smile. “I better get going.”
“That’s it?” Michael snapped with surprise.
Samson shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. He lolled his tongue around in his mouth, flicked a stray crumb out of a chipped wisdom tooth. “Pretty much,” he finalised with a nod.
He rose noisily and Michael stood with him. He wanted to demand answers; he wanted to tell Samson that he had questions that needed answers. His anger restrained him. He remained silent.
“It was good seeing you,” Samson declared, patting a friendly palm on his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.”
Michael nodded and sat down, relieved at the closing statement but concerned with what Samson’s definition of soon was.
****
Michael contemplated phoning Jessica all morning, he didn’t want to come across too keen but he also didn’t want her to think he had forgotten about her or wasn’t interested in her.
It had been over a year since he had phoned anyone to ask them on a date and a few years more since he had done it with someone he really liked.
At noon he dialled her number into his phone. He bit his lip, waited for it to ring twice and then hung up. He cursed himself, stamped an annoyed foot on the floor, hit redial and then hung up after three rings.
“Jesus Michael! Get your shit together,” he warned himself.
He hit redial again and pressed the phone to his ear. Jessica answered on the first ring, leaving no time for early hang-ups. She sounded a little annoyed.
“Jessica, it's Michael,” he announced. “From last night?” he added.
Her tone changed in an instant. The annoyance drifted away. She was happy to hear from him and told him so.
“Did you just ring me?” she added.
Michael hummed and hared over the question, telling her, as nonchalantly as he could: “yeah, bad connection, sorry about that.” Keen to divert the subject away from his phone-call jitters he quickly moved on, “I was wondering if you’d like to go and watch a movie, maybe get something to eat, a drink--”
“I’d love to,” Jessica replied almost immediately.
Michael deflated with relief, “Excellent,” he sighed enjoyably.
Michael didn’t drive, it seemed unnecessary. His job never left the town, never extended beyond the dozen square miles that encapsulated the hovel he had been required to call home. He also couldn’t afford a car or the driving lessons he would require should he ever decide to own one. They arranged to meet at a neutral location between the restaurant and their respective homes -- Michael at the B&B on one side of town; Jessica in rented accommodation on the other.
He waited for her outside the restaurant, a small family establishment. The food was strictly Italian but the family were Scottish. As a compliment to their British heritage they served most of their dishes with chips and offered side dishes of garlic mushrooms, drenched in thick oil that bled blackness onto the ceramic and deep fried frozen pizza, a batter-coated behemoth of heart attack proportions.
Jessica arrived by foot and greeted Michael with a smile and kiss on the cheek. Her previously tame red hair had been styled into a cornucopia of twirls and twists on her head, sticking out from all angles and increasing the volume of her head three times over. Michael caught the overpowering whiff of hairspray when she leaned in, but he didn’t mind, she looked great.
A thickset Glaswegian with a permanent scowl and a way of chewing his words before spitting them out took their order. She opted for the fresh seafood pasta. Michael choose lasagne and chips, after all, the sea was a two hour drive away.
“So, you never told me what you do for a living,” Jessica said when the first bottle of wine had been brought to the table with a basket of fresh bread.
Michael had been waiting for this, he was prepared. He had thought about telling her he had a job boring or obscure enough not to warrant further examination, like a trainee accountant. But he doubted he could fake it for very long and it also wouldn’t explain why he was living in practical poverty in the back room of a B&B. It had taken very little thought before he arrived at the simple conclusion.
“Nothing at the moment,” he told her.
She weighed this up with a simple smile and a tilt of her head. “Not to worry,” she declared. “I’m sure something will come up.”
She picked out a bread roll and broke it open, nipping a slice of crust from the top before applying generous portions of