He hesitates. It had taken him two hours to garner enough courage to leave the house and twenty minutes more to make it down the garden path. Now that he has reached the 'phone booth he is still stuck, vacillating. He lets his index finger hover over the dial button, not daring to make contact.

'If I am still here in thirty seconds' he thinks, 'then I'll call.'

Thirty seconds later, 'One more minute. If I'm still here then I'll have to dial.'

Outside the booth a queue has formed, impatiently waiting for him to decide. A large, dark-skinned woman is next in line. She leans forward, gold jewellery glinting against her skin, and taps on the plate glass. She makes a gesture that he assumes is a friendly admonition to hurry up. He has been away from home a long time.

He can just make out his own reflection in the glass: milky pale skin swamping startlingly blue eyes; freshly shaven skin; prominent Adam's apple and a gleam from his knuckle where he still wears her ring. He slides the ring up and down his finger absent-mindedly, the metal chill to the touch despite the warmth of late spring sunshine. It feels heavy, as it always does, replete with memories and guilt.

Inside the ring twine the Elven characters she had inscribed for him back in the days when Tolkein was hip. Now the characters are unfamiliar, clotting on his tongue where once they used to glide. With all these memories how could he not call? It is the decent thing to do.

He ignores the snide voice in the darker nooks of his mind that tells him that the type of bloke who does the decent thing would not have left her in the first place.

He takes one last look at his blunt-nailed finger, wondering how the skin came to be so calloused, and jabs downwards before his resolve can fade. The tones ring in his ear, over and over. He thinks that maybe she is out. He will have to try again later. He knows he will not. This is it, his only chance. He reaches out to hit 'disconnect' but the tones stop, replaced by a faint hiss and she says,

'Hello?'

and he remembers. She would always let the 'phone ring nineteen times before answering it, loving the thrill of getting there just before the answerphone. She used to say,

'If it isn't important they'll hang up earlier. How many cold callers do you know who wait for nineteen rings?'

He didn't actually know any cold callers but he supposed it did not matter.

Now he finds himself tongue-tied, an awkward adolescent again and he feels the heat rising in his cheeks, spreading blotchily across his face. He sighs, prepares to hang up.

'Jamie? Is that you?'

Relief floods through him, 'Yes. How did you...'

'Oh, I'd know that sigh anywhere.' She sounds breezy, as if they had spoken only the day before, 'I cheated a little bit. I saw on the News that your unit had been posted back home for a while. I've been waiting for you to call. I bet you're blushing, aren't you?'

'Yep.' No point denying it, 'You always did make me blush.'

'It's a talent. When are you coming to see me then?'

He had forgotten how easy it was. Forgotten how she always anticipated the questions he wanted to ask but stuggled to get out.

'I could come over this afternoon. If you're free that is?'

A short snort travelled down the 'phone line, 'Of course I'm free for you. I'll send Frank out to get the shopping or something. How long have we got this time?'

That question he had been dreading, 'Not long I'm afraid. I'm being transferred out again soon.'

'Well you'd better get over here quickly then hadn't you?'

And that was that. All the agonising over. She was alive, she wanted to see him and, for the moment, he was happy with that.

She was standing in her porch reading a magazine when he arrived. Absorbed in the print, she didn't look up until he had almost reached her.

'Oh, hello. I've been standing here waiting for half an hour and when you do turn up I almost miss you. I don't suppose you fancy making another entrance do you? Give me a better chance to watch those hips of yours.'

'No.' He cupped her chin in his hands, tilted her face towards him absorbing the changes in the contours of her face, the deepening crows feet and fine tracery of lines criss-crossing soft skin, 'You haven't changed a bit.'

She spluttered through her nose at that, 'Liar. Look again. All wrinkles and sagging bits now I'm afraid. I'm not forever young like you, some of us don't have the anti-ageing benefits of gadding around the galaxy at the speed of light our entire lives.'

'I...'

'Yeh, yeh. That science stuff always did bore me. Now, are you going to take me to bed or not? If you're off again then this is it. I don't have another thirty years to wait for you.'

He had nothing to say to that. So he took her upstairs and her small sounds of delight were the last he ever heard from her. She never had believed in saying goodbye.