The Darling Buds Express

It's great prose, just on it's own, let alone the crafty worldbuilding.

im getting emotionally invested ed y u do dis
It's my job, Bob – if you didn't care, there'd be no point writing it, would there?

That means a lot, though; thanks.

***

As a guide for those wondering how long this story has left to run, I reckon there are about four updates left, maybe five. I'm hoping, with a little luck, to be done by the New Year, which means the final update probably won't appear until Easter Sunday.
 
Right, I currently have three relatively short updates which I shall be posting over the next couple of days.

Just to forewarn you, they're rather light on AH development and are more character-driven (I state again that this thread really should've gone in the Writer's Forum, but then I originally planned to finish this in six days so what do I know).

As a further forewarning, all three updates deal with… matters of the bedroom, shall we say.

Consider this fair notice.
 
Sunday (evening)

The Seagull had always seemed oddly named for a place so far inland. It was a rather shabby, run-down place, overhung with an unwelcoming air; even on a weekend like this, the tourists generally gave it a wide berth. Most of the locals did too, for that matter.

Laura, Henry, Toby and Jo had managed to snag a rather wobbly table in a poorly-lit alcove near the corner of the bar. It see-sawed wildly whenever its weight shifted even slightly – for example, when one person picked up their drink, sending the other three scrambling for their glasses. They had quickly learnt to just hold on to their drinks.

Conversation was halting; nobody particularly wanted to talk politics, but no other topic seemed to be forthcoming. Toby’s attention seemed distracted by the small, tinny television over the bar which the Seagull’s landlord had installed in lieu of a jukebox; it was currently tuned to the football results. The Seagull was the only place in Titfield that did that; the sets were quite expensive, although nothing like what they had been even a few years ago, and most pubs preferred the flexibility of jukeboxes and music licensing. It was, oddly enough, a more common practice in the city, where more people owned televisions. Laura had bought herself one when she moved to the City, which she mostly used to watch the morning and evening news; her parents refused to own one. It amused her on some level that she owned a television despite not having grown up with it, yet Henry’s parents had owned one before being born and he wasn’t fussed about getting his own.

The screen was barely distinguishable from here, and the jury-rigged speakers did nothing to carry the sound over the buzz of the crowd. She wondered to herself what on earth Toby was gaining from watching it.

“Didn’t Argleton play yesterday?” asked Henry. Toby tore his eyes away from the screen reluctantly.

“What?”

“I thought we played yesterday, Toby.”

“We did,” replied Toby irritably, “but I want to find out how the Cables did.”

“What’s so important about the Cables?” asked Laura, who had no idea nor interest in what was going on but was getting a little bored.

“Basically, if Prescot lose, then Argleton will be safe from relegation,” replied Jo. “Otherwise it’s going to come down to the last day of the season.”

Laura gave her friend a Look. “Since when do you know so much about football?”

Jo stared into her glass, visibly uncomfortable; too late, Laura realised she may have touched a nerve, and that no matter how well she might think she knew a person they would always have hidden depths to them.

“I’ve known a couple of footballers,” Jo murmured.

All of a sudden Laura found herself consumed by a desire to explore those hidden depths; it gripped her gently and would not let go, and it knew just the way she liked to be held. It took every ounce of journalistic professionalism within her for her mouth not to fall open gormlessly.

The clatter of Toby’s chair brought her somewhat back to reality. “I’m going to see if I can see anything better at the bar,” he said tartly. “I do believe it’s my round, after all…”

Jo downed the last third of her glass of wine. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” she muttered, rising from her chair, avoiding her friends’ eyes.

“Same again, Josephine?” Toby called after her. Jo turned and nodded over her shoulder, barely breaking stride.

Laura and Henry found themselves on their own. He flashed her a smile and drained his blackcurrant and soda.

“No Jay tonight?” Laura asked, trying to sound noncommittal.

Henry shook his head. “No; I think after last night he’s laying low for a few days.” He rolled his empty glass around his thumb absently. “From what Toby said, I think something might have finally got through to him.” He stopped fiddling with his glass, and cradled it in his palm, observing it silently for a long moment. “I hope so. He’s been an unforgivable twerp recently, but he’s a good lad at heart and I’d like my friend back.” He looked up at her, and his eyebrows knotted ever so slightly. “Are you alright?”

Laura swallowed; it was now or never. “There’s this… notion I’ve got running round my head. An idea. Um.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“I don’t know what it is yet.”

“I mean, after what happened last night it might be a bit too on the nose but-”

“Laura,” Henry interrupted, a smile playing on his lips borne equally of frustration as amusement, “I can’t tell if it’s appropriate or not until you tell me what it is! Although I am intrigued, I admit…”

She leaned over and whispered in his ear. He seemed to go rigid as she did so; when she sat back again, his face was a picture of bemusement.

