CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION?

Sat in Broadmead on one of the black metal slatted benches just within the circle of concrete flower boxes sits around the hub of the precenct I was eating a cheese and onion pasty with a tub of houmous.
A man with a groan sat down the other end of the bench to me and said, ‘can I ask you a question?’
‘No,’ I said, not stopping eating, not looking at him, I heard him get up with a groan and walk off.
Thirty, forty minutes later walking up the western spur a man as he passed me from the opposite direction said, ‘excuse me girls, can I ask you a question?’