At the adjacent table in the cafe of Marks and Spencer, sit three elderly ladies with three pairs of spectacles of different shapes and sizes. They discuss flu jabs and coo over a baby in a pram. They are drinking tea from teapots.
Apologising for my interruption, I explain my odd request. 'Do you want to know mine?' says the smallest of the three with short grey hair. She tells me that her mother was Swiss-French. The tallest, and most imposing of the group, offers hers as well. Her companions are impressed. 'I think it's mentioned in the bible somewhere', she says. The third, whose hair is curly and defiantly brown, waits to be asked. She is dismissive of her own. 'Are you doing some kind of project?', she asks. I explain the inexact premise of my eccentricity. 'Well, I think that's lovely', she says.
I say thank you and leave them to their afternoon gathering.
(Beulah is a Hebrew word from the book of Isaiah relating to a prophesied attribute of the land of Israel. It is also used to describe the place between heaven and earth in the works of John Bunyan and William Blake. I don't know whether her first and last names complete the trinity.)
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