“What, for real?” he said eventually. She just nodded in response.

“You want us to have-”

“Uh-huh.”

“With-”

Yes,” she said, quiet but emphatic. Henry dragged a hand across his face, something he did whenever he had to do a lot of unexpected thinking that reminded her an awful lot of his father.

“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” he asked, leaning in close so the sound wouldn’t carry.

“It only occurred to me just now,” Laura replied.

Henry exhaled noisily through his nose, his hand again pulling his countenance into a rather jowly contortion. The moment of thoughtfulness seemed to stretch out towards eternity, until – eventually – the corner of his mouth quirked upwards in a half-smile, and she knew he was on board.

“One condition,” he said, raising a finger. “You have to ask her, okay?”

Feeling the knot of desire and nerves squirm inside her, Laura just nodded vigorously. A nervous silence settled between them, an odd corner of silence in the crowded bar.

“It feels a bit… odd,” Henry said, after a while.

“Does it?”

“Yeah,” he said, staring at somewhere beside her right shoulder. “I mean, last night we were having a massive row, and now- y’know…”

Laura swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat contract. “You don’t have to do this if you-”

“No! No, no, I do,” he insisted, gesticulating in the way he always did when he was nervous. “It’s just… well… y’know-”

“No, what do I know?” interrupted Toby, placing three drinks on the table. Henry and Laura both jumped in near-unison, which elicited a chuckle from their friend.

“Nothing, Toby,” said Henry, sounding like someone doing a good job of trying to sound calm. “It’s just, uh, couples stuff.” Laura nodded vigorously again, scared of what might come out if she tried to open her mouth. Toby’s quirked into a devilish smile – he could be alarmingly prescient at times; they’d joked in the past that he was actually clairvoyant, which he’d normally brushed off with some jokes about the ‘queens’ telegraph’ – and for a moment she feared their plot was rumbled, but he said nothing and simply placed the drinks on their appropriate coasters. There was one drink obviously missing.

“Not getting one yourself, Tobes?” asked Henry. Toby smiled, more gently this time, and shook his head.

“No, I’m going home. Tomorrow’s a big day, after all, and I don’t want to be hungover for the old girl’s moment in the sun.” His smile became imperceptibly more impish. “Besides, I think you three need some quality time together.”

Laura’s mouth fell open in horror; beside her, she heard Henry choking on his soft drink. Toby just grinned mischievously.

“See you tomorrow, lovies,” he sniggered, swinging his coat over his shoulders. Before either of them could regain their composure, he was gone.

“…How does he do that?” Henry muttered incredulously.

“How does who do what?” asked Jo, retaking her seat. The other two shared a momentary glance.

“Toby be Toby,” answered Laura with a not-quite-exasperated shrug.

Jo sipped daintily at her wine. “Well, you’ve known him for longer than I have, so if you can’t answer that question…” She sighed. “I do wish he’d told me he was leaving, I’d have gone with him.”

The knot that seemed to take up most of Laura’s body gave a lurch. Her window of opportunity was much narrower than anticipated – in fact it was barely a window at all, just a gap where the light gets in. She watched Jo drain her glass in one motion, something impressive and arresting and worrying all at once.

“Anyway,” Jo said, putting her glass back down with just a hint of vehemence, “I should probably go.”

“Jo, wait.” There was something in Henry’s voice that made her pause; Laura heard it too – neither forceful nor pathetic, but nevertheless compelling the addressee to listen. She wondered if he’d ever spoken to her like that – and whether she’d ever noticed.

Jo was looking at the two of them with rather more bemusement than Laura had hoped – but at least bemusement wasn’t disgust.

Now or never.

“We were wondering… That is, Henry and I have…” Laura swallowed, breathed deeply, and looked her friend in the eye.

“Jo – would you like to come home with us tonight?”
 
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Ah, the healing power of the threesome. Stil great prose with believable engaging characters. I'm glad to see that Jay's being shunned, the little shit. Also Henry's been having a topsy turvy few days relationship wise, amd it was fun to see his reaction.
 
Sunday (night)

Laura didn’t remember the three of them talking as they made their way through the star-spangled streets of her hometown. She certainly didn’t recall saying anything; she was too nervous and excited all at once.

It wasn’t merely the prospect of arriving back at Henry’s – and what they would hopefully get up to when they got there – that was filling her with such emotions, at once complementary and in conflict. There was also the thrill – and the fear – of doing something so brazenly illicit as this in full view of the public. Titfield’s gossip merchants were as sharp-eyed and vicious as any other town’s; perhaps in the days of Laura’s girlhood they might have been too innocent-minded to question the motives of a young couple inviting their friend home for the evening, but given the spread of the radio and the television bringing metropolitan filth into their homes (often the same filth their friends had telephoned them, instructing them to watch so they could be appalled by it themselves) she didn’t think they would. And given that the three of them were, in their own ways, decadent metropolitans themselves she doubted the old biddies twitching their net curtains would be merciful.

