A Story For Sabine

My first memory of Sabine is when I looked up from tidying my day room. She was standing hands on hips in the kitchen of the converted house that faced mine across our back gardens. She looked about twenty-five. Medium height, slim, tanned, attractive, with a mane of glossy black hair. She was arguing with a man holding a card board box. He was a bit older, maybe thirty. He had a trendy hipster haircut and a real man beard. The only problem was his brown hair turned full ginger when it reached his face. A broad Glasgow accent confirmed he was the Jock from central casting. He was about to bite back at her comment when he realised what I knew at a glance. The guy was punching way above his weight with her, and if he ever wanted to get her out of those skin tight leggings again, an apology was his best course of action. He put the box on the kitchen counter and threw his hands open in mea culpa. Soon, they were massaging the globes of her perfect arse while he kissed her. I heard her giggle as they left the kitchen. The lucky Weegie.

Later, I was mowing the lawn, and she was at the window. I had to switch off to hear her repeat that I had a lovely garden. I said hers used to be before the builder ruined it with his rubbish. I advised her to get her managing agent on the case or it would never get finished.

I was making a cup of tea when I heard her boyfriend repeat my advice in his own inimitable vernacular.

"This yard is a shite hole, hen. It dis'nae even have a washing line. You need to get that smarmy bastard of his arse tae sort it out. It's no like he's no charging you for a garden, is it?"

I discovered her name the following week. I was taking my Jack Russell, Molly for our morning constitutional when her head poked out of a window.

"Do you mind if I join you on your walk? I'm trying to establish a morning routine."

I smiled back. "We'd be delighted to have your company. Will your boyfriend be joining us?"

"No, I live alone," she replied.

I don't know if my grin doubled in size, but it was enough to make her laugh.

Two minutes later, we were making introductions. She was delightfully bed headed, and I tried to compose an expression that didn't say, `you've got a face I would like to wake up to.' It would have been unseemly in a man of my age, but I was older, not dead. I thought we'd struggle for conversation. I'm delighted that was never a problem.

"I'm Sabine. My mum is French, and my dad is Spanish, since your eyes are asking. I'm giving my social media career a go, so I spend a lot of time on line, which is not very social at all, really. Her natural giggle was her come to bed giggle. It could lead to misunderstandings.

"This is Molly, she's ten. I'm Archie. I'm a bit older. Noone is called Archie these days not even—"

She beat me to it. "Cary Grant. His real name was Archibald Leach. Sabine smiled at my surprise. "You can't look at cute cats playing the piano all day when you get to twenty-five."

She was the same age as my youngest son. She could have been his girlfriend. I felt inexplicably jealous at the thought. I wanted to keep Sabine to myself.

I stood up straighter. "I would have preferred to be a Cary." Sabine laughed at me preening, that bedroom laugh again. I pretended to be insulted. "Your friend is not very nice," I said to Molly. Sabine patted her knees and Molly jumped up, licking her hands and making like they were best buddies. I scolded my dog. "You turncoat. I've never had luck with women."

Sabine looked up. "Are you single Archie?"

"I was married. I did twenty-five years, then they let me out for good behaviour." Sabine's eye rolling told me my laugh was not a bedroom inducement. Time for a change of focus. "So, what's the story with Braveheart?"

She caught on and pretended to bristle. "My boyfriend? Munro Stuart, is a talented chef at a prestigious West End restaurant. He'll have his own Michelin star any day now."

"So, you are his girlfriend and his PR agent? I bet he can't believe his luck. But Munro Stuart, did you make that up?"

"It is his real name. What's so funny,

Archie

?"

"I'm sorry. When I was up at Cambridge, we used to get these posh Scots with back-to-front names. You know, like Crawford Miles and Abernathy Grant. We thought it was a clerical error."

Sabine laughed, a genuine belly laugh, with tears in her eyes. "Now I know why he's touchy about it."

"Don't you dare tell him what I said. He'll put my windows in. How did you two meet?" I was curious. I still didn't believe it was the name he was born with. From the little I remember of him, I saw grittier antecedents than those of my student contempories who claimed their forefathers played golf with Bonnie Prince Charlie.

