When I Was Nine

I arrived in the back of your boyfriend’s van

at his antique shop, perhaps on North Street.

You hadn’t had breakfast and choked

on a spoonful of Rice Krispies.

I had but said I was hungry on the way

to the bus stop, you bought me a jam tart

from Thomas’s. It was also my first visit

to Harrogate, which unlike Ripon

I’d heard of many times. I said it wasn’t

like I imagined it would be – more cottagey?

you suggested and I agreed, truthfully.

We can only have been there a couple of hours

yet managed to cram in lunch, an ice-cream

in the Valley Gardens, stopping to admire giant rhubarb

and the Pump Room museum where we 

tasted the water. Revolting you said and the man

replied that that was polite. 

We went to Marks & Spencers

for a reason I can’t recall

and to Boots to buy sachets of shampoo.

I wasn’t really worried that the Spa Baths

would be closed by the time we got back

but I pretended I was for effect.

We remembered the old lady on the 36

going home who had been there on the way as well

and explained to me about sugar beet 

which I’d observed in a passing field.

I wasn’t to come again for over two years

when you got your first house in Rayner Street,

and not to the market place for longer

when I would point out Thomas’s

and remind you of the time 

you bought me a jam tart.