JOSIAH PYKE AND THE INSURANCE POLICY

A romantic discussion between two teenage lovers, and a promise.

“I’ll miss you,” murmured Penny Longlane to Josiah Pyke. “I’ll miss you more than words can tell.”

“I won’t be so far away,” Josiah tried to reassure her, “County University is barely more than an hour from here and I can come back to see you whenever I’ve a gap in my studies, and surely some weekends.”

“I know how things work,” Penny told him, frowning, “I know how quickly people forget when they’ve got new distractions and new friends on their minds. I’m scared that we’ll forget each other. You’ll find another girl, one who’s red hot when it comes to Chaucer and Shakespeare, with nice hair and nicer eyes, and that’ll be me, consigned to your past like your parents have been. I should imagine you’ll even grow away from Mildred, and we all know she thinks the sun shines out of your backside!”

“I’ll never forget you,” promised Josiah. “You rescued me from being a nobody living a nothing life. I used to look at you when you didn’t know I was looking and think you were a goddess! And because of that I’ll never be able to forget one gorgeous hair of your beautiful head.”

“You say the nicest things and I know you mean them ... for now. But what when that blonde bombshell with an enormous chest decides to find out all about you… then I’ll be sent into the backwaters of your memory, and that’ll be me for good and all!”

“There won’t be a blonde anything,” Josiah tried to assure her.

“Remember that first time we went to Brumpton baths?” asked Penny seriously, “On our bikes? Remember that tall girl that you couldn’t take your eyes off? That tall blonde girl with huge whatsits and furtive looks at you?”

“I was with you, not with her,” Josiah reminded her, “and I’ve forgotten everything about that night except for the minutes I spent with you. That blonde girl didn’t matter! If she hadn’t been so tall I wouldn’t have looked twice, but a six foot blonde … anyone would stare, trying to confirm the evidence of their own eyes.”

“It was a good session,” sighed Penny.

“And I saw more of you in that swimming costume than I would have believed I’d ever see,” joked Josiah. “There wasn’t much material in it, and the little bit there was clung to you like a second skin!”

“And I saw what the sight of me did to you, you naughty boy” giggled Penny, “like it does quite a lot of times!” she added. Then she turned serious and Josiah could see that there was moisture in her eyes, “But everything we’ve done together, the quiet moments when we’re quite alone, the swimming on the few times we went to the baths, the walks past Tim’s Playground out down that overgrown lane towards Swanspottle, the sunshine and the rain, they're all memories and soon enough might become all we’ve got left of each other.”

“I’ll come to see you,” promised Josiah, desperate for this last hour before he left for University to be a happy one and not too tinged with the sorrow of parting. “I tell you what. I’ll give you an insurance policy!”

“A what?” asked Penny, surprised that he might be able to do any such thing.

Then Josiah pulled his wallet from his pocket, opened it and removed a fifty pound note.

“That’s an awful lot of money!” gasped Penny, “I’ve never seen one of those before. Twenty’s more than I usually get my eyes on.”

“Fifty pounds, and it’s all mine. I saved it up over the years, from the pocket money Mildred gave me every week, and when I had fifty pounds in change I went to the bank and got this note.”

“For your university expenses?” asked Penny, wondering what he might be getting at.

“It’s my insurance policy,” he told her, his face a mask of seriousness. “I know that it’s a lot of money but it’s worth nothing if I do this...” and he folded it in two carefully before tearing it into two halves.

“What have you done that for?” gasped Penny. “You’ve ruined it!”

“You see, in two halves, it’s no more than two scraps of paper,” he told her. “Now I’m going to give you one of the halves and I’ll keep the other and when we reunite them and stick the note back together again it’ll be quite a lot of money like it was before I tore it. But until then we’ll each have half of what amounts to nothing. See: it’s my insurance policy. Not that I’m trying to say you’re only worth fifty pounds!”

“I can’t have that!” protested Penny, “I’ll only lose it! You know what I’m like when it comes to losing things! I even lost my birth certificate last week, and had to go to the Register Office for a copy! And pay for it myself!”

“But you won’t lose this,” Josiah told her seriously, “because it’s a very important insurance policy. It insures you against me meeting any tall blondes with long hair and forgetting the first and only love of my life...”

“Am I?” asked Penny, “the first and the only one?”

“You must know that you are,” he smiled at her, “there never was anyone else, and to start with there nearly wasn’t you in my life because I was scared stiff of you!”

“Scared of little me? That’s silly!”

“You were perfection and I’ve never been very good when it comes to perfection,” muttered Josiah, “I was scared of losing you before I’d even found you!”

“Yet you’ve never tried to … you know what, try it on,” she said, suddenly blushing and nervous. “You know what I mean,” she added almost apologetically, what some boys do.”

“I think too much of you to risk anything like that!” he said, shocked. “I think that’s what my dad did to my birth mum even though he was a vicar by then, and that’s how I came about. He never wanted me because I was a token of his sin, and he’s big into sin, believe you me, and she treated my like a disease that could be cured with her dangerously silly medicine.”

“I appreciate that,” she whispered, “not every boy thinks like that. I know it’s not fair, but boys are often praised for going out in the world and sowing their wild oats whilst us girls bear the brunt of what they’ve done and spend the rest of their lives regretting one night of silliness as we try to bring our often unwanted little angels up better than we were brought up.”

“If we do it then it won’t be silliness,” said Josiah bravely.

“If we do it we’ll be married,” she whispered.

Which knocked him, metaphorically, sideways. Like everyone growing up he’d occasionally thought of his future, maybe having a family around him, maybe picturing a wife that looked like Penny and breathed like Penny and talked like Penny, but it had only been that: thought. Imagining. A possible future out of many possible futures.

“Would you marry me?” he asked.

“Is that a proposal, Joe,” she asked.

And he nodded so nervously she had to laugh at him.

“I’ll tell you what, then,” she said, her voice so quiet he had to strain to hear her. “Let’s join this money back together with sticky tape and let’s go to a jewellers and buy a ring for my finger. That would be something special. That would be a promise. That would be my insurance policy.”

And he nodded slowly.

“Now,” he whispered hoarsely, “to Brumpton. To a jewellers. That would be good.”

She gazed at him like she’d never gazed at anyone before and sighed.

What I see, she thought as her eyes devoured him, what I see is the most fantastic person in the world and he’s going to be mine. All mine, now and for ever...

And she took one of his hands in both of hers, and squeezed it gently.

© Peter Rogerson 14.03.18