There were a few figures out on the main streets of town, but as they made their way through the residential areas the pavements were deserted. Only the quiet clicking of Jo’s bicycle and the quiet footfalls of three pairs of shoes broke the velvety silence. As the streetlights – modern steel and aluminium replicas of the venerable cast-iron ones in the heart of the village – grew sparser, she clasped hands with Henry on one side and put the other arm around Jo in as sororal a manner as she could manage. It felt strange and unwieldy to be bound to the two of them like that, but it didn’t feel wrong. As the streetlights eventually thinned out to nothing, Jo and Henry each got their brightphones out and turned on the torchlights – the inbuilt ability that had originally given the little devices their names, back before they became minor miracles of handheld computing – to light their way. Laura, interlocked between the two of them, could only reflect on the shadow of the magical and the ghost of the romantic which seemed to flicker across the scene.

And then, after an age that passed in a moment, Henry was unlocking the kitchen door (she’d never noticed until now how he never came and went through his front door, at least when she was around) and turning the light on inside. Her foot was on the step before she realised Jo was no longer beside her; panicking irrationally, she turned and saw her friend chaining her bike up against the drainpipe under the awning, out of sight of the road. Jo had her back to her; from what Laura could tell, her body language seemed apprehensive. For a moment, Laura thought she was about to turn tail and run; but then she turned and looked at her, face softly illuminated by the golden glow from the kitchen window, and after a moment she smiled in a way that sent Laura’s heart fluttering.

The two friends stepped inside, and the door clicked shut behind them. After a moment, had anyone been around to listen, they would have heard the sound of a key turning gently in the lock.
 

Sideways

Donor
turned on the torchlights – the inbuilt ability that had originally given the little devices their names, back before they became minor miracles of handheld computing

This is a great example of the premise of the timeline impacting technology. The torch function is far more important in this timeline, and no doubt batteries are more up to it

Very well written character stuff
 
The description of the tyrannical old biddies really does sell this, reminds me of Monstrous Regiment. This remains the gold standard for character writing on this site.

EDIT: Just recommended this for a Turtledove, maybe that'll finally get this the readers it deserves.
 
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This is a great example of the premise of the timeline impacting technology. The torch function is far more important in this timeline, and no doubt batteries are more up to it

this development was planned from the start and definitely wasn't something i just threw in at the last minute after a sudden realisation i could make it work in the shower yesterday morning

Thank you again, glad you're still reading!

The description of the tyrannical old biddies really does sell this, reminds me of Monstrous Regiment. This remains the gold standard for character writing on this site.

EDIT: Just recommended this for a Turtledove, maybe that'll finally get this the readers it deserves.

Monstrous Regiment was exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote it, as it happens…

As I said in the suggestions thread, that's incredibly kind, thank you!
 
Monday

The gentlest kiss on her forehead awoke her; she opened her eyes to see Henry bending over her, smiling and cradling her head. The curtains were open behind him again, and the world beyond the windowpane was golden and inviting. He smiled at her – not a big smile, but one in which every crease and line was shining with love – and she smiled back, sleepily. He left wordlessly, closing the door behind him as quietly as he dared.

Laura closed her eyes again, only for them to snap open a moment later as the memory of the night before re-emerged. She span around to find herself in an empty bed; Jo was nowhere to be seen. She panicked for a moment, thinking she might have run away in the night, but then she saw her friend’s clothes on the side and heard the faint patter of the running shower.

She sat up, using the bedclothes to preserve her modesty as she did so. The night before was coming back to her, at first in disjointed flashes and then broader sweeps that sutured the moments together. For the first time since that moment in the Seagull, she allowed herself to contemplate just what a foolish endeavour it might have been.

Not that it felt foolish, not right now. Oh, there was the awkwardness, both physical and emotional, of inviting somebody else into the most intimate aspect of her relationship; but they had conquered that, between them, even if it had taken a little getting used to. And Henry seemed pretty happy about it just now.

But… but their relationship had to change now, didn’t it? Once the exclusivity of intimacy had been broken, it could not be restored, surely? They still needed to work out all the stuff that had been going on before, never mind this…

A small voice inside of her pointed out that the ‘other stuff’ was probably a sign their relationship needed to change anyway, and something like tonight could – and should – be a catalyst rather than a stumbling-block-

She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the shower turn off, and so the bedroom door opening took her somewhat by surprise. Jo was standing there, one towel wrapped around her body and another around her hair. She looked radiant; the morning sunlight shone on her damp shoulders, seeming to match a glow coming from within her. And she was smiling.

