LETTERS

It’s ten years since we met for lunch. Today, she was there before me.
‘I got an earlier train,’ she said.
We ate at Cafe Amore, had coffees at Nero’s in Corn Street.
‘What I’m saying,’ I said, ‘is that what you did affected me.’
‘I thought you’d understand,’ she said.
‘It’s like, you didn’t think it important.’
She looked at me, not blinking.
‘I did think about you,’ she said. ‘All of you.’
She told me about him, the person he was. That she didn’t realise until later why he did so many odd jobs for the local women. And that he’d done time.
‘What really hurt was when you phoned from his place,’ she said, ‘and told me you were there.’
We agreed we had some things in common and I said, 'now I’ll reply to your letters.’