The Day Tripper

by James Goodhand

There’s no weight to her touch, and I feel like I’m hugging thin air. I take the only available seat, a hard kitchen stool.

Why does he come here? Spend time with me, a washed-up old busker with a face like a lunar landscape?

I listen intently, each word a gift now I know there’s a time when her voice will not be there for the hearing.

It’s men only, all my age give or take, except for a sixtysomething bloke with a demented twinkle in his eye that hints at a thousand scarcely believable anecdotes desperate to be told. He is, I’m told, my bride’s disgraced uncle Mike,

The policeman, short and square-headed, looks at me like I’m dog shit on his shoe. He’s holding the tip of his baton an inch from my front teeth. Like a million other coppers, he exudes the air of someone who shouldn’t be anywhere near the job.