AS IF I NEEDED TELLING

Onto the end of Stapleton Road, Tavernside, thinking, ‘I might go the back way,’ to hers, as it was I didn’t but along St. Mark’s, High Street, and so on.
Anyway, as I was passing the Tavern and Au Temps Perdu, a man, wearing blue denim jacket and trousers, came running across the road towards me, said, ‘Excuse me mate. Excuse me.’
‘I haven’t got any money on me,’ I said, not slowing down.
The man, neck and throat tattoos, said, ‘Fucking hell,’ he said, ‘How’d you know I was going to say that?’
‘That’s what happens,’ I said. ‘That’s what people ask.’
‘Fucking hell,’ he said. ‘Fuck off then,’ as if I needed telling.