Meeting Mary-Ann

A faint alarm bell: "I hardly drink at all." 

On the train she sent desirous texts at half hourly intervals. An edge of ansiety, expectations being over-egged. I arrived at Sheffield, with its dazzling long sculptured wall of water shimmering almost unbearably brightly outside the station. A couple of minutes later she rang. Confusingly, she hadn't gone to the pub where we'd arranged to meet but was lurking underneath the stairs at Sheffield station.

It is impossible to relate the first moments of our meeting without an immodest reflection on myself, but I've never had a woman flutter so much in my presence before. She smiled and turned her head away, instantly looking back again with a coyness that I hoped indicated attraction. Grey hair, a loose blue blouse, creme trousers, sensible shoes, looking older than her forty-seven years.

We found the pub, a cosy, characterful place for misfits. It had a sticker on the door saying "There is no God. Now relax and have a pie." She had cranberry juice and I had the house's Rutland Cider. We started with books, Jane Austen's relentless satire, our experience of having daughters, how we'd both abandoned the study of linguistics at undergraduate level. She told me about her job, part of which is university English lecturer.

But mainly, it was her sense of humour that warmed me to her. There was a point where she floored me with something she said, calmly pointing out a contradiction in what I'd said with the cool, unanswerable logic of a philosopher. "You're lost for words aren't you?" she said, and I had a flustered moment where I couldn't think of anything witty to come back with, trying too hard to give a good account of myself. To my secret delight, she pounced on my unease, pressing her advantage harder, enjoying my discomfiture. That was one turning point.

"So, Mary-Ann, shall we go for this walk then?" "We could walk to another pub," she said, giving exactly the answer I wanted. We went through a dismal part of Sheffield, all flyovers and spindly 70s architecture, receiving kind directions from a couple who went back on themselves to point us in the right direction through a thicket of car-centred town planning. We walked up a sad looking street past a derelict pub, now one big pigeon coop, and a church clinging on to life courtesy of some fringe evangelical group. Her constant playful pisstaking: it's one of the most attractive characteristics a woman can possess. Finally, at the very end of the street, the pub we were looking for.

More cider. A late-middle-aged couple sat near us. The man was bearded and they were both wearing cable knit jumpers. They could only have met in a folk club.

It was time for her to go. We had hardly got a yard or two outside the pub when she said "stop", and pulled me towards her. It was one of the loveliest kisses I have ever had, not kissing me fully but just playing with my lips and mouth, brushing against them. Every few yards we stopped and snogged, and I felt like a teenager, trying not to beam gloatingly at passers-by.

She missed her train by two minutes. We went to the bar on the station where, to my delight, we managed to find a small room to ourselves, and so spent twenty minutes kissing. I played with her necklace where it nested in her cleavage, gently running a finger inside her blouse. "Well, looby, I think we've discovered two things. What it is about me you say you like, and what it actually is."

I saw her off on the train and went back to the bar, feeling almost exhausted but vibrantly alive.