CIVIC DUTY

Last night, it was five-thirty. They, two men and a woman, were sitting on a bench in Brunswick Square. I saw them as I approached the bin into which I put the gum I’d been chewing.
One of the men, a green plastic bottle of strong white cider in hand, said, ‘You want to go and get it then?’
‘Yeh,’ said the other one leaning back.
‘I’ve got to do something else first,’ said the woman sat at the far end of the three.
The man with the bottle made a noise. The woman stood up, then the men.
The one with the bottle said loudly, ‘You’re a slag you are,’ and threw cider over her.
‘Oh yeh,’ she said. ‘That was clever,’ walking off.
‘You’re just a prostitute,’ after her.
I slowed down, keeping an eye on what was going on, how it developed.
Two community police officers came in to view from Portland. The men walked away from the woman who sat down on the stone by the pay and display machine. She brushed her fingers through her hair.
The CPs were near the corner of Moon Street when the man with the bottle went back to the woman and started with the verbals. I waited a minute until I knew the CPs hadn’t noticed what was happening and then went over to them because someone had to do something and rather them than me.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Yes Sir?’ turning towards me almost in unison.
‘There’s a woman over there, sitting down, just there, behind the cars there, she’s getting harassed by a couple of men, they’re being arse’oles, one just threw some cider over her.’
‘Okay Sir. We’ll take a look.’
When I came out of Second Step ten minutes later, having decided the job on offer wasn’t for me, there were two police cars, lights flashing, on the corner near where the woman still sat, four police officers with the man with the bottle, protesting his innocence, ‘What?’ the two CPs stood a little way back from the law.