"Name That Tune".
The sun was slipping lower in the sky as they made
their way back to his unremarkable apartment. The light it cast was heavy, the
kind of light you get just before a rainstorm, but the sky remained clear of
cloud.
An afternoon of gin, sightseeing, eating and wine,
combined with the lack of sleep, had them both in dreamy moods. She hung off
his arm, her cheek against his shoulder, as they meandered lazily along the
promenade by the river. Birds watched their wandering from perches high in the
pretty, blossom filled trees and from atop the wall that ran between the
promenade and the old abbey.
They passed by a group of men who smoked French
cigarettes and laughed cordially as they tossed steel boules that sparkled in the
sunlight and exchanged polite bonjours with them. A young man stood by the
stone steps that would take them up to the bridge over which they needed to
cross, an upturned hat by his feet that contained a few coins and a guitar
slung around his neck. He strummed away at it gently, playing a tune neither
recognised.
“Can you dance?” He asked.
“No.”
“Perfect, me neither.”
He broke free of her grasp and pulled her toward
him, taking her hand in one of his and placing his other on her hip. She smiled
up at him and he span her, dipping her and making her squeal with laughter.
They danced, badly, in the spring sunshine and when they’d finished they were
applauded by the boules players, the sudden noise startling a hundred birds
that had been quietly roosting and sending them fleeing noisily toward the heavens. The sound of
their wings flapping frantically added to the applause. He bowed, she curtsied,
they both giggled.
He popped a bank note in the hat as they passed
the smiling busker and they skipped up the steps hand in hand, still humming
the tune they’d never heard.
“Happy?” He asked, squeezing her hand to punctuate
the word. She didn’t answer, she just reclaimed his arm and placed her cheek
back against his shoulder.
“I asked you a question.”
“You asked me a stupid question.”
He turned his head and kissed the top of hers as
the first cold, heavy raindrops of the approaching storm began to fall on them.
They stopped mid-way across the bridge and they kissed as the rain fell faster,
smiling at each other through the kiss as their clothes quickly became sodden.
They’d have stayed their all night, lost in the intimacy, if not for the crack of
thunder that startled them both, the flash of lightning that had preceded it
having gone unnoticed. Hand in hand again, they ran through the narrow, winding
streets as the storm took the light from what was left of their perfect day.
Continue to chapter nine.
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