BARRY AND HIS MISSUS

Wearing a pink towel jumpsuit, crossing Jamaica Street towards the hostel, she shouted at a woman was pulling on the handle of one of the doors into the building, 'Oi, wait up.'
'What?'
'Wait,' she said, 'I've got something.'
'Fuck off.'
'No, wait,'said Pink, her hand in the bag she carried. 'Look what I got.'
'Fuck off,' said the other woman, then with affection, 'You little cunt.'
Both of them laughed, the dog barked and looking up I saw its head poking out the top corner window.
'Does it recognise me from the lift?' I thought recalling how it used to watch me, its white rimmed black eyes, as if eyeing up lunch. 'Could it remember how frightened I was?'
Whyjay is always friendly, sometimes stopping for a chat, never asking for money. His friends took the fall, got an ASBO excludes them from the estate on threat of arrest. That's why the dogs are in the hostel not the flats.
In the park sitting on the top nearside bench a man played guitar. Some people don't like the hostel being where it is, they think it lowers the tone, brings trouble. I say, 'If you don't like living here, move out, get a transfer like Barry and his missus.'