She met Munro when her banker father took Sabine to a fancy restaurant to celebrate passing her finals. He complimented the chef on the meal and he came out to say thank you. They chatted and Munro confided he was hoping to start his own restaurant one day. He took dad's card and offer of advice on financing and doubled it up to asking Sabine for a date via her old man the next week. I think her dad liked the neck on him. They'd been going out for six months. Munro's crazy restaurant hours made it easier for him to stay in town with another couple of staff and spend the weekend, (or Sunday/ Monday) at Sabine's. I sensed she was happy Munro was not a permanent fixture, or maybe that was just my wishful thinking.

Sabine asked which Cambridge College I'd attended. She'd just finished at Magdalene and I'd been at Trinity when Noah was a boy. The conversation just flowed. We talked about everything and nothing. Our walk turned into coffee and then a liquid lunch in the park restaurant. We were both worse for wear afterwards and Sabine held on to my arm on the way back.

On her doorstep, a tipsy Sabine kissed me on both cheeks continental style and then a peck on the lips that lingered longer than was safe to. She unfolded my arms that had found themselves around her waist.

"I was looking for a new routine, but I can't do this every day, Archie." She looked delightfully squiffy.

I wished I was my son's age. An offer to see her safely upstairs might get accepted. Reality broke through my fantasies. "You are absolutely right Sabine. I will not let you lead me astray again tomorrow. 8.30 am sharp."

She turned back at the door and smiled. I can still see that image whenever I close my eyes.

*

I remember exactly when our relationship moved on from dog walking buddies. I got a text from her the following week.

Do you have a car, Archie? I've done something silly, and I don't want people laughing at me.

I turned up ten minutes later to find her drying tears on her doorstep. She sat next to an enormous slab covered in bubble wrap.

"I got the measurements wrong, Archie. I'm such an idiot. Munro is coming round tonight. I don't want him rolling his eyes at me."

Sabine had bought a gigantic mirror in a frame on eBay. It was the size of a door. She planned to use it for filming items for her influencer videos, but it would not go up the stairs. Apparantly, Munro and her father were skeptical of her plans. She did not need another doubter.

I measured the mirror, and we went inside. Her staircase was steep. I'm amazed the developer had got away with it. I confirmed the passage in her flat was too narrow to turn the large object. Her placed was cramped. A bedroom at the front and a kitchen/ diner at the back facing my place. A tiny bathroom with a stand-up shower squeezed into a nook.

"What's this?" I said. A ladder was attached to the wall In the kitchen's corner. I looked up at the hatch in the ceiling. We climbed it carefully and entered a boarded and plastered attic. A single window opened cabinet style onto a view of my full-length loft conversion opposite. She had light and electrical sockets. The ceiling was head height, but its inaccessibility meant storage was the only use for it.

Sabine looked out of the window. "You've got a lovely loft, Archie. Balcony, plants everything. Is the whole house yours?"

I nodded. "Come and see. I'll need a hand to hide this mirror until I figure out what we can do with it." I let her climb down first and took a quick measurement of the window before following her.

I had to go home to fit the roof rack before we could deposit the mirror in my garage. Mission over, I closed the doors. "Well, that's that then." Sabine's face fell. I smiled. "Come on then. You can snoop around while I make the tea."

Snoop she did, coming back from the living room with an arm full of photo frames and demands to know who was who. "You are both so young in this one."

"Yes. Susan had Jack when she was your age. Then Oliver and Katie by the time she was thirty. Nowadays, most people your age don't commit to a cat before they are thirty."

"Because that's all we can afford. When did you buy this place? I bet it was for pennies." She pulled a sulky face that was sexy at the same time. Sabine would win most arguments.

"True, but we earned pennies in those days. I did Math and English literature at Cambridge. Got a job at a bank just as the City was being let off the leash. I hated it, but it paid for this place in five years and in another five provided a nest egg so I could do what I wanted. A lot of my contemporaries took a different route and invested their winnings in Porsches and nose candy. Come and have a look upstairs." We continued the tour. "This is where I write for work." The desk held several computer screens. Tin boxes whirred underneath. Programmes were running and charts and screens of text were changing.

"Are you playing the stock market Archie? Have you made a fortune today?" The screens intrigued Sabine.

