Uncoupling

Even without shouting and arm waving, you could tell from some way off that their words were heated. The exchanges were short: argumentative vocal jabs rather than the tidal flow of a conversation. There was too much looking at and looking away, exaggerated exhalation and skyward looking. Being nosey and having time to kill, I got a coffee and took a seat a few tables away. I got my phone out of the zipped compartment at the back of my camera bag and half-read, half watched feeling a little self-conscious seeing as there was no reason to have chosen a seat this close when most of the others were empty. The coffee looked foul. Thin, like instant, even though it had come from a machine that at least implied beans but it was a bit of a privilege to have a ringside seat at a lunchtime squabble.

I only watched for five minutes. Not long enough for the coffee to have cooled to take the first sip. The constant white noise of the fountain and the wheezy organ of the carousel meant that even quite close you couldn't hear. And anyway, their voices never got above the sort of restrained, angry whispering that from comes deep in the diaphragm and rumbles at the back of throat, escaping through clenched teeth and thin lips. Not until the final, elongated, "fuck you", shouted angrily but with enough of a tremble to show he was on the verge of tears. In one movement he stood up and slammed his polystyrene cup into her's, which was sitting lidless on the table between them. Before he even realised what he'd done and before he had a chance to drop his final, defiant glare and move away, a fountain of unfinished beige, milky latte sprayed from between the cups, covering him from just below the waistband of his trousers, stopping just below his face.