Someone special
When she was about 19, Sally spent some time travelling around Ireland. She found herself in a village on a crossroads; on three corners were pubs, and on the the fourth corner a church.
She stayed with a friend in a room in one of the pubs, right above the bar. They tried to have an early night but the noise from downstairs was too much, so they got dressed again and went down to join in.
One of the local lads took a shine to Sally and asked her out. He was dressed up that night in a smart suit, looked very much the young gent - Sally said yes, and he promised to pick her up the following day.
Pick her up he did, in his van, to accompany him on his job delivering gas canisters to remote cottages. Sally sat on an upturned orange crate, which served as the passenger seat, with a small dog behind her panting in her ear. The young lad was now dressed in jeans and a scruffy T-shirt and didn't look nearly so gentlemanly. There were huge holes in the floor of the van through which Julie could watch the road whizzing by.
At every cottage they stopped at for deliveries, the young lad would jump out and carry a gas canister to the waiting housewife, who would nudge him, point at Sally waiting in the van, and ask him if he'd found someone special.
It turned out he hadn't, because when they returned to the town he disappeared very quickly and Sally was left to herself once more. Not that she minded - he wasn't great company anyway.
Labels: writing
