The Tiger at a Table For Two

By the 1st of October, the village of Stoke Fleming was a ghost town. The stage was set for summer but instead, a gloom inhabited it. Even when the tourists clear out the smallest pockets of summer remain and it is a certain kind of soul that goes to see them decay.

The village was slowly turning on a low heat; suspended on a spit above the blaze of the season. Autumn was crisping every leaf and bringing out every colour. The road snaked down the hillside, out of the village, and opened up to a stretch of golden shore. It was pure endlessness; the sky above and the sands reaching far along the coast.

However wearing a coat on a beach evokes a certain kind of feeling; an unease.

Diameter 6 was a restaurant in Stoke Fleming. The only one not yet boarded up for the winter. It was a converted chapel and, as the name suggested, it fitted only six tables within its wood panel walls and high beam ceiling.

It was there that Florentine saw the tiger.

He was sitting alone at a table for two. On the tablecloth was a red rose in a vase and a half-filled wine glass. He looked content with his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, and his head buried in a book.

But then suddenly, he looked up from the pages.

Their gaze was like honey or syrup. It was in liquid form and once it started to pour, it got on everything. Their eyes poured heavily and slowly into each other, all night, under the golden fairy lights that were strung around the window.

It had been twenty-five years but there they both were. He looked tired but then so must she. His hair fell in his eyes, it was a little longer than she remembered, and now he sported a smattering of stubble.

Of course, he wasn’t an actual tiger, he was a man. But, seeing him again felt like seeing a tiger sitting at a table for two in a restaurant; absurdly unexpected and unexplainable. It was a gut reaction she had every time she saw him.

~

Florentine and her husband, Benjamin, were away for ten days with his two friends from Oxford. It had been twenty-five years since they graduated. Florentine had also been at Oxford with them, she was even put in the same dorm as them for the first year, but they had not been her friends back then.

At Diameter 6 bookings were a necessity so, they had booked a table for every night that week. The restaurant was not a dangerous place and, contrary to the metaphor, the tiger quietly reading, who had also booked a table for each night, was also not a danger. But, their proximity to one another might become so.

~

The next night the tiger was at his table for two, still alone. She was at a table for four, all seats filled. Her companions were loud and tipsy. She could see him twitch as he tried to ignore the noise and continue reading his book.

At around 11 pm, when he got up to settle his bill at the bar, she made an excuse about her drink and followed him.

The bar was in another room. Nobody knew what glittering sentiments may have been exchanged, presumably in hushed tones, as they waited for the bar staff to return. But, the night after that, he dined with them.

~

The fairy lights glowed around the window and against her skin. Her husband stood up to pour out more wine and their eyes poured once again. It was the same as before but this time the tiger was on their table. The danger of proximity was certainly being tested.

He didn’t eat anything. He said he didn’t want to impose and would simply have a drink with them before their meal.

“Well... I should get going” he said after half an hour, he stood up

“Whereabouts are you staying?” Benjamin enquired

“In a house on the beach”

He left.

“You know…” said Liz, their goth friend who was still rocking it at forty, “he was at Oxford with us”

“What? I don’t remember him!” gasped the other friend

“Oh, he looks very different now. If he had looked like that back then I would have made a point of knowing him” she laughed “when he was talking I knew there was something, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but now I remember..”

“I don’t remember him either, but then I didn't remember Florentine…” Benjamin laughed

“When did you two reconnect?”

“In a bar” they all laughed “it was the first summer after graduation. Well, the end of the summer. It had been two years since we were in a dorm together. But I had grown from whom I used to be. I managed to persuade her to give me a chance. It wasn’t a very good start that I introduced myself and asked who she was when we had practically lived together!”

“Aw” their friends cooed

“But I don’t remember that guy… We were talking about how we all knew each other from Oxford… Why didn’t he say anything?” he turned to Florentine again “do you remember him? Was he in English Lit with you?”

She shook her head. They didn’t need to know.

After that night they didn’t see the tiger at Diameter 6 again.

~

Florentine and Benjamin’s two teenage boys had assured them they would be fine being alone in the house. So, this was their first holiday without them. Her husband and the two friends thought they should all reunite and stay somewhere together. They said it would be just like old times in their dorm.

