(Read this somewhere, about a major human illness/condition that could affect billions of us: 'As scientists pursue a treatment worth billions of dollars, the brutal competition among them poses a serious threat to the traditional ethic of sharing vital research.’ - See, there is a NEED for ideas to be shared. Anyway, that has nothing to do with Magnus and Eileen in Port Brokeferry.)
MAYBE A SECOND DATE FOR MAGNUS
Magnus sees Eileen in the street. He is just about to go into the bank. He feels in his pockets for the keys. He stops when he sees her. He brightens. Magnus can’t help smiling at seeing her. She is neither late nor early. She smiles at him and asks him how he is.
Magnus has a whole speech rehearsed. Learned by heart. There are things he wants to say. He has practised in front of a mirror. Said the words out loud. The words desert him now. He only nods and says he is fine.
Eileen fiddles with her hair. One loose lock of it. Pulls it again and again through her fingers. Magnus read somewhere something about that, how a girl playing her hair through her fingers is a message to the man she is talking to. He watches her tuck the strand behind one ear, a quick and easy movement of her index finger.
‘See the fair is here,’ she says.
Magus looks to the other end of the town and the trucks parked there. He wonders why she mentioned the fair. Maybe he is supposed to read something into that, too. Maybe she expects him to invite her to the fair when it opens. He could do that, he thinks.
He nods again. Then it is awkward and he knows he should be saying something. He doesn’t. He reaches into his pockets for the keys. But then does not take them out of his pocket, thinking that might send her away when he wants her to stay.
‘Look,’ she says.
He is listening.
‘About before, you know…’
He does know. He thinks he does. It’s what he keeps thinking about. It’s why he has been trying to catch her eye in the street ever since. It’s why he has a speech rehearsed. It’s why the words have left him. What he doesn’t know is what she is going to say.
It is awkward again and silent. She looks away towards ‘The Bobbing Boat’. She checks her watch and he can see her beginning to move away from him.
Then he speaks. So quiet at first that she comes back and asks him to say it again.
‘Before,’ he says, ‘it was nice.’
Eileen’s turn to nod. She is smiling, breaking into laughing. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘That’s what I meant. It was nice. It was.’
They are both laughing. Magnus finds a confidence in that and in her agreeing with him. ‘Are you doing anything after work? Maybe we could…’ and he doesn’t finish what he is saying, his mouth having run ahead of his thinking.
‘That’d be great. No, really. Great.’
Callum calls across the road that Eileen will be late if she doesn’t hurry.
She leans in close, one hand on Magnus’ arm, and she kisses his cheek. Then she is gone and in that going is missed again, her hand on his arm and her kiss. Magnus takes out the keys and opens the door of the bank. He punches the number code into the alarm not yet realising that he hasn’t named a time or a place.
Eileen has forgotten to say that she will be later than usual in finishing at the cafe.
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