SATURDAY 260211

WANTED

Coming out of Ashley News taking a couple of drinks form a small bottle of water I’d bought because I knew I’d need to wash down a couple of solpadeine in town, I saw a young woman and young man crossing at the end of City Road on their way down Stokes Croft.
She looked at me, I looked away, and when we were about passing she said, ‘Excuse me,’ and stepped in front of me.
‘Yes,’ I said, thinking, ‘Clear complexion, a line of blue eye shadow above blue eyes…beautiful…’
‘Do you know if there’s a greasy spoon nearby?’ she said.
‘You’ve been up there? I said with a slight nod of my head.
‘Yes.’
Turning towards North Road I said, ‘There’s…no, that’s gone…oh, yes, er…if you go down the subway through the roundabout and come up opposite, straight over?’
‘Ok,’ she said.
I spoke to him as well as her even though it was she had asked me.
‘Ok,’ I said, ‘there’s a café, “The Flipper” I think it’s called, that might be a greasy…’
‘Thanks,’ she said smiling.
I watched them walk off then turned, made my way down Moon Street.
‘I could have said, “You mean double egg and chips greasy?” to clarify what she and they wanted.

In Broadmead, sitting on a bench in the Hub.
‘It’s something,’ he said, ‘a sermon while you’re shopping.’
He’d sat down the other end of the bench being careful of the small pool of rain water was there.
‘Do you mind?’ I said.
‘No, no,’ he said turning to me, white hair, hands resting on the top of a walking stick.
In the middle of the Hub a man holding a bible, raised voice proclaiming…’Jesus…there is no religion but Jesus…know Him…’ Two men walking round him offering leaflets to passersby, most of whom declined unlike me…
‘There used to a man down there,’ he said, pointing the direction of Tesco.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But he’s more animated…’
‘And louder,’ he said. ‘But I still didn’t understand a word.’

On the way home I made to check the menu in the café I’d directed the young couple to wondering if it was a greasy spoon. But I didn’t get that far because before close enough I saw them sitting there in a window seat heads close, talking, and to avoid being seen by them I went back the way I’d come.