The Third Bench from the Left.

It was the third bench from the left of the footbridge, opposite the yellow stone walls of the mediaeval church. Andy knew it because of the more than century old dedication to John Somers, a councillor who had brought the park and its walking tracks to life almost two hundred years before. The bench. with its dedication, was paid for by local citizens in honour of the man who had created so much of the beautiful walkways that continued to attract thousands of visitors each summer.

Andy, or rather his dog, had literally bumped into Vanessa one morning when Max, a large but overly friendly wolfhound, suddenly leaped towards one of the many squirrels that inhabited the trees near the river. In doing so, Max had almost knocked over the young woman as she was about to sit on the bench.

The couple were instantly lovestruck. Not the sort of attraction created by the irrepressible hormones of adolescence; no, this was one of those rare moments when the stars seem to cast a spell, enmeshing them in an unbreakable bond, the stuff of dreams. Before a word was spoken each felt as though their destiny was to be together, forever.

Andy's stumbling attempt to apologise for his lack of canine control simply elicited an equally stumbling giggle from Vanessa. Time ceased to exist. The pair chatting excitedly, each enthralled with the other. It was agreed to meet the next day at the same bench; but first phone numbers were exchanged in the infinitesimally small chance that something would prevent one of them from arriving at the trysting place.

Andy awoke. Dappled sunlight flickered through branches and leaves outside his window, filling the room with a moving collage of golden luminescence, reflecting his mood of joy and anticipation. Too excited for food, he missed breakfast, impatiently counting the minutes and hours until it was time to go. He left the house with more than an hour's leeway, mercifully oblivious to how those sixty minutes were to affect his life.

As he walked across the parklands towards the church, he noticed a small crowd had gathered on the riverbank. A woman’s plaintive, panic-stricken voice could be heard as she vainly struggled to enter the fast-flowing water. Andy then noticed the flailing arms of a young child being carried remorselessly by the powerful current towards the weir.

The crowd grimly restrained the screaming mother as the river would have taken both her life and that of her infant. Andy knew the waters intimately and that in a hundred yards or so te river slowed as it negotiated a broad loop where the water was sufficiently shallow to allow him to stand. He ran desperately across the ancient stone footbridge towards the dark, swirling mass. He needed all his strength to steady himself as the toddler’s struggling form drew closer. Painfully, Andy stretched his arm to reach the edge of the infant's gossamer thin summer top. After what seemed an age, he was able to take a firm grip on the child and gently deposit him wet but safe onto the sun-warmed banks of the river where his distraught mother quickly arrived.

The crowd applauded. A local reporter took the hero’s reluctance to be interviewed as modesty, but Andy was panicking. During the rescue his phone had disappeared into the flowing waters. The time of their rendezvous was long gone.

He ran frantically, finally turning the corner where he could see the bench, but it was empty. She was not there. Those same stars that had offered so much the day before had, with one fickle act, abandoned the potential lovers in favour of a young mother who would now see her son grow to manhood.

At the time of their one brief encounter, Vanessa was an aspiring model who loved to design her own clothes. Andy however had no clear aspirations. There was a talent for numeracy, but with no interest or motivation to develop this ability. It was strange then that their thwarted meeting appeared to reverse these traits.

In the following years Andy went through a considerable metamorphosis. A flourishing career in finance eventually led to his becoming a guru in the I.M.F. He never married, despite being nominated one of the world's most eligible bachelors in glossy gossip magazines. Vanessa's interest in fashion however, faded. She married to become a housewife, mother of five children, twelve grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.

Neither forgot that fateful day. Despite his best efforts, Andy never discovered more about Vanessa than her first name. She never forgot the handsome young man with whom she had instantly felt such affinity, seemingly encapsulating a future that was not to be. It left her questioning what she had considered, until that day, her unerring ability to judge character quite accurately. There was no bitterness nor resentment; she simply lost the inner drive that gives energy and adventure to life. Slowly, in later years, she declined, her mind gradually ceding ground to dementia.

It was on a bitterly cold Christmas Eve when Vanessa took advantage of an open door at the care home to once again wander the streets and parkland where she had spent her entire life. Some inner memory perhaps guided her, since she eventually found the third bench from the left, opposite the church. An old man was already seated there. She did not even consider it odd when he took off his fashionable winter coat, enfolding her in its welcome warmth.

It was Andy's chauffeur who raised the alarm. His boss had acted very much out of character that day. They had left an important financial summit meeting to drive two hours, seemingly for no other reason than for Andy to visit 'old haunts'. Andy had left instructions as to where his chauffeur was to collect him, but had failed to arrive long past the specified hour. The police were contacted, given the status of the missing person, it did not take long to discover the couple, looking for all the world as though in a beatific sleep. Both had fallen victim to the freezing conditions. The same Fate that had separated them during life, had brought them together for eternity.