0032 Conman

Silver-bronze…that was the beauty of your voice, deep and rich and flexible, as you sat yourself down on the bench in the waiting-room on Kensington High Street Station almost deserted on a dull afternoon not long before Christmas and spun your almost convincing tale of the African Union scholarship, was it, of which the monthly payout was late this month… and I watched myself, hypnotized by that voice which should be singing Porgy and Bess up there on the stage, and felt good, dammit, that I was trusting a stranger to borrow more than I’d given – let alone lent – any Christmas up to then… yes, it felt really good, as if I’d paid for a lesson in how to stop thinking of myself as mean, uncharitable – an hour with a psychotherapist who knew exactly what to relieve me of… at about the standard rate