By Thursday, I knew which end he liked.

The first thing I knew about the man on the bench was that he folded his newspaper into a square. Not roughly. He lined up the edges and pressed the crease with his thumb. I thought this was an ambitious way to deal with yesterday's news.

I sat at the other end because I had carried the groceries farther than I meant to. He moved his bag, although there was already enough room. We discussed the temporary fence around a patch of grass. Neither of us knew what it was for. This gave us plenty to say.

I saw him again two days later. Then the following week. We nodded before we talked. For a while, I knew that he disliked the new bakery's coffee and that his daughter had a dog, but not his name.

We got as far as names.

His name was Arthur. Mine was Esther. He repeated it once, and the next time I approached he said it correctly. I had not expected that to please me quite so much.

Our conversations were short. I usually had frozen peas in my shopping bag; he usually had somewhere to be eventually. We talked about the fence, the buses, a film one of us had only half watched. He once asked how an appointment had gone. I had forgotten telling him about it.

One afternoon I nearly crossed the road to avoid the bench. I had nothing to report and did not feel especially good company. Then I realised I was treating a man with a newspaper as another person to whom I owed an update.

I sat down and said I was having a quiet day. He said he was reading a very bad column. We stayed like that for several minutes. When I got up, he asked whether I wanted the paper. I said the review had not encouraged me.

Nobody held the seat.

We did not exchange numbers. Not because we had decided on a principle; it simply did not happen. Some weeks I saw him twice and some weeks not at all. If the bench was full, I kept going. It was a public bench, and we had no seniority.

After a wet week, I found him back at his usual end. He asked whether I had been away. I said I had been buying smaller amounts of food and taking the direct route home. He said this sounded sensible, if disappointing.

I put my bag between my feet. The fence had gone. We could finally inspect the finished work, which appeared to be a patch of grass. Arthur folded the newspaper carefully and said he had expected more.