bookends

Old people eat alone too. They wait for tables at classy restaurants, take their lonesome seats, place their orders to disbelieving waiters and stare into the distance.

On particularly busy days, the maître d', always keen to maximize the turnover of his tables, pairs singles together and I find myself across Father Time himself, a wizened old man who solves the crossword in the local tabloid (that local tabloids carry crosswords is a discovery in itself; I imagine clues have answers like "boobs" and "sex-tape").

We eat quietly. Our silence is comfortable like the silence of old lovers. As he rises to leave, he looks at me and says with a mischievous glint in his eye, Your food was very colourful.

I grin and bid him farewell.