I hardly recognised him when I saw him. I had been idly sitting on a bench along the river path about halfway through my daily walk when a guy came strolling along dressed in a business suit, which is unusual along the path where casual clothing is the norm.
It is customary for people to greet each other, even strangers, along the river path so I glanced up and said, “Hi.”
It was he who recognised me first. He returned my greeting and then stopped in his tracks. “Tony?” he asked uncertainly. I looked up at him puzzled that he knew my name, and then I recognised him. “Adrian!” I exclaimed.
It had been twenty years since I had last seen him. Back in those days he had been a bright eyed mischievous looking fellow, friendly and full of fun. Now he was plumper and balding, but he still had that impish look about him.
We shook hands and went into those effusive lines people adopt when they haven’t met for a long time; “After all these years,” “You haven’t changed all that much,” “What have you been doing?” “I’m over here on a business trip,” and so on.
I said, “This calls for a bit of a celebration, let’s go to the Star and Bear and have a drink if you’ve got the time.”
“Sure,” he said, “I’ve finished what I came here to do and I’m just filling in time until my flight.”
We left the river path and went into the town and entered the Star and Bear. After ordering a couple of beers we found a quiet corner table and began our reminiscing; “Do you remember when…?” “What about that time we…” “Do you ever see anything of the old gang…?”
At one stage he mentioned his mother and in that instant memories came flooding back. Delia! The memory of her grown dim over the years but never quite forgotten now returned vividly to me.
She was a widow; her husband had died about ten years before I got to know her. He’d been killed in the North African desert fighting back in 1942 and despite the fact she wasn’t a bad looking woman, she had never remarried. I believe that there were quite a few women like that. They were either married or engaged to guys who got killed during the Second World War, and somehow they could never fit in with anyone else.
Adrian went babbling on but I hardly heard what he was saying as the vision of Delia stood out sharply in my mind.
Back in those days she had been buxom with large breasts and strong looking legs. She had a mass of the blackest hair I had ever seen and it cascaded down to her shoulders in unruly waves; and there were her dark glittering eyes that always seemed full of impishness and gave the impression of looking right into you. Then there was her hearty laugh that when given full voice must have been heard a mile away. She was what people might call, “Larger than life,” and so overwhelming in her manner that I think I was a bit scared of her.
I met her through Adrian. We both belonged to a church “Young People’s Club”, as it was called. It was a follow on from the youth club and was for guys and girls in their late teens and early twenties. People tended to get married a lot younger in those days, so the club was really a sort of marriage mart.
Adrian and I had been particular friends in those days and one evening around nine thirty when the club activities seemed a bit dull, we decided to head for home. We went off together because I had to go past Adrian’s place to get to mine. We got to his gate and as it was early he said, “Like to come in for a coke or something?”
I had never been inside his house so I decided that as it was still reasonably early I’d take the opportunity to have a look.
We went in and through to the lounge, or “parlour” as he called it. We entered a largish untidy room, the central item of furniture being a capacious sofa with cushions scattered haphazardly over it, and seated on it, or more accurately, in it, was Adrian’s mum.
Adrian introduced me and his mum rose and said, “Nice to meet you Tony; heard a lot about you from Adrian.” Her physical presence was quite overpowering. She was not overly tall, say about five feet five or six, but she gave the impression of being much taller. I was six foot something at the time with another half inch of growth still left in me, and although it was impossible, I felt as if she loomed over me.
Those glittering naughty eyes seemed to bore right into me as I said, “Good evening Mrs. Lane.”
She gave her hearty laugh and said, “Not Mrs. Lane, Tony, just call me Delia.”
I was somewhat at sea in this environment. My own mother, who was, I must admit, a trifle starchy and formal, would never have permitted such familiarity from my friends. In addition she was the houseproud type so I was used to an orderly and polished environment.
Delia had a habit of closing in on your personal space and as she stood close to me I detected a heady sensual odour that seemed to have nothing to do with perfume from a bottle, but seemed to emanate from her body. I found it to be both disturbing and exciting, but didn’t know why.
Adrian brought the drinks and finishing mine rather quickly I excused myself on the grounds that it was getting late and I had to get up early for work. Delia laid a hand on my arm and said, “Hope to see you again soon, Tony.”
My immediate thought on the subject was that Delia would not “see me again soon.” As I have said, I found her overwhelming and a bit scary. On second thoughts the next day however, I began to feel that perhaps she wasn’t all that bad, and both she and her house certainly presented a more fascinating aspect than our rather prosaic household.
I did not particularly expect that I would be invited into Adrian’s house all that often. We seemed to avoid bringing our parents into our relationship, but after that first visit the invitations came along frequently. From dropping in for a coke they extended to invitations to share a meal with them.
From that point I became a frequent visitor to the house, dropping in any time I was passing, or even making a special point of visiting. Gradually Delia became less awe-inspiring and more intriguing. Familiarity began to reveal a warm, soft maternal side to her which from embracing Adrian started to take me in as well. Where my own mother tended to be non-tactile in her relationship with me, Delia was for ever touching and hugging.
As we sat in the pub, Adrian still rattling on, there came to mind what for a long time I had thought of as, “That Day.”
I had dropped in one Saturday afternoon to see Adrian but was told he had gone out and would not be back until late evening. I was never the less invited in by Delia to “keep her company” for a while and have a cup of tea. Having nothing else in particular to do, I accepted the invitation and was, as usual, taken into the parlour.
Delia bustled off to prepare the tea and I flopped down in an armchair and contemplated the surrounding disorder. It seemed strange to me, because the place was not dirty or smelly, it was just very untidy and yet cosy. As a consequence, and since Delia had ceased to be frightening, I always felt very relaxed in their home.
Delia returned bearing a tray with the tea and some cakes on it. She put it on a small table, and after giving me my cup and offering the cakes, she plonked herself down on the sofa being embraced as it were by the heap of colourful cushions.
She began to speak about what sort of week she’d had and ask about mine. As the talk progressed she raised her feet off the floor and placed them on the front edge of the sofa. The skirt she was wearing fell back to about her mid-thighs. I found this rather disturbing but that was nothing to the shock I got when she parted her legs a trifle and I was confronted by a patch of dark hair at the top of her thighs.
For you who are of the present generation perhaps some explanation is needed. In those days sexual contact between young people was far less frequent than it is now. Contraception had nothing like the sophistication it has now and any sexual coupling was likely to end in pregnancy, so everyone, especially the girls, were very cautious in this regard.
Like many young guys at that time, I was still a virgin. Another thing was that females covered up a lot more than they do now. Thus I had never seen a female sex organ. I had seen posed pictures of nude women in magazines some of the guys got hold of, but even these never showed a vagina.
