I’m not the curated spaces, the museums, public art,
tourist destinations or regulated corporate offices.
I’m the back streets, the alleyways, the neglected corners,
the charity shops, the bookies, greasy spoons,
cafes where good food is served on thick pottery with
instant coffee by staff who can find time for a joke. The lack of artifice for customers for whom it’s cheaper to eat here than buy ingredients and find the money to keep an oven going.
I watch her watch him walk in, deliberate steps in polished shoes, a coat that actually keeps rain out and warms its wearer. A suit that belongs in one of those glass offices in front of a two screened desk with clocks showing multiple time zones. He orders a flat white in a voice used to being heard. She serves, expending as little energy as possible, stretches her mouth into what might be seen as a smile.
He turns and was gone before she can hand over his change.
She’d have to work three hours to earn his order, five hours
to reach what he’d handed over. No one tips a shop girl.
As she leaves for the day, she sees an umbrella propped
against the wall. Its black wings offer more shelter than huddling into her thin coat. She locks up and heads down the side streets. In her rented bedsit, mould grows like forest ready to snatch her from her dreams. Tea and coffee aren’t black by choice. She notices his shoes before raising her head to look at his face. The same slight smile that wants to welcome food that doesn’t come with a conceptual explanation. Can love flourish like weeds in cracked paving stones, flower among the dirt and neglect, a bridge of shared concrete? Will the class, gender, power imbalances stop them walking the same city?
Notes:
The bittersweetness of a Sunday: a day to enjoy but a day closer to Monday and work. It’s average, nondescript, could be anywhere. A mix of modern design and modernised older buildings that have lost trace of their roots. It feels like late summer surrendering to the chill of autumn, but, at street level, the climate feels irrelevant as pedestrians huddle into coats, hurry between bus stops, linger under shop doorways. Local politicians run it for the benefit of lobby groups, starved of funds from central government and distant from locals. Tension arises from a limo that splashes a deep puddle over the single mother on her way to a second job. A man not bothering to collect change from the minimum wage shop assistant. No so much one grievance but a series of small indignities, micro-aggressions and a general sense that the weather is always damp, like mould growing on a kitchen wall.
Emma Lee’s publications include “The Significance of a Dress” (Arachne, 2020) and “Ghosts in the Desert” (IDP, 2015). She co-edited “Over Land, Over Sea,” (Five Leaves, 2015), was Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib, reviews for magazines and blogs at https://emmalee1.wordpress.com.