Friday night we went to see Saving Private Ryan at the local country house hotel cinema. I had not seen it before and watched mesmerized throughout. It was not the only war story we heard over the weekend. The second one came on Saturday night at the wine bar, as these things do, from a local who moved into the converted chapel a few years ago. On his first night in residence he stopped in the wine bar where he was introduced to town elder Harold. Harold promptly recounted how a German plane was shot down over our town during World War II and the bodies of the pilots were laid out in the chapel until they could be buried some days later in the main churchyard. The new resident didn’t get much sleep on his first night thinking about his ghostly roommates.
Our new acquaintance also provided the best line of the evening when, after listening to husband and I bicker for some minutes, he enquired if we were “a Will and Grace thing.” This was followed by laughter, a whispered explanation in his ear, a beat, then “oh my god, they’re married.” Clearly this is a man who’s easily spooked.
