The Dulcets were a collection of villages and hamlets comprising of Dulcet Meadow, Dulcet St Mary, Dulcet Green and Dulcet-on-Brooke, to name but a few, and of course Dulcet-on-Willow which was a large sprawling village beside the gentle shallow River Willow, which ran unhurriedly from the Pepperstock Hills to the more vibrant River Brooke.
David Harding lived alone
in the village, in a Victorian cottage, and he also ran his own Antiques
business, called Buy Gone Daze.
He was a bit of a fitness
freak and had always prided himself on the fact that he had never had a day off
work through illness, but one day in January he woke up with a thumping
headache, a raging temperature, a scratchy throat and he ached all over, and
although he got up and went into the bathroom to shower, all he actually did
was have a drink of water and then returned to his bed, from where he phoned Lisa
Peinado.
Lisa had worked for him
at the shop since she left college, and she had loved him for almost as long.
“Hi David, is everything
OK?”
“No, I’m not coming in
today” he croaked
“Oh dear, Really?”
“It’s the flu I’m
afraid” he said, “Could I ask a favour?”
“Of course,” she
replied
“Can you open up and run
the shop without me?”
“Yes, yes” she replied enthusiastically
She knocked on the
cottage door about twenty minutes later, and he opened the door to her knock.
“Hi David” she said
brightly “oh dear you look dreadful”
“I don’t feel at all well”
she replied
Lisa tested his
forehead with the back of her hand and he was burning, and then she fished in
her pocket and brought out a box of max strength cold capsules.
“Take these,” she said
“Then go back to bed”
“Thanks Lisa” he said “I’d kiss you, but I don’t want to give you my flu”
“Well I’ll take an IOU in the meantime” she said, mainly
to herself, as she left the cottage.
As it turned out she
not only ran the shop that day but for a week and a half, as Flu gave way to a
chest infection, so she was a regular visitor to the cottage keeping him supplied
with medications, hearty soups and stews, and during the period of his
incarceration he had plenty of time on his hands and he used that time to good
effect, firstly by reflecting on his life, past and present, and his eyes were finally
opened to something that had been right under his nose for years, or perhaps
someone would be more accurate, and the fact that was now staring him in the
face was that he was in love with Lisa.
The other thing he did
was to read, anything and everything, and one of the things he read about were
the Ides of March, which was a
day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to March 15th, it was marked by
several religious observances and was notable for the Romans as a deadline for
settling debts
“I have a debt to
settle” he said out loud.
He remembered that
when he was first struck down by the Flu he had said
“I’d kiss you, but I
don’t want to give you my flu”
And her barely audible
response was
“Well I’ll take an IOU
in the meantime”
“I owe her a kiss” he
exclaimed “And I intend to settle my
debt”
But he had to get rid
of the flu and the chest infection first, it wouldn’t make the impression he
wanted if he was to cough in her mouth, so it had to be after he was fit and
well, so he consulted the calendar and he thought March 15th, the
ides of march, was a definite target, as he thought that that date would be
quite appropriate.
He returned to work on
Monday of the week of the Ides and he found he had more than the one debt to
settle, as she had not just kept the shop running in his absence but had
increased sales for the duration.
“Are you sure you’re
well enough to be back?” she asked “You haven’t come back too soon”
“I’m fine” he said
“But I’m going to ease back into it, so you carry on doing what you’ve been
doing as if I was still in my sick bed”
As the week progressed
he kept barely half an eye on the business as he found it difficult not to
spend every second watching Lisa and wondering why he had been so blind, but as
the week progresses his general blindness had been replaced by awe.
When Friday arrived,
he had to pull himself together and make his move, and he chose the moment they
were beginning to close up shop for the day.
“Well Miss Peinado I
am so pleased with how you’ve kept the business going, and more, I’ll treat you
to dinner”
“Oh lovely” Lisa said
“You’ll probably want
to go and change”
“I don’t need to
change for the Ruddy Duck” she retorted
“I know but we’re
going to the Willow Tree” he said
“The Willow Tree?” she
gasped
“Yes”
“But that’s really
expensive” she said
“You deserve it” David
assured her “the table is booked for 8 o’clock, “Will that give you enough
time?”
“Oh yes plenty” she
lied “If I leave now”
“You’d better get off
then”
The Willow Tree was a
very good restaurant and not the kind of place you can just walk in off the
street, it attracted a good many, discerning diners, and had a waiting list
that ran into months, but because the owner was a friend of his he pulled a few
strings and managed to jump the queue and calling in a favour proved to be
worth it when he saw Lisa walk towards him as he waited outside the Willow Tree.
The restaurant was
every bit as good as its reputation, but he would have been equally happy
sitting on a park bench eating fish and chips out of the paper if his dining
companion was Lisa.
After a first-class
meal with first class company, a liberal quantity of wine, the long and
intimate dinner came to an end, and David offered to walk Lisa the short distance
to the house she lived in with her parents.
“That was a lovely
meal, thank you” she said as they walked
“As I said before it’s
no more than you deserve, I just hope it goes some way to paying the huge debt
I owe you”
“You don’t owe me
anything” she said
“Oh, I do, I owe you
for looking after me while I was ill, then for running the shop for me, and
running it better than I do, I might add” he said “but more important that even
that, I owe you a kiss”
“What?” she gasped
“I remember offering
you the reward of a kiss, as a thank you, but I didn’t wish to infect you with
my malady”
“Yes, I remember” she
said expectantly
“And do you also
remember saying you would accept an IOU?” he said
“Yes, I do, but I
didn’t think that you heard me” Lisa said and looked down at her feet
“Well I did, and I
think that its about time that I repaid my dept” he said as he turned to face
her
“Oh… yes… I agree”
Lisa said and lifted her eyes to meet his, and then by the light of a lamp
post, he paid his debt.
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