A CHEATED HEART

‘Get away from me, go on fuck off all of you. I fucking hate you,’ she shouted.
I looked out the window and saw people in the play area and standing on the bottom step of a flight facing up the hill. Then I saw a woman walking out left from behind the bush near the opening in the railings and over the road. She had long blonde hair was wearing white trainers, navy blue tracksuit bottoms and a short-sleeved England football shirt.
'Leave me alone or I’ll call the police,’ she shouted.
A woman who I'd passed earlier in the subway was wearing the same denim dress she wore then. She leaned back against the wall of the pub and appeared to be talking to the woman’d shouted who then pulled away towards the estate, ‘keep away, go on get back or I’ll fucking thump you, go on back off.’
The woman’d shouted gave the woman leaning the piece of paper she was holding.
‘Fuck off, go on, fuck off.’
The woman leaning after giving the piece of paper back to the woman’d shouted went up the steps and through the front door of the pub. At the bottom of the steps stood two men.
The woman’d shouted went over to the men and showed them the piece of paper. One of them took it and the other stood with his hands in the pockets of his shorts...
...my phone rang and I answered it...

I FEEL MY LUCK COULD CHANGE

She was banging on the lift door when I walked in.
‘They’re talking on five,’ she said, ‘have been for ten minutes.’
I stood next to her, listened, heard voices, banged on the lift door myself
- BANG BANG BANG -
then began waiting pacing in the foyer.
‘Now it’s gone up to thirteen,’ she said.
Woman who I know to say hello to came joined us.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She looked at and said, ‘hello.’
‘It was at five for ages they were talking,’ said the first woman, ‘then it went up to thirteen and now it keeps stopping at the floors coming down.’
‘What’s that smell?’ said the woman I know to say hello to.
‘What smell?’ said the first woman.
‘Is it in the lift?’.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
‘Well, there’s a smell and it’s coming from somewhere.’
Pause.
I turned to I know to say hello to and said, ‘you know when the other lift’s going to be ready?’
‘They said five weeks when I asked them a couple’a days ago,’ she said.
‘Five weeks?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not looking forward to everyone using that lift,’ I said. ‘It used to be the clean lift but it won’t be for very long.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said.

CAN YOU IMAGINE?

Took a photograph of a seagull was standing on the corner of the rampart of the King Charles pub’s been closed a few months since being repossessed.
As I walked away after he said from left of me, ‘you with the company?’
‘No,’ I said looking at his blue eyes. ‘I’m taking photographs.’
‘I used to run that pub.’
‘You weren’t the one ran it when it got closed, were you?’
‘No, but he let me have it eighteen months ago or so and it was really buzzing, got it going, we did.’
‘Yeh? I wondered how he could keep it going three or four people drinking a night doesn’t make a living. Sometimes I passed there was music and more people then but not often.’
He said, ‘we had DJs and stuff during the week and at the weekend we’d have gaming nights. I’d set out twelve computers and off we’d go...’
- BikeWorld on our right -
‘...we’d have competitions with the Full Moon.’
‘What, online?’ I said.
‘It might be the last pub on Stokes Croft,’ he said thumbing over his left shoulder the direction we’d come from.
‘Be a shame if it is.’
‘They’re turning that into a backpacker’s hostel and having a wine bar.’
‘What, the Full Moon?’
‘Yeh, that into a backpacker’s hostel and have the Eclipse as a small wine bar.’
‘The Eclipse?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a wine bar on Stokes Croft. Can you imagine?’

A LONG WAY

‘I was in the lift the other day,’ said the young man was with him, ‘it went all the way up stopped at every floor then did the same on the way down.’
‘I was waiting for it the other day,’ he said, ‘and it stopped about this much off the bottom.’
‘How long you have to wait?’ I said.
‘Took about ten minutes them pulling at the door from inside to get it open. I didn’t use it after they got out I went up the stairs I didn’t want to get stuck in it if it broke down, and I couldn’t trust it, you know?’
‘I know, it can take a while...’
‘...half hour or more...’ he said, then got out with the man was with him. ‘Have a nice day.’
‘Bye now.’
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen when they start work on this lift,’ she said after they’d gone.
‘I’ve been wondering that. We’ll be walking up the hill a lot’ll be hard,’ I said.
‘Especially if you got bags of shopping.’
‘Yes, with your hands full, or with children.’
‘The other day it wasn’t working,’ she said, ‘and I had to walk up all the way.’
‘And it’s a long way,’ I said.

