I want to tell you about a friend of mine. She's about my age, thin, shy, unassuming. She wears sensible shoes, a duffel coat and she mostly eats brown rice. Her face is rubbery, almond-shaped - not pretty - but what you might call engaging. At weekends she walks along the South Bank with a sketchbook, stopping occasionally to draw, pulling a thick piece of black charcoal from a plastic bag in her coat pocket.
People stop and stare at her
Sometimes
She doesn't mind
Small children smile, inquisitively.
She might sketch the flat river, a metal and glass construction, or a fleeting seagull, before squeezing the hardback sketchbook into her bag and walking on towards Tower. Just after one she stops for lunch: a brown bread tuna sandwich and a cardboard cup of mint tea. The crumbs scatter on her dress; she doesn't notice.
This weekend she counts four... the man in the cafe, a small flaxen haired boy who asks to look at her sketch, a Big Issue seller beneath Waterloo Bridge. And me.
Four conversations, exchanges of warmth, humanity.
Four.
In 48 hours.
And I almost didn't call her.
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