November
2006
Passes
She sits there each evening rolling cigarettes and watching her friend or lover repeatedly selling his one copy of the Big Issue. She has a small shopping trolley, it is that sort of shopping trolley which they usually set aside for pensioners, a standard wire basket on wheeled stilts, and in it is sitting a car baby-seat and in the car baby-seat is sitting a baby. You never see any of them during the day, but you see them every night. The shopping trolley and the baby isn’t always there, but it is there more often than not. The baby never makes a sound, and is always either asleep or smiling. She’s rolling cigarettes and passing them when lit to her friend or lover, he selling his one copy of the Big Issue yet again. He has a badge. They sit and stand beside the cash machine, and smile gaps at people who worriedly glance their way as they enter their number, and glance for a second, or perhaps a third time, while they wait for their cash.
The couple had a fight once, she shouted “fuck off”, he glared, people noticed. It was over as she put a skinny cigarette out on the inside of her arm, the cold white smooth skin near the crook of the elbow quickly swallowed the tiny ember, no-one noticed. They did not have a private life, but they had an inner life, they did not hide anything, but still they were hidden. As people come out of the shop they either stop them, or they don’t stop them.
They stop the man in a suit carrying the Guardian, they do not stop the man in a suit carrying the Times, they do not stop the student with naan bread and brussels paté, they stop the students carrying crates of beer, they stop the man with a wrapped bottle of gin and tonic water in a plastic bag, they don’t stop the skinny girl with tins of soup, they don’t stop the bearded man with a bottle of whisky, they stop the kids with bags of sweets, they stop the shop staff coming out unwrapping cigarettes, they stop the laughing couples, they do not stop the quiet couples, they stop girls in trainers, they stop more people when it is cold and dry, they stop less people when it is warm and wet. The woman sits on the wall, and the man stands by the curb half into the road, as you approach you watch people mirror you in a slalom from the opposite direction. You notice the friend or lover selling his big issue, so does those approaching from the other direction and, sidestepping they nearly collide with the mother and child, and swerve again. The couple swerve, bouncing off the boundaries of their route, whenever they leave.