For a split second Laura wondered why her friend looked so different; and then she realised that, actually, Jo looked like her old self again – the person she had been before that night in Manchester, before the months of sexual confusion, before the emotional trauma of being abandoned by the man she loved for the crime of trying to be honest about who she was. It was only at that moment that she truly appreciated the change her friend had gone through during her long absence. Laura was unable not to smile herself.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” replied Jo, taking a step forward. “Mind if I come in?”

“Sure.” Laura patted her bedclothes. “You look well.”

Jo gave a silent chuckle. “I had a good night’s sleep,” she replied.

“Oh, is that all?” Laura shot back, impishly.

“Seriously, though…” Jo began, perching on the edge of the bed; she hesitated for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “I needed last night – pretty badly – and I didn’t know I needed it until it happened. I mean…” she paused again, and looked Laura in the eye much as Laura had Jo when she propositioned her in the Seagull. “I would never have contemplated a menage a trois if you hadn’t suggested it – and I know it can be very weird getting too intimate with your friends, if you catch my drift…” She looked away again for a moment, then back; Laura was reminded of just how entrancing those blue eyes could be. “I realise this might be a bit weird for you two – because, believe me, if there’s one thing that was obvious from last night it’s that neither of you have ever done anything like this before – but I want you to understand that it was a very good thing you did for me, whatever your reasons for doing it.”

Laura looked away, her fingers clenching slightly on the eiderdown. “Is it something you’d like to do again, or-”

“Oh, lord no!” Jo laughed in that companionable way of hers. “You and Henry have something very special – that much is obvious to anyone, no matter what difficulties you might be going through at the moment – and the last thing I would want is to come in and mess that up. But-” she paused, and her smile broadened “-for the first time in months I don’t feel like I’m carrying a load of hurt and shame around inside me. I feel like…” she gestured vaguely with her hand, “like there isn’t something wrong with who I am, you know? I feel like I can go forward stronger than I have been lately – and I think you two can as well.”

“Do you think?”

“Sure.”

“But…” Laura faltered, unsure she should confide this in her friend; but Jo reached out and placed a hand on her wrist, a sororal gesture just like the arm Laura had placed around her waist the night before, and she recognised the mutual trust the two of them had long had. “Now we’ve broached that intimacy – even with you, who we both care about deeply – how can it ever just be the two of us again? It’s such a fundamental change…”

Jo’s explosion of laughter was so unexpected Laura felt tempted to give her a Look. “I’m sorry,” she snorted, “but if you seriously think the two of you spending one night with another person in your bed is going to turn your relationship into some strange cult-like entity that constantly needs threesomes to survive you need your head checked.” She paused, and her voice softened. “And I could never claim to be anywhere near as important to either of you as you clearly are to each other. Which is why I think it’s for the best that I give you both some space for a bit.”

“You don’t have to, Jo,” said Laura, “at least stay for breakfast.”

Jo smiled, her eyes betraying just the merest hint of sadness. “I don’t think that would be wise,” she said, gazing out of the window.

“Then come for a drink before I leave-”

“Laura, I don’t think you understand,” Jo interrupted, as kindly as possible. “I’m not just skipping out for a couple hours to make it a bit easier to pretend everything’s normal. I’m saying I’m probably not going to see either of you for quite a long time – intentionally.”

“What?!” Laura was incredulous. “But I thought it wasn’t weird for you!”

“It wasn’t,” replied Jo, “and I don’t want it to get weird. You’re my friends, and I love you both dearly, but… while I don’t regret last night, not in the slightest… I think I need to move on.” She blinked, and looked out of the window again. “Yeah. I need to…”

“Are you saying you’ll leave Titfield?” asked Laura, aghast.

Jo nodded slowly; she seemed to be coming to the realisation as she said the words. “I think I will, yeah. I think I’ve let Bertie hang over me for too long; I’ll go home, and see my family, and then… see where life takes me.”

“But…” Laura struggled for the words. “What if I – we – never see you again?”

“Oh, don’t be daft,” laughed Jo. “We’ll stay in touch. I can write or call; we can even gratchat now. When I say I’ll give you some space I’m talking a month or two, not forever.”

Laura paused for a moment; she could feel the sadness welling up inside her, but it was tempered by the acknowledgement that, actually, Jo had a point – and she could hardly begrudge her friend’s quest for happiness. Besides, it wasn’t as if she and Henry hadn’t enough things of their own to work on without complicating things further.

“Good for you,” she said, and meant it. “But Jo – don’t stay a stranger, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” smiled her friend. “Although, er, before I can leave, I need to get dressed, so…”

“Oh!” Despite herself, Laura found the blush rising in her cheeks. “Of course – you could just, er, pass me my bathrobe and I’ll, um, leave you to it…”

Several minutes later, towelling her hair dry and looking out at the morning landscape, Laura saw Jo walking up the path, wheeling her bike. As she got to the road, Jo turned and looked up at the window and their gazes met one last time. Smiling, Laura waved a farewell; she saw her friend grin and wave back, before mounting the bicycle and cycling back towards the village. The last she saw of her was rounding a corner, head high and pedalling leisurely; then she passed through a shower of cherry blossom and was gone.
 