YESTERDAY IN THE LIFT

‘You watching the football? I said.
‘I saw the first half they were two nil up weren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
Pause.
‘You watching England tomorrow?’ I said.
‘Yeh, I’ll watch it at home, it gets a bit hectic in town.’
‘Oh.’ (Thinking of saying, ‘I went to the Bay Horse it was too smoky, you know?’)
Pause.
‘Where you seen it in town?’ I said.
‘The Australian pub.’
Pause.
‘The Australian pub?’ I said.
‘Yeh, near St. Nick’s market, you know it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Gets a bit hectic.’

HE’S BACK

‘You’re back,’ I said surprised when he appeared in front of me at the washer coming from behind my left shoulder.
‘I told you it wouldn’t work out,’ said Godmother from over by the folding table.
‘Why’d you come back? I asked him when there was only the two of us in the laundry.
‘Too many people and too much racism,’ he said.
He said more, ‘there’d be a queue for the dryers, people’d be down here when it wasn’t their turn.
‘Then the last time I was there - the last time because I didn’t want to be there anymore after - a Somali woman came in, her time it was, and this man from number whatever said, “I want this time why don’t you fuck off back home and do it in the basin like you used to, go on fuck off.”’
‘That’s horrible,’ I said.
‘Yeh, he had a go at her then had a go at me when I stuck up for her.’

REMINDERS

She said, ‘don’t you realise the impact your absence has?’
‘I heard you the first time,’ I said.
‘I’m reminding you.’
‘I don’t need reminding.’
The phone rang.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hello.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘You know who it is?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I recognised the voice.’

CONTINGENCY

His back was the first object I saw, then the pushchair, and then, when I held the door open, a child the man said to, ‘it’s fine to stand on the pushchair but you always seem to do it at inappropriate moments like when we’re going through a doorway.’
I said, ‘I’ll wait, send it down.’
He said, ‘come on get in. You can get it in if you get it up on its end, it’s a long way up and down to wait.’
‘They going to make the lifts bigger?’ I said.
‘They say that,’ he said. ‘Don’t see how they’re going to make them wider...’
‘...nor me...’
‘...but there’s room,’ pointing at the coffin hole, ‘to make it longer.’
‘Yeh, when they going to do it, I’d like to know.’
‘I was talking to the caretaker and he said it’d be done by next week then they’ll start on this one and that’s going to be fun.’
‘It’ll mean a lot of walking up the hill,’ I said.
‘For those of us who can.’
‘Yeh, I’ve been thinking about that.’
‘I don’t think they’ve got any contingency plans,’ he said.
‘Be impressive if they did though, wouldn’t it?’

9cc

‘You want one of the beers I stole earlier?’ I said.
‘No thanks.’
‘How’ve you been?’ I asked looking at him chewing a mouthful of a bread roll he’d taken, like me, from the wicker basket offered us by the man telling the story. ‘I was thinking how long since we’d seen each other...must be...’
‘...seven and a half years,’ he said, - I thought it was fifteen - ‘and mother was right behind me as always.’
We’d drifted away from the crowd. In the distance behind him I saw a church steeple pointed in a blue sky.
‘It wasn’t easy being with you both all the time,' I said. 'I realised that later.’
He said, ‘one day she missed the glue and I don’t know where she got to after that.’
I read the writing on the mustard yellow back cover of the CD he’d given that named me as singer on the fourth song - “9cc” - the three of us had played when we first arrived that afternoon. We moved chairs and trumpets marking off our space in the recording studio we were sharing with a seven-piece brass band of miners from Nottingham.
‘I should’ve sung more of other people’s songs,’ I thought.
Now, as I approached the house in the woods where we’d meet earlier, I felt jealous of his talent, of what he’d done and who he’d done it with.
‘If only I'd stayed with him, I could’ve been so much more.’

SUMMER SOLSTICE

Today I went into each of the rooms I'd not previously known'd existed in the building I work looking for where I wanted my office to be.
Through the window in one of them I could see a wall made of breeze block the top of which was out of sight and I was surprised any sunlight at all got into the room.
When the cupboard, in the corner of the room I reached from one had an armchair furthest from the door I left by, opened, coloured boxes fell out on to the carpet that covered the floor.
She stood behind me said, ‘what are they?’
‘They’re coloured boxes,’ I said.
‘I can see that now,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

SAT ON A WALL

‘Sometimes I envy those people on Stokes Croft sat on a wall and drinking all day,’ I said.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said from the left next to me.
‘No, I do, really,’ I said. ‘They sit there drinking not getting up in the morning unless it’s to get an early can and not working...I mean, how do they get away without working, I’d like to know?’
‘What, you really want to spend your time doing that?’
‘Sometimes, I said, sometimes. You know, I just feel tired and want a break and I see them there and think, “I could do with a bit of that”’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
‘It’s true, I mean it.’
‘I can’t believe you envy them. You know they disappear?’
‘I know. The years I’ve seen people sitting there, I’ve seen them deteriorating - stepped over a few - seen them get worse and then I don’t see them anymore, but sometimes I could do with a break and I see them there sat on the wall...’

