First and Fiftieth & other stories Martin Foreman Paradise Press     ISBN 0 9525964 7 4     £6.99

Cover the stories: Kitchen Table Night Traffic Basement Pokhara Foucault's Nightmare Homophobia, Darling Cold Silence Los Feliz Judy Ten Million Years The Last Saturday in May Angel First and Fiftieth Ben and Joe's Sunset Afterword Reviews and Readers' Comments Styles Themes to buy copies biography bibliography PARADISE PRESS TRADE ENQUIRIES

Sunset A woman in New England in her early seventies Another fine evening, David. The sky, how beautiful it is. Pale, pale blue with thick clouds like streaks of cotton candy. It’s going to be a wonderful sunset. Remember when we first moved here? I’d be standing here by the window, watching the sun go down and I’d call for you to come and join me. The first few times you did, but it never moved you as it moved me. You had better things to do. Sometimes I wondered if I did too. Then I told myself it was an old woman’s privilege to do what she wanted, especially if what she wanted was to do nothing at all. Besides, why else had we moved here, if not for evenings like these? So I’d keep my mouth shut, sit down and by myself watch the day end. Only these past few months have been different, you here beside me every day, holding my hand as we watched the light fade and the mountains and trees and road disappear. Holding my hand. The first time we ever held hands was on our first date. Coney Island, the roller coaster. I asked you to take me on it. You were not impressed. You were a twenty-eight year old lawyer going places and sitting on some damn fool roller coaster wasn’t one of the places you meant to be. But, like the man you were, you took it in your stride. “Sure,” you said. You were so polite, offering your hand as I stepped into the car. I guess your mother had taught you to treat all women like they were delicate flowers. Well, I didn’t think I was delicate, but I wasn’t going to tell you that. If it made you happy to fuss over me, it made me happy to let you. That day was so hot, the middle of summer. You were sweating and trying not to show it. There was noise all around us, girls giggling and boys shouting, but I didn’t hear any of it. All I heard and saw was you, five foot ten, slim and handsome on the outside, quiet, determined and considerate on the inside. Pigheaded too, but it took me time to find that out. Anyhow, you waited till I was seated and had my skirt tucked safely under me, then you got in, pulled down the safety bar and, without asking, took my hand and held it. I guess you wanted to reassure me. You reassured me all right, but not in the way you think. It wasn’t the roller coaster I was uncertain of. It was you. Of course other boys had held my hand, since I was fifteen. But their hands felt different, like they couldn’t sit still, like they were grasping for something. This is just the start, their hands said. When you’re warmed up, I’m going to slide my arm round and get my other hand on your breast. And once you’ve got used to that I’m heading south, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get a home run. Not that any of them ever got that far, although two or three got pretty close. You can’t blame them. They weren’t the only ones exploring, except it was more difficult for girls. Your body and your emotions are all alive and fresh, pulling you this way and that and you don’t know which way to turn. You don’t know what’s right ― what’s right for you, what’s right for your boyfriend, and most of all what’s right for your parents who you know are sitting up in bed, watching the clock, unable to sleep until you come in. continued in the book...

The inspiration... When I set up this website, I wrote that I didn't know the inspiration for this story. I had forgotten that she emerged from Jacques Brel's La Chanson des Vieux Amants ("The Song of the Old Lovers"). It is, as are so many of Brel's songs, both poignant and a celebration of life. It opens in what I believe is a minor key (apologies for lack of accents): "Bien sur, nous eumes des orages; vingt ans d'amour, c'est l'amour fort". (Of course we had storms; twenty years of love is a love that is strong.) "Mille fois tu pris ton bagage; mille fois je pris mon envol." (A thousand times you picked up your case; a thousand times I took my leave.) He sings of rage and anger and of infidelity and unhappiness, but quietly, with the wisdom of age. And he returns, in chorus after chorus, pleading, promising, acknowledging: "Mais mon amour, mon doux, mon tendre, mon merveilleux amour, de l'aube claire jusqu'a la fin de jour, je t'aime encore, tu sais, je t'aime." (But my love, my sweet, my tender, my marvellous love, from the light of dawn to the end of the day, I still love you, you know, I love you.) It was that tempestuousness that I originally wanted to portray. I came close, but characters take you their own way and the woman in Sunset is more Anglo than Latin, calm rather than short-tempered, and with a husband who, I am sure, would seldom if ever raise his voice. No matter. The intensity of the emotion is what is important, and it is the intensity that I hope is portrayed here. Reviewers' and readers' comments to come

Last update: 7 March 2003

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