Before I start I should really tell you a bit about our village. If you are used to planned gridiron building then our village will be a shock to you. People have lived here and hereabouts for at least a couple of thousand years. There was a Roman camp nearby, and there are carvings in rocks that are much older than that.
What I am saying is that the village was not organised, it had just happened. Most people only see it from the main road, lined as it is with shops, houses and a couple of pubs. However behind those buildings is a hotch potch of buildings of all shapes sizes orientations and states of repair. What were houses have become sheds or ruins or businesses. Barns have become houses. Gardens have been built on. Old buildings have been robbed of their stone and their footprints have become gardens. There's a network of lanes, paths, alleys, ginnels, and short cuts that most people only partially know.
For instance, just behind the Running Fox, my usual pub, there's the old stables from when the Fox had been a coaching inn, now converted into stores and toilets. Most people, and that used to include me, don't know that there is a snicket behind the stables that leads to ...
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Life was not great. I had only a couple of months to go before I retired, and my job was grim. The youngsters in the office got all the training and new equipment. I was left to do the dull old boring essential stuff - of which there was a lot. My boss specialised in finding fault with what I did. I knew how things were done, and how they had been done for years. He thought he knew and spent his time writing manuals and checklists which were just wrong and a total waste of time. But he kept ranting that I was supposed to work "By the Book". Roll on those eight weeks.
My wife had her job. She was a care worker, and somehow, while our kids were at home she found it best to work permanent nights, and this had continued. We hardly saw each other, and did not have much to say to each other when we did. How would things be when we were spending more time together again?
My Boss had been worse than usual. I got home to see my wife leaving for her work. There was nothing interesting on the television. I felt miserable. I decided I wanted a drink. I put on a light overcoat, locked the house and slouched my way down the hill to the main road. At least the weather was good. In the village shop I bought a half bottle of whisky and a newspaper. It was quite warm out, and I decided to go to go to the pub for a beer. I thought of having a meal there, but I realised I wasn't really that hungry.
I bought a pint. Saw a table in the corner, slid onto the end of the bench against the wall and opened my paper. The evening, and my beer slipped and sipped away.
"Excuse me lovey, are you getting another beer?"
I don't think I had been asleep, but I had not been aware of the lady coming to sit beside me.
I looked at my beer glass, and it was empty.
"Yes, I think I will."
"Well could you just stick another gin into there for me?"
"Yes, of course. Large or small?"
"Oooh, a large one if you would."
I took her glass and mine up to the bar. The barman looked puzzled when he saw the gin glass, but said nothing. I paid for the drinks and turned to see that someone else has seated themselves at my table.
"Over here lovey."
The lady was standing by the back door waving my newspaper.
"Lets go and sit outside," she suggested.
I followed her out into what had been the stable yard. A couple of old tables and a few chairs were scattered about.
I gave her her drink. I thought that she might offer to pay for it, but she said nothing but "Ta.".
We sat.
Swallows where wheeling and screeching above our heads. Pigeons were cooing. A cat stalked out of a store room and hunted its way towards the kitchen door.
We sipped. My newspaper lay between us on the table.
"Look at me lovey," she said, "Do you know who I am?"
We had both placed our chairs with their backs to the wall, so I had to twist to have a good look.
Her face was familiar, but only that. I was sure that I had never met her before.
"How's your Beryl?"
Beryl is my wife.
"I don't really know. I think she's all right. She's at work. Do you know her?"
She made a noise that wasn't a word, but that was probably saying she knew Beryl, but I could not be sure.
We lapsed into silence again.
We sipped.
We sipped.
She drained her glass as I swallowed my last mouthful.
"I want to pay you for my drink."
She stood up. I saw that she had a large handbag, and she slipped her empty glass into it. I stood. She walked across the yard and down a gap between two of the old stables, then turned right and took the path that continued behind the building before opening out onto an old overgrown walled orchard. I followed.
I noticed what she was wearing for the first time. She had long skirts, that she lifted above the grass, revealing high buttoned shoes. Her waist seemed very trim for her age. What was her age? I was never good at judging them, but I suppose she could have been anywhere between forty and sixty, or perhaps more. She had a short jacket, it was well worn, but it looked expensive originally. Whatever age she was, she seemed sprightly enough.
She led me diagonally across the orchard, on what seemed a well used track, to a doorway near the opposite corner. It was a cottage forming part of the orchard wall. She took a key from a hook hidden behind some ivy, and opened it. She gestured that I should enter, and then closed the door behind herself.
A low fire burned in an black iron kitchen range. She slid a kettle across to the heat and it started to sing.
She put the glass from her handbag onto the table, and fetched another similar one from a cupboard.
"You can have your whisky, or you can taste this."
She held an unlabelled green bottle with a cork stuffed into its neck.
"I make it myself. It's apples."
"I'll try that if I may."
She smiled. I was wondering about how she knew about the bottle hidden in my pocket.
Her bottle contained a brown liquid, like a dark rum perhaps. She poured half an inch into the glass.
"Taste this. Have some more if you like it."
Yes, it was apples. It was the scent of apple blossom, the sharpness of apple sauce. The sweetness of a sweet cider, with the acid of a scrumpy. It was an apple brandy.
"Good?" she asked.
"Very!"
She half filled my glass to match her own.
"I think that I am the last one to make it now."
She smiled, but there were sad memories behind the smile. Now when the kettle boils put a little hot water into it - I think you'll like it. Careful you don't let the hot water touch the glass."
She slipped through a door behind me, leaving me to sip and to listen to the kettle.
When she returned the kettle was still singing, just short of the boil, but she took a spoon and a cloth, and lifted the kettle to pour hot water over the back of the spoon into the glasses.
She had changed out of her skirt and jacket, and was wearing a long loose wrap-around gown - it was embroidered with birds and flowers. She seemed to have changed shape somewhat. Apparently her trim waist had been assisted by underwear.
"You don't mind this do you lovey?" She obviously meant her change of wear. "Posh clothes can be so uncomfortable and restricting.
"Do take your coat off."
She moved to stand behind me, I stood and she helped me off with my coat. Before she hung it up she removed the bottle from its pocket and put it beside the green one on the table.
I sat again, and lifted the warm glass. Before it had reached my lips the scent of it made me stop and study it. It was all the seasons in one. The hot water had brought out the spice of Christmas and the bee buzz of summer-honey, spring flowers and the rustle of fallen leaves. I was afraid that the taste would be an anticlimax, but...
She had her hands on my shoulders. She stroked the muscles in my neck.
"Relax lovey. You're like a bowstring."
She was right. My anger and frustrations at work were there for her fingers to sense.
How long?
My glass was nearly empty. Her hands had stroked and kneaded, and my neck and shoulders were relaxed to the point of floppyness. She stood close behind me and I was aware of her warmth and body pressing against me. She lifted my head, and pressed it back against herself, against her lovely warm soft rounded self. Her hands moved down and started unbuttoning my shirt. It was soon over the same hook as my coat. She gave me a simple cotton dressing gown to wear, and told me to come through when I was ready.