‘Ere Iris…You got a visitor.”
I do not have the presence of my mind to thank her neighbour. Instead I fumble with my hat, all too aware that my face has turned as red as the tub of geraniums adorning her yard.
“Hello Mrs Tilling. Nice day don’t you think?”
“Not too shabby…”
Her response is delayed by a slow rising pirouette concealing her nether assets and revealing two even more outstanding and slightly damp.
I am too overcome for words and hear only the drumming of my heart. She looks at me with eyes that shine like sapphires and wipes away a loose strand of hair brushing the rose of her granite cheek, while I chase dreams in the dirt with the toe of my shoe.
Nothing more is said but a shared polite goodbye under the returned rays of the sun flooding over the summit of the slagheap. But in the second before she turned away I am sure I saw the granite crack and the sapphire wink.