It was.

Back together the three were brash, boisterous and bold. She left them to it and went off with one of the many books she packed. After those first three nights, the only time they saw her was when they all gathered in the evening.

On their seventh night at around 10:30 pm their plates were empty, wine glasses refilled and coffee ordered.

“You know” Liz started once again “I wonder what the houses down on the beach are like”

“Why?” Benjamin frowned

“Because… Do you think they’re nicer than the ones in the village or do you think they’re just more expensive cause, well, they’re on the beach?” They all thought for a moment.

“They do have balconies” Florentine remarked

They all nodded. You could see that from the beach.

“But I think it’s more about the deco” Florentine continued “there are paintings all through the house. Not generic home-furnishing ones but well-known pieces. In the main bedroom, there is a print of Van Gogh’s 'Small Pear Tree in Blossom' hanging over the bed.”

They were all silent. You couldn’t see that from the beach.

“I… I looked at photos on the holiday letting site when I was researching a place to stay. Then I booked the one in the village” she said innocently. The others burst out laughing.

The evening soon slipped back into its usual rhythm, the coffees arrived and Liz ranted on her unexplained hatred for banoffee pie before going out for her third cigarette. Florentine hardly said another word. But, a strange feeling washed over her husband concerning their dinner guest from a few nights before. A man who seemingly knew them and who said he was staying in a house on the beach…

Benjamin waited until the next night to ask her. He did some research. He waited until the evening was over; until it was past midnight and they had all returned to their rooms. Their bedroom was a glowing little square in the dense, unyielding night.

In that lamplight, as he pulled the covers back to get into their bed he asked:

“Did you know him…?”

“Who?” she asked

“Our dinner guest. Do you remember him from Oxford?”

“No”

“You invited him to have dinner with us…”

“Because he was alone and we were… Obnoxiously loud” she laughed

They laid down next to each other. But what he said next felt like a particular darkness slipping under their sheets and snaking its way up to them.

“I looked on three different holiday letting sites and none of the photos are angled where you can see what painting hangs above the bed.”

Florentine was silent for a moment.

“Well… it was a few months ago when I looked. They have probably changed the photos for the new season.” She smiled. He smiled back. They spoke no more of it.

But he checked seven more holiday letting sites without success.

~

The mist rolled in from the sea and covered the land like a veil cascading over a beautiful face, bruised with autumn. The days were getting colder.

It was the tenth morning of their stay. The car was being packed for them to drive back to the city. Benjamin said he would take all the empty wine bottles and recycling down to the bins by the beach. He stood on the sand in his coat, collar up against the wind and hands deep in the pockets. There was that feeling, creeping in; an unease.

He peered at the cluster of houses where the sand meets the rocks. Only one had been listed for rental.

It looked as if it were empty.

Benjamin knocked on the door and a woman in a plastic apron and gloves with a cloth in hand answered.

“I was staying here. I think I left something. Can I just come in and have a quick look?” he stammered, she gestured around the house and then disappeared down the hallway. He would not be long, he only needed to see one room.

As he walked along the upstairs landing he could see the sea curling from every window. The mist slowly closing in on the house gave him a feeling of emergency. He peered into every room until he found the main bedroom... And there it was: Van Gogh’s 'Small Pear Tree in Blossom' hanging on the wall above the bed.

~

As Benjamin walked back up the road towards the village he concluded that the only way Florentine would know what painting hung on that wall was for her to have been in that bedroom. He wondered what had happened between his wife and their mysterious dinner guest, all those years ago at Oxford, for her to need to go and see him again now?

He approached Diameter 6. It was being boarded up for the winter storms which would soon batter this bay. Now the four of them were leaving there would be little business left here. The owner nodded to Benjamin as he walked passed

“Served a purpose, eh?” he joked

“It certainly did” he mumbled.

He would never really know what happened on that holiday. Nobody would ever really know what happened between Florentine and the tiger. But, that is the way it's meant to be; some stories are only understood by the people who are in them.

All Benjamin understood was, she had chose to marry him and they were driving back to their two boys. That needed to be enough.