She’d lived in the block for three weeks and walked past the bench twice a day.
Headphones in. Eyes on her phone. Out at half seven, back at half six. She knew there was an old man who sat there — flat cap, dark coat — because she’d had to step round his feet once. That was all she knew.
Then, on a Thursday, the bus was cancelled. The next one was twenty minutes away. It was cold, and the bench was the only seat, and the old man moved his bag without being asked.
She sat. She got her phone out. It was on four per cent.
“Go on,” he said. “Let it die.”
She laughed despite herself. It died.
They sat for a while. Then he said, not unkindly, “What have you seen today?”
She opened her mouth and nothing came. She’d been awake eleven hours. She’d walked two miles. She couldn’t name one thing she’d actually seen.
“Doesn’t matter,” Samuel said. “Have a look now.”
So she looked.
A kid on a scooter, going round and round the same lamppost, singing. A woman on the third floor shaking a rug out of the window. Frost melting off the railing in drips, one by one, in the low sun. Two old men arguing about football outside the bookies, both of them grinning. A fox, bold as anything, trotting across the green like it paid council tax.
“It’s all been here the whole time,” she said.
Samuel nodded. “So have you.”
The bus came. She got on. She didn’t put her headphones in.