There's a new world somewhere...
This title is the first line of a Seeker's classic, composed by Tom Springfield, 'I'll never find another you', popular in the sixties , ok a bit later than the series but... Hope I'm not infringing copyright but it was and is a favourite of mine.
The first in a serial (I hope) about Frank and Alice.
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As Frank pulled away from Alice's house he glanced in his rear view mirror. She was just going through her door. He noticed her upright stance, her dark hair falling just over the collar of her blouse.
He liked her, but he didn't know why. On a physical level she was attractive, good figure, always smartly dressed. On an intellectual level she was smart, well educated, intuitive and he respected that. He wasn't drawn to giggling nervous women who needed to be wrapped in cotton wool. No, he liked Alice, more than a Superintendent of Police would normally like his Pathology Registrar.
So, what to do about it?
He was still pondering this when he pulled onto the drive of his own modest residence.
When he'd taken the posting at Ballarat he'd rented a small bungalow. It had been all a widowed, childless police officer needed. A bedroom, living/dining area, kitchen and bathroom; definitely the home of a single, and he had to admit, lonely man.
When his wife died, to fill the void he'd turned to the horses, betting and mostly losing. Perhaps he was looking to fill the void in the wrong places.
The marriage had been good, he had been fulfilled and he hoped his late wife had. She had never complained, and he had let her continue working after the wedding, knowing that if they were blessed with children she would have given up her job to be a mother. But they weren't and she didn't, so now he was alone.
Should he pursue Alice? He didn't know. He'd have to sleep on it.
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Alice closed and locked the door behind her, a habit, she knew, born out of being one of few women to make it in, what was still, a man's world.
Trust a man not to be able to order flowers!
Alice dropped her keys into her handbag and walked into her living room. Her house, like Frank's, was small, but bright if conservatively furnished. A sofa, chair, coffee table and sideboard were in the living room, the kitchen was small, but Alice was the first to admit she wasn't much of a cook; a bedroom and bathroom completed the building.
She sighed. Sometimes she envied Jean's situation. She knew Jean worked hard, looking after a husband, lodger and toddler, plus being Lucien's receptionist couldn't be easy, and now she had a newborn to cope with! Why did Jean make it all seem so easy, so every day. Somehow Alice felt she'd missed something over the years.
She poured herself her evening whisky, just the one. Unlike Blake she didn't need the prop of alcohol; although she had to admit he didn't drink anywhere near as much as he used to, if at all.
She thought about Frank as she swirled the amber liquid in the glass. He'd been nothing but gallant, old fashioned, but she liked it. She didn't want to fight off a man who thought giving a female colleague a lift home meant he'd get into her bed.
She knew he was widowed with no children, and a gambler. That, she felt, was his way of coping with loneliness. Ordinarily she didn't think of other's emotions, she'd long ago consigned hers to the locked part of her psyche she called the past. But, Frank was different.
Oh god! These were feelings she'd long ago given up on.