Fated Attraction

“Come inside, why don’t you? You’ll catch your death out there.
Can I tempt you with a promise of food and wine to share?
I only charge ten quid a night – it’s a modest price to pay.
There’s hot and cold in every room and clean towels every day."

Beggars can’t be choosers – seemed an average B & B,
and she was nice, to say the least, with a face I’m sure I’d seen.
“I think we’ve met somewhere before” I really had to say,
so she laughs and quips she hears that line at least ten times a day.

She rustles up some fish and chips then suggests a game of crib
I hadn’t played in years, I said, and told her she would win.
She pours me out a Whisky Mac – enquires, ‘Would I like ice?’
Suggests we take a little break, if I felt that way inclined.

She walks towards a sideboard – takes a book from out the drawer,
I sip my drink and wonder where on earth we’d met before.
She sits right down beside me, and smoothes her velvet dress
and then begins to read out loud as if, somehow, possessed.

“So long I’ve waited for this day, since first I wrote your part.
Remember, you must speak your lines, not say what’s in your heart.
The orchestra’s assembled now, the overture begins.
It’s time for Fate to play her part in the Grand Scheme of Things.”

I’d heard that quote before somewhere, so I ask her what she’d read,
and all the while the room spins round as the Scotch goes to my head.
She doesn’t seem to hear me though – her thoughts seem miles away,
as she stares toward the burning logs that crackle in the grate.

The clock strikes ten when she suggests she pours us one drink more,
so tops up both our glasses, puts the book back in the drawer.
Our game of crib abandoned – find it hard to concentrate,
I say maybe some other time, if I was round this way again.

She seems upset and said she’d hoped that Fate would be more kind –
not by chance I’d missed my train and she’d seen me walk on by.
I tell her I am stony broke, so I’d better leg it home;
she looks me in the eyes and says, “I beg you, please don’t go.”

She tells me I’m the ‘chosen one’, the one she’s waited for.
Fate is in my hands, she says, as she bolts the mullioned door.
“Come here and lay beside me, loose the ribbon from my hair.
Can I tempt you with the promise of Eternity to share?”