Straight to You Page 0,7
about half an hour. Thirty minutes of forgettable and yet enjoyable conversation which inevitably worked its way towards the subject of my marital status and what we were going to do about it. Rebecca seemed to enjoy making plans for me and usually took a while to be convinced that my attitude (all good things come to those who wait) would ever find me a partner. I said, jokingly at first but then with some seriousness, that there was little point in trying to find the perfect woman when she was sat next to me and already married to someone else. Becky smiled but she did not reply and I wondered what she was thinking.
'I've got to get back,' she said at almost a quarter to two.
'It can't be that time already,' I whined, desperate not to have to go back inside.
'It is. Anyway, I've got to go to the supermarket before I go back so I'll have to go now. Are you coming or are you going to stop here for a while?'
The thought of fighting my way through a building packed with hot, sweaty and angry shoppers did not appeal to me.
'I'll stop here a little longer. I'll call you later.'
Becky smiled, collected up her things and walked away from me towards the park gates. When she was about a hundred yards away, she turned and waved and I wondered how my life might have changed if things between us had been different.
As I watched my friend leave, I heard the sound of approaching footsteps crunching towards me through the layer of dead leaves on the ground. I turned to see who was coming and was blinded for a moment by the brilliant sunlight. I shielded my eyes and saw that a shuffling figure neared. Uninvited, the figure stopped next to me and I looked up to see a gasping, wheezing old man stood at my side. Before I was able to protest or move away, he sat down.
'It's too bloody hot!' he coughed as he lowered himself to the ground.
I was about to get up when he grabbed my arm with one outstretched hand. Despite the heat, I saw that the man still wore full winter clothes - thick trousers, boots, a heavy overcoat and even a hat and scarf. I looked across into his aged face and watched as a heavy bead of sweat ran down the creased and wrinkled skin of his forehead before trickling down the bridge of his nose and hanging precariously between his nostrils. As I stared, unable to look at anything other than the overbalancing drop, he wiped it away with the dirty sleeve of his coat and sniffed.
'It is warm,' I said meekly, eventually remembering to reply to his comment.
'Do your know what I think?' he whispered as he took off his cloth cap and ran a trembling hand through the yellowing strands of silver hair which clung greasily to his sweaty scalp.
'What?' I asked politely, forcing myself to prolong a conversation with a character who I was becoming more and more wary about with each passing second. The man leant towards me.
'I think it's the end.'
'The end of what?'
The old man paused for a moment and looked around to make sure that no-one else was listening. I tried to pull away from him as a dry smell, which seemed to be made up of equal parts of stale sweat and urine, wafted towards me.
'The end of the world!' he said in a hushed, secretive tone.
I fought hard to control myself and not laugh out loud but could not prevent a broad smile from spreading across my face. While I hoped that the man would not take too much offence, I hoped that he would be able to understand and accept my disbelief and leave me alone.
'It's all right, son,' he continued, unabated, 'I can see you've got your doubts and I can't blame you for that.'
I sat in a stunned silence at the man's side, trying to work out how I could escape from him and becoming quickly convinced that the brilliant sun had tanned his brain as well as his weathered skin.
'What makes you so sure then?' I asked. I instantly regretted speaking and I knew full well that I tempted fate with every second that I stayed sat next to the old man.
'I've got a feeling in my gut,' he replied slowly. 'Call it intuition if you like, but when you get to my age you can