16. TWO MEN IN A PUB

The women are on a night out....

“There’s one thing you should know about yourself,” said Trayda to Angela as she stared at her freshly-showered and summer-dressed friend, “and that is you are no longer sixteen!”

“What’s wrong?” asked Angela, knowing exactly what Trayda meant but pretending not to.

“That dress,” Trayda told her, “it’s so diaphanous as to be actually see-through, and I didn’t realise just how decent your legs were in early evening sunshine.”

“Well, we’re going for a glass or two and I thought it only right and proper for me to be at least decorative,” grinned Angela, “and anyway, you’ve polished up rather well yourself! Where did all your laughter lines, if that’s what they were, go to?”

“Come on, let’s be off to that quaint little pub round the corner and see what she will see,” said Trayda, and the two, dressed in flirtatious summer dresses, short enough to be bordering on the indecent and light enough to be rippled by the slightest breeze, set off towards the Shell and Cockle.

Angela nudged Trayda and pointed at two figures ahead of them, also walking purposefully towards to pub. They were men and from behind it was hard to see whether they were too young to be interested in forty-something women no matter how enticingly they were dressed for a summer evening out, or too old to be bothered. They were wearing tee-shirts and shorts and chatting together in the happy way holiday makers have when they’re out to enjoy themselves and there are no pressures on what they do.

“What about those two?” she asked.

“I’m not after pulling anyone,” Trayda replied, and for the moment she felt it. It had been a casual and stupid attitude to sex that had ruined her marriage and she had actually been fond enough of Don to believe she might really have loved him despite their occasional differences. The truth was she would have loved to have him back, in their bed and in her life, but rather suspected that neither would ever happen again.

“Well I might,” decided Angela, “there’s more to life than growing into an old maid, you know.”

“Better an old maid than an unhappy slapper!” retorted Trayda. “Come on, we’re nearly there!”

“And the fellows have already gone in,” smiled her friend. “I think, as it’s evening, I’ll have a gin laced with a small tonic.”

“Shandy for me, for starters. I’m thirsty enough to drink the ocean dry,” said Trayda.

The two men in tee shirts and shorts were making their way from the bar to a table in one corner by the time they arrived in the bar. Trayda glanced at them and sighed. She had never been a good judge of age but these two looked as if they might be in the same bracket as she and Angela, or if anything a trifle older. But not much, not so as to be approaching old age or anywhere near it. They’d be fair game for her friend, all right. Angela had always been flirtatious even when she hadn’t wanted to find someone to join her in bed. It was her way, always had been, and was as natural as sunlight and rain.

“Hi,” called Angela to them, “good to see we’re not alone!”

“Why, ladies!” said one of them, smiling broadly and winking, “we saw you arrive, did Denny and I. Yesterday, wasn’t it? I said to Denny that you looked like two ladies looking for something special, didn’t I Denny?”

“Tony, old chum, that you did. Let me introduce us. I’m Denny Twist and this here reprobate is Tony Babbage. There’s just the two of us: wives have taken themselves into town in search of Bingo, so we’re Bingo widowers. Would you care to join us?”

“If your ladies wouldn’t mind,” murmured Trayda, “do I take it you’re not into Bingo yourselves?”

“Bingo? It’s dire. A conversation killer and not for us,” replied Denny, “what about yourselves? Married? Husbands trawling the oceans catching cod steaks for your supper?”

“Divorced,” replied Angela, smiling as winsomely as she could and working on the theory that if these two men were married and their wives not far away she hadn’t got long to make one of them fall for her charms before it was too late.

“Regretfully,” added Trayda, “I made an unfortunate mistake and it cost me quite a lot. Marriage, job, everything really.”

“Were a desperado and nabbed by the cops and your life put through a wringer?” asked Tony, “what dire crime did you commit? Were you a bank robber? Maybe the getaway driver? Something like that?”

“I was the copper that caught them,” replied Trayda. “What do you two do for a living?”

“Teachers,” replied Denny, “it’s the school holiday and we’re away from home for a month. A whole blasted month at the seaside without any kids in sight, and it’s Heaven.”

“Not much of a beach here, though,” suggested Angela.

“Oh, we move around. Here for a few days then off up North where the fish and chips are better and the beer better still,” replied Tony, “and talking of the beach, did you hear there’s been a murder there?”

Angela and Trayda nodded in unison and Trayda glanced at her friend, warning her with a batted eye to listen rather than speak for a moment.

“I’m not surprised,” continued Tony, “I saw the fellow not long before he must have been bashed to death. He was with a woman, quite a looker too, she was, dressed like he was on a promise, and boy, wasn’t he? There’s a tiny cove by the rocks, not big enough for more than two, and he took her in there and from where we were standing we could see just about everything they were up to. We might have stayed there and actually seen who done the poor fellow in, but that spooky vicar came zooming up on his electric scooter thing, and we high-tailed it here for a pint and a bag of crisps rather than have a sermon from him.”

“I know that little cove, that’s what you called it, isn’t it? I was there earlier, looking at tiny crabs in a rock pool, and I must have been in that cove,” Trayda told him, not exactly truthfully, but that didn’t matter. “That vicar gets everywhere, doesn’t he? He even got close to knocking me over with that darned scooter.”

“He’s a definite liability,” agreed Denny.

oo0oo

The Reverend Arthur Candice was troubled.

He’d been on his way to the Shell and Cockle to see who was around and maybe settle himself in the family room there where he might get into conversation with folks in need of conversion when he spotted two men in summer shorts and bright tee shirts making their way into the bar. He was on the cusp of following them in when two women, those two pesky women who thought they were police officers, followed them.

He didn’t want to have anything to do with women and certainly not police women. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, he did, he adored them, but they’d been his downfall in the past and he didn’t want to fall any lower or divine forgiveness might not be an option when he finally arrived at the pearly gates.

So he returned to his little church, parked his mobility scooter in the porch and made his way to his favourite pew. He could see his Lord suffering on his cross in front of him, and from one side the evening sun sent slivers of coloured light through stained glass windows. He liked it here. He liked it very much.

Dear Lord, he began in prayer, a prayer he’d mumbled so many times over the years, dear Lord, it wasn’t my fault that she died when she did, and went to your kingdom with her soul so impure. I couldn’t help it, though. We did such things together and when that lad of hers caught us in his damned blue shorts and wide eyes and horrified face I had to tell him… I’m giving her the kiss of life, I said, I’m trying to bring her back to life… but I didn’t, did I?

“You didn’t what?” croaked a voice in the silence behind him, and his head turned in shock. He’d been alone, he knew he had. Alone with his Lord, and not in the presence of any man of Earthly life.

But it was the old man he’d noticed before. The old man looking for his grandson, the wretched youth who sold ice creams and dressed so wantonly in brief blue shorts. The wretched youth who was dead.

“Bring her back to life,” he replied almost automatically, “I tried, but I couldn’t … I didn’t bring her back to life.”

“Then we’ll pray together,” croaked the old man, “you say the words and I’ll say the amen at the end, we’ll both pray for forgiveness…”

© Peter Rogerson 03.04.19