her and smiled, “look I got divorced last year so, tell you what,” he grinned as he thought of what he was going to say to her. “Friends want you to get back on the horse, plenty of more fish in the sea and all that crap.” She nodded her head and grinned as she knew what he was going to say next. “So for the illusion for everyone to see.”
“You’re my boyfriend,” she said in a childlike voice.
“And you’re my girlfriend,” he replied.
“You want another beer?” she asked nodding towards is near empty glass.
He nodded and winked at her, “I like a girlfriend who tries and gets me drunk.”
“Dream on.”
Anna came back with the beers and looked at Robbie, “you should go to Scotland, see where your family came from, visit St Kilda.”
“Anna, if you’re having a bad night you can leave, you don’t need to send me half way round the world, I can take a hint,” he replied in a dead pan voice.
“I don’t mean tonight smartarse, I mean in a few months, it will help with the book.”
“Sounds good, I mean, I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“So what’s stopping you?” she replied.
“I will need to sell a lot of books in the shop for one thing.”
She looked at him and smiled, “I will lend you the money.”
Robbie looked at her and realised she was serious, “why?”
“You’re wondering why this crazy woman who you haven’t seen in 25 years is offering to lend you money for a holiday.”
Robbie reluctantly nodded his head, “yeah.”
“Call it not wasting another day, live for the moment type thing,” she picked up her beer and took a very long drink, “call it being,” she grinned, “call it not looking over your shoulder and being afraid to saying something that would result in,” she exhaled deeply and looked around the relaxing atmosphere of the pub, “one day I will tell you,” she shook her head, “but not tonight,” she put her hands up, “if I’m scaring you or, if you want to leave, I will not stop you,” Anna thought for a few moments, “in fact as I run this conversation through my head I’m surprised you are still here, why are you still here?” She looked at him as if studying his face trying to gauge some sort of reaction.
Robbie smiled at her, “because you are Anna,” he shrugged his shoulders as he didn’t know what else to say.
“And I am not scaring the hell out of you right now?”
“Yeah but I’m sure you have a good reason and some day we will look back on tonight and laugh,” he looked about the pub; everyone looked happy, enjoying life.
“I bet Papa John is up there somewhere,” her eyes looked up to the heavens, “and laughing his ass off at us.”
“You know he always thought we would end up together,” he held up a hand, “not that I am saying.”
She nodded her head, “he told me the same, he said he was sad that he would not live long enough to go to our wedding.”
Robbie started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” asked Anna.
“Us,” he shook his head, “we haven’t seen each other in 25 years and within a few hours we are talking about holidays and weddings, what are we gonna do for our next meet up, name our kids?”
“Don’t,” said Anna wearily, her eyes closed is if trying to block out a memory from her past.
He looked at her, there was no need for words as he could see it in her eyes after she eventually opened them. He picked up his glass, “a toast,” she smiled and picked up her glass, “to our childhood summer days, may we remember the past when we look to the future.”
“See when you said Papa John left St Kilda because it was too hard to live there?” asked Anna.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think that would still be the case nowadays with all the crap that modern life throws at you?”
“I’m pretty sure that they had their own problems to deal with, I did a bit of research of the place when I started the book, there was a lot of hard winters so what crops they had often failed, they had to climb down cliffs to get to the birds just so they could eat, medicine and health care were non-existent,” he picked up a beermat and tapped it on the table. “One thing I read that I thought was interesting was that they were a very close community, when they caught the birds they would divide them evenly with everyone on the island, it didn’t matter if you helped or not.”
Anna laughed, “I couldn’t even tell you the name of my neighbour.”
“I think the more technology advances the less we rely on others, our lives are controlled by smartphones rather than smart people, gone are the days when you would ask someone how to deal with a problem, now you just Google your answers or watch something on YouTube.”
“I think you should drink your beer you are starting to sound grown up, we should,” Anna stopped talking and reached into her bag and pulled up her cell phone, she stared at the phone.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” asked Robbie.
Anna kept staring at the phone before she looked up and took in the others around her, but she still never answered the call, her eyes were full of fear, “not again,” she whispered to herself.
“Anna what’s wrong?” asked a now worried Robbie.
“I,” she looked back at the phone as the ringing stopped before her eyes turned towards the sound of laughter, she jumped with fright as her phone beeped at the sound of a text message, she closed her eyes for a few moments before reading the message, the colour started to drain from her face.
“Anna, talk to me, what’s wrong? Who is it?” asked Robbie.
“I need to leave,” said Anna as she stood up and started to put on her jacket.
“Anna wait, what’s wrong? Who was that? Talk to me.” Robbie pleaded.
Anna shook her head, “I can’t,” she looked like she wanted to say more but just shook her head and started to walk away, after a few steps she turned back to Robbie. “Please sit down Robbie, it’s for the best,” she stepped closer to him and put her hand on his shoulder, she smiled weakly at him, a tear made its way down her left cheek, “I always loved you Robbie, remember that, but I have to go, I’m sorry, you have to let me leave.”
Robbie watched her leave, all he wanted to do was run after her, put his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be ok but for some reason he knew it would never would. He sat back down and quietly finished his beer, he looked across the table at the now empty chair and smiled, she had come back into his life for a reason, he just had to work out why.
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