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Departures

 


We'd met quite some time ago now, The Owner, ( who I really ought to stop referring to in that manner since it is not only inaccurate, her being a tenant, but she herself would be offended by it since she's not the owning kind and so, I think from henceforth I shall call her Ms X ) .

It was at the local offices of the Citizen's Advice Bureau, which, miraculously, were still operating from the attic rooms of some once elegant but no longer Edwardian house at the bottom end of town where all the dentists, chiropractors and solicitors etc who couldn't afford better accommodation or a richer clientele existed cheek by jowl with badly managed houses of multiple occupation, minority religious or political groups, independent pizza and kebab joints, and obscure interest groups who met on a monthly basis, where Ms X and her kind hearted, gentle mannered assistant, performed a perfected double act involving the assistant treating each person who walked through their door with respectful and kindly attention, and, if appropriate, taking all the necessary notes and filling out the seemingly endless relevant forms on her computer within earshot of Ms X, then, having printed the relevant information out and handed them to Ms X to study, offering the supplicant some kind of refreshment, whilst inviting them to move across the spacious office to sit opposite Ms X and await her expert advice, all given free and without obligation. 

I had come for advice on financial matters, having found myself in a somewhat precarious position, and the whole thing, though fairly straightforward, took time to be negotiated and resolved, so requiring me to visit the offices several times throughout a difficult year, during which, at some point, Ms X put the proposal to me that I should have some keys to a room she kept not far from where I lived and collect the post occasionally and notify her of anything I considered worthy of her attention whilst she went away on some business. Ms X had put it to me as if it would be doing her a great service, but we both knew that it might be a helpful distraction for me during that difficult period I was going through and encourage me to get out into the fresh air when I might be tempted to hole myself up inside all Winter. 


Here we were now, sitting next to each other, in the room, buttering my Bara Brith and sipping syrupy black coffee together with Vanya and her little sleeping child. 

I felt the tension despite the apparent cosiness and, after twenty minutes or so spent studying her pile of papers and writing notes on her laptop, Ms X, taking a sip of coffee and a suspicious nibble of Bara Brith, looked, with a deeply serious expression, first at Vanya, then at me and, sighing, began to explain the situation we found ourselves in. 


                                                                              ☀














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