It happened yesterday. Spring sprung. A million sad souls untied their nooses after another vitiating struggle through the bastardy of winter. I took this opportunity to go for a long walk, without my coat.
While I was out, gawping at houses and shop fronts, listening to the cruel sounds of the streets, I walked by an oldish woman who stopped me and, without even looking at me, asked if I knew what time it was.
She was dressed in frayed, faded jeans and a powder pink puffer jacket, which had tea-coloured stains all over one arm. Something big and angular was bulging from under the jacket. I couldn't tell what it was. Her face was sickly white, waxy with sebum, and was framed by curtains of lank black hair. I could not help but notice the galaxy of blackheads that studded her nose, but even more unignorable were her lips which, though thin and depressing in themselves, were thickly coated with fuschia-pink lipstick. This had smudged at the corners of the mouth, giving her the look of someone who'd never applied lipstick before in her life.
'It's 3 o'clock,' I told her. She looked at me with the bright unseeing eyes of a heavily medicated woman.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'I'm out for a walk,' I said.
'Are you?' she said, her eyes flashing.
I looked at her livid white face and tried to smile. I was happy she had stopped to talk to me. This was the sort of encounter I daydreamed about as I wandered the streets gawping at houses and shop fronts. Sometimes it happened. I seemed to attract these vague and insane characters. They often found me as I wandered, and bled a little pathos out of me, for which I was always grateful.
'I've just had a massive operation,' she said. 'Have you ever had an operation?'
'Erm... no I...' I muttered.
'I'm okay now though. Do you drive?' she asked.
'Yes I do,'
'Do you? Oh I wish I could drive. My son drives but he lives a long way away. Chester or something. Where's that? Oh it doesn't matter though. What's your name?'
'Darren.'
'I'm Carol,' she said. She offered a limp cadaver-smooth hand. I shook it.
'Nice to meet you,' she said and smiled, revealing a brown-stained rubble of denture. I smiled back.
'They're setting up the circus near to my house,' she said.
'The circus?' I said.
'Yeah, they're setting it up today. It's right next to my house, in Carter's Field. They come round every year, it's lovely, all them rides and colours and all that. I'll show you it if you want.'
'I don't think I can. I'm quite busy,' I lied.
There was a pause, which I broke by asking, 'What time are they setting up?'.
She thought about it. '12 o'clock,' she said.
'What, midnight?'
There was another pause.
'Eight o'clock then,' she said. 'Will you come? I live next to the New Inn. Do you know Carter's Fields? It's where all the gypsies live.'
'Yes I know it,' I said.
'Will you come then?'
'I will if I have time.'
'You can come to my house if you want.' She smiled. Her smudged lipstick made her look fucking awful.
'Well I'm not sure about that. I don't know you, do I? But I might come to see the circus being put up. What about that?'
'Yeah okay. And you can come to my house after. I'll wait for you. At 12 o'clock.'
'Eight o'clock, you mean.'
'Yeah... ah you're really nice you,' she said.
'So are you,' I replied. 'Nice to meet you. I've got to go now. Bye Carol.'
'Yeah, see you tonight.'
