Eva sat in the driver’s seat of her convertible and peered at her face in the rear-view mirror. Beautiful. Well ok for today. She pouted her lips and dragged the bright red lipstick across puckered skin. Perfect. She was meeting Arnold, the architect with his long dark hair and rather midcentury trousers, he was after all: -a man after her own heart-old fashioned.
He jumped over the convertible door and kissed her smack in the lips, smudging her new red smile.
‘Hello darling’ he said.
‘Off we go now’ Eva laughed, her foot flat on the accelerator.
The couple sped down the highway at breakneck speed, hair flowing behind them, the wind almost tearing the strands from their scalps.
They ventured down winding roads further and further away from the big smoke, until roads became lanes, became dirt tracks. The convertible bounced along on the corrugations. Despite the bumpiness it was a romantic adventure.
‘We’re here!’ Eva said jumping with excitement from the now, dirt splattered vehicle. She had spent weeks searching for the perfect spot.
‘Great’ said Arnold, looking unconvinced by this location.
Eva took out the picnic basket and they settled down to a tasty lunch of smoked salmon sandwiches, she made the bread rolls in the shape of vaginas! There were oysters and champagne. It was a glorious day. The sun shone, in its jealous sky, heavenly rays over fields of golden grass, dandelions and barley. It was warm and summery. The bubbles surged through the couples’ bloodstream and up to their brains, creating a dizzy, mellow fog.
‘I have something to show you Arnie,’ Eva said giggling. She led him around to a farmers hay shed.
Perfectly planned in her programme to woo, she ushered him up to the top of the bales of hay.
Arnold was unsure of the wisdom of this act but felt unable to protest.
Eva and Arnold rustled in the rooftop hay, eventually removing items of clothing and proceeded to have a rather unusual sexual encounter with bits of hay jutting in backs, bottoms and other orifices. But they were in love and nothing could dampen their enthusiasm.
‘Hello, who’s there?’ A rather puzzled farmer was peering up at a bare bouncing bottom.
‘Oh sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Eva jumped up and grabbed her clothes. The young couple scrambled down the haystack half naked and raced to the convertible, leaving their picnic basket and vagina shaped sandwiches behind.
***
It was sunset on a beautiful balmy day. Amber rays illuminated the countryside. Mary smiled at her daughter Evaline and thought how she was so much like her grandmother Eva. They got out of her shiny electric SUV that had halted suddenly on the tarmac.
‘Why are we here Mum?’ Mary said to her mother, looking irritated.
Eva climbed, gingerly out from the front of the car with wonder. Tearful eyes scanned the field, until she saw a solitary hay shed.
‘That’s it! That’s where IT happened’ she beamed, a giant smile on her bright red lips.
‘What Mum, me? Here? I’m not sure I really want to know?’ laughed Mary. Little Evaline scrambled under the fence wire and ran on ahead.
Arnold opened the car door, helped by Mary.
‘There we go Daddy’, she said kindly.
He was slow in his movements, shuffled as he walked and his head, bobbed about. They walked gently through, a newly erected gate into the radiant field. There was an old bench to where Arnold was manoeuvred and his Zimmer frame placed alongside. Evaline and Mary lay on the grass and Eva sat beside her husband on the bench holding his hand. His usual mask like face broke into a subtle smile. It was a moment in time to be cherished, in the light of the setting sun.
***
‘Many years have passed since those summer days
When we walked in the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
as we lie in fields of gold’.
Burnside Writers Group 