Linger

There was a man with bright red hair, bearded and wearing a smart overcoat, drinking at the bar. He was alone and not really drinking heavily. I looked again and he was gone but he was there more than once. Some of the things we used to talk about would raise an eyebrow or two and he must have heard some stuff but now I came to remember him, and although I could visualise his face clearly, with the beard, I realised I never knew his name. I may even have spoken to him once or twice but although I remembered the period I knew him from, I couldn’t remember who he knew that I knew, or the context surrounding our being at the same places at the same times - a Forest fan or an artist, actor or writer interested in the cinema club? Someone who worked at one of my former workplaces? I remember the people at the union being a shady lot, nervous of me but that may have been in part due to my association with Shaun, and their fear of him. Shaun had stuff on all of them, and no doubt on me too. We lived in interesting times.

His name may have been John, or Tony, or Paul. A friend is fond of telling me about angels, and how they are all around us in human or sometimes animal form. I don’t think John, or was it Tony, Aleistar or Tom or Paul was an angel though. I think he probably worked for MI5.”

Addendum

It was Frank. He had a solitary look about him and I wanted to talk to him in the dream though Shaun, who I was with, warned me not to, that he was an outsider. I remember this making me more wary of Shaun than of the stranger. Later I remember meeting Francis / Frank briefly in around 1992 and his remembering me and being warm, friendly and pleased to see me. Little things like that stay with you a long time.