An Early Departure

By Matthew Parish

Friday 13 November 2026

She had the sort of beauty that survives

Bad lighting, and a kindness less discreet.

“Fuck this,” she said. “We’re wasting both our lives.

There’s somewhere still serving down the street.”

She wanted more of me: another hour,

Another drink, whatever these things mean.

Rain glazed the pavement. From a distant tower

The clock pronounced on places we had been.

I knew that bar. A man had knocked me down

And said that he was MI6. Why tell

A stranger that? Some office of the Crown

Apparently required this clientele.

“I’ll sort the bastards out.” She took my sleeve.

It seemed, just then, a reasonable plan:

To let somebody wanting you believe

She could restore your standing as a man.

Inside, I held my empty hands in view,

Absurdly careful where the fingers went.

There ought to be some gesture you can do

That makes it plain you have no ill intent.

She argued. I could see her kindness take

The harder shape it needed to be heard.

They listened with the patience people fake

When nothing will be altered by a word.

Outside, we shook hands formally. “Thank you,”

I said, as though her effort were a loan

Repaid by this. There seemed no more to do.

I promptly made the evening mine alone.

Lviv knew, I thought, of war what people know

Who will not hear the person back from it;

And journalism counted less than show,

A trade these fools could neither place nor credit.

So ran my verdict as I walked away,

Leaving her there, still generous, still bright—

A jewel-hearted woman with more to say

Than I had let her say to me that night.

Some other city, then. Some other year.

A table where the talk could simply start.

Her blunt mouth smiling; no one else to hear.

The ordinary hazards of the heart.