Wednesday 5th October

It was all a bit of an accident, Phil meeting June.  He had always felt a bit useless when it came to the opposite sex – not his strongest suit, chatting girls up and all of that.  He just seemed to clam up when it came to the speaking bit; always hesitated that bit too long, then before he knew it someone else had snapped her up and as she got up to dance with someone else he was left a bit surprised and wondering how on earth that had happened.   Except for Joyce, that is.  He had been going out with Joyce for almost a year, well ‘going out with’ was pushing it a bit; they just sort of hung around together.  But Joyce was easy to talk to, not a ‘looker’ at all.  She was a bit stodgy, quite squat and wide in the beam, with short dark hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses which she seemed to peer out at the world from.  No-one else was sniffing around after her, so it left the field clear for Phil; they would often be the ones left in their chairs when every once else had jumped up to dance to some jazz combo that were blasting it at a College dance, and so the two of them, maybe more out of embarrassment than desire, ended up attempting to jive along with everyone else.

Not that he was that successful at all, even with Joyce.  He could talk to the girl but was too nervous to actually do very much else, and besides she was a Christian.  Well, of course everyone was, but Joyce was the real thing, an absolute God-fearing Christian who informed Phil in no uncertain terms that she wanted above everything else to be a virgin on her wedding day. ‘Come to think of it’ Phil thought later, ‘Why on earth would she actually tell me, a fellow, that?  Could it be that despite the words she spoke it was actually some sort of a come-on; that she wanted him to fuck her after all?  Or be slapped down in the attempt, of course.’  The trouble was Phil had taken her at her word and not even bothered.  He had not even really considered her in a sexy way at all, and her saying that about wanting to remain a virgin had so closed off that avenue anyway that it was a relief – because Phil didn’t think that he could have actually done it with her, not without considerable encouragement and not a little alcohol, which second of course may have defeated the first.

He didn’t know what his friends were thinking, maybe they reckoned that they were fucking like rabbits, who knows – but they certainly weren’t.   Phil wasn’t fucking anyone, and hadn’t even come close either.   A couple of drunken gropes at parties, but either his poor knowledge of female anatomy or poor brain-hand co-ordination had left him no further down the road to discovery of the female body.  And like every young man he was desperate to do it, it was almost a hurdle he had to clear just to prove to himself that he was a man (some sort of equal to his father, maybe) and not a boy anymore.  He had even thought about going to a prostitute, but either through a lack of courage or money, or even knowing how much of either he would need, had given that up as a bad job too.  He was becoming resigned to a life of celibacy and wanking until the right girl came along, and then he hoped all that side of things would somehow take care of itself.  And amazingly it did; it happened just like that.

*  * *

June noticed him across the pub in Ipswich as soon as he walked in.  He was with another young chap and a couple of much older smartly dressed men, who seemed uncomfortable with the very idea of going into a pub at all, looking embarrassed as they shook the rain off their mackintoshes.  They all stood there just inside the door and seemed at a loss as to what to do, until he Phil, pushed through to the counter and ordered four pints of mild and bitter.  Relieved, the other three wandered over to find a table and chairs.  Phil seemed to be waiting for something to happen, a bit bewildered looking, he was staring at the four pints, and the distance across the crowded pub to his companions seemed to perplex him.   June excused herself from her girlfriend Jenny and went straight up to him, touched him on the elbow and said quietly “Would you like a hand with those?”

He turned and saw her smiling at him and, as if he had known her forever, said “Oh yes, that’d be great, you take that one and I’ll manage these two, thanks.”

“But what about the other one?”  June said, nodding at the fourth pint, already sipped, on the bar.

“Oh that’s mine,” he smiled conspiratorially at her and half whispered “I’m drinking mine at the bar, my companions aren’t really my friends at all I am afraid”’

And after they had delivered the drinks and returned to his solitary pint, she said “Well, who are they then, if they aren’t friends?  You all came in together, I saw you.”

“The tall one is my father,” he explained as if they were old friends, “he’s a Doctor, and so are the other two.  I just met them from the Hospital.  They all know each other and are bound to be talking shop. I was just going to quietly drink my pint here by the bar for a bit, you see.” He lifted it to his lips and took a deep sip before continuing “I was in town for a meeting about my own future employment; I’m going to be an articled clerk, in a solicitors’ – you know?  Not far from here.  Stowmarket?  Do you know it?”

“I know of it, but not that well.  Been there a couple of times, not much to do there I thought.”  She leaned in closer and stared into his eyes as she said in what she thought was her best screen goddess voice,  “So, Mr Solicitor, are you from round here then, I haven’t seen you in Ipswich before?”  Whether her Mae-West impersonation resonated with him or not he was simply enjoying talking with this young woman, it was so easy, none of the pressure he normally felt trying to chat College girls up.  In fact he had no idea he might be either chatting up or being chatted up himself, he was just relieved to have someone to talk to, rather than have to join his father and his two colleagues.

“No, I’m the opposition actually, we live in Norwich, well just outside, you know,” he said, referring to the local football rivalry between the towns.  She wondered if he had noticed she was attracted to him, or was he just a bit slow.

“Well, maybe you should get to know some of ‘the opposition’ a bit better – come and join my friend Jenny and I.  We can’t have a handsome strapping new solicitor drinking on his own now, can we?”