I may well have missed the last bus. Standing at the stop and shivering a little I check the timetable. The man in front is wearing a dark grey suit and shiny black shoes, his girl friend is sitting on the wall opposite, legs akimbo, half cut, showing off her knickers to all and sundry.

They begin to walk up the road arguing, him being the more sober of the two and carrying the luggage. She is shouting some obscenity and demanding she wants to stay in a hotel. They sway up the road, him some two steps behind.

‘Which hotel?’ he asks reasonably as they begin to weave their way back towards me, it having decided that yes they were at the right bus stop after all.

‘The one you are too cheap to pay for!’ She says throwing up her arms and reeling off expletives. ‘I wanted to stay in a hotel but noo; you didn’t want to pay for us.’

‘Which hotel?’ He asks again

‘Oh I don’t know,’ she sulks. ‘You don’t care about me. I do everything..’

‘Such as..?’

‘Make the tea, suck your cock ..’

Er when?’

I cringe. The queue behind us has fallen silent. Now might be a good time for a hood, were it not midsummer. I wish I had my IPod because I am overwhelmed by the desire to laugh, though not out of mockery but sheer disbelief. I turn away and check my phone, gazing hopefully up the road for a bus and wishing the couple wouldn’t stand so near.

‘Oh and I don’t do anything I suppose,’ he says resentfully, playing the opposition for the benefit of us other passingers. 

‘Only pay the rent and bills on our apartment so that you don’t have to worry.’

She falls silent. He continues ‘… and pay for nights out. And then you spend the whole evening with some lecherous old git and ignore me.’

She starts rifling through her bag, throwing things out onto the pavement and shouting ‘I want to stay in an f****** hotel.’

 He looks at me with helpless embarrassment as if I am suddenly going to magically teleport him away from the situation. Then realising that there is only one person in his world, he bends to pick up her things.