Three Seasons by Mike Robbins

Author:Mike Robbins [Robbins, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780991437467
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Terry’s last offence before leaving the airfield was to swing his car across the grass runway that ran parallel to the tarmac one, blissfully unaware that it was a runway, and that the pilot of an ageing Beechcraft was hurriedly shutting down his cockpit check procedure on his sudden appearance. He swept out along the gravel roads on which Bedford one-tonners had carried the quaking nineteen-year-olds bound for the Ruhr nearly half a century earlier; and then he took the long route home, dodging down every country road he could find.

After an hour or so of trying to induce four-wheel drifts around blind bends, saving the council verge-cutters much labour, he felt a little better. He pulled up outside a pub on the Wantage road, where a couple of whiskies improved his mood further; he followed these with a pint or two of beer and would have taken on Joe Louis in his prime.

He started to plan his evening.

There was a phone in the bar and he went to it, to find to his fury that it didn’t take phone cards. He begged a fistful of change from the bored barmaid and returned to find that someone was now using it.

He stood close behind the middle-aged man who was talking and moved backwards and forwards scuffing his heels, so that at length the man turned round and said:

“Give us a chance, will you?”

“Well there’s only one phone.”

“Yeah, and I’m using it.”

Terry sat on the back of one of the deep-plush benches nearby and continued to fidget, scuff his heels, clear his throat and occasionally, for good measure, emit a long, soulful sigh. Eventually the man put the phone down and walked out of the bar without giving Terry a second glance.

Terry started to make his calls. To his annoyance, several of his acquaintances were busy that evening. But before long he had a foursome arranged in the city. And he’d persuaded someone else to drive.

“But I was going to watch West Side Story this evening,” protested Eileen.

“We can video it.”

“It’s not the same,” she said sullenly, avoiding his eyes.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to go out, or what?”

She shrugged and went off to make the tea, broken.

“He’s picking us up at seven-thirty,” he called after her.

Kevin and his girlfriend turned up just before a quarter to eight. The four of them climbed into the Volkswagen Golf and headed off into the evening sunlight, Eileen clad in tight pants and a tee-shirt with the name of a university on it, Terry in a collarless leather jacket and a new pair of pre-faded jeans. He sat in the front beside Kevin, a rep for a mainframe supplier.

“How did the gliding go today?” asked Kevin as they swept round the roundabout above the bypass.

“I’ve jacked it in,” said Terry.

“Have you?” Eileen was surprised.

Terry ignored this.

“You fed up with it, or what?” asked Kevin.

“Yeah. There’s an awful lot of waiting around and I just got bored,” said Terry. “I reckon aircraft are the thing, anyway.

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