Mud calmed her these days. And she had also pledged to read the Fall of the Roman Empire before he came back from Gaul. Everyone at school seemed to think she had something going on with the OU and her weekends were spent visiting museums where dusty clay soldiers stood around wearing tunics that never moved. Even the mere mention of the word tunic made her rather warm these days and she found herself browsing travel agent windows for a limb- loosening glimpse of anything Italian. Bar-do-lino she breathed.
She tried to talk to her best friend Carla but Carla was in love again and this time with an older man with no hobbies. And really she couldn’t find a way of talking about Titus without making their relationship seem a little unlikely. So she sat neatly as always on a very clean pine chair and watched Carla blush her way through two nights of heaven, one hurtful row and a recuperative trip to Kendal. Not for the first time, Amy wondered whether Carla had ever recovered from the rule of three. Three seemed the main dynamic of her world. Three children, three marriages, three brothers, three topics of conversation, three coffees. Amy excused herself and headed for the cool white tiled toilet at the back of the shop. She watched the lemon wall carefully checking for a sign of Titus. But he was obviously tied up somewhere on a campaign, so she spent the time alone, making sure that she only used two pieces of loo paper and flushed just the once.
Soaked in perfume, two girls were talking tearfully -close by the wash basin. Amy fixed her eyes on the liquid soap, trying to be as thrifty as hygiene allowed. She mumbled an excuse me to the taller girl who was leaning against the dryer and the girl nodded and moved with a flick of her hips into the body of her friend who had clearly forgotten what she ever had to forgive. Nowadays a connoisseur, Amy watched them kiss and decided they were at least an 8/10. Plenty of delicacy and just the right pressure at the right moment with a gratifying surge towards the end. Amy left them to it. Even the word ‘it’ made her smile rather wickedly she thought.
Amy went back to Carla who was texting someone whilst blowing her nose. Amy handed her a tissue and dipped her chocolate mint finger into her coffee. Thank God for Walter Raleigh or was it Francis Drake?
