I lost £20. I knew I’d lost it because paying for the grapeseed extract I noticed I’d another and now there was none. After buying saffron from Ay and going back to ask how her housing problem was resolved – satisfactorily, at least until the heir to the old landlord decides otherwise – I retraced my steps more in order to have done what I could than with any expectation of recovery.
In Tesco’s I asked the supervisor of the self-service tills where I might have lost it. “£10?” he queried. “No, 20.” “How long ago?” “About fifteen minutes – at that machine.” I was to go to customer services! where was the £20, in a plastic bag. “I already thanked him,” I said, thanking her.
I was no sooner in than John came. “You lied to me. You weren’t standing in the queue. That’s why I asked were you going to pay for the pastie because you weren’t yet you imputed it to me, that you had been going to until I asked. You’ve done that before.” He admitted he hadn’t been going to pay. He didn’t have any money.
He’d told his sister he had a man as a lover. She said he was never happy with women anyway; and asked did the man love him. John said I didn’t say but by my actions I did. “I’d do that for anyone,” I said. I was teasing but it’s nonetheless true I can love anybody appropriately though not necessarily as wanted but for the person’s good, and I’m not excluding my assailant though I thought he had such a long way to go to admit homosexuality to himself I didn’t have the time to waste.
John's space 