Serenade

'I used to sing,' he said as we walked along the road from the lovely country pub garden to the car park, 'folk songs, in the 60's and 70's. I used to sing in pubs and clubs in the North of England when I was a student.'

He had phoned me earlier that day and suggested we go and see a film in the small, intimate cinema in a nearby village. He calls from time to time. Afterwards, we didn't want to end the evening just yet, so ambled along to a nearby pub, sat in the almost deserted, lantern-lit garden, chatting and watching the evening fade gently into night.

'Sing to me,' I asked, smiling. 'Sing something for me now!' 
'What, here?' he said, surprised. We were walking back to the car park, past an abandoned, boarded-up church and I took his hand and drew him into the quiet calm of the overgrown, neglected churchyard.

And he did. He sang for me. Five verses of a sea shanty, a tale of love and loss, in a fine baritone voice, under the new, crescent moon.