Femme Fatale

We all, her customers, her clientele (her bar had the kind of atmosphere - dark, subterranean, somehow smokey even in these smoke-free days - that made us clientele rather than merely customers) all played along with her. With the brassy, flirtatious persona that she had created and which had, over the decades, become an integral part of her. You could not imagine her doing anything as mundane as opening a carton of milk of boiling a kettle. It was inconceivable to picture her anywhere other than behind her bar or doing anything other than flirting with the customers who were young enough to be her sons. And then her grandsons.

And we went along with the pretence. We flirted back. We all paid lip service to the idea that she was a wicked woman - albeit with the compulsory heart of gold.

But the thing was that the pretence was real. She was a wicked woman and she did have a heart of gold. And, every now and then, one of the customers - one of the clientele - was caught up in the pretence enough to be caught.