Dating After The Fall

“Are you sure this is necessary?” Camilla asked, whooshing out a breath when her sister tightened the sash around her waist with a tug. It was tight, gaudy orange and tied in flippant bow that Camilla wanted to cut off and stuff inside her sister’s pillowcase.

“Of course I am. Who is the one with the husband, here?” Grace scoffed, giving another tug, just for spite. “He’s a darling and likes books. Just your sort.”

“Besides, isn’t it lovely that he agreed to take you out on such short notice?” Annabelle, their youngest sister sighed from her perch by the window.

“Only because you had Harold harass the poor man.”

Grace made a rude noise and gave her sister a shove towards the full length mirror. The tainted class was copper-yellow in places but unbroken.

“Final inspections then you are away.”

Camilla’s dark hair was piled on top of her head in a tight, scalp-pulling bun - the latest style, Grace assured her. Her makeup was sparse, a battle she had only just won, and her shoes were chunky and high, preventing her from making anything but a gangling escape should the meeting go poorly. Her dress was a knee-length cream sheath beneath the orange sash and she couldn’t help but feel a little washed out.

How she longed for the days of technology, before it had all fallen from the sky, when they could have met for the first time through a screen. Annabelle didn’t remember the small personal devices everyone used to carry around to speak with others, but Camilla had seen her father using them and vaguely remembered Grace receiving one for her birthday when they were both much younger.

Since the fall, though, things had gone back to more traditional ways, face to face and a convoluted mail system being the only ways to meet new people. Of course, with the fall of technology, most other things had gone back to the dark ages, including the expectations of young people to marry and breed.

“Perfume!” Grace announced as she sprayed a cloud into Camilla’s face, making her cough.

“Warning would be nice.”

“Stop fussing and get out there. The cart is waiting.”

The tea shop was only a block away, but Grace insisted she take the rattling horse cart they had bought the previous winter and Camilla supposed it would save her blisters form her shoes. The last running car Camilla had seen had been over ten years prior, when the petrol reserves had run dry. Now, they were back to bicycles, livestock, carts and their own two feet. Suffice to say, people generally didn’t travel long distances any more for anything non-essential.

“Remember, his name is Phillip and he likes to read.” Grace reminded her sister for the hundredth time. Camilla rolled her eyes. She spouted Phillips love for books as if the idea of an educated man was unusual. It was, in fact, not. Her husband, Harold, however, had long forgone a written education and did not value an interest in literature, new or old.

Clattering down the hole-ridden rode in her family’s cart, Camilla felt conspicuous and a cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. This was not going to go well.

Phillip sat with his back to the tearoom door, systematically destroying the paper napkin in front of him. He could not even feel shame about it. As a travelling salesman, he was only in town for a short while and an old acquaintance had managed to wrangle him into tea with an in-law of some sort. Phillip hated blind dates. He could have been drumming up sales as it was, towing his stubborn-headed pony door-to-door and, yet, here he was, waiting for some bubble-headed woman to join him for tea. He didn’t even like tea.

The bell above the door gave a soft tinkle and Phillip sat up straighter, dusting the napkin fragments onto the floor under the table. Perhaps she would see them and think him horribly messy, not worth her time of day and just leave.

Luck, it seemed, was not with him.

From the way Harold had spoken of her, Phillip had expected a young woman dressed in frills with no idea of the real world and looking for a husband. Most of the young women he encountered nowadays were too busy with reinventing the latest fashion and plotting their way to a marriage bed to worry about the world falling apart without them. When Harold had suggested a tea house, Phillip had assumed this woman was much the same.

The woman standing by his table was older than he had assumed, more his own age, and she looked particularly uncomfortable in her high heeled shoes and orange sash. Her hair was pulled severely onto the top of her head and her eyes were shrewd as she examined him.

“Phillip?” She asked. Phillip stood, an old-world gesture his parents had drilled into him, and nodded.

“You must be Camilla.”

She ignored his outstretched hand and maneuvered her way into the seat opposite the one he had just vacated. Her dress, cinched so tightly around her waist, made it difficult for her to do so in one motion and so she half slid into her chair.

When Phillip took his own seat, discombobulated, the waitress appeared almost immediately and took their tea orders. Black, for Phillip. Black with sugar, for Camilla.

“You’re a salesman, my brother-in-law tells me.” Camilla huffed out, sounding impatient. Taken back, Phillip only nodded. She was not at all what he had been expecting. “How long are you in town for?”

“Three weeks more.” He answered shortly, prickled by her bad manners and the necessity that he be present at all.

“What do you sell?”

“Anything anyone needs, really.” He was beginning to feel like he was in an interview and decided to turn the tides. “Harold says you read.”

“Yes, well, he would, wouldn’t he?” She sniped, almost under her breath as she picked at the sash about her waist. She was not a large woman, but even Phillip could see that the material cut into her and he wondered why she endured such discomfort. Vanity?

“He says the same of you,” Camilla added, almost as an afterthought. Phillip found he was feeling quite in the way, considering it was meant to be a date, her attitude confused him. If she really did not want to come, as much as it seemed, then why was she here?

