Ann

In a cafe with bicycle wheels on the wall and demerara sugar in old tins of Lyle's Black Treacle, I am pretending to make small talk for a documentary crew who are following aspects of my friend's life.  Three of us sit at a wooden table. 

The other friend has bright ginger hair, pale skin and a shirt that is bronze.  I have never met her before.  She laughs when I ask my question.  'That's an exciting new year's resolution', she says, 'my middle name isn't'.  When I ask, she tells me it is spelled without an 'e'.  'Much to my grandmother's dismay', she says.  Her grandmother believed that Anne should always be spelled with an 'e'. 

'Was she right?' I ask.

'My grandmother was rarely right', she replies.