When Harry met Betty…

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, sitting up straighter, “now he’s a bit of alright.” Some may argue that it is impossible to choke on ice cream, but Kelly managed, and then some.

“Granny!” Kelly sputtered. “He is literally young enough to be your grandson, and I know this because he’s in one of my classes!”

Elizabeth tutted, glancing sideways at her granddaughter, whose wild brown curls did little to hide her flaming cheeks. She took a moment to marvel at how easily flustered Kelly had become. She missed a lot about her younger years, but experience had its perks; embarrassment lost its grip with age. She turned her gaze back to the beach and watched the young man shrink as he continued his jog across the shoreline. She had the distinct impression she wasn’t the only one enjoying the live Baywatch show.

“Ah,” Elizabeth said, “you fancy the young David Hasselhoff too. Love is complicated enough without adding embarrassment at your grandmother to the pile.”

“I am not embarrassed by you,” Kelly said quickly, pausing the rhythmic crumpling of her serviette. Elizabeth knew that was true, but she couldn’t help herself sometimes, so she hummed out her scepticism. “Seriously! I’m not! I just… I find it really gross that my grandmother is drooling over the guy I like.”

“Sweetheart, I am old, but not old enough to be drooling nor incapable of appreciating a good-looking man!” Elizabeth retorted. “Besides, it shows we both have excellent taste… in men, if not in ice cream flavours.” She frowned again at Kelly’s order – a green monstrosity that tasted like grass. She didn’t believe in regrets, but tasting that was one of the very few she allowed herself.

Kelly scrunched her face up. “If you start saying Derrick reminds you of Grandpa from back in the day, I will vomit.”

The thing was, the young man didn’t remind her of her husband of fifty-eight years. He gave her a strange sense of déjà vu, as if she were glimpsing another life – one she had almost forgotten.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Kelly’s mortified voice pulled Elizabeth out of the strange haze she had fallen into. “He… he does remind you of Grandpa, doesn’t he?”

“No, your grandfather was never one to run around in board shorts, sweetheart.” Elizabeth pulled a face at the thought. She loved Harry, but absolutely not. “No, this one…” She gestured vaguely toward the jogger. “…he reminds me of my first love, I think.” She smiled fondly, letting herself enjoy the memory for a heartbeat.

“That doesn’t make it any better; I hope you know that.”

To tell the truth, Elizabeth couldn’t say for certain whether young David Hasselhoff looked anything like her old flame. They say you never forget your first love, but goodness, she had. She closed her eyes, trying to conjure his face, but drew a blank. Instead, she just felt him. She could almost hear his laughter again, the way her name had once fallen from his lips. He had been the only one to ever call her “Betty”. That, she remembered.

“To be honest, dear, I barely remember him at all. It was what?” Elizabeth did some quick mental maths. “Sixty years ago now…” Her voice trailed off, and she both loved and despised how empathetic this generation was – Kelly picked up on her change in tone straight away, turning to her, her guileless blue eyes softening as they met Elizabeth’s.

“Do you want to tell me what you do remember?” Kelly asked, her lips ticking into a little smirk that reminded Elizabeth so much of her own. “If only to put my mind at ease that I don’t have the hots for Grandpa’s doppelgänger.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Do you remember the story of how I met your grandfather?” she asked, savouring the eye roll Kelly gave her in return as she nodded. Elizabeth and Harry had told that story more times than anyone could ever count. “Well,” she said, leaning back a little, “there’s a little more to the story.”

***

Elizabeth had hated loud music for as long as she could remember. Now, she could quite easily demand it be turned down, or off completely, and just be told she “didn’t get it.” Back then, it made her “boring”. And boring was exactly what she was that December night in 1966.

She stood off to the side of the room, arms crossed, head spinning. She would learn of escape rooms much later from her grandchildren, and she would forever wonder if the concept had originated in that godawful basement on Tottenham Court Road. The air was thick with plumes of hash and sweat as she watched her friend sway to the atrocity that called themselves “Pink Floyd”, making noises on the stage that someone, somewhere, had decided qualified as music.

“Enjoying yourself, then?” a deep voice spoke in her ear, and she jumped, turning to face the stranger. He leaned casually against the wall, a lazy grin precariously holding onto the cigarette dangling between his lips. His eyes were almost as black as his hair – an oasis amid the kaleidoscope of flashing lights. She shook herself internally, rolling her eyes at her own reaction.

“Real up-and-comers,” she muttered. She knew she sounded far too prim, but she didn’t care.

“I think they’re great,” he said, tilting his head toward the stage, tossing his cigarette on the ground and grinding it beneath his shoe. “I’d kill to be up there with them.”

Elizabeth scoffed. “None of them are even called Floyd, did you know that? All of this is utter nonsense.”

