Brief Encounter

She was such a normal looking woman. Maybe early fifties. Mostly grey hair, but some of it was black and her eyes were kind of green, sort of blueish. Noticable, and smile-radiating eyes. She wore a coat that was from a proper clothes shop, rather than a supermarket.

She came into the shop, talking with her friend who was wearing a duffle coat, but a trendier one, not a scruffy patchy school one. Her friend had a tartan hat on so I didn’t notice what colour her hair was. I turned to the counter and paid for my newspaper.

I caught a snatch of conversation between these two normal, attractive, healthy, outdoorsy women. They were laughing about something that a young kid had said during a family visit. It had clearly been a fun get-together with three generations: the blue-green eyed, lovely-happy woman, her daughter and her daughter’s kid.

I imagined a traditional Christmas scene to follow; a table laden with turkey, two kinds of potatoes (roasties and mashed,) peas, mountains of carrots, roasted parsnips and a cheeky small hand nicking a pig in a blanket whilst everyone else pretended not to notice.

The lady would be there, maybe her friend too, plus their spouses and three or four grown-up kids with their own families. Some of them would be perched on plastic chairs pressed into action from an outdoor set. There’d be laughter, six pots of gravy, red and white wine and maybe Smooth Radio’s Christmas Special.

Back in the moment, I caught the woman’s eyes. I smiled at her; tis the season. She smiled back. Happy, friendly, not really flirty but just an exchange of warmth.

As I left the shop I noticed she was getting ready to pay for her own paper.

It was the Daily Mail.