English Tuition Manchester and Bolton: The Roman Centurion-Janet Lewison

She first saw him one Sunday afternoon  amongst her  magnolias. She had finished with the paper and was sitting as neatly as she could (angles were important to her) in the corner of the garden where all the pets were buried in rows. Each Sunday she would remember each pet and the plants above them, trying to see if the concentration involved would make her cry deeply and freely again.

So she had just got to Timothy who was beneath some sprawling pink bush, when she noticed a short figure step out through the fence whistling, wearing dark muddy sandals. He nodded quickly at her and turned his head as if checking whether he had been followed. Then he strode forward and held out his more than capable hand.

‘Titus’ he suggested, in a lilting cavern-deep voice.

Naturally, Maggie let out just one pearl shaped  tear and swooned.  

It wasn’t everyday you  met a perfect Roman Soldier whilst thinking of the dead.

(What -if -indeed, you might say, what if….).

This centurion was resourceful enough to catch her up in his burnished arms and  to press his firm thumb against her cheek. He caught at  the  lovely wetness, anointing her forehead with a sign; smiling as only lonely ghosts can once they find their way home, though who was the real ghost here, no one would ever  be able to quite make up their mind. 

So it began.  There in her sloping  garden, in full view of her much missed pets…

The time differences between them caused problems initially of course, but Titus  was a very flexible man, having campaigned for three trying   years in Dacia. And love was far, far  better this time around as she would sing in his ear and her small blue car, not least because he was so surprising.

He would appear through walls at any time carrying tiny gifts of pottery and shining stones, even an amber heart: all he declared on one knee, for the love of her and Rome.    

Mud calmed her these days.

 She had pledged to read the Fall of the Roman Empire before he came back from Gaul. She pledged a lot of things nowadays.  

Everyone at school seemed to think she had something going on with the OU as her free  weekends were spent breathlessly 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 or ancient. 

”Bar-do-lino” she breathed to the count of three. Another pledge…

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 thankfully.  And really she couldn’t find a way of talking about Titus without making their relationship seem just 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 long  recuperative trip to Kendal.

Not for the first time, Maggie 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.

Maggie  excused herself and headed for the cool white tiled toilet at the back of the shop. She watched the lemon wall carefully checking for any  sign of Titus. He did love to surprise her. He was so global.  

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 woody perfume, two girls were talking tearfully close by the wash basin. Amy fixed her eyes dutifully on the liquid soap, trying to be as thrifty as her 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 receptive friend who had clearly forgotten what she ever had to forgive.

Nowadays a connoisseur, Amy watched them kiss carefully  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   macchiato . 

 Thank God for Walter Raleigh or was it Francis Drake?

(Unfinished)