The Pages.

He sat gazing at the TV screen, smoking his pipe, a glass of beer beside him half drunk. The programme was bread and circus crap. She sat in the other chair, knitting a jumper that he will not wear, now and then sipping at the cup of tea, eyeing the screen at the programme she had already seen. He remembered that time he couldn’t afford pipe tobacco so smoke some of the loose tea, giving off that strange smell. She dropped a stitch, and cursed under her breath, fixing the knitting, looking at him sideways on, disliking the smoke. He sipped the beer and gazed at the pipe; it had gone out, so he relit it again. Her daughter from her first marriage was in Japan with some Japanese man, having lost her only child a decade ago. He remembered his first love affair way back, some girl he met in the pub, with those lovely eyes who married some jerk from the offices. She knitted on, giving him a gaze, seeing how aged he had become, how sad he looked, that look in his eyes. He sipped more beer, laying pipe down on the side, gone out again. He saw her gazing at him and smiled. She smiled too, both musing on the child they lost that died.