A Thousand Miles

‘What?’ He places his pint on the bench table. ‘How can you think it’s better? It’s just a pop song.’

She half-stands. Loud enough for the other patrons to hear, she sings, ‘And I would walk five hundred miles. You’re saying that isn’t?’

‘It’s uplifting,’ he says, laughing. ‘It’s an anthem for the ages.’

‘Tuh.’

‘People’ll still be singin’ it in a hundred years.’

‘A thousand?’

He takes a sip of his beer. ‘You never know.’

‘Has it got a catchy piano riff though?’

‘Catchy? Don’t you mean sappy?’

She opens her mouth in mock surprise.

He looks around, lowers his voice. ‘It definitely needs a: Da-da da da.’

‘Wow, such gusto.’

‘Well sorry if I don’t have your …’

‘What?’

‘Panache.’

‘Panache?’ It’s her turn to laugh now.

He joins in, drinks again. ‘You gotta admit though, you were really getting into it when you sang that line – swung your arms and everything.’

‘Yeah, well; I commit to a performance.’

He chuckles. ‘You sing that song and a thousand miles doesn’t even seem so bad.’

‘Exactly, at least Vanessa keeps it real; this is serious stuff. How far even is a thousand miles, anyway?’

He gets out his phone. ‘Well, according to Google,’ he begins, not seeing her stifle a laugh, ‘it would basically be from Lisbon to Paris. Well, maybe fifty miles under.’

She whistles, takes a sip of her beer. ‘How long do you reckon that would take?’

‘To walk?’

She nods.

‘Dunno, erm …’

‘You’re actually gonna check that too?’

‘Three hundred and forty-six hours, so that’s …’ He starts tapping away.

‘Fourteen and a half days,’ she says, holding her lager to the sunlight and slowly turning it.

‘Wow, yeah, you’re right.’

‘Well, fourteen and a half full days, but let’s say a maximum of ten hours of travel a day, so thirty-four and a half days walking.’

‘That’d really eat into the annual leave.’

‘And your shoes.’

His eyes wander as he mulls something over.

‘Still though,’ she says. ‘It’s more about the fact the singer’s willing to do that for the other person.’

‘Walk a thousand miles, you mean?’

‘Yep.’

‘Just to hold you tonight?’ he says, without being able to keep a straight face.

She gives him a look he’s not seen before and there’s a short silence. They take a sip of their drinks together. Two tables away, someone’s smoking and he wrinkles his nose at the smell. She looks at him. ‘Would you?’

‘Would I what?’ He squints against the sunlight.

She bends the corner of one of the menus. ‘Walk a thousand miles for somebody.’

The menus say We go the extra mile for you. He points at it and she laughs. ‘I would walk five hundred miles.’

‘Good one.’ She gives his glass a theatrical clink with her own.’ Downing the last of her drink, she says, ‘I’ll get the next one.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, ‘course, same again?’

He nods and downs the rest of his lager as she brings up the app on her phone. A ladybird walks halfway across the table and he lets it climb his forefinger and deposits it on the other side.

‘You able to handle a full pint, mind? Or do I need to get you a half.’

‘Good one,’ he mimics.

They people watch once she puts the phone back on the table.

‘He would,’ she mutters, nodding at a middle-aged man in cargo shorts and a panama hat.

‘Definitely. Not sure he’d make it far in them sandals though.’

She leans up to get a better look. ‘Eesh, no, definitely not.’

They laugh together. She slides her beer glass idly towards the centre of the table.

‘Didn’t you used to live abroad?’ he asks.

A waiter walks past their table with a jug of Pimm’s on a tray with two glasses. ‘Maybe we should’ve upgraded,’ she says, looking from their empty pint glasses to the couple who’ve ordered it. An empty jug is already on their table.

He doesn’t know how to reply. She’s holding his gaze again and has that same all-knowing smile he never knows what to do with.

‘And yeah, I was in Cologne for two years,’ she says.

There’s a small silence as he tries to think of what to say next, but their drinks arrive. They toast to ‘Overly grand gestures.’

‘How about you?’ she asks. ‘You were up in Scotland for a bit, weren’t you?’

‘Yeah, while I was doing my masters. Not quite as far as Germany.’

‘No, I’d say there’d be about five hundred miles or so difference.’

Their legs accidentally brush under the table.

He takes another sip of his pint.

The waiter comes to their table, gestures at the menus. ‘Are either of you ordering food?’

He looks at her; she to him.

‘Did you …’ he begins, at the same moment she says, ‘Do you …’

They both laugh.

‘Sure,’ he says.

She nods. ‘Erm …’

‘I can give you more time,’ the waiter suggests.

‘Actually, I’ll just go for the steak and ale pie, please,’ she says.

While she upgrades to sweet potato fries, he spots something on the menu.

‘What is it?’ she asks, catching his smile.

He sits up straight. ‘I think I know what I’m having. I’ll have the One Thousand Mile burger, please.’

The waiter looks between them both as she laughs, but as he gathers up the menus, she says, ‘add one to that please; forget the pie, I’ll have the same as him.’

‘It looked pretty damn big,’ he says, when they’re alone.

‘What? You suggesting I won’t be able to handle it? I’m feeling pretty adventurous today, I’ll have you know.’

‘But if you asked them, I’m sure they’d half it into a little five hundred mile burger for you.’

She kicks him lightly under the table, but as they go back to their drinks and he orders a jug of Pimm’s, she doesn’t pull her foot back, and neither does he.