Whatever you do, don't say the three little words she says back to you.

I met her on one of my regular visits to my local pub - the type of place where everyone knows everyone else’s name. She walked in out of place and out of time; here it’s the same bunch of old pensioners sitting at the same table they have been for the last twenty years. Nobody new walks through that door. We lock eyes as she rests her hand on the back of the chair next to mine. She’s trying to work out if it’s free, or if I’m sitting here waiting for my friend or my ex. There’s a guy playing cards a table away, a couple on their mobile phones sat on another table and an old man smoking a pipe in the corner - she clocked them all before deciding on me. ‘Going spare, love?’ I asked as she sat down. She nodded almost imperceptibly. I don’t remember her name. ‘What’s your name then?’ I asked, smiling my most disarming smile. She looked me straight in the eye. ‘You don’t need to know my name. It doesn’t matter.’ She fairly spat the words out, as if daring me to be offended. ‘Fair enough.’ I said instead. ‘What do you want to order?’ the barman said, approaching her from behind. ‘I’ll just have a soda,’ she said. ‘Me too.’ I said, handing over my empty pint glass, nudging it towards her full one. She looked at it with disdain. ‘No thanks.’ I liked her a lot. ‘No worries.’ I asked her what she did for a living - it was a good conversation starter, and one that hardly ever backfired. ‘I’m a teacher.’ She said, smiling briefly. ‘You’re a student, right?’ I wasn’t. ‘How’s that going for you?’ She asked politely. We talked for hours, and while she was good at deflecting the conversation away from herself, I did manage to work out a few things about her. She had a son fairly close to me in town in university, she was a widow, and she lived alone. ‘How long have you lived alone?’ I asked, finishing my sixth pint. ‘About three years now.’ She said, finishing her soda. ‘How long were you married?’ I followed up. ‘Twenty years,’ she said. A soft smile crossed her face, the first I’d seen that she didn’t look angry at. ‘That’s a long time.’ I said. We’d fairly established that I wasn’t going to be seeing her again. She was too old, too unlikely to be remotely attracted to me. There was only one outcome. ‘What’s the longest you’ve been in a relationship?’ She fairly snapped back, clearly irritated at my invasion of her privacy. ‘Honestly?’ I said slowly, smiling at her. ‘A day.’ The smile faltered as she began to stand up. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s a habit. It’s how relationships work when you do what I do.’ ‘And what’s that?’ She said. ‘I pick up older women at bars and take them home with me.’ I said, with a smile that usually won them over, even when they knew exactly what I was doing. The smile didn’t quite falter again, but it slipped. She looked at me disapprovingly for a second. ‘You know, you’re not as charming as you think you are.’ ‘Neither are you, love.’ She glared at me before standing up and walking away. --- I didn’t expect to see her again, but she walked in on my next visit. I was sat in the same place, with a few friends this time, but she went straight to the bar and ordered herself a soda, her eyes locked on mine the whole time, before sitting down on the table across from me. ‘Alright, love?’ One of my friends asked. ‘Yeah. I think so,’ I said, nodding at her. She nodded back. ‘How did your favourite TM go, did she pick you up?’ My other mate asked, grinning. TM was my nickname - Taupe Man, based on my (apparently) taupe hair and skin. She was definitely my type. I took my coke with me and headed over. ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, before sitting down next to her. She steered me towards the spare seat without answering. ‘So?’ I said, when I’d sat down besides her. ‘What were you doing in here the other night?’ She asked. Her hands were shaking slightly. I hoped she was drunk already and working on getting more drunk - that would make things a lot easier. ‘Just having a drink.’ I said. ‘Did you bring some woman home from here?’ She asked, her eyes flashing. ‘How old was she? How old is she now?’ ‘How old are you?’ I asked. ‘Forty-eight. How old was she?’ She repeated, louder. ‘I didn’t bring a woman home. I’m not going to answer any more questions about myself until you answer some about yourself.’ I snapped, really starting to lose my patience. My friends were watching, confused - I didn’t tell them that we’d met before because I didn’t want to discourage them, but I think they thought she was a friend of mine or something. ‘I really don’t like your attitude,’ she said. ‘I really don’t like your questions,’ I said. ‘Is that why you’re still alive?’ She said. Her voice was raised fairly high now, and people began to stare. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to get weird I’m going to go.’ ‘I’m done talking to you anyway,’ she said, standing up. ‘No more questions?’ I said. I was smiling but she wasn’t. She was angry. ‘I don’t need to ask anything else.’ She looked at me for a long, long moment before walking out. That was the last time I saw her for a long time. --- The next time she walked into that bar I was sat on my own, with my phone, my soda and nothing much to do. ‘So your husband died three years ago, right?’ I said, smiling. ‘How did you know that?’ She asked, sitting down. ‘You told me when we met,’ I said. ‘Oh. Yeah.’ ‘What’s your name?’ I asked. She didn’t answer, instead she started talking about her husband. They’d met in school. They’d married young. They’d had a child young too. ‘Is he grown up now?’ I asked, genuinely interested. ‘Yeah, he lives in the city. I live on the outskirts,’ she said. ‘So how come you were in here? You’re definitely not a local.’ ‘No.’ She said. ‘I was just driving past. I hadn’t been out in a while, thought I’d pop in. I’m glad I did.’ ‘Yeah. Me too.’ I said. We talked for hours again. I didn’t try and take her home. To be fair, I probably could have, but I didn’t want to. ‘So do you have a job?’ I asked once the bar closed. I walked her home, and ended up going in with her. ‘Of course. I told you, I’m a teacher.’ She said. I didn’t remember that. ‘What subject?’ I asked. ‘The children. The younger ones.’ She said. ‘What age is that?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean?’ She asked. ‘Yeah, sorry. When you say you teach children, what ages are they? Are you a primary school teacher?’ ‘I teach small children, under ten.’ She said. ‘OK. Which subject?’ I asked again. ‘I just teach them things they need to know.’ She said. I laughed. ‘Like what? What do you need to know when you’re ten?’ I asked. ‘Just things they need to know.’ She said, smiling at me. I let it go. Maybe it was a game she was playing. Maybe it was a turn on. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t going to get to find out. We went to bed together that night. I was expecting her to kick me out; I think she expected me to leave too. Neither of us did, and neither of us tried anything. We just lay there, her head on my chest, me stroking her hair. I stayed for a while. I stayed for weeks, maybe even months. What a strange, lovely time it was. But whatever you do, don’t say the three little words she says to you. It’s better for everyone if you don’t. When she was getting ready for work, she would talk about her day, and the children and what she had to teach them. It didn’t seem weird at the time, because I was so happy, but when I look back there’s something strange about the way she talked about children. There was something strange about the way she talked about everything. That time was a bubble, a lovely, golden time where nothing bad happened and there was nobody else. She was my world, and I was hers. She was funny and smart and fiery and beautiful and she made my life so much better. ‘I love you,’ she would say. She’d always say it three times. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ ‘I love you.’ I’d say back. I never said it three times, though. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ she would repeat. ‘Thank you. I love you too.’ ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ She’d say again. Whenever I told her

Whatever you do, don't say the three little words she says back to you.

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