October
On the Northeast corner of the village of
Pepperstock Green was where the Barnabus Boarding School was situated, and two
of the second-year college students were Kayleigh Luck and Jack Huntly, albeit on different
Courses.
They were
casual acquaintances, the fact they were from the same village and on the same
college course was purely coincidental, although she had appeared on his radar,
but he very much doubted if he was on hers.
Most days they
based were at Barnabus but two or three times a week they had classes at
Pipershaven College and normally travelled home straight after College,
sometimes at the same time, sometimes separately, but occasionally they would
stay in Pipershaven for some reason or other, such as one day in the middle of
March.
The college
were given a fair number of complimentary tickets for the Heartstone Theatre in
the town, which were distributed among the students on a first come first
served basis.
Jack wasn’t
particularly interested in the theatre, but his friend Barry got a couple of
tickets.
“It’s not my
thing” Jack said “And you won’t even tell me what the play is”
“Oh, come on”
Barry urged “It’ll be a laugh”
“So, it’s a
comedy then?”
“Come with me
and find out” Barry said so he reluctantly agreed
“How bad could
it be” he said to himself
After they left
college they went into town and ate at a burger bar before walking to the
Theatre and when they got there he realized just how bad it could be, and it
was really bad, it was opera, but not Puccini or Verdi, he could have coped
with that, he could even have coped with Gilbert and Sullivan.
But no, it was
none of them, it was modern opera, about the 1980’s Minors Strike.
“I thought you
said it would be a laugh?” Jack said when he saw the posters
“It will be”
Barry assured him
Barry was
wrong, it was not fun, and at the interval Jack said
“I can’t sit
through any more of this shit”
And he left
Barry and his protestations in his wake and headed straight to the bus stop.
On route it
began to rain so he stepped up the pace and he had his collar up and his head
down when he reached the entrance of the bus station and ran straight into
another passenger trying to escape the rain and they both ended up on their
backsides.
“I’m so sorry”
he said getting quickly to his feet and proffered a hand to his prostrate
victim, which was when he discovered that his victim was Kayleigh Luck.
“Nonsense, I
wasn’t looking where I was going, my mind was elsewhere” she replied as she
took his hand
“Mine too” he
said “are you ok? Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride”
she replied
They dusted
themselves off, figuratively speaking, and there was a brief moment of silence.
“Are you
heading back to the village too?” he asked redundantly
“Yes” she
replied and looked at her watch “but we’ve just missed our bus, there’s another
in half an hour”
“Shall we get a
coffee then?” he suggested
They were
sitting in a café on the opposite side of the street from the bus station at a
table in the window when she asked
“So, what’ve
you been up to tonight?”
“I’ve been
through hell” he replied
“Bad date?”
“Worse than
that” he said
“Oh, do
elaborate” she urged
“I’ve been to the Heartstone Theatre watching
a very bad opera about Geordie miners” he said “if they’d been Welsh miners,
they might have been more musical”
“Yorkshire” she
said
“What?”
“They were
Yorkshire miners” she replied “According to the program”
“You were there
too?”
“I was” she
replied “I was dragged there by Linda”
“And you bailed
too?” he asked and laughed
“I said I had a
Migraine” she said and winced
“I feel guilty,
but I just had to get out of there before I got one for real”
They were still
laughing five minutes later when they saw a bus pull up across the road.
“We’d better
go” she said
They had just got outside when Kayleigh
froze like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
“What’s wrong?” he asked
“It’s Linda” she replied and pointed “Over
there”
Jack looked where she was pointing and
spotted Barry a few paces behind her.
“Oh no there’s Barry too” he said
“Come on” she
said and took him by the hand and led him at speed across the road into the bus
station and into the far corner
“They won’t see
us in here” she said and opened the door to the disabled toilet.
“Well, it looks
like we’ve missed another bus” he said
“I guess so”
Kayleigh said and then she took him completely by surprise and kissed him,
however a surprise it may have been, but unwelcome it was not, and she knew
that immediately by the way he responded to her kiss, so as a result it went on
longer than she first intended when the notion came into her head to capitalize
on the situation.
“Well, that’s
been a long time coming” she said when she eventually came up for air “I’m
sorry I had to pounce but I got tired of waiting for you to make a move”
“I’m not
complaining” he said “but I didn’t think I stood a chance”
“I guessed that
which is why I needed to take drastic actions” she said “Which is why I had to
deliberately knock you on your arse and drag you into a toilet”
“I’m glad you
did” he said and then it was time for him to kiss her
“Come on” she
said “or we’ll miss another bus”
“Ok” he agreed,
and they slipped out of the disabled toilet and on to the concourse and they
walked hand in hand to their bus stop.
“You know when
I left the Theatre, I thought it had been a waste of an evening” he said
“And what do
you think now?” she asked
“I would say
that it hasn’t been a complete waste” he replied “Only the first half”
“Good answer”
she said and stopped to kiss him
No comments:
Post a Comment