HANGIN'

I’d not seen her before, ever, not here, not anywhere.
She’d got in above me was in the back right corner.
I said, ‘if you move the other side...’
‘...oh...’
‘...that’s it, and forward a bit...’
‘...oh...’
‘...thanks, I can get my bike in...there...thanks.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
She stood close to me and the wheel behind her and didn’t move in to the space in front of her.
‘I heard this lift breaks down a lot,’ she said.
‘Well, yes it does sometimes.’
‘I heard it broke down twice last week.’
‘It wasn’t working the whole day on Tuesday,’ I said.
‘I don’t live here,’ she said. ‘I’m only visiting but I couldn’t walk all the way up.’
‘It’s a nightmare.’
‘I’m a heavy smoker it’d do me in.’
‘I don’t smoke and come the sixth floor...’
‘...you’re hangin',’ she said.

BIKE YOUTH

At the bottom of the block going out I stopped and thought, ‘did I shut and lock the front door?’ I couldn’t be sure so went back up to my flat, checked and it was fine.
I’m doing this a lot at the moment. Leaving the flat and might be halfway out or like today all the way before going back trying the handle and key in the lock to reassure myself the door is properly closed.
Couple’a floors down in the stopped lift looked at a youth stood waiting with bike who didn’t move or speak.
A moment still then I moved one step to the right. Youth moved pushing bike before he stopped halfway into the lift.
I looked at him. We said nothing.
I moved another step to the right and he manouvered the front wheel of the bike into the back corner the left of me.
He turned his head to watch the lift door slide shut behind the bike’s back wheel.
We said nothing.
First out of the lift at the ground floor I held the inner door then the outer for Bike Youth.
We said nothing.

TOO LOUD

Outside a house when a man pointing at a window above the front door he’d just come out of said, ‘is that too loud, is that too loud?’
‘Is what too loud?’ I said.
‘The music, is it too loud?’
‘Doesn’t sound too loud from here.’
‘That’s what I said,’ he said, ‘but she keeps telling me to turn it down.’
‘So it’s too loud for her.’
‘But too loud for her doesn’t make it too loud, does it?’
‘Maybe “too loud” means something different for her than it does for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Er, I don’t know and anyway, look, I’ve gotta go.’
‘Oh, okay’ he said, ‘but it’s not too loud is it?’

LOVELY MAN

‘You’re a good man,’ she said.
‘Oh, right, yeh’ I said.
‘Yes, you’re lovely. You want me to fix you up with someone?’
‘I’m fine thanks.’
‘I’ll fix you up,’ she said. ‘You like black women? I’ll find you a nice black woman.’
‘I’m fine actually, thanks.’
‘What? You don’t like black women?’
‘It’s not that. I’m with someone.’
‘Oh, she a good woman?’
‘Yeh,’ I said, ‘she is, yeh.’
‘Well, anyway,’ she said after a moment, ‘you ever want a nice black woman let me know.’
‘Er, yeh, okay, er, I will, thanks.’

HOW TO LIVE

There's a book called ‘Meaningful to Behold,’ I read it years ago. It’s about the values we use to structure and conduct our lives.
The other night a friend came round to see me. We went to the pub before coming back to the flat for a smoke.
As he skinned up he said, ‘how about some of that skunk you’ve got left to go in the joint?’
‘There’s hardly any left and that’s all I’ve got,’ I said of the stash remaining from what he’d given me last week.
‘Oh, okay,’ he said, rolled the joint, lit up, then we smoked it.

