HIS LEFT SHOULDER

Saw her over his left shoulder. Met first time almost twenty years ago our daughters born within a few days of each other.
Two years ago we passed on King Square Avenue, ‘hello,’ we said. I couldn’t remember her name. A couple of months before she’d seen me busking in Bath and dropped some money in my hat.
Saw her look and look away and when she went out the door of the pub, near which he and I were sitting, she kept her face turned away so there was no, ‘hello.’
He went to the bar, sat back down after, said, ‘I got a real hostile vibe off the woman served me.’
‘Which one?’ I asked.
‘The one whose pub it is, the landlady.’
‘Why would she be hostile?’
I’d seen the way she’d looked earlier when she served a tall, big man, who wore a green combat jacket and drove what my friend called, ‘a hill fort on wheels,’ and thought, ‘she fancies him, she does.’
‘Because we’re old gits,’ he said.
‘Well, we were laughing loudly.’
‘Were we?’
‘Well, I was.’
Time...another drink...
He said something and waved his arms about explaining, making noises...
‘She’s just behind you,’ I said quietly, leaning forward, the landlady collecting glasses from tables occupied and vacated.
‘Oh no,’ he said, shrinking, turning sinking head, looking sheepishly over his left shoulder.