A LONG TIME

'Hello stranger,' she said when I walked into the laundry. 'It's been a long time since I've seen you in here.'
'Yes,' I said, acknowledging that indeed it had been a long time.

People talk to me, at me. Friends, family, fellow residents of the flats. Maybe it’s the way I look, or that I have little that others consider anywhere near as interesting or important to say as they themselves do.
The Godmother said, ‘...the auditor came round took one look at my kitchen and said, “you’re not going to let them pull all that out are you?” and I wish I hadn’t, what they’ve done to it, put a worktop along the wall below the window, I used to stand there, watch the planes go over the city, now if I want to I have to go stand on the balcony...’
The door to the laundry opened, JJ came in, stood between me and the Godmother, ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised to see you.’
‘It’s been a while,’ I said, wanting him to get out from between us, he did, put his laundry in a machine.
‘...they said it’d take four weeks, it was May when they started, came round beginning of April to measure up, finished it August, almost September...’

After she’d gone a caretaker had come in and he and JJ were talking about the laundry times JJ had printed and posted in the display case by the door.
‘They’re wrong,’ said the caretaker. ‘I clean here on a Thursday not a Monday.’
JJ said that’s what he’d been given so the error was there not with him.
Four came in and the caretaker left saying as he did,’ I’m retiring in the new year.’
Four said, ‘...people putting needles in their arse, I chased two of them off with an iron bar, two men it was, one just about to stick a needle in his arm, got the iron bar and hit him on his shoulder, not too hard but I hurt him, sleeping in the shute rooms...’
‘I’m glad you were here to take the rant,’ said JJ when Four had left the room. ‘Usually it’s just me on my own gets it all.’