He said hey look at that, and I looked and there was a man in a tracksuit using a bin for a toilet.
He was singing, happy birthday, and he was drinking a can of superstrength lager.
I said I recognise him I think.
He sang happy birthday to me happy birthday dear and then he stopped.
And breakfast came and it tasted good, greasy and squeaky and crisp, solid food to last a long day and we didn’t say much while we were eating it.
I tried to remember where I’d been going with my parents when we’d had breakfast at that Little Chef.
I remembered it was a journey started while it was still dark, lying on the back seat under a blanket, watching telegraph wires whipping across a whitening sky.
I remembered my dad rolling his head up and down whenever we stopped the car, squeezing the back of his neck.
My mum saying will you be okay now?
My dad telling me why a haggis has two legs longer on one side and my mum telling him to shush his mouth.
I must have been about seven years old, and I can’t think where we were going because we always seemed to go abroad for our holidays, France, Spain, Portugal, always somewhere south.
I wiped the last bit of egg yolk from my plate with a triangle of bread.
He said what’s happened to your hands?
I said nothing, nothing’s happened to my hands, and I closed my fingers over the cuts and scars on my palms.
He said no let me see, and he reached out to touch my hand and I automatically pulled away.
Oh sorry I’m sorry he said, I didn’t mean, and he didn’t finish his sentence.
I put my hands in my lap, under the table, and I watched his eyes follow them.
I rubbed them, they felt hot, they felt as though I’d grabbed an electric fence.
He said I’m sorry again, and he was blinking a lot and suddenly he looked exactly like his brother.
I thought about him, that afternoon, sitting on his doorstep looking up at me, the way he spoke, the way he moved through that awful moment.
I said what’s his name, your brother?
He looked at me and he looked down and he finished his tea.
He said excuse me, sorry, I need to, and he took a phone out of his pocket and went and stood by the door.
I watched him making a call, I wondered who he was talking to, I wondered why I didn’t think it was none of my business.
A man hurried past the window with a huge bunch of red roses, it was twice the size of his head, he didn’t look as though he could see where he was going, he was smiling massively and I don’t think anyone in the street turned to look.
I thought about his brother, the times I’d said hello, passing him in the street, standing beside him at the shop counter, I wondered why I’d never thought to ask him his name.
I remembered that whenever I saw him somewhere besides our street he’d always wait for me to say hello first, looking at me slightly sideways, as if he didn’t quite recognise me, or as if he wasn’t sure that I’d recognised him.
Michael came and sat down again, he put the phone on the table and said sorry about that, I just needed to.
The woman came and took our empty plates, and as I passed mine over I saw him looking at my hands again.
I said I’m sorry, I just.