This was going to be an entry for the Winter Festival competition, but for numerous reasons it was not possible to finish it on time. However as I liked the story I decided to finish it and submit as usual. If you enjoy reading it please vote and try reading some of my other stories.
*****
It was Christmas 1999, five months after Annie, the love of my life, had died. I wasn't doing widower-hood well, I was a grumpy, angry, lonely man. Pancreatic cancer is like an assassin with a stiletto - silently, unnoticed it creeps up and kills. It killed my wife so quickly that I had not had the time to come to terms with Annie having cancer before she died.
Now I had to live with all the words I wished that I had said to her. Had I really told her how much I loved her? Could I have spent longer with her. Did I have to do those things that I did during her last days - I should have spent more time with her, All those regrets haunted my waking and some of my sleeping hours. If I made myself a mug of coffee often I would brew a cup of tea for her before remembering Annie was no longer there.
I could have spent Christmas with Annie's kids, I had the invitations but I preferred to be alone. Alone with Benjy, my dog. Every day Benjy and I would get into the camper and drive from home to the beach, five miles there and five miles home. We would park, then walk across the dunes towards the beach. These dunes are full of industrial archaeology as they were the site of what had been, a large explosives works.
Walking I would of course meet other dog walkers. Single men like myself, morosely wrapped in a world of their own. Women walking packs of dogs for the local Dog Rescue home. Other women walking other people's dogs. And of course lone women walking their own dog. Usually we would pass one another barely saying more than a couple of words of greeting, sometimes if the dogs were off the leash and playing maybe a few more words would be exchanged, but not real social intercourse - nothing too personal.
Christmas eve, about two thirty it was cloudy, the sun already dipping to the south western horizon. Benjy was chasing over the hillocks accompanied by another lurcher. Good he'll get a decent run, I thought. "Ally... Ally..." I heard a woman shouting. I looked about quarter of a mile away on a hill a woman stood calling. The lurcher turned and began running in the direction of the woman, Benjy turned with the other dog. I was going to call Benjy, then thought what the hell! - let him have a run. I knew Benjy was friendly towards other people and other dogs.
Slowly I walked in the same direction as the dogs had run. Both dogs were on the hill not running to the woman but running with one another. Once again I briefly pondered if I ought to get a second dog, but one dog was more than enough.
"Hi." I heard a woman say.
I was startled. I had not realised that the woman had walked in my direction, breasting a fold of the dunes, we were suddenly less than thirty yards apart. "Oh hello." I replied
"Ally seems to ave made friends with your dog."
"His name's Benjy."
"Ally seems to have made friends with Benjy."
"A run does them good." I answered. By now I was scrutinising the woman, she was younger than me, I reckoned under the bulky Parka she was probably quite slim, although all togged up on a winter's day she looked like a Michelin woman - I probably looked the same.
Her next words violated the unwritten, code of dog walkers, "shall we walk together?"
Stunned, (this was the longest dog walking conversation I had held since Annie died), I said. "May as well."
"So I know your dog's called Benjy, you know my dog is called Ally, and for your information my name is Sue."
"My name is Nicholas usually shortened to Nick."
"I've seen you down here quite often."
"It is a good place to be."
"Your always alone."
"I've got the dog."
"No family?"
"Not since Annie, my wife died."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be it wasn't your fault." I said a bitter tone betraying my annoyance at that phrase, my eyes were prickling - and it was not the wind.
"Sorry because I did not mean to upset you. I guess it was recent."
"Five months ago - last July."
"No other family."
"No Sue no family. No one at all. What about you?"
"A husband, three kids and the dog."
"So where are they now?"
"At home - this is ME TIME. A time for myself. Tomorrow Christmas day I will not have a minute to myself, until that is I take Ally for a walk."
Suddenly it grew really dark and at that moment the heavens opened. This was not a shower, it was a deluge of Biblical proportions. The wind rose, driving the ice cold rain at us horizontally. Even my rainproof jacket was sodden. In moments the rain had soaked me to the skin.
As one we turned, taking the shortest route back to where everyone parked. "This wasn't forecast," she said.
"Some light shower." I replied, quoting the forecast, "scattered light showers".
"I am wet through and freezing too," she said.
"Your a poet and don't know it."
"My kids say things like that."
We passed an old chimney and I could see the camper. "Coffee next, would you like one?"
"No I haven't time to go anywhere, and not when I am wet like this." She answered.
"No not going somewhere, I mean I am making the coffee in my camper."
"Oh is that you?"
