Bethany Broome
She wanders into my garden one afternoon just as I'm lighting the barbecue. Her barking laugh makes me turn – a thumbs-up for hello and ok, a big smile. The gesticulating begins in earnest then, but I hadn't been expecting her and I'm not tuned in. Instead, to buy time, I mime raising a bottle to my lips, her thumb goes up, and I walk inside to fetch her a beer.

When I come back out she is sitting on a rock, even though there are chairs. There's a dirty great plaster on each of her big toes. She puts the beer down in the grass. I raise my shoulders and upturn my palms – what is she doing here? She takes no offence at my question, but laughs and points over in the direction of the hospital. She brushes a stray blond curl back behind her ear and stands up again. Her denim skirt is short and a scab is coming away above her right knee. She tugs on the frayed hem and then suddenly her fingers are fluttering, flying.

At the end of her explanation I nod and smile. I think that maybe she is waiting for her friend who is about to give birth at the hospital, but then again maybe she says she is going for a boob job, once she's lost some weight and had a pap smear.

I start to tell her about a snake I've just killed but fall down in trying to describe the type. In the end I just trace a wiggly line in the sand at our feet.

When her beer is finished she gets and leaves again. Thumbs-up for goodbye and ok. After she's gone I notice that one of the plasters has fallen off onto my driveway.