“And you can never tell if there’s anyone at home…that’s the way it’s got to be…its safer…so there’s no point in knocking at their door…and they all have burglar alarms fitted…you’ve seen the look…it says don’t try to touch me…really touch me…or I’ll bite…you’ll be sorry…sometimes you know…sometimes…you can see their net curtain twitch a bit…and you know they’ve seen you looking in…you know they know you’re watching them…and neither of you dares to wave or…or say hi there…because you both know there’s not supposed to be anyone at home…..nobody’s allowed to call for anyone anymore…like we used to knock on the door and just say is your so-and-so playing?…they just can’t handle it…”

She’d been leaning forward again, her whole body involved in the talking. Now she falls back into her seat, exhausted, and disengages, (draws the curtains). She picks up her glass again and takes another gulp of her beer and the noise of the pub, the ale-oiled laughter, the shrieks, the bye bye Miss American Pie, the clang clang last orders please, rushes in to fill the vacuum left by her …her…her indigence and I wonder if I just dreamt it. Suddenly, she grins at me, lights up another fag with my lighter, but now her eyes don’t line up with mine, she’s looking at my left cheek.

A scruffy looking bloke in amazingly dirty jeans and a red anorak zipped to the chin, that looks like its been scorched in some mad attempt to iron it, sways over to our table carrying a full to the top pint of black beer. He fixes his eyes on the wall behind us and fixes a look of recognition on his face, stumbles against a stool in his path, slops beer foam over his filthy shoes.

“Fucking “ell Martin, you great pillock!”

She scolds him almost gently, like a mother, he stops as if unsure what to do next.

“Well, are you sitting down or what?”

“Shorry, shorry luv, eeh ah”m bluddy pissed ah am….can ah scrounge a fag off yer til mi giro cums…ah’m gaspin’ for a fag”.

He teeters over a stool at our table, takes a long gulpgulpgulp of his beer and takes her penultimate Regal king-size, which she’s just lit up for him.

“Ta, chuck, yer a lifesaver”.

He looks sidelong at me through slits in his curtains. He’s a fox, wary, weighing me up as a potential free meal. He’s a wolf, knows I’m at home, wonders whether to huff and puff and blow my house down. She tosses her hair, strokes his sleeve and plays Little Red Riding Hood, knifes me with a glance and laughs out loud at my dismay.

“Its just not safe to go out anymore”, she says, as she goes inside and closes the door and dares me to believe that she was ever at home.