I’m picking my way through snippets of someone else’s life, left between pages of books, old books, read books passed down and swapped and bought for pennies at an old charity shop at the bottom of a street and given to me today in a heavy Waterstones bag, ripping at the seams.

In between chai lattes and almost-black coffee after coffee after cigarette on a balcony in the sun

and a circling thumb in a neat space between two ribs in the black of the night, in between thinking of buying apples before Joe gets back from work, in between Trainspotting and pushing the spreading chaos of spilled clothes back onto the overflowing suitcase mess in the corner, and standing with my hands immersed and wrinkling in suddy hot water no yellow rubber marigold gloves

and in between

the forty year old man on the bus with a sweating bald head I sat behind, watching as he pulled a foamy panda bear lovingly from his leather coat pocket, fumbling with hot panic written on his face before squeezing pulling squishing stroking (my stressball, this, only thing keeping me sane after a long day)

scraps of paper, someone else’s to do list in a different pen, on larger spaced lines - definitely not my list -

and in between the conversation we eavesdrop on from the other side of a bench (in the sun I have brought with me from my few sunny hours by myself in anonymous Manchester), between a large bearded woman wrapped in a fusia shawl and the stranger with indulgent ears sitting next to her - my husband left he left always at the bookies he was no good he left me i have a son beautiful grandchildren his wife she drives a car like this she drives with her arms stretched out like this do you know the oil rig you must know it he worked there always at the bookies a no-good man he was oh he was -

in between the smell of sheets and an alien fabric conditioner, towels left in the machine for too long or crumpled wetly on laminate flooring, the heating pushing hot air under curtains which blow upwards and stick out stiff as cardboard too far into the room

in between these things, and the tiny unmentionable gestures and everyday words there are flashes of blunt, realistic time-keeping only three days 24 x 3 = 72 hours of this left.

Flashes apart I’m floating around in a very very happy cloud of Wash n Go 2 in 1 shampoo-smell.