COMPANY

- I find out what he's doing by looking online when I get an e-mail saying there's a message for me;
- we have brief encounters when we walk out the door at the same time or one of us is already out there, a conversation develops if I don't run from a friendly, 'Hello;'
- she mocks me because I am a man; I wonder what she might be like to sleep with; her lips are thin but she has a sharp turn of phrase that excites me;
- no matter how hard I try, walking the route three times despite the obvious dangers as darkness descends, I cannot find the tandem he lent me;
- 'Do you want a poke?' he said coming up behind me in the alley way ran alongside the back garden of the cafe whose owner had propositioned me only minutes previous. 'No,' I said, kicking at him. 'But he might,' pointing at the cafe owner who was watching from his garden the scene unfold;
- what I am, except to a few people, is irrelevant, making myself so through unrestrained comments and behaviour at inappropriate times and wrong places; a little containment would go a long way but it escapes me at moments that dilute impact and weaken the desire for my company.

INHERITANCE

I got out the car, closed the door behind me. To my left and on the far corner by the newspaper seller who appeared to be shouting at her, was my mother. She waved at me and. I turned my back to her and walked a few steps before stopping turning round to face her where she now stood not far from me and on the same side.
‘Do you want to see me?’ I said.
‘No,’ she said and left.
I felt sad that she’d just done to me what I’d done to her all these years, ‘But I’m the child,’ still running through my mind.
Later we met, had coffee and it was quiet between us until I said, ‘It hurt when you said you didn’t want to see me.’
‘We're very much alike, we are,’ she said. ‘We find it hard to forgive and move out from behind our defences because we know how devastated we can be when outside.’
‘I don’t like being like you,’ I said.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s part of your inheritance.’

IT HAPPENS

He was sitting on the low wall of the further of the two flowerbeds in front of the entrance to the block as I came back from Broadmead. He waved, I nodded.
He followed me in. I behaved like he hadn't not sure he lived here and didn't want to ask. He stood behind me as I stared at the tiles to the left of the lift.
'Hello,' I said.
'How long you lived here?' he said.
'Ten years,' I said. 'You?'
'Six months.'
'You like it?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'I lived in supported housing before so it's different from that.'
'A bit more challenging, I imagine?'
'Yet, having to cook for myself and pay all the bills.'
I got in the lift and pressed for my floor, wondered what he'd do. By the time the door'd closed and the lift was on the way up he hadn't pressed a button.
'Might he come up with me see, where I live,' I thought...
...he pressed...
'I still get help,' he said. 'Not as much though.'
'Independent living,' I said.
'I used to do it alright,' he said. 'I was a plumber but, you know...'
...a moment...
'Yes,' I said, 'it happens.'

IT'S NOT UNUSUAL

'Oh,' she said,' 'hello.'
'Hello,' I said.
I'd seen the back of a white coat disappear into the entrance of the flats on my way back from Kino and wondered who it might be going in, if I'd want to share a lift with them.
'Bit cooler today,' she said.
We'd always said hello but since our laundry times overlap we pass the time of day, say 'Goodness,' after the caretaker comes in has a moan.
'My daughter,' she said, 'phoned from Greece last week said it was forty-two degrees...'
'That's hot,' I said.
'I said it was sunny here but she got back yesterday and said she started shivering as soon as she got off the plane.'
'After forty-two degrees I can imagine,' I said. 'Talking of heat, is the dryer working properly,' pointing.
She got up from the bench and walked to the left hand dryer, put her hand on the glass.
'It's okay now,' she said, 'but I had to press the lighter switch earlier.'
'How many times has it broken down?' I said.
'I don't know,' she said, 'but it's not unusual.'