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the same way. It was our routine. He noticed me as I came out of Observatory Mansions. I smiled at him, he smiled back from behind his scales. Then I rushed across the road and walked over to him.
    I never asked him about his scales, about his notebook. He never asked me about my gloves. We communicated through smiles. Once a week.
    Since it was my day off, I went and sat in the park.

Love and hate in Tearsham Park Gardens .
    1. LOVE. I loved Tearsham Park Gardens for its beautiful white, sad trees that had been stripped of their bark by pollution and autographed by young vandals with their sweaty-handled magnifying glasses. Someone loves someone, someone loves a football team, someone burns letters of abuse, another scratches with a knife.
    I loved this park for the couple that passed me that day: an old man with his grandson riding a tricycle in front of him. The old man walked slowly, slowly (there’s time, there’s always time these days) from one end of the park to the other. The grandson was supposed to keep to his grandfather’s pace, but he was always at least two metres ahead. The boy stopped to observe a pair of lovers kissing on a bench. The grandfather stopped, he watched too. Eventually they set off again, but not at the same time and not at the same pace.
    There was a concrete square in the middle of the park. Its paving stones were uneven. In its centre was a rusty fountain. I do not recall the fountain ever working. It had always been dry, save when the rain came, when the rain came it flooded. I called it a fountain out of optimism perhaps, but also out of regret. By the unworking, rusting fountain, which lacked water and appreciation, sat a beautiful girl. Whenever I saw a beautiful girl I thought of my own best interests.
    Late teens. Ripped trousers. Jeans. Chequered coat. Dyed ginger hair. Brown freckles. Moon face. Beautiful. She worked chalks on to the paving stones, she worked many colours into the uniform grey. She smudged them, blended them. The subject that day was an angel. The angel was by some Renaissance master, she copied it down from a postcard, the likeness was not good. A handkerchief with stones in each of its four corners had a message above it. THANK YOU. She was thanked with coins. Generously. Not because of her angel,but because she had large brown eyes. We had known each other for two years.
    I had never spoken to her.
    People, all people, old, young, ill and well, spoke to her. I would have liked to have collected her chalk drawings but they faded quickly. People walked across them as soon as she had gone. The rain diluted them and then scrubbed their faces blank. Once, in a fit of stupidity, after she had left, I rubbed my gloved hands across her art. My gloves showed dirty, ugly, smudged colours. I had to replace them. I was ill for days. She looked at me once, smiled at me. I did not smile back. I was frightened. She stopped smiling and went back to her colours.
    Whenever I saw a beautiful girl I thought of my own best interests, for a short term.
    It was late spring; with the blossom in the park there was a hint of hope.
    2. HATE. This park was detestable because of its memory. It was sad, like so many people, because of its memory. It enjoyed, like so many people, passing its sadness on to others. This sadness, though not a dangerous disease, was infectious. It had a habit of getting through the pores of a person’s skin. People sat in the park perfectly happy but before they stood up again sad thoughts would have stroked their lungs. The park remembered what it once was. It remembered other trees. It remembered grass, acres of grassland. It remembered the feet of cows and of calves. It remembered. Penned in by wrought-iron fencing was all that remained of a once wide and plentiful park. The parkland was churned up, houses were planted on its soil. The cows were moved on, people were herded in. And here I must admit that I walked on the streets surrounding this park when I