Two old(er) women drinking coffee
I see them every day. And every day I wonder, what’s their story?
There are two old(er) women who sit in the corner of the cafe where I write most mornings. (I say old, but I don’t know, I use that word advisedly now the reality of it creeps nearer). They are always there by nine at the latest. Usually earlier. Usually at the same table. All the regulars have their preferred seat and table hop until they get it. (Moving in like sunbed-hoggers with their laptops-as-towels.) I don’t know what their relationship is, these two women. They squabble enough to be friends, certainly, but something seems a little off. There’s something missing, not intimacy exactly, although there’s little enough of that on show, but fondness certainly.
What binds them. An ex-husband? A combined talent? A mutual obligation? A shared grief? A child? A loss? An iillness? Were they nurses? Actors? Playwrights? Shop assistants? Cleaners? Spies? Former lovers?
I call them Crop and Blonde. For obvious reasons. Blonde is large, statuesque - what’s the word? Juno-esque. When she speaks, which she does, a lot, and loudly, it’s with a guttural Germanic or Nordic accent. (I know they’re different, I’m just not sure which it is.) She looks Northern European, too. Long, dyed blonde hair, pulled back, ends split. Her skin is reddish, the skin of a person who’s spent a lot of time outside, not sun-leathered, but weathered. Think Anita Pallenberg in her later years. Tall with slim hips and strong shoulders. Head-to-toe black – leggings, big socks, crocs, padded jacket, the only concession a cream woollen bobble hat. And bags, so many bags. She has the look - and the bags - of a woman who’s lived. A lot.