"No. That bores me. I can only do it for a purpose. Like a wife and three kids eating you out of house and home. But when that drive goes, I just take enough to be comfortable. I'm actually working at the moment. Bradley, how are the bots doing?"

"We have a preliminary analysis of the Department of Health data cube for you to review sir. The infographics amendments you requested are done. And your love letter is ready."

Sabine jumped.

I laughed. "He's just Alexa's brother. I've programmed some bots to do the heavy lifting. An old codger like me has to be careful of his back."

"You are such a fraud Archie. Playing the old man when you are actually an evil computer genius." She went to hit me, but I put my arms around her. I meant to restrain her, but it turned into an embrace. We stood at an impasse. "I've stopped struggling Archie."

"Please start again."

She pulled a face, and I let her go.

I handed her a scrap book of my charts that had appeared in newspapers and on line. "I still take commissions from old clients. You may have seen some of these in the newspapers. The other one contains speeches I've written and rewritten for clients. There are a couple of former Prime Ministers in there."

Sabine tried to hide that I'd impressed her. "What about the love letters? I bet you're a romance fraudster in your spare time?"

I laughed again. "No, that's for my other writing. Novels and stories. I wanted to change the tone of what I'd written. Personal writing takes place upstairs. Before we go, do you have any requests for Bradley? How is your blog going?"

Sabine admitted she was running low on ideas. I got Bradley to act as an experienced feature writer for women's magazines, and pitch twenty story ideas for articles that address the concerns of 25-30-year-old women. Sabine stared open-mouthed as the titles appeared on the screen. "Oh, my god. These are great."

Mischievously, I got him to do a deep-dive on `

Relationship Red flags. What to look out for?'

Sabine paged through a screen full before she twigged and called me an old sod. I got Bradley to send everything to her email address.

We arrived at my loft overlooking her attic. "This is where I do my writing for pleasure. Crime novels, science fiction, adventure."

Sabine lay back on the chaise longue and draped her hair over the back. She moved her legs into a model's pose and smiled at my discomfort. Do you write romances, Archie?"

I lifted her feet and sat at the end of the couch. "Actually, I do. Short stories. But they are the romances your father would read when he knew your mother was safely asleep."

Sabine opened her eyes wide. "Really? I'm not a little girl, I'm a woman of the world. Let me read one."

"I'm not sure. I don't want you to feel so uncomfortable afterwards that you would not come up here again and let me massage your feet."

She looked as if she was just aware of the situation. She relaxed and sighed as I manipulated the ball of her foot. It was one of the few things Susan missed from our marriage. Sabine's face flushed. "How did this happen, Archie? All I've drunk is tea, but I feel drunk."

I smiled. "Wonderful isn't it, Sabine?"

"You are not what you pretend to be Archie. You are a dangerous man."

"Can I have that in writing?"

She stood up abruptly. "I'm going now." She headed out of the door then turned back. "Thank you for helping me with the mirror, and for the ideas, and for making me feel better." She left, then came back moments later. "And you better send me that story."

I sat for a while looking at the imprint she'd left in the couch. A few long black hairs lay on the bolster, which carried faint traces of her body spray. I leaned over and breathed in deeply.

*

She cried off our walk the next morning. I left it a couple of days before contacting Sabine again. I'd sent her a story the day before, then realised it was a risk. What if she was too embarrassed to look at me? I rang her bell but there was no answer, so I phoned her. When she answered, I put Molly on the phone. A tickle under her belly had Molly barking.

"What's that Molly, you think Sabine is being silly?" The dog barked its reply. "You think I should apologise?" More barking. We had another round of canine Q and A before the door opened. Sabine stood there smiling. Molly jumped like a jack-in-the-box.

I rubbed my back. "Sorry, I can't do that anymore, but I echo the sentiment."

"You are both idiots." She gave Molly a kiss and me a rub on the belly. I don't think it was a mistake.

We walked in silence, avoiding the question. I broke first. "Have you received any interesting emails recently?"

She stopped. "I read it." Sabine tried not to blush.

"Did it work?" I hoped I had an innocent expression.

She found another shade of red. "I read it three times." She rolled her eyes at my salacious wink. "Where did you get the idea for a romance between a blind man and an amputee?"

"It was the first thing I wrote. I wanted to write about a couple who would never meet in normal circumstances."

