Love: A Messy Business Read Free

There only was one van that I saw.  I was out in the front garden doing my weeding all day, apart from a few toilet breaks. My prostate, you see…”
    Except to grimace sympathetically, Kate ignored the final clarification, which she felt fell under the category of “Too Much Information”, and continued to press for more details.
    “Really?  That’s odd, don’t you think?  The place will be half-empty…”
    Fred scratched his chin. “Maybe they’re those folk who they say are “house poor”, you know – they’ve spent all their money on buying the house and now they can’t afford to put any stuff in it.  Mind you, they’ve got enough money to buy a fancy car – nice blue Range Rover he was driving.”
    “Who?” 
    “Who do you bloody think? The new owner of course!  He was just arriving as I was setting off to come here.  Only a young chap, a lot younger than I expected.  Can’t be more than thirty at most by my reckoning.”
    “Really? That’s interesting.  Well I bet he’s either moving in with his parents and they’ve sent him on ahead to get things ready, or else he’s married an older woman and she’s bringing the kids later.”
    “Well now’s your chance to find out.  He’s just walked in.”
    Kate’s head turned violently and involuntarily to the door and she saw Colin Love for the first time.  Kate would always deny that it was love at first sight, but right from the start she saw that there was something about him.   Hovering just outside the doors that he had barely managed to squeeze through, he had the air of a relieved newborn that had just emerged uncertainly into the world after a particularly difficult labour.  He stuck out like a sore thumb; probably feeling very much out of place in a room full of strangers, some of whom were now staring at him with curiosity and one or two with a little bit of hostility.   It had likely been quite a while since they had seen someone in their pub wearing a suit, complete with a waistcoat and it must have seemed a bit of a breach of working class etiquette.
    Colin made his way to the bar – after all where else would a visitor go in search of a welcoming face and a drink to hide behind?  However, it wasn’t Kate’s face that he first made eye contact with and he reddened profusely at the sight and seemed not to know quite what to say or where to look.  Kate found that quite amusing and even a little endearing.  There was nothing she liked better than to get a man on the back foot.
    “Evening, love.  What can I get for you?”
    Colin looked blankly at Kate for a second or two, seemingly trying to digest what was really a very straightforward question to be asked by a barmaid in a pub.   Then his confused look broke into a smile.
    “Oh, of course!  I’m so sorry. I’ll have a pint of…what’s that you have there?  Stella Artois?  That would be just perfect. Thank you.”
    If Colin’s unusual attire had not given the game away, what came out of his mouth certainly did.  He was not “from round these parts” as the locals would say.  He was, they would have said with a certain amount of distaste, a Southerner. 
    Kate, however, said nothing but simply smiled, nodded her head and reached for a pint glass from the shelf above her head. 
    Colin obviously felt he should explain his delayed response to her question.  “I do apologize for my hesitation just now.  I was thrown by the fact that you seemed to know my name already.”
    “I did?”
    “Yes!  But then I realized you were calling me ‘love’, like you people do up here - not Love with a capital L.”  Colin motioned the shape of a letter L with his hand as if to make the point clearer, but all that was clear was that Kate was not following him at all.
    “Love!  My name’s Love, Colin Love.”  He reached his hand out over the bar to shake hands.
    “Oh, right!  I see!” said Kate. “That’s so funny!” She then realised that this might be