Monday (daytime)

Once upon a time, May Day in Titfield had been much like everywhere else. Not many people who were alive now remembered those days, though; certainly not her parents, or Henry’s.

Nobody was quite sure when or why a cherished, if unremarkable, folk holiday had taken on such a different character in this lone village, although there were a fair few articles and even some academic studies which said as much in great detail. Some theorised it was due to a postwar drive to greater frugality and communality, along with better access to public transport, causing the people of Ellsdale to congregate in Titfield as a kind of ersatz urban centre; others pointed to wealthier middle-class families starting to take weekend breaks in rural areas under Douglas-Home and his ‘prosperity government’ in the late Fifties. Others claimed Titfielders had clung to their May Day celebrations in the face of wartime strictures, and when the traditions had begun to die out elsewhere after the war the town had instead doubled down, making theirs even grander. Some theories even went back before the war, citing a visit by the first ever ‘BBC Election Express’ along the Darling Buds Line over May Day weekend in 1936 as being the crucial spur. There was even one theory that posited as the original spark a local group of fascists putting on a pageant for the New Labour leader, Oswald Mosley.

Laura didn’t like to give that particular theory too much credence; it made her feel awfully guilty for enjoying herself. She took comfort in her parents’ exhortations, whenever the subject was raised, that there’d hardly been any New Labour voters in Titfield, never mind fascists; but that was tempered by the reminder that, well, they hadn’t been there, had they? She wasn’t sure she believed it, herself, but she could never quite bring herself to discount the possibility. After all, she was a journalist; healthy skepticism was all part of the job.

Henry, she knew, liked to talk about geography and demographics and how Titfield was just the right kind of isolated and had just the right rate of population change at just the right times. Personally, she kind of liked nobody really knowing. It felt more like a proper folk tradition that way.

They smelt it before they saw it – the mingled aromas of steam and oil, livestock and fair-food, coal-smoke and the odd ozone scent of electric engines, a great mingling mass of humanity borne on the breeze blowing up the valley, taking the edge off the scorching sun and bringing down the petals of the occasional cherry-blossom trees in flurries. Laura stopped for a moment under one, and stretched out her hand to catch a tumbling pink ellipse. For a moment, she saw in her mind’s eye the cascades of petals that would be lining the streets of the city on a day like today, and she felt her heart catch ever so slightly. But it felt different than it might have done before; the tension she felt, between the twin gravitational pulls of Titfield and the city, was not upon her but was part of her. The sudden emotional insight, raw and unrefined and cheesy as all hell, took her aback, and she looked up, blinking, as though reborn.

Henry had stopped a step ahead of her, dappled sunlight from the swaying branches playing across his face and shirt, and she was struck with wonder that he was still there – despite the vast distances between them, despite the vagaries of a long-distance relationship he had never signed up for, he was still there. They had so much to talk about, she could hardly wait; but he had been waiting for her goodness knew how long, so she could wait a little longer. She smiled, and kissed him softly and quickly on the lips.

“What was that for?” he asked, smiling.

She shrugged happily. “Just because.”

He smiled and took her hand.

As they turned the corner May Day was laid out before them. The steam fair on the common was in full swing, with the merry notes of the carousel organ mingling with the screams from the waltzer and the octopus and the workmanlike chugging of the traction engines. Various members of the parish council were watching from the stage which had been erected at one end as workmen fiddled around with the microphones, one of which kept feeding back; from the bandstand at the other end could be heard the parps and glissandos of the Argleton & District Brass Band warming up for their first set of the day. The assorted vehicles could be seen preparing for the parade along the High Street that afternoon in the square by the station. And there in the middle was the great may-pole, its multicoloured ribbons dangled outwards, tent-like, in readiness for the dance.

It was just like Laura remembered it, only more so.

She felt the slightest twinge of sadness, remembering the morning’s conversation. “I wish Jo were here,” she murmured.

“She wouldn’t have come anyway,” said Henry. “She’s not really been keen on going out in public since Bertie left her. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I wasn’t…” It was a statement, not a rebuke, and she turned to him to see he saw that. “Did you speak to her before she left?”

“Aye. I take it you did too?”

“Yes.”

Henry nodded. “She’s doing the right thing. I’m a lot less worried about her now than I might’ve been. She’ll be fine.”

Laura nodded, smiling in agreement, and Henry smiled back.

“Now no more worrying. Let’s go and enjoy ourselves.”

