Strange Bodies

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The man who walked into my shop that day was solidly built, bearded, and had his head shaved almost to the scalp, but he knew my old nickname. He shuffled up to the counter and greeted me by it. ‘No one’s called me that for years,’ I said.

‘It has been years,’ he said. ‘It’s me. Nicky.’

There was a rush of awkwardness as I flannelled to cover the fact I didn’t know him, and then a much more unpleasant sensation when he said his last name.

‘I heard you were …’ I couldn’t bring myself to say it. ‘Is this some kind of joke? Because I don’t appreciate it.’

‘Calm down, Sukie, it’s really me,’ he said.

For a moment I just didn’t believe him, but then he told me things that only he knew, things we’d said to each other, and gradually I saw that it was him. His eyes had a familiar intensity, and when he said my name, it had the same shape in his mouth that it had always had.

So of course I apologised: I was flummoxed, must have mixed him up with someone else. We had a laugh about it: reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, that sort of thing. For over an hour all we did was chat about old times. Weekday mornings are so quiet in the shop that I generally use them for stocktaking and dealing with invoices.

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