Lunch on 7 December

“You do compliment people on the most ridiculous things” she said.

We were sitting in a café in Bournemouth, opposite the much-missed bus station and the space left by the winter migration of the tourists’ balloon to some warehouse in Southampton.

“What do you mean?”

“That guy, the one you were talking about.”

“I said I was impressed that he could eat fried egg and baked beans on toast without dropping it on his nice expensive scarf. I am still impressed by that. I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because to eat a runny egg dripping in tomato sauce with a fork you need to be inch perfect, millimetre perfect, or it drips. And he’s left his coat and scarf on so he’s leaning forward, which makes it even more difficult. Me? I’d have a big yellow stain down my front in about 10 seconds flat and I’d be scurrying back home with egg on my face and beans down my scarf. But not him. He’s very impressive.”

“You would never be wearing a scarf as nice as that anyway.”

“True. But that doesn’t diminish his dexterity with the old eating tools.”

“I was more impressed by his hair.”

“His hair?”

I looked again. The man was tall, well dressed and had very large feet. His hair was grey, a proper grey that was full of colour, not like the flecky grey on my head. It was long and shiny, falling down to his shoulders in wavy locks so he looked like a tramp who had found a locker key at the swimming baths and struck lucky.

“So you can’t see his expensive haircut?”

“No. It just looks like hair to me. It’s not scruffy mind, he’s definitely run a comb through it today.”

“It’s a very expensive cut. It’s been layered and shaped around the sides, over his ears.”

The tramp was now stood at the counter paying his bill. He was counting out his loose change from a little medicine bottle.

“I wonder what’s wrong with him?” she said. “I wonder what illness he had, or still has. Perhaps he’s come here to die. A lot of old people do that you know – come to Bournemouth to die so they don’t embarrass their family.”

“Hang on a minute” I said. “He’s my character. I found him. I noticed he could spoon egg and beans for England, not you.”

“But you didn’t notice the important bits. You may have discovered the character but I’m the one with the story!”