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A strange place to pull.

     Mrs. Butterstone had outlived her husband by fifteen
years and yet she still felt her loss as keenly as she had when 
throwing a handful of clay onto the wet coffin. It had rained
heavily on the day of the funeral, it was as if even God were
weeping for her loss. Years alone followed and brought
with them faith and cynicism. She cared little for organised
religion, living by a creed of her own making. Vicars
preached of  The Love of Jesus', but the words were quite
hollow to her life-worn ears. Her faith stemmed from God,
she'd always hated dealing with middle-men. It was at the
Church of the Holy Innocents that she had first met Albert
Law.  Bert was a bachelor of around sixty-five years, he'd
found God late in life but April Butterstone believed secretly
that he only came along on Sundays in order to flirt with the
ladies. Like most churches, Holy Innocents was sparsely
attended by young families and old widows. But it was on a
bench, on a rainy Saturday afternoon that Burt and April
met, for once out of the house of the Lord.
     If you should ever happen to drive through
Kidderminster you cannot fail to come across the ring-road,
a series of about eight roundabouts and junctions all linked
by dual carriageway. It is only in Kidderminster that
someone would decide to place benches along the path
there, facing four lanes of bustling traffic. April was sitting
on one of the benches her raincoat done up loosely against
the drizzle. She'd bought a portion of chips from  The Fish
Plaice' just off the main road and was eating them straight
from the paper with a little softwood fork. A lorry piled
with sugar beet thundered past and sent a spray of grimy
water into the air.

     Eating chips out of doors is one of those undefinable
pleasures which stem back from a mis-spent youth. April
however was being decidedly obtuse, as only the old know
how, by eating chips in the most unpleasant place she could
find. Burt glanced up at her briefly from under the  rim of
his umbrella before striding quickly past along the
pavement. It took him a few seconds to place the face, but
when recognition struck he turned round hastily and
smiling. 
     "Why, Mrs. Butterstone! What an uncommonly
pleasant coincidence. How the devil are you? Quite peckish
by the look of it, mind if I pinch a chip? It's been so long
since I've eaten chips like this."
     Reaching down into the wrap he plucked out a chip,
and with the touch of greasy fingers started his seduction.
April smiled, this could be more fun than an afternoon
loitering around in the Post Office. A cattle transport rattled
past and an unpleasant smell polluted the air.
     "Hello Bert, just been into town then?"
     "Well you know how it is," he said smiling and
gazing straight at her "it's either get out for a bit or watch
Chain Letters on the box.  Course the advantage of nipping
into town is the prospect of coming across an acquaintance
and spending a few moments in blissful conversation, indeed
my dear, it looks very much as if that is the case today."
     "Possibly." she conceded, looking sadly at his damp
grey hair which although it had been saved from thinning
was plastered quite unattractively against his scalp. He
scratched the side of his nose thoughtfully.
     "It does get lonely, being on ones own it's true." he
ventured.
     "Ever since Jack died, I have felt quite,
disconnected. Yes, disconnected is the only way to describe
it. Of course, the thing that I miss most of all...."
     "Is just him being there, I know." he interrupted.
     April wondered just how he could know, exactly.
She was irritated that he hadn't let her finish and so she
decided to have a little bit of fun. At his expense.
     "No, no. Him being there? Wherever did you get a
quaint idea like that from? No, if I'm being totally honest
it's the sex that I miss most of all. They say that after the
menopause you lose your libido, can't say that's happened
to me yet."
     Burt was stunned into silence, he hated it when they
decided to be honest, especially about their ex-husbands.
     "Well, I'm glad to hear it." he gasped out after an
obscene pause.
     "The problem is, that with each passing year I see a
few more wrinkles and I know that my looks, what are left
of them anyway, are fading fast."
     Having recovered his wits somewhat and seeing a
blatant play at fishing for compliments he decided quickly to
get his revenge, if she wanted honesty, then honesty was
what she was going to get.
     "I wouldn't worry too much," he began with a canny
twinkle in his eye, "it is just another one of the ways in
which nature balances things out. You see, women who are
attractive get laid more, but it's the ugly ones who have the
better sex."
     Seeing that he had shocked her, but not as much as
he had hoped he carried on.
     "As a man, during sex, you sometimes face the
problem of premature ejaculation. One of the classic ways
of coping with this is of course thinking of the Tottenham
Hotspur team, but it's far easier if you only have to open
your eyes and see that the person you're with is dog-ugly."
     Bullseye! He had his revenge.
     "So why did you never get married then, Albert
dearest." her killer change of topic came to her in a rush of
creativity.
     "Never met a woman I could stand for more than a
few months." he was getting the hang of this honesty thing.
     "Or could stand you for more than a fortnight." she
retorted.

     Silence. They knew that they'd overstepped the
mark. A small car crept past them, well within the speed
limit. An old man sat behind the wheel and squinted into the
rain. The windscreen wipers weren't working properly but
his eyesight wasn't what it had once been and so he didn't
notice.

     "I don't know how to talk to women, only how to
talk at them." he sighed eventually.
     "When the right person comes along then finding the
words isn't a problem." she reassured him.
     "But that would mean," thoughts which he had
never spoken congealed into slippery words like the fat
which had hardened into waxy lumps on the cold chips,
"that in over sixty years I have never met a person who
would fill that gap. I never felt that I was different but
looking around I see people making that connection every
day. What's wrong with me?"
     "Nothing, you just need the love of a good woman."
she rested her hand on his knee and he looked up as if
dazed.
     A young man walked quickly by in the rain. He
glanced round at them for a moment and his eyes rested on
the soggy chip wrapper. He smiled, and if they had looked
closely they might have seen him make a mental note before
dashing headlong once more in the rain.
     "I only know how it felt with Jack. We'd known
each other for two years before proof positive came along.
Work called him away for six months, he would be in
Maidenhead while I remained in Kiddy. When he came back
I questioned his every gesture. Over the time we had been
apart I had constructed in my mind an ideal, and I couldn't
believe that he was all that I had made him out to be. I
found that although it was true that he wasn't how I
remembered, every move, every word he said held a charm
for me that I couldn't have imagined. It was the same right
until he passed away. Thirty-eight years." she tailed off.
     "I lived with a girl called Agatha in my twenties," he
recalled.
     "What was she like?"
     "A complete cow, the whole 6 months was a total
disaster."
     A flock of birds passed quickly overhead and into
the dusk. A chill gust of wind passed over the tarmac. The
rain was dying out.
     "It's getting cold." she said, shuddering slightly.
     "Would you like to come back for a drink?
Something to warm the cockles." he asked.
     "That would be lovely."
     "Just a quiet drink between friends." he continued.
     "Of course." she smiled shyly "And maybe, if that
goes well, a f......

     Only in Kidderminster would someone put park
benches along a main road.

©1998 Mark Sexton