Marilyn kept in constant touch during her stay in Brighton. She had tracked down the church where her great grandparents were buried and traced some of their ancestry through church records and the indulgence of the local priest. She would send me short text messages with the data and I would log it for her on software designed for the purpose.
She had made me laugh one evening during a phone call. She is quite a funny person anyway, with a puckish sort of humour and a throwaway wit, but is disarmingly naive in some departments.
"That priest I met today was real nice, he was so patient and helpful and spoke perfect English, most priests I ever met were Irish, even the American ones."
"You can't tell a cockney from a scouser, how do you know he was English?"
"He was polite, quite good looking in a kinda newsreader way and he talked about the weather a lot. He also blushed like a girl when I kissed his cheeks as I left."
"He is a priest, Marilyn, a celibate, he isn't accustomed to blousy women snogging him"
"I know that, honey, but he is also a man and I just wanted to remind him, so to reinforce the point, I just wiggled my bottom at him as I left....and when I opened the door to leave, I turned to wave and he was sitting on a pew with his head in his hands. Do you think he will be ok?"
"He will be fine, lass, he is probably still standing in a cold shower, looking down on the unemployed....."
She seemed content that she had exhausted all the available resources and delighted that she had discovered some ancient photographs in the local newspaper's archives. She took copies of these to add to the steadily expanding family tree with which she planned to excite her relatives in Somewheresville on rainy evenings.
Marilyn's flight was on the Sunday morning from Gatwick. Further from here than Heathrow, but way less stressful to negotiate. She had designed her vacational route quite cannily, a hire car here, a train journey there and all designed to gain the most of the English experience. She assured me that she had enjoyed a wonderful and interesting time in our quaint and beautiful country.
"I just adore those stone walls you have everywhere and cute churches and those circly things on the freeway."
"They are roundabouts, Marilyn, designed to smooth the flow of traffic at busy junctions."
"They didn't smooth the flow when I was on them, some of them were on the wrong side of the road...we have traffic lights in those situations, clear as crystal, and while we are on the subject, what are those yellow chequerboards for? they seem to cause a lot of honking"
"You lead a charmed life, lass"
Marilyn suggested that we meet one final time before her flight on the Sunday. Consequently, I told the missus I was having a fishing weekend and had found a place that looked promising, waving vaguely in the direction of Essex.She doesn't know North from South or where she is in the universe, if I had said Azerbaijan she would have been equally unimpressed.
"Catch me some of those nice rainbow trout and don't fall in."
This was her stock response but I laughed with her anyway.
We arranged to meet in a small hotel in Burgess Hill, about 10 miles equidistant from Brighton and Gatwick. I had been slightly despondent when she left the previous week, we'd had good fun together and some amazing frolics, so I was sorry to see her go. However, my spirits lifted when I stopped at a service station on the M25 for coffee and a text message came through.
B SURE 2 B HERE B4 12.NICE THINGS @ 12 :-) ....M xx