, shopping on the way at a remarkable cheese shop. Here, it seemed, all the cheeses of the world were displayed. While we waited, and wondered at the riches around us, we looked at a line which ran across one wall of the whitewashed shop. It was only a few inches from the ceiling and marked how high the water had reached during devastating floods some years earlier. The proprietor told us about this with much hand-waving and eye-rolling, and although we had no words in common we had no doubt about the horrors the citizens of Florence had endured.
    We purchased warm rolls nearby and delicious downy peaches, and thus equipped for a picnic lunch we went to fetch the car.
    We made for the hills usually, visiting a cousin of Amy's mother's in Fiesole on one occasion, but falling in love with Vallombrosa we often pointed the car to that delectable spot which was just as leafy on those golden September afternoons as Milton described it so long ago in Paradise Lost.
Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th'Etrurian shades
High overarch't embow'r...
    Under the arching trees which sheltered us from the noonday sun, we sat in companionable silence enjoying the quietness around us and the bread and cheese in our laps.
    Later, bemused with Italian sunshine and beauty, we would head back to the hotel. Amy negotiated the one-way maze of streets to bring us successfully to the garage at the back of the hotel.
    We walked through the shady and shaggy garden into the dim coolness, there to refresh ourselves with tea, before bathing and changing and settling down to await James's return from his labours.
    I think I grew closer to Amy in those few magical days than at any other time in our long friendship. It may have been because we were alone together, in a foreign place, for most of the day, without the sort of interruption that occurs in one's home. No callers, no telephone ringing, no cooking pot needing attention, no intrusive animals interrupting our conversation or our quiet meditation.
    We hardly spoke about home, although I did tell her one day, in the quiet shade of Vallombrosa, about Henry's unwelcome visit on the eve of our departure.
    I was surprised at her reaction. Normally, when she hears that any man has visited me or taken me out, Amy responds with much enthusiasm, imagining that at last romance has entered my bleak spinster's life.
    This time, however, she was unusually censorious of Henry's behaviour.
    'Henry Mawne,' she began severely, 'has made his bed and must lie on it.'
    'You sound like my mother,' I protested.
    'Your mother had