The Invitation
Posted in Short Stories with tags Helen Grant, Short Stories, Short Story on May 11, 2008 by Helen Grant“Although we don’t know each other, we’re familiar. If this note has you intrigued, meet me at The Loft tonight at 7. If you’re not there, I won’t contact you again.”
The words were scribbled in childish black ink on a scrap of pink paper. Edie scanned them quickly and paled, thinking someone was watching her.
She read the note again. And again. Once more. She read it sixteen times in total until she knew the words by heart.
It was unsigned. A burst of curiosity sprang to life from some dark corner of her psyche, a foolish feeling but pleasant enough. A lazy gathering of butterflies roused from hibernation in her belly. Was this an admirer or a joke at her expense? There were plenty of likely candidates for the latter.
Or it could be a murderer, a stalker, a rapist, someone watching, waiting to pounce, Edie thought, shivering.
“Now you’re being silly!” snapped a romantic voice in her head, “This is for real, girl. Some old fool has got the hots for you!”
Edie glanced down at her scruffy trainers and cringed. Who was she kidding? What kind of fool would want her and her temperamental baggage? Twenty-one years of marriage to Raymond, four kids and two Grandchildren, had rendered her fashion sense somewhat complacent. Gone was the agile, rosy-cheeked young thing Raymond had once nicknamed his Southern Belle. In her place were ripped jeans, a shapeless grey t-shirt, panda eyes and greasy hair scraped back in a messy knot – a far cry from the college girl in bobby socks, full-skirted and slim-waisted, that Raymond had fallen in love with.
She screwed the paper into a ball and hurled it through the open window. She knew all the words anyway. “Probably one of the kids having a joke at my expense,” she cringed. For Paul, her eldest, the village prankster, his Mum’s birthday coinciding with April Fool’s Day was a combination too potent to resist.
Sighing, she cracked two eggs against the rim of the frying pan and watched the yolk mingle with the vegetable oil and fatty juices. The bread heels sprung from the toaster as Raymond thudded down the stairs in heavy boots. What would it be this year? Estee Lauder? The diamond choker she’d been admiring in the Argos catalogue? No - just cheap chocolates and a wink that her official present was en-route. So predictable. So Raymond.
He approached from behind, “How’s the birthday girl?” Before she could reply, he slid his beefy brown hands around the white folds that used to be her waist and nuzzled his minty breath into her neck.
“Any post?”
“Nothing,” Edie lied.
“No cards?”
“Nope.”
“No parcels?”
“Nothing.”
Edie bit back hot tears. Gifts she could live without, but cards were a common courtesy. Raymond shuffled some cornflakes into a white bowl. Edie wiped her hands on a starched towel.
“Any second now, there’ll be a knock at the door and it’ll be one of the kids with an afterthought from the garage,” he said cheerfully.
Edie wasn’t convinced. Scraping a chair across the tiles, she gestured for Raymond to sit. Spreading his arms helplessly, he said, “They’re good kids really, they mean well.”
Edie shrugged. She wanted to point out that he hadn’t given her the cheap chocolates yet, but stopped herself in time. Raymond rubbed the soil from his palms across his
greasy mouth. When he popped a nugget of bacon onto his tongue, it was brown and grimy. Edie winced. Glancing down, she noticed his crotch was more meaty than usual. He must have noticed because he said, “Something take your fancy, Edie?”
He was wearing sloppy jeans and a blue t-shirt with a sulphur-yellow beanie pulled over his ears, concealing the bedraggled black mess underneath.
With the bright-eyed, manic expression of someone who’d been nipping at the brandy, Edie watched him unbuckle his belt. With the grace of a Trojan horse, he pulled a crumpled box of Milk Tray from his underpants and slid them across the table. In the three seconds it took for him to prize them out, Edie made up her mind to turn up at The Loft after all.
When she arrived, she chose the farthest couch from the door. Someone pushed a glass of champagne into her hands and she looked up to see a dickey-bowed waiter smiling sympathetically.
“You look like you need something stiffer,” he laughed smuttily, raising an eyebrow, “Been stood up?”
“No, just early,” Edie barked, smoothing the silk of her dress across her knees. The waiter grinned, “Well, just give me a nod when you need a refill.”
“What are you doing, girl?” she muttered, fiddling nervously with her fringe, “Dressing yourself up like a dog’s dinner, for the benefit of a few words on a scrap of paper. You’ll be the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, after this.” Glancing at her watch, she decided to give it five more minutes before leaving by the side door.
Careful not to smudge her lipstick, she gulped back a mouthful of champagne and looked around herself. Apart from two other people, a middle aged lady in a black cloak with a long auburn braid tied in a white ribbon and an elderly man by the window sporting a tweed jacket and silk cravat, the bar was virtually empty. The man raised his glass and nodded. Edie groaned, “Please, it can’t be …” It wasn’t.
She remembered back to that morning when, bang on cue, Paul had graced their doorstep at ten, with a lopsided grin and frog-like voice hidden behind three feet of lumpy, green foliage. Edie stifled a giggle when she remembered how he’d tripped over the step, chipping a tooth, but had swallowed his pride and joined his Father in their own version of Happy Birthday.
Five minutes later, when her glass was almost empty, Edie strode across to the bar to settle the bill.
“Looks like you were stood up after all, then,” the waiter grinned.
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Edie barked. Half a minute of innuendos later, he was forced to eat his words when a voice appeared at her shoulder, “The traffic was bad, sorry.”
The waiter, pretending to mop up a spill on the bar, gave a little half shrug. Edie noticed his cheeks had flushed purple-pink.
“You look absolutely fantastic,” said the voice.
“Thank you … ” Edie’s hand tightened around the stem of her glass. Hesitating for a moment, she drank in the familiar accent. There was something strangely warm about the twang but she wasn’t sure why because the voice was so quiet. Without looking around, she announced confidently, “I shouldn’t have come, I’m sorry. I’m a married woman with four kids and three Grandchildren.”
“Me too, my sexy Southern Belle!”
Edie spun around to face the noise. It took a few seconds to sink in but when it did, the shock registered clearly on her mouth. There was no sound, just an O shape.
An orchestra belted out a symphony from somewhere outside her head. Swooping his arms into an arc, Raymond burst into a quirky version of Happy Birthday. The waiter, pouring two fresh glasses of champagne, raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he shook his head, laughter streaking his cheeks, “The look on your face!”
“Curiosity got the better of me,” Edie giggled.
“What were you expecting?” Raymond offered an arm.
“Some one else perhaps, a prank probably - who knows? I wasn’t going to come.”
“But you did …”
“You silly old fool! You didn’t have to go to such extremes! The chocolates were fine.”
Raymond chuckled and it wasn’t long before Edie joined in. They laughed all the way to bed that night.






