There was only one left on the plate.
“Go on, you can have it,” said the man in the tweed jacket.
Obviously taken by surprise, the curly-haired youth turned. “No. That’s fine. I’ve probably gobbled down three or four. I just love ’em, I suppose.”
Tweed smiled. “Me too. Anyway, go ahead, it’s all yours.”
The morning tea put on by the local golf club was all but over with people making their way back out to the car park.
Curly shook his head. “No, really, I shouldn’t eat any more.”
Tweed said, “It seems a shame to let it go to waste.”
Neither of them looked at the solitary party-pie on the paper plate.
“I’m full, but thanks,” said curly, starting to feel awkward.
Tweed looked around at the place, almost empty, with just a few people tidying up. “Someone needs to eat it. If not us, it looks like nobody will.”
They both stood, not saying anything for a long moment. A clattering of chairs being gathered echoed through the hall.
Tweed broke the silence. “Do you play?”
“Play?”
Tweed raised an eyebrow. “You know, golf. Do you play golf?”
“Oh! No. I just help out in the kitchen sometimes with my mother.” He looks down at the plate and smiles. “She makes ‘em.”
“Well, now,” says tweed, clapping his hands, “that’s why they taste so good! Homemade pies, baked by your mother.” He chuckled.
Curly grinned and nodded.
“Now then,” said Tweed, taking on an air of authority, “your mother would be really upset if she knew that one of her pies was thrown out… because you didn’t eat it.”
Curly shrugged and picked it up.
As Tweed made his way across the car park to his car, he mumbled, “I don’t know, the kids of today, they’re so bloody selfish!”