Fast Fiction: The Caller
She sat down by his side, close to him, and stretched out her brown legs... Richard Mallinson tells the story of a man who knocks on the door of a remote cottage.
After walking for miles he knocked on the door of a remote cottage. A dark-haired young woman looked out and said, ‘Can I help you?’
‘Please may I have a drink of water?’
‘Wait a moment.’
When she returned with the water she said, ‘Come round and sit in the garden with me.’
He went with her into the garden and sat on a bench. She stood in front of him in her summer dress, which showed off her figure.
‘My husband is working out there in the fields,’ she said, pointing.
The sunlight gilded her. He gazed at her, then looked around.
‘This is a lovely place,’ he said, ‘quite idyllic.’
Smiling at him, she said, ‘I used to be a teacher before I came to live here. I miss it, the teaching, but my husband won’t let me work.’
She sat down at his side, close to him, and stretched out her brown legs. He looked at them and she knew.
‘Next week I’m going to visit my parents in Kent,’ she said.
‘Ah, which do you prefer, Sussex or Kent?’
‘Well, perhaps Kent because I was happy there once, when I was a teacher. It seems a long time ago but it isn’t really.’
They went on talking and when he left she touched his arm and said, ’You are a very kind man.’
No-one had said anything like that to him for years.
At home, he heard his wife telling the children to be quiet or she would put them outside but they merely giggled.
She went into the kitchen and brought him a cup of tea.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
