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Chapter 2
The bar was clean, stocked up and ready for the evening shift. I left Ron in a rush. He was still trying to work out whether he could legally dock the bottle of tomato juice I'd dropped from my wages.
By three thirty I was standing in the middle of the adjacent park and feeling very foolish. I'd combed my fair hair and nicked a sub from the till in case I had to buy her coffee. I'd also fortified my nerves, against all Ron's rules, with a double whiskey from the bar and then another. I hoped forlornly it would act as a fire retardant to her laser blue eyes and cute curves. This time, against all the odds, I was determined to stay cool.
The sun above was giving the impression it wished it hadn't bothered to come out. I knew how it felt. There was a fountain dribbling away somewhere behind me and some swings dangled limply almost out of sight in the corner. There was some green grass and it had been cut recently. I could just smell it above the fumes of the traffic that careered along a few hundred yards away.
I waited ten minutes and was just deciding that she'd stood me up when a small hand pushed itself into mine.
"Are you Barry?"
I nodded - lost for words again.
A pair of very blue eyes stared up at me from a fresh complexioned face.
"I'm Tommy. My mum said you'd play football with me until she got here. Can you be in goal?"
The boy was about 10 years old and wearing the football kit of his heroes and his mother's very large blue imploring eyes.
The smart brown shoes I wore cost me £120 from the fashionable Kings Road only two weeks before. The mad shopping spree had been finished off with the purchase of some light cream trousers, which I was also wearing.
"Go on! Mum promised."
"How did she know my name," I asked, mesmerized, as I slowly took my jacket off to make a goal post. The jacket had cost me £200 a couple of weeks before and was the other reason I was currently broke.
"She heard your boss yelling at you in the bar. She said to tell you that." He momentarily looked proud that he'd remembered. Then he was away and dribbling the ball in front of him.
"Come on. See if you can catch me!"
We played football until the sun was almost down and it was nearly time to begin work in the bar again. Tommy's cries of joy woke up the park. His shining face told of the serried ranks of applauding fans that he imagined were watching his every sliced kick. His leaps in the air and happy laughter proudly shared his successes with his fellow football stars.
And then, just when I was getting ready to use the contingency plan I had not yet figured out, she was there. She still wore the blue jeans but her hair was down and the red shirt was hanging free over her hips as if she had dressed in a hurry. She looked tired. I noticed the care lines in the corner of her eyes and the droplet of perspiration on her upper lip.
Tommy was exultant. "Barry's not a very good football player. I scored 34 goals. I counted them myself."
"And how many did he stop, Tommy?" She stooped down with a smile and enveloped him in a big bear hug and then looked up almost shyly.
"You must have saved a few to get your trousers into that state."
I realized I was staring at her with a silly grin on my face.
"I've got to go back to work." I blurted out.
"If you can get those trousers off, I'll give them a clean later." The coquette reappeared briefly with a flash of her kingfisher blue eyes.
"You don't need to."
"It's what friends are for."
As I headed off for the bar, I wondered why I had thanked her so effusively and whether I really would see her later. But, even if I never saw her again, I felt absurdly happy ... because Tommy had told me her name ... Jennifer.
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