SHE REMINDS ME

‘Oh,’ she said when she walked out the lift on the sixth floor, ‘I thought this was the ground.’
‘It’s six,’ I said and got in pressed the button to my floor and stood against the back wall behind her.
‘You’ve got to go down to go up,’ she said.
‘I know.’
She was small blond hair pulled up tied on the top of her head and I could see welts and what looked like cigarette burns on the nape of her neck. She had a Tesco’s carrier bag hanging from her left wrist.
She reminded me of a beggar used to work town before the authorities clamped down, he was small and blond and looked knackered like she did.
We didn’t say anything more to each other until the lift reached bottom and I said, ‘this is ground.’
She got out and I watched her walk off counting the money she’d taken out the pocket of her jeans before the lift’d stopped.