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Listeners' Fantasies |
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Sophie's Choices
by Vicky S
 Have you been contemplating that dinner party at Brookfield? So has Sophie, at least in the mind of one contributor to the Fantasy Archers topic of .
Sophie chewed the end of her pencil thoughtfully for a moment then carefully wrote the words 'Dinner with David' at the top of the page. She looked at the words pensively, then almost decisively reached into her Miss Kitty pencil case for bunny rubber. She rubbed out 'with David', brushed off the rubber crumbs and carefully inscribed 'at Brookfield Farm, Ambridge' instead. She was especially careful to rub out the little heart that had automatically dotted the letter i in David.
She looked at the heading with her head on one side. Yes, that would do. Her hand reached towards the ruler, but hesitated. No, maybe when she had written the list, and double checked it, and copied it onto the computer she would underline it, and maybe even bold it. Or change the font. She was rather fond of Vivaldi at the moment though it was a bit tricksy to read unless of course you made it absolutely huge .
'Now Sophie,' she admonished herself severely, 'No shillyshallying. This is important. Concentrate.'
She picked up her pencil again and wrote three sub headings. Of course, when she wrote it out in best she could always make the headings in different colours. Blue for current conversation topics. Green for stories to share. Red for topics not to mention. Or pink. Or even that pinky purple since there was a new cartridge in the printer.
After ten minutes she looked at the lists. Current conversation topics looked a bit thin, it was certainly not going to be like a dinner party in Surrey, where conversation flowed easily through the well-worn grooves of divorce, immigration, school fees, house prices and golf. Somehow the weather and that awful foot and mouth thing that had happened in the country - though luckily not in Surrey as far as she was aware - were not going to keep things moving much further than the sherry. Inspiration struck. Hunting, she wrote. Then on a roll, wildlife (badgers foxes rabbits).
Stories to share was easy. She could talk to Shula about horses, and sports cars and the husband who had died. David's wife Ruth was from The North so they were naturally bound to have friends in common who had holiday cottages in Yorkshire. Dear old Mr Archer was a marvellous storyteller she recalled, all she needed to do was mention churches and organs and vegetables and he would be off. And traffic, old people always enjoyed talking about traffic. Would traffic be better under current conversation though? A tricky one. She put a question mark next to traffic.
Topics not to mention. Sophie blushed at several entries. Some of the stories she hadn't thought of for years herself. That YFC dinner dance when she'd thrown up in the ladies, the time David's car had broken down on Lakey Hill, the time his mother nearly walked in on them...
She glanced at the clock. Nearly half past. She hadn't even started the presents list yet! Let alone her what to wear (possibles) list. Where DID time fly to? She often wondered that. Time and time again she sat down determined to complete something and before she knew it half the morning had flown by and she was still no nearer to finishing. That's why she had learned over the years to use the discipline of the lists method to organise her time effectively. She looked proudly at the tidy pile of notebooks on the desk next to the laptop. On the whole it probably was better to have them arranged alphabetically. It was certainly easier to find each subject. But arranging the notebooks into a colour spectrum might look better aesthetically. It would only take a few minutes to experiment.
She was right. The colour arrangement did look better.
The clock chimed eleven. 'Get back on task, former Miss Barlow' she scolded herself, and looked back at her list.
Presents. David had three children. She racked her brains for the names. Pip. Joshua. Benjamin. Funny, she had been so sure one of them was a girl. A little present for each one, or a big present to share? Thinking back she remembered how David had always enjoyed helping her colour in her design sketches. That was easy then, some felt tips and lovely handmade Japanese paper to draw on. Or colouring pencils and some art sketch books? Another question mark. A really stonkingly good bottle of wine for David and Ruth, or maybe two bottles of good wine. His mother did gardening, so a copy of that telly gardener's book would be a lovely gift that she would adore. Or was it a bit over the top to give a present to a former fiancée's mother at a family dinner? If only there was something like a website where you could get impartial advice about such difficult social niceties.
With a little sigh Sophie put her pencil down and rubbed her temples where a teensy little pulse of a headache was beginning. It was nearly lunchtime. She would come back to this after lunch when she could see it all with a fresh eye. A light lunch of soup and cheese would do, or maybe finish off the quiche and potato salad and then have a sliver of the cheese with a nice crisp Cox, or an Egremont ...
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