Thank you for reading my story, I hope that you enjoy it. Love Mica xx, Yorkshire England. All email comments good or bad welcomed. I will try and reply to each and every one but please note that all email comments from an invalid email address will be deleted immediately and will not be read. Rude or abusive comments may result in blocking. Please note that I write in British English.
It was a miserable day. It was drizzling, the sort of rain that somehow manages to get inside your raincoat and soak you to the skin. Miserable. I had wandered around the supermarket getting the essentials and also a few non essentials. I bought a bottle of French rosé wine. Why? Apart from the fact it was on special, I have no idea why, I don't drink rosé wine, ever. I also bought a French stick of bread and some camembert. Was I going French? I didn't think so. Very strange. Must be something to do with the miserable weather.
I put my shopping into the boot of the car and decided to have lunch in the Queen Ann. It is a really old Inn that does food and has rooms that visitors to the town like to stay in, supposedly haunted and supposedly Queen Ann stayed there hundreds of years ago. I would imagine any trace of her having been there will have long gone, bit still the tourists come. I went through the courtyard, once used for horse drawn carriages, now picnic tables for the weather adventurous, and opened the really heavy old oak door and went inside.
"Table for one?" I asked the blond haired woman behind the bar.
"Sit anywhere love, I'll bring you the menu over. Drink?"
"Glass of house white please," I replied and went and found a table near to the window, mostly for some light, it was pretty dark and dingy inside.
"Here you are love," she passed me a glass of vaguely white wine, and a menu. "The meatballs are off."
I assumed that she meant that the meatballs were not available as opposed to rancid and unserveable. I looked down the menu and decided to go with the meat and ale pie served with hand cut chips and generous gravy. Obviously, I had chosen the wrong wine to go with but, well, who cares. Rules are made to be broken, aren't they?
I sat and looked around at the other customers, a middle aged couple tucking into fish and chips, hand battered according to the menu, and a chap with his back to me drinking a pint of ale. Suspiciously quickly my pie and chips arrived, followed shortly by a large gravy boat. Enough to float a battleship as grandad used to say.
"Thank you," I said to the young girl that had delivered my food from the kitchen. Probably only had a freezer, an industrial sized microwave and a dishwasher in the kitchen I guessed. The pastry was suitably short for the case and properly crusty for the top, nice. The gravy was, well, it was thick and gloopy, but I doubted it had ever seen any beef bones. I went to the bar and grabbed some vinegar and salt and a couple of napkins, items that the server had failed to see if I needed. Oh well. It is an inn, not a haute cuisine restaurant.
I tucked into my food which was surprisingly good, and in fact, for the price, was excellent. I would mention it in my review on trip advisor. My wine didn't last the course, and I popped to the bar and asked for a glass of house red. The blond woman said she would bring it over as she needed to open a new bottle.
"Make it a large one," I said with a smile on my face and headed back to my table. The man drinking his beer got up and went to the bar, he looked sort of familiar, but I couldn't work out where from, it must have been a long time ago, either that or I didn't know him from Adam.
He picked up his pint and as he turned to me he stopped.
"Mica?" he said.
"Yes," I kind of recognised the voice, but still couldn't place him. Then I had a flash back.
"Liam, bloody hell, long time no see."
Liam Shotwell from school, Jesus, that was many years ago. I had gone out with him too for a while after we finished school.
"Liam, crikey, it has been a while, come and sit down, how are you?"
He sat down at the table and looked closely at me, as I did him. He hadn't really changed a huge amount, his hair was the same colour, he had put on a few pounds, but not too many as to be unrecognisable, it had simply been a very long time.
"I am fine, really, just here for a bit of work, surveying a property for some internal reconstruction, so I am staying for a few nights. How about you?"
"I am absolutely fine, husband passed during covid, I have a son in his twenties who can't decide what he wants to do with his lie. I run my own company and only really work part time. Today is a down day, just done some shopping and popped in here for lunch."
"Well, thank the gods for the timing. I have done for the day, the manager has appointments all afternoon and can't spare we time, so I thought I would sit down here and have a beer rather than sit in my room."
"Married?"
"Was, but she found a bloke she preferred and so I am on my own, no kids, just me, and that is fine, not sure I could trust anyone for a long-term relationship any more."
"Okay, shame when things go wrong. I am not looking for another relationship, I had already found my soulmate, my for ever love, and he was taken from me, I don't want to replace him."
"I know what you mean. I don't mind the physical side of things, but I don't want a relationship, I really don't. Too much strife involved. I have my whole life sorted now, I know what is what, and when I pass it all goes to my nieces and nephews as I have none of my own."
"Good plan. I am more than happy with my life."
"I did struggle you know."
"Struggle? Struggle when?"
"When we split, you and I, I thought that you were the one, I really did."
"It wasn't working for me, I couldn't see us going anywhere."
"Oh, I know, you said, but still, we did have some times didn't we?"
"We did, I still remember your dad's car that you used to borrow, with the big bench seat across the front."
"No need to get into the back seat, the front seat was just like a back seat."
My memory went back all those years. We would park up somewhere and kiss in the front, and then his hands would start roaming, many a shag we had in his dad's old car.
"It was, do you remember, we used to park up behind the Greengrocers in the village and it was dark so that we could hardly see, and then we could get it on in the front seat."
I smiled at him, I had just been having those memories.
"Yes Liam, I remember. We had nowhere else to go, my mum was always home as was yours and my dad would not allow boys upstairs, even when he was out."
"You were my first you know."
"Yes, I do remember, you were quite near the beginning for me too. Life, as you know, has a habit of moving on though."
"Indeed, but it still hurt when we split."
"I seem to remember that you went out with Sally Starling just after me."
"Yes, she was not keen on making out in the car, but the same old issue, parents at home meant we had little choice."
