Tracy stretched out her legs , but the backs of her shins still pressed against the edges of the steps .
“Why are you so tall , Trace ?”
Melissa was always the same - talk about anything . The weather , which boys were out , which boys weren’t out - and why . And , all the time , anything she could mention about nothing . Nothing at all .
“Don’t know , Mel . Just don’t know .”
Sitting here on the Corn Exchange steps , their usual perch Tuesday tea-time , there wasn’t much to say - even if you liked saying it . But Melissa caught the couldn’t – care tone , and returned to stare-ahead mode .
Usual picture . Most of the impatient drivers had come decelerating from Edinburgh through the High Street some minutes earlier . On another night they’d have loved spying one in the distance and hopping over to the pedestrian lights ; then feinting to cross as the lights would change to the accompaniment of the squealing brakes ; then running giggling back to the steps . But this wasn’t another night . It was the same night . Same one or two tourists looking in the Elph door , peeringly , then debating eating issues . Same two or three locals arriving singly and stepping in the Public Bar door to the Fleming . Same mobile library parked awkwardly at the Bonfire space .
Same little bus stopping timelessly over the road while the one or two lucky ones - older , more money , actual social lives - drifted on at the slow start of an Edinburgh adventure .
“Isn’t that …?” Tracy was going to say , then she remembered that she’d heard enough of Melissa an hour or so before . So she didn’t . She filed her enquiry under ‘Ask mum later if I remember.’ She stretched her legs down to the edge of the next step - but quietly . Mel wasn’t quite paying attention .

* * *

Alice made her way quietly past the bank . It was only Tuesday , and while she was tempted to get a mini statement , she knew exactly what it would say - down to the 23 pence . No , it just wouldn’t have been right to look again . Save that till Thursday , after the afternoon in the Kello . It always felt good checking her bank account after free tea and cakes ; brushing at her thin lips for the remains of hundreds and thousands . Now was that transferred epithet , she asked herself , but as Zeugma and Litotes rushed to the table , she felt a dizzying step coinciding with the need to cross the road , and forgot about Figures of Speech . Anyway , that could wait till Thursday too . And Ella . Ella with her Figures of Speech , her standards (who said Brodie had died ?) , and her “one of the classics , m’dear , one of the classics” . Ella who sometimes would argue about the number of dust motes she could count with one eye closed - from the dying geranium on the window sill to the edge of the next curtain .

And Ella who seemed to becoming one of the dust motes herself , floating upwards and away from the douce town , leaving Alice firmly , irrevocably behind .

No , leave these thoughts for Thursday . Tuesday was mobile library after arthritis care after art class , and Alice was well on schedule . She clasped her copy of Miss Garnett’s Angel under her arm . It hadn’t been a success . She knew why the mobile librarian had recommended it , but he wasn’t to know that Ella wasn’t going to leave any friendly insurance policy to help Alice take flight . And the thought - the merest fantasy of herself in Italy , alone , prey to any stranger - filled her with alarm . No , she’d already made up her mind . Back to Austen - perhaps Sense and Sensibility or maybe even Persuasion - a favourite as her spinsterhood became more established , more definite .

* * *

As Alice crossed the loan she looked across at the mobile - maybe fifteen or twenty minutes here , she thought , with perhaps the chance of a discussion about which Austen heroine was her favourite ; though she wished she could turn the conversation to Little Women . Now Beth …

Her literary analysis jerked to a halt as her leading foot slipped on the cobble , and she found herself - inelegantly - on the ground .

“Yawrigh …?” The noise seemed to come from the taller of the two figures blurring into her vision , in almost the same kind of slow motion as she had judged the fall to have possessed .

“I’m alright . It’s alright . Leave me alone . Just leave me alone !” Like some stricken bird Alice clawed at her unbroken ankle , pulled her book under her wing , and hitched herself up and over in the direction of the mobile library .

Melissa and Tracy slowly made their way back towards the Corn Exchange .
“Whit was that aboot , Trace ?” said Mel .
Tracy turned towards her friend . “Don’t know , just don’t know , Mel . But did ye see who that wis oan the Edinburgh bus …?”

© Bob Hume

Bob Hume is a member of Clyde Valley Writers.