Open Writing

There was a man across the street, staring this way,' she said. 'It looked like Andy to me. You remember Andy, don't you? He's the one I nearly ran off with.'

She's been gazing out of the window again, he thought. In fact she was always gazing out of the bloody window.

'Not much happens in this street that I don't know about,' she'd once said.

'Well, you're half right,' he'd replied, 'not much happens in this street.'

'You nearly what?' he exclaimed

'Don't shout. I tried to tell you at the time ... but you wouldn't listen. I simply couldn't get through to you, could I?'

'Don't be so ridic -'

The doorbell rang, making him jump.

'I'll see who it is,' she said, wiping her hands. 'And if it is Andy,' she added in a low voice, 'do try to be polite to him, won't you? He hasn't had an easy life, has he, what with one thing and another?'

'How the hell would I know?' he snapped.

She looked at him, sadly.

'Now, now,' she said, 'don't be angry ... it makes you seem so -'

'Go on ... seem so what?'

She hesitated. 'So old,' she said. 'Old before your time.'

She patted her hair with one hand and then with the other. Then she went to the front door.

It wasn't Andy. She hurried back to the kitchen. 'It's for you,' she said, 'it's a woman with a clipboard.'

She sat down at the table. Why, oh why, couldn't it have been Andy, even after all these years? . . . No, not to run off with . . . just to see and talk to again ... and perhaps to feel his arms round her again ... that's all, nothing more.

She began to laugh. 'A woman with a clipboard,' she chortled.