NOT ON MINE

‘Excuse me,’ I said from behind two people sat on a step in the back stairwell the next time I used it to go out.
‘Sorry,’ the woman said.
They moved aside and I went between them before squeezing past a man looking through a camera mounted on a tripod on the landing below.
Outside the passage door on the sixth floor were Godmother and Old Woman talking.
‘Alright?’ said Godmother.
‘There’s a film crew up there on the stairs,’ I said as I walked between them.
‘What?’ they said not quite together.
‘A film crew...up there on the stairs...I just passed them...’
‘Oh,’ said Godmother, ‘what floor?’
I thought for a second looking up through the glass at where I’d just come from, raised my right arm, and rested the tips of my fingers lightly on my chin and said, ‘the eighth...yeh, must be, the eighth.’
‘That’s okay,’ she said, ‘as long as they’re not on mine.’

I’M NOT SURE

Back from work this afternoon.
The lift’s still broken. I chained my bike on the railings outside the flats and phoned the council.
‘The lift’s broke and has been since this morning it’s been over seven hours, how about getting it repaired?’
‘A repair order’s gone in twice already,’ she said, ‘I’ll put another one through.’
‘Yeh’d be good to get the bike home sometime today.’
A woman walked past when I was on the phone and the council was speaking and she said as she opened the door to the maisonette walkway, ‘disgraceful isn’t it?’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said and then into the phone, ‘yeh, thanks for your help.’
Up the back stairwell the lump of shit I’d seen this morning as I carried my bike down was gone.
That lump of shit was not the lump of shit I saw a couple of days ago and told you about. That was in the front stairwell near the top and I saw it last night as well with a friend when we used the stairs on our way out to the pub.
‘Is that the shit you mentioned?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure it’s not human?’
‘No, I’m not.’

THIS IS OUR HOME

‘Look at that,’ she said to the caretaker’d got in the lift with us.
‘What is it? it looks like glue,’ the caretaker said as the four of us looked to where the woman pointed at the caramel coloured stuff on the window in front of the camera.
‘It’s all over the front doors on my floor, and on the floor,’ I said, ‘did it on Saturday, I reckon’s when.’
‘Mind the spit, too,’ said the woman pointing at the corner the caretaker stood.
The caretaker got out halfway up.
‘I’d get in trouble if I found out who it was did it,’ said the woman.
‘I’d want to make them lick it off,’ I said.
‘Me too,’ she said and laughed, ‘I don’t understand why someone wants to do something like it really, I just don’t get it, you know?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I don’t get it either.’
She held out her hand I shook it and we introduced ourselves and where we lived in the block.
‘And this is my friend,’ she said of the other woman.
‘I’m going to use the stairs on the way down,’ her friend said.
‘Aaargh,’ said the woman, ‘this is our home.’

THERE ON THE STAIR

On the way out this morning using the front stairwell down I passed, after first smelling, dog shit. Two rough pitted lumps of brown stuff there on the stair top one of seven.
Credit where credit’s due, the pooh was against the wall not in the centre of the stair so no stepping over by me required.
On the way in this afternoon using the back stairwell after work a woman sat on the second bottom of seven step a few flights up.
She sat head in her hands a small bag between her and the wall.
Passing on the right of her I thought, ‘she fixing? No...
‘She crying? Can’t hear her crying...
‘Shall I ask her what’s up? No...’
Further up the stairwell I could smell her still.
‘She can hear me getting higher...
‘Will she guess how high I get?’

LICK IT OFF

She said, ‘you’ll find the kids have been playing in the lift...’
...I thought she was talking about the caramel paste I was looking at at my eye level by the door and on the glass protects the lift camera...
‘...they’ve pressed from seven up to the top so it’ll stop at each one.’
‘Little sods,’ I said, ‘bastards.’
As I’d pulled into the car park I’d seen her walk wearing leathers and a bike helmet from one of the garages.
I almost said, ‘send the lift back down, will you?’ didn’t and when I got there carrying new futon, duvet, and bedding still in the plastic packaging she was stood waiting her finger on the door open button.
‘Did it stop at every floor on the way down?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
After she’d got out I saw, in a corner of the lift, an empty Nutella jar with a table fork upright and the remains of the same caramel paste in it it looked like was on the walls.
‘Where do they get off doing something like that?’ I thought.
Where they got out was on my floor. The same paste was smeared on mine and another’s front door.
I feel really pissed off about it and imagined, when I was inside the flat, catching one of them who’d done it, grabbing them by the neck and pushing their face up against my door into the paste shouting, ‘LICK IT OFF YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.’

ROBIN HOOD

Outside the cafe where we sat he said, 'look there's Robin Hood, look, there he is, look.'
'What?' I said looking. 'You mean him stood on the top of the steps reading the piece of paper?'
'Yes, it's Robin Hood, that is.'
'What you think it says on the piece of paper then?'
'"Rob the rich, give to the poor," I expect,' he said.

