Brushing past pink tinged magnolia blossom, I stepped through my front gate.
I noticed the hair first: Blond, slicked back from his forehead like freshly-washed with a comb running through it. I’ve seen quite a few of these chaps recently – how do they do it? How does the hair stay so rigorously in place? Is it back-in-the-day brylcreem? I needed to investigate but perhaps now wasn’t the time. A navy blue rain mac, umbrella swinging from his left hand, and a briefcase in the other completed the picture.
He kept up a steady pace one step behind me. I’ll let him pass I thought – save an awkward situation. He drew level. “Do you know the way to Warwick Avenue?” he said.
“Yes, second right.”
“Are you going there – you look like a local? I’ve just moved in.”
“Um, yes, I am.”
“I’ll stick with you then ’til we get to the tube.”
‘Oh look, they’ve rolled out the red carpet T’ I commented as we crossed Piccadilly on a rainy Saturday night to get to BAFTA. I’d spied some velvet ropes and given this was after all the UK premiere of the ‘World’s first cinematic interactive movie’ – Late Shift, it seemed logical.
I hopped into an Uber. One of my first. Would the driver be ‘black cab’ chatty, or would the whole process of booking a car through a phone app remove that human element?
I arrived five minutes early and asked the librarian where the writing group was meeting. She pointed to a corner where two elderly people sat – one reading the newspaper, another with a large stack of books indicating fervent research. “It starts at six thirty – right – until eight?” I asked.
Conversations with Strangers 