Grace was going to be furious with her, Camilla knew, but she could not help it. She had seen the round-shouldered salesman her sister and brother-in-law had picked for her, with his thinning hair and the mess of napkin around him, that he just tossed carelessly onto the floor and she had fallen into a mood. She wasn’t asking for an Adonis or an Efron. In fact, she wasn’t asking for anyone at all. Even still, this is who they thought would make her happy? Just because he could read, didn’t mean they were instantly compatible.

Tugging at the too-tight sash again, hoping the angle of the chair would alleviate some of the pressure, Camilla sat, only to realise she had missed his offered hand and seemed like an absolute witch now. They ordered tea and she thought to comment on the similarities of their order, then thought again, that he might find it too flippant and not worth his time. Fighting on, she asked him about his business, receiving only clipped answers in response and wondered why she had even bothered.

The tea arrived shortly, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen and Camilla stirred hers while he lifted the chipped cup to his lips. There wasn’t much form the old world nowadays that wasn’t chipped, rusted, bent or damaged in some way.

“You must see a lot of different places on your travels.” Camilla put out there in an effort to start again. His brown eyes narrowed, highlighting the lines above his cheeks and he pursed his lips a moment, as if decided what to say.

“My route takes me all the way out the ocean in the north-east and to the deserts in the west.” He paused after speaking then nodded, as if to confirm his own story.

“They say there are tribes in the deserts nowadays, with collapsible towns that move around. Is that true?” Camilla would have leaned forward, interested, but the sash pinned her in place.

“Indeed.” He smacked his lips and looked towards the ceiling, perhaps searching for the words. “I have encountered three tribes of about thirty people. They travel similar routes each year and take their whole world with them.”

“I imagine it is quite similar to the way you live? On the road, I mean.”

“In ways, yes. For me, however, it is a solitary journey.” He sipped his tea.

Camilla barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Did he know how pompous he sounded? Or was it unconscious? The poor, lonely salesman, free to travel wherever, whenever doing as he liked. Surely, it was dangerous at times, but the freedom was a remarkable enticement.

“If you were to marry, would your wife travel with you?” Camilla asked pensively.

Phillip nearly spat his tea out and managed to swallow it in a great lump that made his throat ache. Marriage. He hadn’t taken her for the desperate type, but maybe marriage fever had infected the older generation due to its proclivity in the younger. He didn’t have an answer for her, because he had avoided marriage at all costs throughout his few twenty-five years. He was not ready to be married and, as far as he knew, no married woman would put up with being left alone at home for at least six months of the year. Nor would they want to travel.

“I hadn’t given it any thought.” He admitted, hiding behind his cup.

“Hmm.” Camilla mused, her grey eyes taking on a distant look as she stared into her cup. He had not expected talk of marriage from her. He knew things in towns happened quickly between couples, usually because there was little else to focus on but marriage and children, but he was not of that world.

She seemed to shake herself out of her revere and Phillip was half afraid she was going to bring up children next. Instead, she asked,

“What is your favourite book?”

This was a topic Phillip considered much safer and was able to answer with both a new and classic title.

“I simply can’t choose between them.”

“I haven’t heard of Guider.” Camilla admitted, “Tolkein, of course, but is Guider in a similar vein or is he more of a new age writer?”

Phillip was momentarily impressed that she knew of Tolkein. His copy, battered and torn in places, was a rarity and he wondered where and how she had gotten her hands on a copy of the ancient tome.

“Guider writes of what once was, so it somewhat historical, but largely fiction. It is not nearly so detailed as Tolkein and he does not at all mention the other races, only our own.”

“So, is it wishful thinking or based on fact?” Camilla asked, creasing her brows together.

“I believe he is something of a historian and involved with the museum in his home town. Others have asked him to visit to advise on their artefacts. His storyline is fictional, but the facts within, I expect are as true as we can know them,” Phillip explained. “I travelled with him once, a few summers back, between towns, and we discussed the varied nature of the artefacts he carried. A very clever man.”

“So, you are interested in the past, then?”

“It is hard not to be.” He admitted, “You find so much evidence of what once was when you travel the roads as often as I do.”

Camilla found her tea empty and frowned into her cup. She did not recall drinking it, but felt it warming its way in her stomach, despite the pinching sash. A glance out the window said the sun had made its journey through the sky and it was time to be going. She stood abruptly, making Phillip start and retreat back into his round-shouldered pose of discontent. While discussing literature, he had straightened out, lifted his head and displayed a rather attractive attention to detail.

“I must be going. Thank you for the tea.” Camilla said abruptly, suddenly uncomfortable. She wanted to apologise for her earlier mood. “I quite enjoyed our discussion.”

“It was… interesting to meet you.” Phillip hesitated then offered a hand timidly. Camilla took it, squeezed it then strode out the tea shop. She did not see him watch her climb into her cart, she was too busy navigating her too-tight dress and replaying the conversation they had had about Tolkein and Guider. She was determined to find a copy of the historical work and read it, for her own enjoyment.

Also, could there be female salesmen on the road?