It was the perfect day. They gorged themselves on fried meat and potatoes, all salt and fat, revelling in the willful unhealthiness of it; they danced rambunctiously with the crowd during the maypole dance, whirling each other around with the kind of carefree abandon and lack of regard for dignity that can only be achieved with a particular kind of folk music; they rode the waltzer, yelling with gusto as the man set their car spinning as they passed, and then the carousel, laughing and whistling along to the organ’s melodies, then the ferris wheel, joking about getting stuck at the top and feeling slightly disappointed when it didn’t actually happen.

Not long before the parade was due to set off, they found Toby outside the Cartographers’ Arms; as if by magic, he had a table of three to himself and two pints of shandy awaiting them.

“How do you do it?” she asked him, dumbfounded.

“I’m just that good,” he answered with a shrug.

“Well, whatever witchcraft you’ve been using, I’ll drink to it,” said Henry, clinking glasses with them. “Cheers!” He and Laura took a deep draft of their drinks, only to heave simultaneously as they imbibed twin mouthfuls of warm, flat ale and lemonade.

“Although, I admit, those drinks have been there for over an hour now,” Toby winced. Laura shot him a Look, and he practically jumped out of his seat (to her private delight; she had begun to fear her Looks were losing their potency). “I’ll get you fresh ones,” he called, hurrying to the bar.

Toby had picked a good spot; they were right by the street, and by surreptitiously dragging the table forward a few feet they could prevent anyone trying to stand in front of them and blocking their view. It was almost enough to forgive him for the shandies.

“I’ve missed this,” she said, reclining against the table and ignoring the filthy glances of a middle-aged couple wearing identically ill-advised clothes.

“Me too,” said Henry, turning on his stool. “It’s really not been the same, the past few times without you…”

She looked away, out over the fair, smiling; she was only half-in the here and now, so that what he said next caught her off-gaurd.

“We really should have the talk before you go back, though.”

“What?” She snapped round to look at him; he didn’t seem vexed, but there was something in his expression she couldn’t quite read.

“Well…” he shifted in his seat, pulling himself upright. “I don’t think – now we’ve brought it up – that we should just leave this long-distance thing to lie. I mean, I don’t think we’re going to get it sorted completely-”

She laid a hand on his arm, smiling; he stopped, understanding.

“Later,” she said, quietly.

“I wish we had more time,” he replied.

“We’ll have some time, at least. But for now, let’s just enjoy it.”

Now it was his turn to kiss her. It might have gone on for a while, but they were interrupted by Toby coming back with the drinks.

“How on earth did you manage that so quickly?” asked Henry, flabbergasted. “It must be absolutely rammed in there!”

Toby just smiled enigmatically. “I have my ways.” He sat back down again. “Now drink up, the parade’s starting.”

The parade was led, as ever, by the head of the parish council in his rather ostentatious chain of office, bearing a red pendant – some homage to the flagmen of old who had to walk before road vehicles in the olden days, if Laura remembered correctly. Behind him was the winner of last year’s competition for the best-presented participant; she recognised the traction engine she’d seen the other day, the gold and green winner’s flag fluttering from the footplate. After that, it started to pall slightly; Henry and Toby managed to give a running commentary, but it seemed more for their own benefit than anyone else’s. She just enjoyed the sun and the spectacle.

An unfamiliar puttering sound roused her; looking around, she recognised the yellow Rolls-Royce she’d seen racing the train back on Friday (it felt months ago now). The roof had been folded down, and its three occupants could be seen more clearly. One of them, a huge barrel-chested man with curly grey hair that he somehow seemed too tall for, was bickering with his companion, a short fellow all too reminiscent of an over-energetic puppy. The driver, insofar as his face could be seen behind his floppy hair, looked rather fed up. She couldn’t hear much of their bickering over the racket of the engine, but she could have sworn she heard one of them refer to one of the others as ‘Hamster’ as they passed; then suddenly there was a blast of fumes, foul-smelling and oddly euphoric, and she found herself spluttering.

“Perhaps it’s for the best they don’t allow many of those on the roads,” said a voice by her ear. She jumped in her chair, and turned to see Ollie crouching beside her; a rather perky straw boater was perched awkwardly on his head.

“Ooh! Hello!” she exclaimed, and embraced him as enthusiastically as possible.

“Sorry for surprising you,” he laughed, shrugging her off. “Having a good weekend?”

“Yes, thank you!” It wasn’t entirely true, but she was hardly going to give Ollie the full nine yards, not now. “Aren’t you working today?”

“Technically, yes,” he replied, biting his lip, “but there’s no train scheduled back down the valley until well into this afternoon, so me and the boys are enjoying ourselves.” He beckoned across the road, to where Tom and Percy and a man she vaguely recognised as the stationmaster at Argleton were clustered; the enginemen looked comically surly, especially next to the terminally jovial Mr Montague. All three wore straw boaters; the ribbons around their crowns were navy blue, edged in red. Laura glanced back at Ollie’s hat; his ribbon was twin bands of fetching purple and gold.

