Keeping up appearances: a short story

1

There have been two times in my life whereby I have been unfortunate enough to have been required to visit the inside of a church, and the purpose of both occasions were funerals. Owing to the fact that there's a second time I'm sure that both you, and I, are smart enough to realise the first was not mine; but details regarding the second visit are, I will admit, slightly sketchy in my memory.

  There was a third time, around nine months ago, when a female friend of mine asked me to photograph her best friends newly born childs christening at a church, too. The sun was shining, and the roads were quiet. It was early morning, and keen I was to explore what buffet the friend of my friend would have prepared at the after event: this can't be all work and no play, after all I thought. Having worked the late night shift the day before, in my menial 9-5 job, there was very little time in the evening, after seeing to the kids, to have to myself; and so I foolishly stayed up late and realised at midnight that I had both an early morning to rise for, and that my camera gear needed charging and cleaning, again.

  I stood leaning against a tree in the churchyard close to the entrance, of which was recessed into a nice carved stone archway. The sun blinded my vision as my friends Fiat 500 turned the corner from the main road, and onto the church lane, but by the time it parked up in the car park I could see that she wasn't alone in her attendance – the invite did say bring a plus one, after all I thought.

  The problem, however, was that the plus one that she had brought along was her long term boyfriend; and whilst I still kept in contact with his girlfriend, it was indeed the case that the last time that Him and I had seen each other was with me running down the high street carrying my clothes and shoes, rather than wearing them, and with his head sticking out the window staring at my bare bottom jiggling down the road non the wiser as to who I was. He only definitely knew that the window was open as he opened the door, and his girlfriend sat fully clothed on the other side, but he didn't know that I was the one that opened it; did he?

  I'd only talked to his?.. the?... our?... girlfriend a handful of times since, but after all only half of a year had passed; and now that summer was on the horizon it felt like the right time to complete my script for the once a year major drama episode: it makes for great writing further down the line, but is so dramatic to deal with in the moment.

  The encounters between Her and I were always short, but always over friendly: the kind where we get two people get overly close at office parties whilst all the other colleagues look on and say "told you so" to their closest work colleagues, but that those two that were involved spend the rest of the year attempting to forget, claiming it was the fault of the booze, that it wasn't at serious as people were making out and that it wouldn't ever happen again.

  We kissed each other in the library for a few seconds, and then her tounge slipped the once: that was a fruity encounter. The the weirdo bookkeeper, whom I'm sure gets off on the smell of freshly printed books, walked by and she fell backwards and fell onto a small round old oak table, and in the process knocked a candle over. The candle caused a book to catch fire, and that section still hasn't reopened; and neither have either of us been allowed back in, but I'm not sure why?

  That day was seven Tuesday's ago: the last time I saw her; clothed, at least.

  The sun warmed my cheeks as her car door opened, and my body temperature rose to unbearable heights. I picked up the backpack containing all of my camera gear, and bore the weight of the two high end professional cameras, and three lenses, that resided inside as I crawled on my hands and knees from tree to tree towards the main road: how she thought bringing both me, and him, was a good idea I'll never know.