Boxing day

Went to Big Town to see if i could get a book with Mr Lecture's book tokens. in the street someone said hello and paused in that , almost past but i want to talk, sort of way and as i hadn't identified who it was i stopped.It was Slef, on her own looking very thin and sort of grey. I wouldn't normally chat to her but she seems keen to chat. Way back over 20 years ago i was shown into my Student hostel room, and sitting on the bed was Paul, i saw him and thought "oh fuck im sharing with a punk. He turned out to be not to bad, a laugh in his own way, but incredibly mean and tight. I lost lots of weight as we shared our food costs and he would only pay out for a Tesco's min pizza a day and we eat half each. I thought he was joking when he complained that i should pay double for sugar for our tea as i took tow spoons and he took one....but he wasn't. Anyway, he took up with Slef and i took up with the wife.... and now Slef informs us from about four foot away on a crowded street that He and she were braking up....When we left collage were were close friends, shared a studio, started a biz at same time as them. But they drifted away, they made some money, we didn't. They took up with people who were useful to them, Paul caressed his accounts book with glee...Moved from their boat to a council flat, got paid to move when the council wanted to knock the flats down. Got a mortgage, sold house had biz making little "eggs safes" etc. He wore "Coal Not Dole" badges at collage, but in busyness he exploited the various crap Make work scams. Armchair over heard two of his workers saying they hadn't worked in such a bad place to work, in fact it was worse than somewhere they worked and the boss hadn't paid them!. They moved to a big house on the main road. Then we heard they had a baby and the biz went belly up in a big big way, tax....they had to sell thier house and move to rented...we did bump into them at the Village bonfire party. Wife chatted amicably them, i more or less ignored them. She had post natal depression bad and a miscarrage, i cant imagine he was much help... and now they are parting, she's been off work with depression for a year. Working in the council, he's some sort of middle bod, we saw a job aplication for a post under him and that was a reason not to go for it...