The Meadow 119 He doesn’t ordinarily call his boss Mr Ritchie, nor me Mr Henderson. We’re old men to him, old wash-ups. He’s polite because of Veronica. Wears suit-and-tie to come to my house so I won’t think he wants to take her upstairs. So I won’t think she wants that. They’re a conspiracy to cut me out—the bereaved old nothing. Not that her mother could have made the least difference. “Good,” I say blandly. “There’s always work in auto.” Little smirk round his mouth says he couldn’t care damn about where there’s always work. He’ll be a big shot or something. “Yeah.” He stands, ignoring me. “Pretty early start.” Stretches his arms to measure his power. On cue, Veronica’s up from the couch, moving to the door. “See you out.” “Ten minutes,” I call, wishing I hadn’t. It’s weakness to acknowledge their romance or whatever they call it. To sanction them, when I should just not let him hang around. They’ll be on the corner maybe half an hour, talking, smoking, kissing. He’ll hold and touch—I can’t prevent it. She’ll go with him one afternoon when I’m not home. She won’t wait like her mother made me wait, till I lost all sense of occasion. As the front door closes the room gets cold, the filters slow to zero. I’m a finished scene—the action elsewhere. So how do I know what’s out there? When attention shifts we see it, we all face one way. As the slugline calls down the next scene, we prepare to return or not, to be somewhere or not. I know my daughter’s outside with that punk, I see her walk past the corner, beyond this street to some patch of earth where a house maybe was and will be. Tugging her sleeves, same way she does when she’s hungry. That’s where the action takes them. That’s what I pretend not to know. By vacant plots, night lays quiet—town lights dim and die away in wild wheat and nettles. Traffic is maybe a truck rolling
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