Table 2
by Sara Clark
Genre: Romance
Swearwords: None.
Description: An elderly lady watches over a budding romance while remembering one that failed to bloom.
Swearwords: None.
Description: An elderly lady watches over a budding romance while remembering one that failed to bloom.
Pearl was able to tell that the young couple were falling in love. For an hour, as they sat at their tables, glancing at each other nervously, she had practiced self-restraint, in a distant mimicry of her usual habits. Her legs twitched. Her lips trembled. Her salad sat, untouched, before her. She gazed at the colourful spread of vegetables. The spring onions faded from white to green, delicate hoops of concentrated flavour, and the carrots were bright orange shreds and fronds. It was a beautiful plate of food, her favourite, in fact, yet it failed to delight her. She looked up at the motionless pair, and clucked her tongue.
“For God’s sake, man, just go over and talk to the poor girl!” she thought to herself.
She opened her paper, turning the pages without reading them. One hand trembled uncontrollably, the other remained still. She felt the desire to shout at the boy, and gripped the table’s edge with whitening fingertips instead.
She concentrated on eating her salad, spearing the small, pale circles of the radishes, edged, like daisies, with slivers of vivid pink. Their flavour surprised her, the cool fire of them circling her mouth, and she tried to focus on it now. But she could think of little else.
Twice now, the girl had put her things into her handbag as if preparing to leave. Twice, the boy had watched her do this, readying himself to stand and speak. And twice, the girl had unpacked her bag, and hidden, self-consciously, behind her hair again.
Pearl drank her tea. This was none of her business. The lassie at the table was not the girl she had once been herself. The boy was not her Frederick.
Fred had sent her just the single letter from Australia. “If only I hadn’t waited so long to tell you how I felt...” She had never seen him again – that was the only way to think of it, for his death had not changed what she had wanted from him. A perfect dream life, the two of them, forever.
Ever since she had read that letter, they’d lived together, their invisible selves, in a house that changed from day to day, shimmering in and out of existence, like rain and sunshine, shadow and snow, growing older, and closer, and further away from the world. Theirs had been a happy life in this shimmering mirage. On sunny days, he had walked beside her, admiring the river. On sleepless nights, he’d snuggled behind her as she dreamt of him. These memories were all she had ever known of happiness.
The boy put on his jacket. Pearl wondered if he, too, would dream of the café, if a vision of this place would appear in his mind when he was old and alone and a stranger to sleep. The girl would be there, too, of course. Where would they sit? What would they do? Would he carry her with him wherever he went, trying to remember the colour of her hair? The idea of it was too sad to bear. He couldn’t live like that. And neither could she. Frederick was gone, and he was never coming back.
The realisation was a neat and constant pressure applied to each side of her heart. Tears came to her eyes and couldn’t get out. For the final time in her life, she let herself love him – not for his face, or his voice, or his promises, but for the light that he had brought to the world. A voice inside her longed to sing in a language she could not speak, and she swallowed it back down.
She held on to the edge of the table. Love engulfed her, until she felt she might vanish within it, become its nucleus and disappear from the earth – and still she clung on, speechless and dazed, vibrant, yet so quiet inside, so at peace, so filled with longing, longing to catch that moment in a powerful fist, and hold it against her heart, and to become it and be lost in it. It was love, but it was hers no longer. It was a moment she wished to gift to them.
She stood up, with some effort, and approached the young girl at the table.
“I know you’ll think I’m just some batty old lady, and I don’t care – that young man over there is clearly head over heels in love with you, and if you don’t make an effort to talk to him now you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”
The girl gazed up at Pearl, but before she could reply, Pearl turned and made her way back towards her table. “One day I will walk through that door for the last time,” she thought to herself, gathering up her paper. “That’s just the way of things. But it won’t be today.”
She opened the door and looked back at the café, standing in the doorway as the wind breezed in, entwining its silver notes in among the delicate clattering of cups and cutlery, fanning out a gorgeous array of memories in front of her, until she could see all the people she might have been, stepped into their lives and become them, loved who they loved, felt what they felt. And as she looked back at the boy and girl, time slowed down, and then flowed backward, until she was staring, once again, at Frederick when he had been alive – when the slightest line beneath his eye was a joyful flower unfolding, when his laughter sent a symphony shuddering through her, and she was suddenly engulfed by a longing, not for eternity, but for stillness.
The sound of steam escaping from the coffee machine hissed out loud and clear, and as she looked back at the café, she longed to clutch at the memory of it through the darkening fog that she knew was soon to come, to press it to her breast and keep it there, a flower in the pages of a precious, endless book. Instead, she opened the door and walked out into a day of such bare blue beauty that it felt as though her heart might split at the sight of it. She barely noticed that, for the first time in her life, she was walking alone.
