She was waiting outside the coffee shop when we arrived. Another early bird, she said, what gets you up so early? She was of late middle-age, well dressed and well-coiffured and a stranger. We struck up a conversation while we waited for someone to open up. She’d be visiting the town and had stayed the night before in a B&B on the Prom. She’d not been impressed. The walls were thin, she said, and the mattress was lumpy and I could hear a couple in the next room arguing, coughing and then he began snoring. I think he was quite drunk. We talked of other places that she could stay. The Premier Inn was too expensive she thought and she really wanted to stay somewhere with a sea view. We asked what brought her here and she said that she’d been given respite. My husband is quite frail, she said. I thought about her as I drew her (she sat at the little table ahead of ours and read her phone). She was self-contained and elegant, of strong mind I think. That’s how it will be for you in a few years, he said. Perhaps, I said.
Another Monday and he is due soon. I’ve emptied my bedroom and bathroom the discombobulation of last week returns with a vengeance. It isn’t for long, he says. No, and there are so many more important things going on in the world for me to make such a meal of this minor inconvenience. For it is that, minor. So be it. I accept.