“How come you’ve got a different hat, Ollie?” she asked.

“Party colours, isn’t it,” replied Ollie smartly.

Laura sighed, resting her chin on her hand. “When are you going to let this ‘Eurocongress’ fad go, Ollie?” she chided good-naturedly.

“When there’s no borders from one Galicia to another,” he shot back, grinning. This was an old conversation; neither of them expected to convince the other, and neither considered it worth breaking the friendship for.

“Come home, Ollie. Labour’s waiting. Take off that daft neo-Hapsburg symbol and do what’s right by your fellows.”

“Ah, but until we eradicate the centuries of strife that have shattered our continent I’m not doing right by my fellows, am I?”

“But what about the fash, Ollie? The fash!” Laura was grinning ear to ear now; Ollie was as far from a fascist as it was possible to be without starting to come back around again, but it was part of the ritual. As was his response.

“Oh, so Ossie Moz never advocatedv for a national health service, did he?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and they giggled.

“Right, I’d best make a move,” he replied as the last vehicle – a steam wagon in British Railways colours, carrying what looked like a shed on wheels on its flatbed – passed. “Give my regards to your hopeless excuse of a boyfriend,” he joked.

“See you tomorrow, Ollie,” Laura called. Ollie smiled and made to leave, but spun around on his heels.

“Oh – I saw your friend Joanne waiting at the station when we got in. She had a lot of stuff with her; where’s she off to?”

So she’s going already? Said a voice in Laura’s head; there was another twinge of sadness, but it was replaced with a surge of gladness that her friend really was following up on what she said.

“A better place, I think,” she replied. Ollie’s eyebrows raised quizzically, but he knew better than to ask; he raised a hand in parting, and with a smile disappeared into the crowd.

“Ollie says hello,” she said, turning back to the two men at her table.

“Ollie was here?” grunted Toby. “He could’ve at least stopped and said hi, he left without saying goodbye the other morning.” As Henry and Laura looked at each other wide-eyed, he drained his glass. “I’ll get the next one in.”

“Toby, after that stunt earlier you’re getting all of them in…”

The sun was starting to set by the time Toby stood up and stretched in they way that meant he was ready to go; he had to do so very carefully, because there were a lot of glasses in front of him (although Laura and Henry had, diplomatically, switched to soft drinks after their second shandy).

“Well, I’m just about done,” he announced.

“I think we’d best get going too,” replied Henry. “What do you say, lassie?”

“Sounds good to me,” Laura said, “though I wouldn’t mind getting something to eat on the way home…”

“Sure!”

“Take care of yourself, kids,” drawled Toby, slinging his jacket around his shoulders, “now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a certain guard I think needs to explain himself to me.” He waved languorously at them, and sauntered off in the direction of the station.

Laura wrapped her arms around her boyfriend and cuddled him softly. “Anything you fancy?” she whispered in his ear.

“Well, I was just thinking about food, but if you’re offering…”

“I was talking about food, you twerp,” she laughed.

“Oh, well in that case I’m not fussed,” he replied, grinning. “But on the way home, I want us to talk about this ‘city’ place you live in…”

Laura smiled, and hugged him tighter; in the golden light of sunset, she felt as though she was gleaming.
 
I do like the description of the lital rituals between friends, which would be utterly innapropriate between strangers, like calling someone a "Fascist". Also "Neo-Hapsburg"? Are you letting some AH slip back in? For shame, I shall have to cancel my subscription!
 
Monday (night)

The record needle found the runoff groove, repeating the same sequence of patterned silence seventy-eight times per minute. After a moment, Laura swung herself off the couch and walked over to the record player.

“Any preferences?” she asked, carefully picking up the shellac sandwich of ‘We Are The Pipettes’ and sliding it back into its polka-dot-patterned sleeve. She heard Henry scratch the three days’ growth of stubble on his chin.

“Nah,” he said after a moment, “go with what you want.”

She regarded the stacked records thoughtfully. A rather battered Professor Jones & the Philadelphia Experiment record was lying on top; she picked it up and considered it meaningfully. Professor Jones was probably her favourite artist, but his brand of ‘kook-soul’ was a bit too similar to the Pipettes’ Northern Soul, and she fancied a bit of a palate-cleanser.

Beneath that, though, was the perfect choice. She smiled, lifted the copy of ‘#1 Record’ from the pile and, removing it from the sleeve with a care that verged on reverence, placed it on the turntable and set the needle down.

She paused a moment, and turned as the chiming jangle of electric guitars poured out of the speakers. Henry beamed at her.

“Now you’re just playing favourites,” he joked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Laura teased, “I quite like the Beatles, you know.”

“When I first met you, you tried to jam pencils into your ears every time you heard them.”