BALL BEARING

A ball-bearing about two inches in diameter came hurtling towards me just above the ground.
I tried to stop it with one of my feet outstretched but failed and I turned to see it caught by a man behind me and thrown back over me and the group of three men stood next to a concrete wall.
We watched the ball-bearing drop beyond the wall into the abyss and I wondered if it might hit someone walking below.
I sat down at a table where two men and a woman apparently unaware of the recent loss sat discussing how to explain postmodernism to underfives. Not one of them looked or addressed any comments to me.
I stood up and left.
By the time I got there the restaurant was crowded but although the lighting was low I saw him sat at a table in a corner talking to a woman.
Black jacket, polo-neck top, blond straight hair and a ginger goatee reminded me he’d once said, ‘if I grow a beard it grows ginger, so I don’t bother.’
I walked over to take a closer look but he didn’t notice, well anyway didn’t show that he had.
‘Maybe he doesn’t recognise me,’ I thought, ‘after all it’s fifteen years we last met and I’ve had a haircut since then.’

MORE CHEESECAKE

When I got to hers I put the cheesecake in the fridge without her seeing and took it out after we’d eaten and been for a walk.
‘You bought a whole one,’ she said when I showed her, ‘I only meant the slices, the individual ones they have.’
‘I didn’t see any of those,’ I said. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘no, no, no. It looks lovely.’
She took the cheesecake in it’s dish out of the packet and put it on the counter, got two plates, ‘I’ll have the one I bought today at a charity shop, isn’t it lovely, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, it is.’
She cut the cheesecake and put pieces on each of the plates.
‘That one’s mine, that one’s mine’ I said pointing at the larger portion.
‘Stop it,’ she said, ‘you’re starting to irritate me.’
We ate the cheesecake and it was very nice.
This morning I noticed a piece missing from what was left the night before.
‘I had some for breakfast,’ she said.

CHEESECAKE

I texted, ‘anything you want from town while I’m here?’
‘M&S cheesecake if u near there...’
In to M&S, woman said in to her mobile, ‘ok, where’s Primark to, then?’ I could’ve said, ‘go back the way you came, out the door turn right, keep going it’s on your right you can’t miss it,’ but didn’t.
I went to the dessert section found, ‘TOTALLY BERRY CHEESECAKE’ was £3.99 took it to the checkout paid cash and put it in a carrier bag so it’d keep flat, as instructed on the box.
To my bike locked up outside the jewellers wrapped the handle of the bag round the left handlebar of the bike rode home up in the lift put the bag with cheesecake, that I’d kept flat all the way from town, on the floor inside my front door.
I’ll take it to hers later...where we’ll eat it...

RECT

Riding through the demolition site north of Broadmead on my way back home from work I saw the remains of a sign leaning against some of the temporary fencing guides pedestrians and cyclists through the changeable road systems.
White letters about thirty centremetres high on a mid-blue background said, “rect.”
I stopped got the camera out and took a photograph. Then another and was taking a third when a man, wearing a bush hat and carrying a red can of Coke in his right hand, stopped to my left before walking in front of me and said, ‘that sums up what’s happening in this town...I saw it from over the road.’
‘I had to take a photo,’ I said.
‘Nice one man,’ then he walked off said something I couldn’t make out.
‘Yeh, right,’ I said in the direction of his back.

WHEN THREE BECAME TWO

She said, ‘I’m going online in a few minutes why don’t you join me.’
‘Okay.’
She told me, 'I've booked a place, a room above the pub, you want to come and play?'
‘Yes,’ I said.
Online I said, ‘hello.’
She sent a few photographs of a day we’d gone out together last week and then one of a red rose.
‘I like that one,’ I said of the picture of the rose.
When I arrived she said, 'she'll be first, then me, then Peter, do you know Peter?'
‘No,’ I said turning to look at the man stood to my right. 'You didn't tell me there'd be three acts before me. Am I going to have time?'
A third party asked to join the conversation.
‘A third party wants some attention,’ I said.
‘I’ve not done a three way before,’ she said.
‘In my experience,’ the third party said, ‘when there’s a three way someone always gets excluded.’
A man at the back pointed at the watch on the wrist of his arm held up and said, ‘we said we'd be out the room by twelve and it's twenty-five past, what we going to do?'
‘We’re getting married,’ third party said.
‘Congratulations,’ I said.
‘We've run out of time,' she said, 'we've got to go, you can't play, it's too late.'
‘Okay,’ I said and left by the back door.

