The joke was good. Four people propped on bar stools around a high wooden table chuckled. Jane, a lanky, auburn-wigged transvestite gasped and her fringe to the side and it swished back over her eyes. Robert, a shaggy haired, unshaven man in his fifties glugged his pint. Richard took a long draw on his role-up, inspected and then relit it. He looked out of place amongst the pub’s punters in his herring-bone suit he wore for work.
Karen sat quietly after regaining composure and watched her friends.
A short man with close-cropped blond hair approached the table. Richard handed him the ashtray. The interloper shook his head. He held a folded piece of paper out to Karen. She hesitated and then took it. The man waited while she read it, shook her head and handed it back to him.
‘Did you want to hear a joke?’ asked Robert.
In answer, the man went back to his table. The other man he was sitting with looked a little less uncomfortable when his companion returned.
‘What did the note say?’ asked Jane.
‘It was a chat-up line which he was right not to say out loud,’ Karen said. She tittered.
‘Anyone want another one? I’m going to the bar,’ said Robert.
‘I’ve got work in the morning,’ said Richard and shook hands with Robert and Jane who offered his hand with limp wrist. He air kissed Karen’s cheek. She watched him go.
‘OK, I’d like another cider. Weston’s organic please?’
‘Go easy on that stuff, Karen, You Jane?’ Robert asked.
Jane took a minute to answer, ‘go on then. I’ll have a small house white.’
Robert went inside to the bar. Karen and Jane sat in silence.
The small, blond man who had approached Karen got up from his table and followed Richard.