She frowned briefly as she sat down beside him. “Well, mayyy-beee your adoration of them might have rubbed off on me after all these years.”

She saw him looking at her, a foil-thin veneer of annoyance masking his struggle not to laugh, and scrunched up her face at him. He reciprocated mockingly, and they collapsed in giggles. She flopped over gently into his lap, shuffling so that her head was resting on the arm of the sofa and her shoulder-blades were resting in the groove between his thighs. It wasn’t the most comfortable arrangement for her – nor, she suspected, for him – but it was how they had always sat together when they sat together like this. She felt him shift his leg as the weight of her body bore down upon it, and heard him grunt in discomfort as he always did, but then her eyes met his and he smiled in a way that made her insides flutter.

“I’ve missed this,” he said; she felt an imperceptible shift against her arm that suggested he was thinking of the physical, but it was nothing compared to the flood of undercurrents in his voice that spoke of so much more. She smiled contentedly and closed her eyes for a moment.

“You know what I really like about this album,” she said, looking up at the ceiling.

“It doesn’t sound like the Beatles?” he replied cheekily.

“Well, I was gonna say Ringo’s voice, joker,” she said, flexing one shoulder-blade viciously and being rewarded with a satisfying ‘oof!’ in response. He glared at her, but she was being playful and that was reflected in his ever-so-slight smile; they settled again. “Why did they change stuff up so much?”

“I must’ve told you this a hundred times…”

“Yes, but I like to hear you tell it. It’s why I keep asking.”

He laughed. “You are so sad.”

“Hey, you’re the one sleeping with me.”

He ruffled her hair gently. “This was right after they had that bad accident on Route whatever-number-it-was, I can never remember, in Alabama in 1965. John had injured his throat and Paul was suffering from shell-shock, so neither of them felt like singing, and Ringo had broken his leg really badly and couldn’t play drums. They didn’t want to travel back home because they were all a bit nervous about getting back on the road, so the label booked them into a little studio called… um…” he grimaced and looked at the ceiling. “Muscle Shoals – that was it! Anyway, the two guys who owned it were a producer and session musician, so one of them produced it and the other played organ on it; they found a guy called Keith Moon who was on tour in America with some no-mark band called the High Numbers. So John and Paul started writing some songs specially suited for Ringo’s voice, and George got his twelve-string out, and… that’s basically how it happened.”

“I like that story,” Laura said into the silence between tracks.

“You can read a better version in most music magazines about twice a year.”

“I know, but I like the way you tell it.”

There was a moment of contented silence that coincided with the twinkling intro of ‘Walking Along McLemore’.

“So,” he said, stroking a thumb gently across her temple, tickling the hairline, “when I come up next month, where are you going to take me?”

Laura stared at the ceiling; she felt the corners of her mouth tug upwards. “Well, I was thinking we could go back to that little Indian place we went to last time you visited.”

“Ooh, I’d like that,” Henry replied enthusiastically. “Do they still do that curry with the cheese?”

“I’d imagine so.”

“Yesss! Where else?”

“Well, there’s a very nice book-shop just around the corner from work…”

“Book-shops are good. Especially if they sell my books.”

“Now I think about it, I’m not sure they do.”

“Oh, well…”

She giggled again, then grew serious as a thought nudged its way to the front of her mind. “Are you going to have enough time to come up every month – you know, with the book?”

He frowned for a moment. “I should be – frankly, if I can’t manage that, this book probably has more serious problems to worry about.” He looked at her sadly. “I probably should’ve taken more time out before now… I’m sorry, Laura.”

“You don’t have to keep apologising,” she said quietly. “It’s not like I haven’t been focusing on my career to the exclusion of virtually everything else…”

He smiled again. “We’re not going to do each other any good sitting here blaming ourselves. Look at the positives – from now on we’re going to make a real effort to see each other on a regular basis, at least once a month. We might actually be able have something that resembles a real relationship again.” He booped her on the nose half-jokingly with his finger. “And don’t go beating yourself up if I end up visiting you more than you come back home. After all,” his eyes sparkled, “it’s not like I’m working a nine-to-five here.”

“Don’t boop me on the nose,” she said, raising a finger in mock-admonition.

He laughed. “Have you packed yet?”

Laura shrugged as much as she could with her shoulder-blades wedged into her boyfriend’s lap. “Nah. I’ll do it in the morning.”


“If there’s anything I can do to help…” Henry didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to; she beamed at him gratefully.

“I’m so lucky to have you,” she said, raising an arm to clutch his shoulder.

“And I’m so lucky to have you,” he replied.

What happened next was surprisingly smooth for such a complicated movement; she raised herself to kiss him, and he lifted and supported her, and they stayed like that for a long time. Across the room, the record needle found the runoff groove, repeating the same sequence of patterned silence seventy-eight times per minute.
 
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