Walk back from work last night with Millie and Maria. Quick walk; scooting up the hill, under the viaduct, over Seven Dials then along Cromwell Road. Everything is orange and black, and deep with this sudden autumn. Pause outside Millie's house. She disappears into the darkness of the passage by the side of her house - she lives in the garden flat. After a while the light switches on, and she disappears now into the light.
Cross the lights with Maria. Wave goodbye (she lives around the corner from Millie) and head on home, The Co-op down Blatchington Road, cross Sackville Road onto vast expanse of Portland Road. Look down the road to Portslade, those double headed lamps headed out, like a line of sentinels headed not toward Portslade but some other, equally everyday town I have never known, but catch glimpses of on mornings like this while I'm remembering the night before.
