What about us? Read Online Free Page A

mine; something else I could understand.
    We didn’t ask each other
questions, like; so what do you do for a living then? Or what films do you
like? Which bands do you listen to? We didn’t do any of that.  We talked about
what it would be like to be a dolphin or a seagull and wondered what it must
have been like for prehistoric man to walk along this beach.  What he would
have seen and what would he have been hoping to catch for his supper.  We
looked for messages in bottles, but didn’t find any, so instead imagined what
we might write if we were stranded on a desert island.
    “I think I’d say, ‘leave us
here’.” he said thoughtfully, squeezing my hand.
    “But what would we do without
fish and chips?” I asked, with pretend seriousness, which made him laugh.
    As we sat on the damp sand, he
recited a poem from memory about the sea.  He said I wouldn’t know it, because
the writer was not well known.  He didn’t know that I didn’t actually know any poems
at all, but it was lovely, listening to the sound of the sea sucking at the
sand and rolling broken shells, while he softly spoke the words of his poem.  It
was clear that it meant something to him and I asked him what it reminded him
of.
    “It will always remind me of
today.” he said, taking my hand and pulling me to my feet.
    I’d got so used to his strange
clothes, that it was only when someone else gave him a funny look that I
remembered them.  Curiosity got the better of me and the question popped out as
we sat down at a small table in a cafe.  “Is there a reason why you’ve dressed
so old-fashionedly today?”
    “Yes.  When my day started,
they were right.  They’ve just become more wrong as the day has progressed, while
the day itself, has become more right than I’d dared to hope.”
    He quickly picked up the menu
and studied it, as though he realised he’d said something wrong or maybe had said
too much.  Either way it didn’t make any sense to me, but I didn’t push it.  I’d
built my own life around secrets that I didn’t want to share and I knew that
feeling; when something that shouldn’t have slipped out, did.  I just shrugged
my shoulders and smiled at the other part of what he’d said.  He was right; the
day was getting better and better.
    I looked around the cafe and
realised it was more of a tea room.  The photos and pictures on the walls
belonged to a different age and they all seemed to be local, because many of
them had the beach or the main street in them.  A few had old cars, but most of
them had horses pulling a carriage or a cart.  The furniture and the wallpaper
complemented the things around us and I wondered aloud, more to change the
subject than anything else and to put him at his ease again.
    “Sometimes, when I’m in a place
like this I think about the people who came before.  You know, in times past.  Were
their lives really so different from ours? Would we have anything in common, or
anything to talk about? I mean if one of them just sort of walked in and sat at
this table right now...”
    As I stopped speaking I turned
back to face him and saw that he was staring at me with a strange look on his
face.  I realised that instead of changing the subject, I’d inadvertently
stumbled onto something that made him more uncomfortable, but I couldn’t have
said what it was.
    “I’m sorry, I prattle on
sometimes.” I said quickly, wanting to kick myself for spoiling such a nice
time.
    “Don’t be.  I’m the one who
should be sorry.  I shouldn’t be here.” he said sadly.
    “What, here in Margate or here
with me?”
    I think I already knew the
answer before I’d finished speaking.
    “Both, I suppose.” he replied.
    “But you came looking for me.  I
never expected you to, but you did.  Why did you come, if you shouldn’t be with
me today?”
    I could feel my eyes brimming with
tears and with each word I said everything got more blurry.  I didn’t want to
cry, so I was fighting