The Brush-Off

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The two cops were virtually invisible. Only the bobbing white domes of their helmets, floating like ghostly globes through the thick summer night, and the muted clip-clop of their horses gave warning of their approach. She hadn’t mentioned the mounted patrol when we came over the fence.

‘Look out,’ I whispered. ‘Here comes the cavalry.’

‘Ssshhh.’ Salina clapped her hand over my mouth, trembling with the effort of stifling her own laughter. ‘Get down.’

I got down. On my knees in the leaf litter, nuzzling the pom-pom fringe of her mu-mu. It was the mu-mu that first drew my eye to Salina Fleet. The mu-mu with its palm-tree motif. Then the apricot lipstick. And the terry-towel beach bag with hula-hoop handles. So playful among all those business shirts and bow ties. ‘Rode one when I was ten,’ I mumbled.

The pub was closed, the crowd from the art exhibition dispersed. And there we were, in possession of two stolen wine glasses and a filched bottle of chardonnay, hidden in a thicket of shrubbery inside the locked gates of the Botanic Gardens. This, I already suspected, was a decision I might come to regret. For now, however, I was game for anything. Ten or twelve drinks and I’m anyone’s.

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