And so it goes

I saw Alec yesterday. I’d decided to get out of the house because it was a lovely day and besides, there were things to find for customers. Hadn’t seen him for a while, not since I stopped wasting one Sunday a month selling tat to idiots. We had adjoining tables back then, and took turns to do the coffee run. Decaf Americano, Earl Grey with no milk.

He was standing outside when I got to the mart, puffing on his last cigarette before trading started. There was already a gaggle of people waiting outside, all of them recognisable from my trading days. Alec said hello as I walked up, asked how I was. Told him I was fine, returned the query, asked after his wife. Last time I’d spent the day at the next table to him, he’d got married just a month or so before.

He held up his left hand, waggled the fingers. No ring. Three years, it’d lasted. Amicable separation, no dispute over property; they just took what they’d brought in and called it quits. He’d moved out last week.

Sad to say, he looked good on it. Less haggard, pinker, healthier. I asked what had happened. He told me they'd just stopped getting on. He’s in his early forties, his ex-wife had been a few years less; they were both, he said, too set in their ways.

We both went in; he went to his tables, I bought a couple of books from him as he was the only one there who had anything like what I was looking for. I had a wander around the hall. Same people as three years ago, same things on display, but far fewer people there to buy them except for the too-recognisable gaggle who’d been outside.

I left, bought myself a coffee, sat in the sunshine in Bedford Square to drink it. Thought about them, all too set in their ways.