She became animated. "It's so hopeful. You want them to meet. I've written what happens next in my head. You should publish it."

"I have and 14,000 people have read it. Which is nice. Some of the other stories are more popular." While she digested that, I changed the subject. "I've figured out how you can use your attic. It can't be nice trying to work on the table you've just had breakfast on."

After our walk, we went back to my place, and I showed Sabine the removable panel in the fence separating our gardens. "I used to cut the grass for the old couple who owned your house." She gave me a hand and soon we had my long ladder propped against her wall.

"It's too dangerous to carry things up to your attic, but we can pull them up by rope. Would you like to use that room as a studio?"

Sabine smiled like it was Christmas.

An hour later, we'd winched up all the items I'd thought of, and I set to work. I battened the three tongue-and-groove boards together and put them on top of my old bedside cabinets. "Hey presto, your desk." An old book IKEA bookcase stood reassembled. My old office chair and a disused Z bed completed the ensemble.

Sabine stood with tears in her eyes. "Archie, this is wonderful. You did all this for me. A studio, just like yours." She flopped down on the Z bed. "I can lie here when I read your stories."

I swallowed hard. "You are supposed to be working up here. I'd hate to think of you distracted."

Sabine smiled. "Liar. That's exactly how you like to think of me."

I put up a token resistance before taking her phone and finding the index page of everything I'd published. She started scrolling through the list. I put my hand on hers. "Parental advisory, Sabine. Some stories are less romantic than others. It is an erotica website."

Her eyes opened wide and the red flush creeping up her neck was not embarrassment. Sabine winked. "I understand Archie. I'll be careful."

The phone rang in her hand, shocking both of us.

"Hello Munro." I stood back to give her some privacy. After a minute of listening, she said, "I've got a surprise for you too." I rocked my head, and she said she'd show him instead. She ended the call. "Why shouldn't I tell him you've been kind to me?"

I'd realised my motives might be counterproductive. "Because he'll feel emasculated and it will be a source of argument between you. He might give you an ultimatum." Sabine laughed, and saw that I wasn't. "That's why, even though we could probably get the mirror up between us, we need to make Munro think we can't do it without his help. Trust me on this one."

That weekend it played out exactly as I predicted. Sabine showed Munro her studio, now fully furnished with her computer, lights and cameras. He gave her a fixed smile. I met them in the garden, where I explained how the three of us could get the heavy mirror up three floors safely. I'd even drawn a diagram.

Munro looked up and nodded. "It's a good idea, but it needs muscle."

It was my cue. "That's exactly what I thought, Munro. It's why we've waited for you. It's a long way up." I looked at Sabine while he looked at the height and did the predictable shoulder-shrugging and neck cricking. She winked at me.

Twenty minutes later the mirror was standing in Sabine's attic. I'd fixed big screw eyes to the top corners and Sabine and me pulled it up on the washing line attached to them. The bottom screw eye attached to a rope looped around the top rung of the ladder. When Munro used his brawn to pull the rope, it pushed the mirror up.

We looked at our reflection in the mirror. I watched as Sabine stood on tip toes and kissed me on the mouth. "Thank you for doing this for me Archie. And thank you for believing in me when others don't." We stood for a long moment before Munro's voice reached us.

"Are you's alright up there? It wis'nae that heavy in the end."

I left Sabine to blow kisses to her hero while he did muscle man poses below.

It didn't need the two of us.

*

I thought Sabine just saw me as a saucy favourite uncle until I discovered my deep feelings for her were reciprocated.

One day she said I should try internet dating, and I replied that even at my age the eternal question still reared its head. When she pressed me on what it was, I said this.

"At this very moment, women of all ages all over the world are wrestling with the answer to the question, `Does he really love me, or does he just love fucking me?'"

That got me two slaps and some uncomplimentary words in French and Spanish. When she'd cooled down, she bought the coffees in the park as an apology.

"You are right Archie. Blunt, but right. What's the answer?"

"There isn't one a woman would be happy with." Her look demanded I explained. "Imagine a man likes a woman, but he's not sure if it's just his balls talking. He decides not to try it on with her on dates and instead sleeps with another woman on a cash basis, until he finds he can't enjoy it because it's like he's cheating on the woman he's just proven he has feelings for. He's happy he has his answer."