Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

I leave the house and bury my cold hands in my coat pockets immediately.  My breath steams in the frigid air, and the returning inhaled icy breath shocks my lungs, nearly making me cough.  I’m almost tempted back inside for another hot coffee, but I’m pulled back by the magnetism of the place. Walking gingerly on yesterday’s slush, now glistening and rock hard in the watery, early morning light, I walk down to the footpath that leads through the fields.  With each footstep I take, I slip a little on the ice, and it feels like hard going even though it’s a route I’ve taken hundreds of times, a path burned into the neural pathway in my brain. The path up through the field crunches under my feet - frozen ice and grasses alike giving way at each step.  How silent it is! - no traffic sounds to break the stillness of early morning, not even a hardy dog walker, with their charge wrapped up against the cold. This liminal space is mine for a little while longer. I reach the r...

“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.” S...