It was really great to meet up again and surprising the way we fell into the old patterns of benign teasing. There was the indulgence of reminiscence and a lot of catching up on the water under the bridge. In some cases that seemed to be quite a deluge. Having said that, we were more or less up to date on relationships – break ups and reassemblies.
Four of us, who now sat in a city park, had been especially close and still shared an odd sense of humour. I have to admit some of our conversations tended to straddle the boundary of acceptability, but it was all part of the delight of storytelling about passers-by who were unaware of their part in our dramas.
‘Do you remember that chap who used to round up stray dogs and turn them into sausages?’ Julian made the first bid to recall our game
‘Yep, he was always in the park, and his dog never smiled. You could tell it had seen things no dog should ever have to witness,’ Jessie was catching the mood.
‘And that alien child who was always hitting smaller children ‘til they cried. Maybe her people reclaimed her and took her back to their own planet. If I was them I’d have found the nearest black hole and pressed the spacecraft ejector button.’ Yvonne liked to walk on the dark side.
Georgia brought us into the present by pointing out a very tall woman engrossed in a phone chat to the point you might worry she would bump into a tree. ‘If she can walk through a tree, maybe she is not of this world. But what are her super powers besides walking through trees?’
A general hum of conjecture occupied the next few seconds before Jessie, lowering her voice, looked at a young man in a puffa Jacket.
‘OK, why is that chap wearing a puffa jacket on such a warm Spring day. Looks suspicious to me, although maybe not as bad as the dog-sausage man?’
‘Easy,’ Julian offered, ‘he’s on his was to do a bank robbery. Under that coat he’s wearing a fake suicide belt and he’s going to terrify the bank staff and get them to stuff money in his back pack.’
‘It’s possible,’ Georgia allowed ‘but I reckon inside his coat are lots of pockets. He’s on a shop lifting trip, and when he’s done one shop he can transfer the goods to his bag and do some more stealing.’
It was time to get the train. As the friends dawdled through the park, they felt a tremor and could see frightened people rushing from the station in panic. Sirens sounded and traffic was urgently diverted away from the scene.
Really, the only thing to do was to sit on a bench and regroup.
‘Shoplifter? Hah,’ Julian scoffed. ‘Thing about this game is that you have to accept that, as in life, sometimes you may be nearly right.’
