An Embracement

THREE WOMEN are sitting together in a pub. “I had a bit of a weird one the other night. Right strange, he was,” says the first one, the youngest.

 “Strange how?” asks the second.

 “Well, I’m upstairs in the room, and he comes in and shuts the door. But when he turns round and looks at me, he kind of stops and jerks back, as if he’s had a bit of a shock. So I says to him, It’s all right, darling, you’ll be okay. No need to be scared.

“And he says to me, ‘I’m not scared.’ But he still carries on standing where he is.

“So I says, Come and sit down over here on the bed. It’ll be all right. And he comes over and sits on the edge of the bed, but not near me. And he just carries on sitting there, not doing anything, and he’s kind of giving me these quick, shifty little looks.”

“What was he, not quite right in the head?” asks the third.

“No, nothing like that. He was the respectable sort. Middle-aged, business type. Anyway, I says to him, I says, What’s the problem, love?

 “And he says, ‘You remind me of someone.’

“Someone nice? I says.

“So he waits for a while, then he sighs and says, ‘My daughter. You remind me of my daughter’.

“Oh, I says. I mean, what can you say to that?”

The other two smile.

“Anyway, he tells me that I’ve got his daughter’s colouring – light brown hair, pale

skin, all that. Then he says, ‘I haven’t seen her for a long time. Years. But she’ll be about your age now.’

“How comes you haven’t seen her for so long? I asks him.

“ ‘There were problems between us,’ he says. Though when I asks him about it he’s a bit cagey, he won’t say exactly what kind of problems. ‘The usual father and daughter things,’ he says.

“Well, I don’t know what to say now, do I? So I moves along the bed to him and says, Well, never mind about all that, it’s in the past. What would you like us to do now? So he waits a little while, and then, do you know what he says to me?”

“What?” they both ask.

“He looks me straight in the eye and he says, ‘Could you just hold me?’ ”

“Hold him?” says the third. “Hold him where?”

“No, just hold him,” says the first. “You know – like, a cuddle.”

“Sounds like a weirdo to me,” says the third. “Was he smelly?”

“No, no, like I said, he was respectable. Clean and smart. Had a suit on and everything. Anyway, I puts my arms around him and we’re sitting there on the edge of the bed  having a cuddle. It’s all a bit awkward and I’m like – waiting for him to do something. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything. He just stays like that, cuddling me.”

“Was he doing anything to himself?” asks the third.

“No, nothing. It was just a cuddle. But then after a while I feel something on my back, kind of tickling me. And at first I wonder what it is. But then I realise. It’s tears.”

“Tears? What, he was crying?” asks the second.

She nods. “I had that red dress on with the low back – you know, that nice one. And I could feel the tears on me, like running down my back. Crying he was, and making these sort of choking noises. Kind of sobbing.”

“Must have been doing something to himself,” says the third.

 “No, I’m telling you, it wasn’t like that. He was just cuddling me. Holding me tight.” She takes a sip of her drink. “So I held him tight as well. And then after a while, he says in this sort of choked-up voice, ‘I’m so sorry’.”

“Sorry?” says the third. “But he wasn’t doing anything. What was he sorry for?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what he said. Anyway, I says to him, It’s all right, love. And I carry on cuddling him, and he’s clinging on to me tight, and crying a bit more.

“And then he says, ‘It was my fault. It was all my fault.’

“So I’m trying to think of what I should say to all this, but I just don’t know what. Then all of a sudden, it comes to me, and I just come out and say it, without even thinking it. I say, I forgive you.”

The second one frowns. “What did you say that for?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to say at the time, I suppose.”

The other two look at each other, then look back at her.

“Then what happened?” asks the third.

 “Well, nothing really. He just holds me a bit tighter for a little while longer, and then he lets go and pulls back. But he doesn’t look at me. He gets up, gets his hanky out, wipes his tears away. Blows his nose. Then he just walks out the room, without saying another word. Never even looks back at me. Just walks out. And that was it.” She sips her drink.

There is a pause.

“Have you seen him since?” asks the second.

The first one shakes her head. “I don’t reckon I’ll be seeing him again.”

“What makes you say that?” asks the third.

“I don’t know,” she replies. “I just don’t think I’ll see him again, that’s all.”

She takes another sip of her drink and looks down. She doesn’t say anything, but she has the feeling that there is something more to say about this. Something important, something that should be talked about . . .

Then they start discussing something else, and very soon they’re laughing, and she’s thinking about other things, and the feeling that she had just passes.

Stan says: Stan Riley is old enough to know better, but doesn’t.

He lives Up North with his wife and dog, and somewhere nearby he’s got a couple of adult sons.

He usually writes humorous stories which nobody laughs at except himself.