I was sat having a coffee in a cafe I sometimes go to. Not a regular haunt as it was about fifteen miles away from my home town, but nevertheless I do visit perhaps once or twice a month. Far enough away and more on the tourist trail than normal, it was a good place to go to have a bit of peace and quiet as I seldom, if ever, saw anyone I knew while I visited.
Except today.
I had been pondering the meaning of life, comfortably on my own, when I became aware of someone in the counter queue waving.
At me?
Yes it was definitely at me and as they caught my eye I waved back. Mentally shrugging my internal shoulders as I realised my solitary thoughts were about to be broken. By of all people Mandy.
Mandy? I hear you ask? An old friend from the past. I'd known her through a car club we were both members of. Her husband had been somewhat of a geek about cars and had the ability to reach 'boring' status in about the same time as our cars could take to accelerate to sixty miles an hour.
Mandy however was different, if slightly unfortunate. Nature had been kind in the sense that she had a sensational body, but most unkind in her looks. She was, in service parlance a 'grimmy' in that she really did have a face only a mother could love. Which, and I'm certainly not a misogynist, was frightening. Damn shame really, because she was in every other sense a wonderful person. A little too touchy-feely my ex-wife thought, but not in a way that I thought was either embarrassing or over the top.
Indeed, I suspect she'd been the subject of many's a naughty though or worse. So although I braced myself a little for the whirlwind now approaching I have to admit to not being too dismayed.
"Mandy, how nice to see you, unexpected as well." I said as I stood to greet her.
"Sven," she gushed, a tad too much but pretty normal for her, "It's such a pleasure to see you - it's been far too long."
And so we exchanged pleasantries as friends who haven't seen each other for two or three years do.
"So," she asked, "and what are you doing with yourself these days? I've heard you're a single man again..."
The unspoken question, the gentle probe. I responded by telling her I was now fully retired, not looking for either work or another 'companion' and just generally rather enjoying my free time. So how was she? And what was her other half 'Gerard' up to? He loathed being called 'Gerry' preferring the far more pretentious full version rather than the more casual diminutive most folks would have favoured.
"Oh he's off up country somewhere, on business, he tells me, but I know his tarty secretary gone with him again. He always was bit dense in that way. He thinks I don't know, when actually I do and truthfully couldn't care less."
