THE FIVE FACES OF TOMORROW
“Well, at least our children will look after us in our old agethats why we had them, after all. But you, Maisie, really do have a problem,” Nettie said with a mocking sort of sympathy, refilling her glass of white wine.
The five women lounged in beanbag chairs beneath parasols at a beachside bar in Brighton. The evening carried the scent of salt, pine, and a faint melancholy.
When her friends had invited Maisie to join them at the spa retreat, she hadnt known what to expect. In her mind, “spa retreat” conjured images of faded trade-union holidaysliniment rubs, therapeutic mud, and crushing boredom. Perhaps, if she were lucky, a bit of twilight flirtation.
Instead, she found a modern hotel, exquisite food, treatments, a proper spa, and emerald-green forests where one could wander for hours, listening to the whisper of pines and chasing sunbeams through the leaves.
The sea, though shallow and chilly, was still a joy. Stretching in either direction from the beach were naturist zonesto the left, the womens; to the right, the mens.
The womens side had amused them all. “Well, were not so bad ourselves, if you think about it!”
But the mens side that had provoked laughter of a different sort.
“Good Lord, look at that fellowhes got less than my grandson!” Lottie exclaimed.
“And that short chapwell, lets just say hes all root and no flower,” Tessa chimed in.
“Cheers, ladies!” called an unexpected male voice.
The women burst into laughter and hurried off, hiding their faces. Theyd forgottenEngland wasnt entirely foreign, after all.
After supper, no one wanted to partthe treatments had left them invigorated. The beach bar played soft music, the sun dipped into the sea, and conversation drifted inevitably toward aches and pains, in every sense.
One had high blood pressure, another a sore arm, a third couldnt sleep. Then came the real worriesold age, the fear of loneliness, children with lives of their own.
Maisie tried to lighten the mood. “The worlds gone madmaybe we wont live long enough to worry about getting old.”
But her friends were already warming to the subject, trading horrors and hopes.
Then Diana brightened. “Remember when you lost me at the market two days ago? I met an old woman selling peculiar stones. Bought this crystal from her.” She pulled a green-blue polyhedron with a chipped top from her cloth bag. “Said it shows the future.”
“Does what?” Nettie squinted.
“Shows it, supposedly. I didnt quite followher English was patchy. But she said, Five visions remain. And there are five of us. Why not try?”
They laughed but touched the crystal all the same.
**First vision: Nettie.**
By eighty, Nettie had been a widow five years. She lived in her spacious flat, kept her spirits up, though her eyesight was failing.
Her daughter, a high-powered executive, was always busyno time even for a family of her own. She cared for her mother out of duty, not warmth.
One day, Nettie climbed a chair to fetch an old vase from the cupboarda gift for her daughter. She fell. No fractures, but bruises aplenty. Her daughter gasped and whisked her away “for a few days.”
White kitchen, white walls, white despair.
Once, Nettie spilled tomato juice.
“Mum! Must you meddle?”
“Well,” Nettie tried to smile, “at least it adds some colour. Felt like a hospital in here.”
The joke fell flat.
**Second vision: Diana.**
Diana had raised her son alone. Everything for him, everything because of him.
He grew up a skilled programmer, married a German womanand with her, gave away all the love that once belonged to his mother.
His wife was cold as steel. The house, signed over “to avoid inheritance tax,” became her domain.
Diana struggled to walk, her heart fluttered, her breath caught. They tended to her, but with irritation.
“Mum, dont touch that! Mum, dont interfere!”
She hid in her room, wept quietly at night, smiled again by morning.
One day, she called Nettie.
“I cant bear it.”
“Pack your things. Come live with me. Well manage.”
And they did.
One saw poorly, the other walked slowly, but together, they muddled through.
They laughed at their frailties.
“Honestly, youve swept all the dust into the corners again.”
“But the middles spotless!”
Evenings were for chatter and debatepolitics, the future, technology, happiness. They disagreed often, but it never mattered.
Then theyd turn on the tellyNettie listened, Diana described.
“Sometimes I think its just as well I cant see properly,” Nettie mused. “The worlds grown ugly.”
“Nonsense,” Diana said. “Were the relics. The world moves on.”
**Third vision: Lottie.**
Lottie had twin daughters. In old age, one took her in, the other visited with grandchildren.
The house hummed with life, smelled of popcorn and baby shampoo.
“Granny, is it true you were born before the internet?” a curly-headed boy gasped. “Did you see mammoths?”
“Course,” Lottie laughed. “And sabre-toothed tigers!”
The child ducked under the table in mock terror.
Lottie ruffled his hair and thought, *This is happinesstiny curls and all.*
**Fourth vision: Maisie.**
Maisie, a doctor, had spent most of her life alone. Two divorces, countless shifts, hundreds of patients. She worked and saved for old age, knowing she had no one to rely on.
When her strength waned, she chose a care homemodern, cosy, with gardens and Wednesday dances.
And there, unexpectedly, she blossomed.
Shopping trips, excursions, bingo, new friends.
At the dances, a charming neighbour with a rollator once asked, “May I have this cha-cha?”
Maisie laughed. “If you can keep up. Perhaps wed better start slow?”
**Fifth vision: Tessa.**
Tessa and her husband had always dreamed of a seaside home. They bought onein a faraway Asian country.
Now they had a little paradise: a local woman cooked, cleaned, helped out.
Her husband had suffered a stroke, but evenings, Tessa wheeled him onto the shore.
They sat, watching the sun sink into the ocean, talkingor sitting comfortably in silence.
“How glad I am we did this,” he whispered.
“We did,” she replied.
When the visions faded, the women sat quiet.
The sky turned violet, the waves murmured secrets.
“Well then,” Tessa cleared her throat, “not so dreadful, was it?”
“Rather the opposite,” Diana smiled. “All rather human, really.”
“Even beautiful,” Nettie added. “Fewer bruises, though. More wine to that?”
They laughed.
The waiter brought another bottle. The crystal on the table caught the sunsetdim but persistent. It hadnt cracked or dimmed, only grown clearer.
“Let it be so,” Maisie said. “Each to her own path, but on the wholenot bad.”
“Old age is still life,” Lottie said, pouring her wine. “Just a different time of day.”
They clinked glasses, and the sea sighed its agreement.
