Red sky at night

Edward knew somebody out there was like him, but where would he find them – and how?

He wanted someone who was the same as him. Not a carbon copy – that went without saying – but he wanted someone who shared his values at the very least and with his values, his preferences.

Nowadays he liked a quiet life. He liked order. Taste. Punctuality. Table manners essential. He liked things to stay where he had put them when he had arranged them “just so”, (his mother’s words), and yet…

He wanted not to be alone.

Of course, there were people like him out there. Just occasionally he would pass such a one on a sunny day’s promenade by the sea, each noting how uncomfortable the other was in their summer clothes. But they never spoke.

These fellow beings were so different from the summer crowds, with their hands always occupied with plastic glasses of lager, cigarettes, a Mr Whippy, a soggy packet of chips, or a tray of whelks. They claimed the seafront. It was their world. How he recoiled from the shouting and the drunkenness and shiny sunburn. From appetite.

One summer evening he felt a calling to walk out to the seafront. The small town was famous for its sunsets and that evening had produced one of its more spectacular examples, turning the sky, the sea, the clapboard houses and the upturned faces of the onlookers, a crimson red.

He found a space away from the throng and gingerly lowered himself down on to the shingle. He felt, in that carmine blaze, quite outside himself, as if the world had become something utterly rare and completely beautiful and he found that his eyes were becoming moist.

He sat on for a time after the sun’s glow had faded.

Smoke drifted over the groynes. He thought he could catch a whiff of lamb and garlic, a scent of rosemary. He found himself clambering stiffly to his feet and, with a curiosity his sudden hunger could not resist, peering circumspectly over the groyne.

He heard his stomach rumble shamefully as he caught sight of two deliciously browning chump chops, perched on what appeared to be a silver bucket.

“Keeping an eye on it for me, are you?”

Hot blood rushed to his cheeks as he spun round.

“No, I… it was just, oh dear, the smell, you know, so…”

The woman was all shoulders, bust and bonhomie. A daughter-of-thecolonel type, who swept all before her. “Join me if you like. There’s enough for two. I was expecting a friend, but she’s just rung to say she’s been detained.”

For form’s sake he made a last protest, “I couldn’t presume…”

“Presume be damned. You’re hungry, I’ve got food. What’s the problem?”

A little blaze of apprehension accompanied him, and he

Suddenly, there she was. His heart gave a jolt; he wanted to run, hide

thought, “How soon can I politely make my excuses?” But he was soon settled on a kind of chair with no legs, which was surprisingly comfortable, and accepting a glass of wine.

“I can see you don’t do this kind of thing very often,” said the daughter-ofthe-colonel. “Chat up strange women. And although I am a bit strange, I won’t bite.”

She laughed a deep laugh, just short of braying. He swallowed the wine. He felt its blessed coolness run right down to his toes.

The lamb chops were as good as they had smelled.

The green salad was perfectly dressed and there was even his

favourite indulgence for pudding, crème caramel. He was drinking too much wine, he knew.

He found himself, on the second bottle, telling her about his old life in London before he had entrusted himself to the open horizon of this little estuary town. His voice grew quieter as he spoke about his mother and her final illness.

“I stayed on for a couple of years,” he said, “in the old house. But it all got too much for me. In the end I decided to make a completely fresh start and sold it for what I thought was an exorbitant amount of money. We all seem to think sea air will be good for us, don’t we?”

The woman turned out not to be the daughter of a colonel after all, but of a high court judge, who had kept her by his side long after his wife had died.

“We were brought up to do our duty, weren’t we? I went to pieces for a while after he died. This place has helped a lot.

I’m only a weekend visitor, but I’m becoming very attached to the place.”

Not much later, with a struggle against his stiffness, he rose to his feet. He suddenly could not wait to fly back to his solitude. He hoped she would not be able to trace him back to his home; he didn’t want her “turning up on his doorstep”, in his mother’s words, referring to almost anyone they had ever met.

It was strange, though, in the following week, when he passed the stretch of beach where they had eaten their supper, how his eyes were drawn to that little patch of pebbles.

On the following Sunday he fought his fears and walked to the spot where the picnic had taken place. The weather had deteriorated and there were not many people around.

Turning for home, he took comfort in the anticipation of the smoked salmon he had waiting for him in the fridge.

He would get a cat, he thought, then they could share their fishy meals. His mother had never liked cats.

And suddenly, there she was. His heart gave a jolt; he wanted to run, hide. He turned to go, but she had seen him. She was waving. Calling. At the same time as he shrank from the encounter, he could feel a little flare of surrender. This was meant to be.

A year later he marvelled at how easily he peppered his conversation with the words, “My friend Edie”, as if the words had always been part of his vocabulary. The cat, a Siamese, was a joint purchase. It would accompany them to the beach to lick the grease from their picnic plates.

Around the town, where new resident Edie had quickly made her mark, everyone knew him as “Edie’s friend Edward” and no longer could he slip anonymously down the high street to do his errands.

Edie was not quiet. She did not share his sense of tidiness. She was always moving his things around so he did not know where to find them. She was often late from rushing about doing things at the last moment and the gusto with which she ate her food owed nothing to table manners.

But he felt his dry, old bones warming in her regard and he took the assaults on his privacy with good grace.

As he watched from his kitchen window, he saw the cat leap from Edie’s garden on to the fence and stretch itself in the sun. It settled on the top of a fence post and began to wash itself. It was completely at home between the two houses.

‘You’re hungry, I’ve got food. What’s the problem?’