Gossip

I brought the coffee for him today. It told me something that he let me. Neither of us mentioned it though. We talked business. Gossip of course came into it. There was as always so much I didn’t know. The stories always start with someone I’m sure I don’t know but through connections it turns out I can place them exactly. Someone I went to school with years ago or some shop owners aunt. The bar is doing well he told me and I laughed saying that I knew. I spend my every hour there or so it feels. We have been doing better than the competition in town. I know why but I keep the knowledge to myself, well to the pair of us. We don’t need to say it out loud to each other.

                Town has changed big time since I grew up here. The houses that sit to the east and the west of the High Street are islands of the old ways now. Red bricked squares of a time that went before this one. Those who can remember the carnivals live here, those who don’t have central heating live here, those whose parents lie in the cemetery live here. A small walk from the shops in the centre, convenience stores for groceries, delicatessen for the bread that used to be delivered by the bakers van, butcher but no candlestick maker anymore. The old shoe shop’s crest left to melt into legend but some of us still remember. In amongst the necessaries and the public houses sit the new galleries, glam junk shops and gift places.

                We haven’t changed. The carpet probably does need changing but you can’t get that old style anywhere anymore. The prices rise yearly alongside the budget but no more than 5p. There is no red wall, no magnolia paint and wine is less than three quid. One bar has a TV the other does not. That’s our secret.

The gossip was old today. It went back to the times long before me. A secret baby and a long time of someone pretending to be an aunt to their own daughter. No one knows still. I thought as ever that I didn’t know who it was but of course I did. A woman he has always told me was beautiful when they were growing up. Who has always kissed him gently since the illness. We didn’t make the connection together but I knew that for once this wasn’t gossip so much as confession. I should have known that this would be the last time.