Category: encounters

But probably I’ll see her another day in Coles

I have been followed for five days now, by that moment

at the end of the conversation

which started

when the woman (who used to be a girl) said to me as I was paying for my book,

‘are you ThirdCat?’

and I said ‘yes’

and she was standing at my right, and the counter was to my left

so that I was caught between two conversations, both constructed of simple words but less obvious relations

and she said – at the same time as I – ‘we were at school together’

and her skin is not as soft as mine, but I am carrying more weight

and then she said ‘I saw you on television’

but because of the conversation to my left there was an immodest pause before I said ‘what are you doing these days’

when I could have said you let me borrow your Sweet Dreams books or I liked the way you signed your name and the colour of your hair.

a new type of conversation

‘I don’t think I have your number’.

You can tell that’s me speaking because I know I don’t have her number, but I am so damagingly polite (this is how someone recently described me – it’s why I get places, but get there slowly apparently – actually I think it’s probably as good an assessment of me as any) that I say think rather than know. Just as I will write a reminder email if you didn’t get the original.

‘My work mobile is…’ she says and recites it.

So. Two mobiles. Work and Personal. Perhaps this is nothing new to those of you who work outside your own garrets.

And we hadn’t even got to lunch

The blind lady, having measured all of the windows, flicked past the samples from which I was intending to make my final selection, saying oh, they’re a bit tacky aren’t they…the kind of things the Asians choose. And later, when I explained that I was glad she had decided not to postpone our agreed meeting time because I’d already spent half the week waiting around for the oven guy (and no, he still hasn’t come) she said well, it wouldn’t really worry me, I don’t like to bake, I don’t really like to cook and then gave a loud laugh and looked at me in a meaningful way before she said I know! An Italian lady who doesn’t like to cook! and then told me a lot of details about her home life and the good care she takes of her sons. While my own sat in front of PlaySchool making demands such as ‘more toast please!’.

I ordered the blinds anyway, because I have used the company before and they are reliable and their prices are good and they do what they say they will do.

On the tram, the man across from me says – after my boy has done the ticket and told the whole tram that if there’s a red cross that means you’ve put it up the wrong way – I used to work for this mob I smile and nod, though I am expecting some long story about the way things used to be in the days when the young ones stood up to give you their seat, but he says until the accident, and the first thing I knew about the deaths was when the policeman said ‘you’ve been cleared’. And then he shakes his head and he looks at my little boy and says and all I had was glass in my eye.

Around and about ANZAC Day

The day before and the day before and the day before that
The man who lives in the room next door never closes his door. He has jars of lollies for his neighbour’s visitors and he keeps track of who likes what. He holds the children’s hands and says ‘let me look at your eyes’. The children do.

The day

The man we are visiting lies in bed. I’ve been warned, but still I am shocked. He cries because it takes him a moment to recognise me and we have known each other for twenty years. He will cry again when we leave. His television is big and loud, but it’s not like being there.

I watch for the man I am related to and think I hope he remembered to go. I don’t know which sign he would march behind.

Televised or live, The Last Post always chills.

The man who lives in the room next door is at the service down the street. He is strong enough to march. He joined the army looking for guaranteed meals, but I’m old enough to know it wasn’t as simple as that. He’ll be back in the afternoon, but we’ll be gone by then.

We will fill the space with a three hour drive and a family barbecue.

in the shops

‘Yes, thank you, I think I will,’ says the young man who hands me the badminton set, but carries Christmas in the way that people do after a year which could only have been a little bit worse.

Unlike the woman who hands me two balls of wool and pair of needles (size 5) – in a bag which breaks before it is in my hand – who says ‘well, have a happy christmas if you can‘ in such a practised way that neither the woman next to me – nor I – know what to say or where to look, but wish each other Merry Christmas on the way out, and again when our eyes meet over the bookshop shelves.

on the way home from the bakery

It is slightly earlier than it usually is, but I am balancing the bread on top of the newspaper in the same way that I always do.

The tram to the city is full. At this suburban stop, two men squeeze themselves on and a woman gets off. Her hair looks older than her face. She is not stooped, but bent in the middle as if the top of her body is too heavy for her legs. She carries a large lawyer’s bag, the type that has strong sides and stays square when you open it. It is black. Her skirt is the peasant type and white, her jacket is blue and has pleats.

She says, when our paths cross and I smile a paths-crossing smile, I’ve been out all night, which is a strange thing to say to someone you don’t know.

On an unreasonably hot day not far from a hotel in St Kilda: I thought they kind of had

‘You’re the first sensible person I’ve seen all day! Wearing a hat!’

‘Yes, well, I’m a sensible person I suppose.’ Small pause while I look at gorgeous, beautifully-made dress which I can’t afford. ‘And I like wearing hats.’

‘Oh, yes, so do I. I like a hat. Isn’t it a pity they never make a comeback? Hats!’