Food music

Sue unplugged the portable radio, forcing the bent telescopic aerial to retract with a little more emphasis than was strictly necessary. The black and white bankers’ box had slowly filled with stuff throughout the morning as she went about the business of decanting her desk. I watched her as she balanced up the probability of being able to squeeze this last item in, decided against it, jammed the lid on the box and plonked the radio down hard on top.

“You won’t miss this, will you?” she asked me, gesturing at the small silver stereo now resting quietly at a jaunty angle. I didn’t really know what to say. It’s not that I dislike music – far from it – but I was probably a student avoiding essay deadlines the last time I listened to it regularly while working. When singing along in my car, out for the evening or at a gig, yes, absolutely, and the louder the better. But when I’m working, lyrics zap my concentration away and I flounder even to put one word in front of another.

Quite why Sue had left it to her last day in the office to ask me whether I liked music on or not was probably down to her (accurate) assessment that I didn’t. And in the spirit of never asking a question to which you don’t actually want to hear the answer, she’d not asked throughout the entire six months that we’d sat opposite one another. And now she had asked, I wasn’t going to answer anyway. Instead, I parried it with the deflective counter strike of enquiring if she’d decided yet where she wanted to go for lunch.

I’d never been to the Fruiterers’ Arms before. Located out in the sticks a few miles from the office, Rodmersham is home to a scattering of attractive houses and a fenced off village pond filled with green water. The unmistakable aroma of damp wafted out as we pushed the pub door open, something the presence of an impressive open fire hadn’t quite managed to disguise. We chose a table next to the hearth and sipped our drinks as we pondered over the menu and placed our orders. Aside from an elderly couple supping soup at the bar and two women at the table adjacent to ours, the three of us were the sole customers.

A thin shelf up above head height ran all the way round the walls, providing an exhibition place for hundreds of china plates decorated with patterns and hunting scenes. Spindly mock mahogany tables and chairs grew on top of the dark brown carpet that seamlessly hugged the floor in all directions. In the background, the same song played over and over again, almost hypnotic in its repetition. I was sitting facing the window and some movement in the road outside made me look up from our conversation. A small crowd of perhaps twenty people were peering in. Seconds later, the door opened. A column of grey haired men and women dressed in green and red anoraks and walking boots filed across the room, some carrying walking sticks or staffs.

The food when it came was roasting hot and delicious. Having something of a wolf-like appetite, I ordered a sultana pudding with custard to follow. I couldn’t help but overhear the barmaid explaining the pub’s discount system to the hiking group, now sitting de-sticked and de-anoraked and enjoying half pints of real ale at most of the remaining tables.

It’s always strange when you leave a job. You realise that you might never again walk into what was your office and sit at your desk or see some of the people whom you sat within feet of and passed eight or so hours with every day. You always promise that you'll keep in touch, that you'll pop back to see how things are going. You never do. I helped Sue carry the bankers’ box down to her car and put it in the boot. She placed the portable radio snugly against it. We hugged each other goodbye and I wished her well for her new job that starts on Monday.