The breakfast was simple, but delicious. And it included baked beans. I can’t believe how long I’ve been in England and was just now having beans at breakfast. I have to say it was weird, but tasty nonetheless.
After we eat, we take our things to the car and proceed to walk around Rye to look for a great spot to take a photo. As it turns out, the place isonlygreat spots for photos.
We take a selfie on Mermaid Street for the solicitor.
“This be a fair township,” Alex says with a grin.
“What are you doing?” I laugh.
“This is a beautiful town, well village really. I don’t know how to say town,” he says. “I learned a bit of Early Modern English while filming—”
“The Knight and the Darkness,” I say proudly.
“You honor me with thy knowledge.”
I laugh. He really is funny. “Hast thou dispatched the photo?” I try.
“There weren’t photos back then,” he corrects, laughing. “But yes. Right after we took it.”
I narrowly avoid tripping on a cobblestone.
“Would that we possessed a steed,” Alex says, after observing my near fall. He takes my hand.
“So that we might ride it together?”
“Nay. So I might flee far from thee and thine advances.”
I throw back my head and laugh. “How darest thou?”
A woman, old and bent, catches our eye. She’s carrying an overfull grocery bag and can’t get a door open. Alex releases my hand and hurries over to her.
“Excuse me, madam. May I help you?”
I approach to lend my femaleness in case she is worried about being approached by a male stranger, but she seems completely at ease. Whether unafraid, or simply unconcerned about the possibility of meeting her maker, I don’t know. Of course, he had used exquisite manners, so she was probably charmed.
“My door is stuck. I’ve unlocked it, but it won’t budge. It’s the humidity.”
She moves out of the way, and Alex opens her door with what looks like minimal effort. The doorway leads to a steep, narrow staircase, and I hope this isn’t a place the woman has to come often.
“Thank you,” she says, taking and squeezing Alex’s hand.
“You’re very welcome. Can I carry your bag up for you?”
I feel like he should carry her with her bag, but I refrain fromoffering that suggestion.
“Oh, no, thank you, dear. I do this every day. I go out for the morning shop and bring it up these very stairs. I’ve been doing it since William and I got married over sixty-five years ago.”
“Wow. You’ve been married for quite some time,” I say.
“When you’re as happy as we are, it doesn’t feel like a long time. But at the same time, I hardly remember life without him.”
Alex smiles, then looks at me, and it wouldn’t take a mind reader to know where his thoughts have gone.
Before either of us responds, she continues. “I’ve got bread to bake, so I must be off. But I thank you again, sir.” A woman on a mission. She starts up the stairs, but before we get the door closed between us, she turns. “You two are a lovely couple. I hope you hang on to each other and have seventy happy years.”
Alex thanks her, while I’m thinking about how we likely won’t be here in seventy years. At least I hope not. I don’t want to be one of those people on the internet celebrating a hundred-year birthday. Dentures falling out when I blow my candles.
The door firmly closed; Alex turns to me. “Well, we certainly can’t disappoint her.”
