Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

“He was here a second ago…where’s he gone?” Julie seems mildly irritated and gulps from her water bottle. “Was he?” asks Jemma. “I was talking to Seamus, I thought he was behind us.” We look up and down the road but there’s no sign of Clive.                “Are you sure that he was here a second ago?” I challenge Julie.  I can’t stand vagueness.  “Well I thought he was, but I was walking with Pam.” “So you can’t be sure?” “Well no…” “Oh for goodness sake, who was the last person to see Clive?” I ask. God these people irritate me.  They speak slowly, they think slowly. No wonder none of them have achieved anything in their lives. Everyone looks at each other blankly. A mild look of panic crosses Jemma’s face. She reaches for her phone but can’t get a signal. We all check ours but to no avail. “Someone must have seen him leave the path…he can’t have just vanished.” She tries to keep her voice steady, but I can tell she’s concerned. Blank faces again.  Natasha

After breakfast on the third day, we gather around the metal tables and chairs outside of the hotel. Seven middle-aged walkers, one fit leader, and me. No one is sitting down. The chairs are spotted with raindrops from an early shower. My shorts and tee-shirt are still damp from yesterday’s twelve wet miles, but it’s my feet and shoes that bother me more. Natasha, our leader, makes the route sound interesting. She warns of lung-busting ascents, sharp rocks, and sections where there is no clear path. She tells us we will cope with the extra distance; we are a good group. Good in what way exactly? “It’s a harder walk today, Level Four. Make sure you have plenty of water. It will get hot. I mean hot. There will be no willages until the end. We won’t see single person, unless hunting or collecting honey. The locals don’t walk unless car is broken.” “Hunting? Not with guns?” One of the vegetarians, Diana I think. “Shotguns, yes.” “How horrible. What do they kill?” “Anything. Wi

         He asked her to go to the States with him. Pr actically begged her.   He said he wouldn’t be coming back.   Broadway was calling him. They lay in bed in his apartment as the sun came up over the river and he described the Art Scene in New York and how wonderful it would be for her career.   He said that they could get married first if it made her feel better and she laughed and told him that was an appalling way to propose and she wasn’t the marrying kind.   She said that she couldn’t leave France, her family, her friends.   Her grandmother had always said that a woman should never follow a man anywhere, that it should always be the other way around.   He said he loved her, that he couldn’t bear to be apart from her and if that was the case then he wouldn’t leave, there was plenty of acting work for him here in Paris .          She knew that he must really love her to give up his dreams. So when they met for dinner that evening she’d made up her mind to move to America

Pleats swinging, square heels pick across the school hall She lifts the needle, the music stops. Ageless, yet ever-middle-aged Face pink, scrubbed, brisk, Hair neat from its weekly set She surveys us in our cross-legged rows. The conductor of an orchestra, she opens With an overture of “good mornings” Chorused in unison. She directs, with an eyebrow, The teacher at the piano stool A cheery hymn to sunshine and obedience. One hundred faces raised to hers - Deliverer of stern words, gold stars, boiled sweets, The epitome of school. But then For two summer weeks, a revelation: Marooned in the hall, a single table, set for one, With ceremony, the television set Resplendent on its trolley Is wheeled in place. Unmindful of two hundred wondering eyes, Of clatter and chatter, spills and splatter, Dining alone on shepherd’s pie and treacle sponge But tasting strawb