“For God’s sake, man, just go over and talk to the poor girl!” she thought to herself.
She opened her paper, turning the pages without reading them. One hand trembled uncontrollably, the other remained still. She felt the desire to shout at the boy, and gripped the table’s edge with whitening fingertips instead.
She concentrated on eating her salad, spearing the small, pale circles of the radishes, edged, like daisies, with slivers of vivid pink. Their flavour surprised her, the cool fire of them circling her mouth, and she tried to focus on it now. But she could think of little else.
Twice now, the girl had put her things into her handbag as if preparing to leave. Twice, the boy had watched her do this, readying himself to stand and speak. And twice, the girl had unpacked her bag, and hidden, self-consciously, behind her hair again.
Pearl drank her tea. This was none of her business. The lassie at the table was not the girl she had once been herself. The boy was not her Frederick.
Fred had sent her just the single letter from Australia. “If only I hadn’t waited so long to tell you how I felt...” She had never seen him again – that was the only way to think of it, for his death had not changed what she had wanted from him. A perfect dream life, the two of them, forever.
Ever since she had read that letter, they’d lived together, their invisible selves, in a house that changed from day to day, shimmering in and out of existence, like rain and sunshine, shadow and snow, growing older, and closer, and further away from the world. Theirs had been a happy life in this shimmering mirage. On sunny days, he had walked beside her, admiring the river. On sleepless nights, he’d snuggled behind her as she dreamt of him. These memories were all she had ever known of happiness.
The boy put on his jacket. Pearl wondered if he, too, would dream of the café, if a vision of this place would appear in his mind when he was old and alone and a stranger to sleep. The girl would be there, too, of course. Where would they sit? What would they do? Would he carry her with him wherever he went, trying to remember the colour of her hair? The idea of it was too sad to bear. He couldn’t live like that. And neither could she. Frederick was gone, and he was never coming back.
The realisation was a neat and constant pressure applied to each side of her heart. Tears came to her eyes and couldn’t get out. For the final time in her life, she let herself love him – not for his face, or his voice, or his promises, but for the light that he had brought to the world. A voice inside her longed to sing in a language she could not speak, and she swallowed it back down.
She held on to the edge of the table. Love engulfed her, until she felt she might vanish within it, become its nucleus and disappear from the earth – and still she clung on, speechless and dazed, vibrant, yet so quiet inside, so at peace, so filled with longing, longing to catch that moment in a powerful fist, and hold it against her heart, and to become it and be lost in it. It was love, but it was hers no longer. It was a moment she wished to gift to them.
She stood up, with some effort, and approached the young girl at the table.
“I know you’ll think I’m just some batty old lady, and I don’t care – that young man over there is clearly head over heels in love with you, and if you don’t make an effort to talk to him now you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”
The girl gazed up at Pearl, but before she could reply, Pearl turned and made her way back towards her table. “One day I will walk through that door for the last time,” she thought to herself, gathering up her paper. “That’s just the way of things. But it won’t be today.”
She opened the door and looked back at the café, standing in the doorway as the wind breezed in, entwining its silver notes in among the delicate clattering of cups and cutlery, fanning out a gorgeous array of memories in front of her, until she could see all the people she might have been, stepped into their lives and become them, loved who they loved, felt what they felt. And as she looked back at the boy and girl, time slowed down, and then flowed backward, until she was staring, once again, at Frederick when he had been alive – when the slightest line beneath his eye was a joyful flower unfolding, when his laughter sent a symphony shuddering through her, and she was suddenly engulfed by a longing, not for eternity, but for stillness.
The sound of steam escaping from the coffee machine hissed out loud and clear, and as she looked back at the café, she longed to clutch at the memory of it through the darkening fog that she knew was soon to come, to press it to her breast and keep it there, a flower in the pages of a precious, endless book. Instead, she opened the door and walked out into a day of such bare blue beauty that it felt as though her heart might split at the sight of it. She barely noticed that, for the first time in her life, she was walking alone.
About the Author
Sara Clark is an award-winning writer. Her latest comic novel, The Centaur of Attention, was recently published by McStorytellers.
Sara is also the writer in residence at the Damascus Drum Café, Hawick, where she is writing a series of stories set in the café, to be displayed on the tables there.
Sara is also the writer in residence at the Damascus Drum Café, Hawick, where she is writing a series of stories set in the café, to be displayed on the tables there.