IF I LOVED HER

Old woman white hair walks with a stick back home from her daughter’s who watches from the doorway of her house husband sat opposite.
He’s sitting on the top bar of the barrier between a walkway in front of a row of five houses and the pavement and road below.
She walks the dog with her daughter and uses both top and bottom entrances with and without.
When they say, ‘goodbye,’ mother or daughter watches the other home. They probly phone when they’re behind locked doors to check and let the other know they are too.
I might do the same with my mum if I loved her like the daughter loves hers.

FLAT SURFACES

In the corridor of the ground level if you go out the back of the block I said, ‘hello,’ to the man coming the opposite direction.
I meet this man most when the lift comes down and instead of getting out he moves to the back says, ‘hello,’ before or after me, then says, ‘I’m going up.’
And this before they started the work put the back lift out of action the past four months from which time the strategy of going down in the lift to go up’s become more widespread.
The lift gets used to reach the fifth floor laundry and he’s one of the people lives here uses it also to visit other residents of the flats.
He said, ‘lovely day isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed...I hope it lasts.’
‘Well it’s supposed to for the weekend is what they say but you never can tell.’
‘True.’
We laughed walking away from each other.

Two squirrels get my attention as I sit in a garden.
‘A pair,’ I think.
The grass needs cutting.

I held the front door open for the old woman’d seen her dog and daughter get back home.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said.
‘S’alright,’ I said.
‘Yes, thank you, that’s lovely, thank you.’
‘Ok, there you go,’ as she passes through.
‘Thank you, thank you, that’s very nice of you, thank you.’

CRESCENT

She ran around the parking lot holding the baby at arms length until she stopped, held it close to her, and bit, into its leg just below the knee.
We went over to see what she’d done and saw a crescent of tooth marks broken the skin. We took the mother into custody and the child into care.
It wasn’t so easy. We had to push our way through a crowd of ayatollahs gathered around turnstiles awaiting entrance to a meeting of military personnel they were due to address on the perils.
She woke me at half five to remind me.
‘I dreamt you were smoking,’ she said.
‘Oh, I thought I’d given up.’
‘Me too but I saw you.’
‘Maybe I didn’t think I’d notice if I did it in your dream.’
‘Well I noticed, and I don’t want you smoking in my dreams.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
She got up out of bed out the door crossed the landing to a room where she sat on a chair at a desk and started working.
I rolled onto my right side and fell asleep.

COUPLE

In Broadmead late afternoon sat outside a cafe the tables being unavailable to me and not wanting to reach down to the ground and pick up my mug of coffee I put it on a chair beside me.
A couple, white woman, black man, stood not far off right in front of me and talked about whether to go into the arcade or not.
They did.
Approximately five minutes later they walked slowly into the left side of my view and stood again not far off right in front of me but this time with their backs toward me.
Suddenly the man skipped away from the woman and slowed down on the path of another man who bumped into him.
A still moment they looked at each other then both laughed and shook hands, gripped finger tips, touched clenched fists.
As they talked the woman walked towards stopped and stood about two metres from them. She appeared to look at her feet and footwear, at the two men, and the passersby.
Her man beckoned the woman to come closer.
‘This is...’ he said.
‘Ah, yes...’ said the met man held out his hand and shook the woman’s.
She said something then backed off waving and turned before making her way to an entrance of the Galleries.
Half hour later still sitting outside the cafe I saw them walk past into the arcade carrying shopping bags they’d not had earlier. They came sat down a few minutes later at the table next to me.

POND LIFE

On her birthday I drove us in the car to a garden somewhere on the way to Stroud.
When we got there he said, ‘go between the mushrooms and walk through the woods,’ is what we did and came out by two ponds linked by a short concrete bridge.
‘Look there’s a newt,’ I said pointing at the smaller of the ponds where a newt floated its legs outstretched and part of the ridge of its back showing above the surface of the water.
She came over, ‘I thought they were bigger than that.’
‘I’ve not seen one for years.’
Tadpoles swam close to the edge and goldfish glided through the water in groups around an immature lily plant at the centre of the pond.
We walked round to the larger pond and as we stood there she said, ‘I want something like this,’ touching an ear of a grass between us and the water, ‘see how coarse it is?’
I felt the ear between the tips of my fingers and thumb of my right hand and said, ‘it is coarse, isn’t it?’