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'Two full English, one with extra bacon, two teas.' A bored looking waitress, thick dark lips pursed into a sullen pout, unloaded her tray.

'We're not -' he started to say, but the waitress walked away. She had a full, but firm, arse that pulled up the back of her skirt, revealed thick thighs the colour of strong tea. The girl watched her. I like my girls thin - the other man's voice again, like stinging nettles in her mind. On good days he lifted her into his arms and spun her round, feet off the ground, like flying. On bad days she felt brittle, ready to snap. She looked at the man opposite her. He wore a pale grey jumper, the colour of pigeon feathers, which curved over a large stomach. The most striking thing about his face was his cheeks, she decided: wide expanses of flesh like old car leathers, his small features almost lost amongst them. She tore open two paper packets of sugar and tipped them into her tea; watched him spear a wrinkled looking mushroom, and dip it into his beans.

'I liked the colour,' he said; slipped the mushroom into his mouth.

She stirred her tea slowly.

'It's cinnabar,' he said.

'You what?'

'I'd call that colour cinnabar. It's a mineral.' He lowered his head, cut a piece of curled bacon in half. 'And a moth.' He kept his head down, heard her slow intake of breath. Stupid thing to say, fat old man trying to chat up a young girl - get arrested for less; lynched; laughed at.

'It's a nice name,' she said. He looked up. A tear hesitated at the edge of her eye before toppling over to trace a thin wet line down a foundation caked cheek.

'Are you ok?'

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