He laughed, a low, raspy chuckle that danced along her skin and left goosebumps in its wake. “Seems I’ve finally found the only person in this room immune to the madness,” he said. “What’s your name, then? Is it Floyd? Is that why you’re so angry? Copyright infringement?”

“It’s Elizabeth. Thank you very much.” She felt her cheeks heating and was thankful the lights had turned from blue to red.

“I think I’ll call you Betty,” he said, his grin widening. “Elizabeth feels a bit posh, no?”

She turned to face him fully, and he was painfully handsome. It left her more off-kilter than she dared let on. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think I am a tad posh, no?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Nah,” he said, leaning closer. “I don’t think you are.”

***

Kelly blinked at her grandmother, her mouth opening and closing in quick succession. “Jesus, Granny??” she finally managed, her voice uncharacteristically loud. “Holy shit… sorry”- she flinched at the curse before clearing her throat - “Betty???”

Elizabeth nodded, a bit proud of herself if she was being honest. “Yes, well,” she said, patting Kelly’s leg, “I was young once, too.”

Kelly laughed, burying her face in her hands. “I… I can’t. That is literally a romcom moment; you know that, right?” She looked back up at Elizabeth. “Wait… what was his name?”

“Oh, I haven’t a clue,” Elizabeth said, and she was sure now that his name wasn’t just something lost to time. “We didn’t do much talking after that, dear! You know how these things go.”

Kelly feigned gagging, but Elizabeth could tell it was light-hearted before she even uttered her next words. The young girl was practically bouncing in her seat. “Okay, so you met Grandpa like a year after that?” Elizabeth nodded.

“Oh my god, was he a rebound? Usually, people rebound from marriages with a one-night stand. You really flipped the script.”

“He wasn’t a rebound, dear,” Elizabeth said, her voice softening as she recalled the day she met Harry. “Your grandfather was just… the first person to challenge the memory of that night and what I thought love was.”

Kelly was right, of course she was. She had heard the story a million times. Elizabeth had met Harry less than a year later in a small record store in the heart of London. She hated to admit it, but she had spent quite some time wandering into places like that. The only thing she took from that night was the knowledge that the man – the man who awakened her in ways she never could have imagined – loved music. Was it naïve to think she might find him browsing the aisles or perhaps standing behind one of the counters? Yes. She had known that. She was chasing a ghost, and yet… she couldn’t stop searching.

That is how she found herself standing in the least dusty corner of a tiny shop near Soho, mechanically flipping through the stack of new arrivals. She wasn’t really taking much in until a familiar name made her pause. Pink Floyd.

Elizabeth stared at the sleeve for a long moment before an entirely unladylike sound burst out of her – a half snort, half laugh. She truly could not believe her eyes. How did they have an entire album?

“Oh, I would not recommend that,” a voice beside her said, warm and amused. “They’re kind of shit.” Elizabeth looked up and met the most earnest blue eyes she had ever seen, his face framed by unruly tendrils of brown hair. She found herself instantly fighting back a grin.

“I saw them live at the UFO club last year,” she said, lifting The Piper at the Gates of Dawn as if it were diseased. She realised then, with no small amount of satisfaction, that this was something she could hold over people with terrible taste in music for the rest of her life. Even those who didn’t care for their music would likely appreciate the significance of that. Or so she thought.

“I am so sorry,” the man replied, a genuine frown tugging at his mouth.

“It’s character building,” Elizabeth said solemnly – then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, “but you’re right. They really are shit!”

The man’s eyes widened before he joined her; she realised then that the ridiculous sound of his laughter – something akin to a foghorn, if she were being generous – was something she could listen to for the rest of her life.

“What’s your name?” she asked, knowing that this time, she wanted a name to hold onto should this day end up nothing more than a memory too.

He grinned. “Harry.”

***

Elizabeth and Kelly walked arm in arm towards the parking lot, both lost in thought.

“Do you ever”, Kelly started, staring ahead of them, “regret it?”

“Regret what, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess… do you ever wonder what could have happened if you found that guy?” And you never met Harry. Kelly didn’t have to say that last part; Elizabeth knew what she was asking. Would she have preferred that life etched in the what-if of it all?

“Look at me,” Elizabeth said, and Kelly obliged. Staring back at her were her husband’s eyes – the same eyes he gave their children and their grandchildren. She couldn’t imagine being met by anyone else’s eyes but Harry’s. “When you meet someone you know you can love in the faces of generations to come, someone you don’t mind having your genetics lose to, time and time again… what room is there for regret?” Elizabeth watched Kelly’s dimple deepen with her answering smile. Perhaps some of her genes had come out on top. She tightened her grip on her granddaughter’s arm.

“Now tell me, does your Derrick have a face like that?” Elizabeth asked. “Because, to be perfectly honest, I was not looking at his face!”

“Oh my god,” Kelly laughed.