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Authors: William Nicholson
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have one’s little pleasures or life wouldn’t be worth living.
Perhaps, she thinks, I should ask Alan over for supper one day. He lives in that house all on his own, heaven only knows what he eats, it would be a kindness to the boy. But what if he really is sweet on me? Would it be fair to show him what he might take to be encouragement? After all it’s not as if I can give him what he wants. The way he can’t even look at me, you can tell he’s got it bad. He must have been sitting in his car waiting until I came out of the house so he could jump out and pass me on the path. Such a tiny moment, you’d hardly think it was worth it, but of course it’s not how long it lasts, it’s how intensely you feel. People can fall in love in one second, bang, just like that. They meet and they know it. And what do you do then? Well, it’s tragic, really. Some people pine to death. Love is so rare. It’s like an endangered species, the nest of a rare bird where the hen-bird is sitting on a clutch of precious eggs. You have to protect it. You have to tread lightly as you go by, or the bird takes fright and then the eggs grow cold.
The woman in front in the checkout queue has a large family, to judge by the load in her trolley. Nobody seems to have told her that Coca Cola and Honeynut Cheerios are a kind of poison for her children. Also eating that sort of diet is far more expensive, which only goes to show that the working classes aren’t poor at all any more, just stupid, or perhaps I should say uneducated. But you can’t tell them. If I so much as tried to point out the dangers of such a high-fat diet the woman would abuse me, might even use obscene words. David did that once. He shouted an obscene word. I just stared at him, as if to say, So that’s how low you’ve descended. Then he said, ‘I can’t help you any more, Marion.’ This was news, that he’d been helping me. Yes, quite a news flash that was. Hold the front page, David cares about someone other than himself.
Alan is quite another breed. He has a gentleness, a sweetness, that is altogether unusual. If he does have a little crush on me I must be sensitive about it. A clumsy rebuff could dash his confidence for ever. It should be possible to respect his feelings without leading him to expect more than I can give.
No, I don’t want any cashback. Yes, I could have taken advantage of the Ten Items or Less checkout, but I’m in no hurry. David won’t be coming back until – well, truth to tell, I don’t even know. So if he’s away so much he could hardly blame me if I showed a little kindness to a lonely neighbour.
Such a sweet funny car Alan has. When you touch it after he comes home at the end of the day it’s still warm. Now that the evenings are getting longer he sits at his computer in his front room with the curtains open and the glow of the screen makes his face shine with a pale light. He has a beautiful face, but who is there to tell him so? Such a waste.
He doesn’t usually come home at lunchtime. Lucky that I happened to hear his car pull up in the road. Of course it’s quite possible that he came back in the hope that he might meet me, if only for the briefest of moments. There was something about him as he came up the path, a nervousness you could call it, as if he wanted something very much but felt he was wrong to want it. Then that quick intent look, and at once the look away. Oh, the poor boy. Not that he’s a boy, of course. He must be thirty at least. Younger than me, but you get men like that, they fall for older women. They want to be looked after.
Crossing the car park back to her car Marion recalls her words to Alan about David. Not that he ever makes himself useful. The remark, she now sees, has a double meaning. She blushes a deep hot red. He might have understood her to be criticizing David’s performance. At the very least he would have understood her to be implying dissatisfaction, and that, surely, is a kind of
Perhaps, she thinks, I should ask Alan over for supper one day. He lives in that house all on his own, heaven only knows what he eats, it would be a kindness to the boy. But what if he really is sweet on me? Would it be fair to show him what he might take to be encouragement? After all it’s not as if I can give him what he wants. The way he can’t even look at me, you can tell he’s got it bad. He must have been sitting in his car waiting until I came out of the house so he could jump out and pass me on the path. Such a tiny moment, you’d hardly think it was worth it, but of course it’s not how long it lasts, it’s how intensely you feel. People can fall in love in one second, bang, just like that. They meet and they know it. And what do you do then? Well, it’s tragic, really. Some people pine to death. Love is so rare. It’s like an endangered species, the nest of a rare bird where the hen-bird is sitting on a clutch of precious eggs. You have to protect it. You have to tread lightly as you go by, or the bird takes fright and then the eggs grow cold.
The woman in front in the checkout queue has a large family, to judge by the load in her trolley. Nobody seems to have told her that Coca Cola and Honeynut Cheerios are a kind of poison for her children. Also eating that sort of diet is far more expensive, which only goes to show that the working classes aren’t poor at all any more, just stupid, or perhaps I should say uneducated. But you can’t tell them. If I so much as tried to point out the dangers of such a high-fat diet the woman would abuse me, might even use obscene words. David did that once. He shouted an obscene word. I just stared at him, as if to say, So that’s how low you’ve descended. Then he said, ‘I can’t help you any more, Marion.’ This was news, that he’d been helping me. Yes, quite a news flash that was. Hold the front page, David cares about someone other than himself.
Alan is quite another breed. He has a gentleness, a sweetness, that is altogether unusual. If he does have a little crush on me I must be sensitive about it. A clumsy rebuff could dash his confidence for ever. It should be possible to respect his feelings without leading him to expect more than I can give.
No, I don’t want any cashback. Yes, I could have taken advantage of the Ten Items or Less checkout, but I’m in no hurry. David won’t be coming back until – well, truth to tell, I don’t even know. So if he’s away so much he could hardly blame me if I showed a little kindness to a lonely neighbour.
Such a sweet funny car Alan has. When you touch it after he comes home at the end of the day it’s still warm. Now that the evenings are getting longer he sits at his computer in his front room with the curtains open and the glow of the screen makes his face shine with a pale light. He has a beautiful face, but who is there to tell him so? Such a waste.
He doesn’t usually come home at lunchtime. Lucky that I happened to hear his car pull up in the road. Of course it’s quite possible that he came back in the hope that he might meet me, if only for the briefest of moments. There was something about him as he came up the path, a nervousness you could call it, as if he wanted something very much but felt he was wrong to want it. Then that quick intent look, and at once the look away. Oh, the poor boy. Not that he’s a boy, of course. He must be thirty at least. Younger than me, but you get men like that, they fall for older women. They want to be looked after.
Crossing the car park back to her car Marion recalls her words to Alan about David. Not that he ever makes himself useful. The remark, she now sees, has a double meaning. She blushes a deep hot red. He might have understood her to be criticizing David’s performance. At the very least he would have understood her to be implying dissatisfaction, and that, surely, is a kind of
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