In a shop on Saturday. Queuing, there is a woman in front of me, and a woman in front of her, in front of the till. As she reaches into her bag for her purse her scarf falls from her shoulder without her noticing. The woman in front of me does and picks up the scarf, hands it to its owner. To my imperfect vision and poor knowledge of fabric, it looks like a nice scarf. Thin material, very white. You wouldn't want to just lose it, or discard it.

It's not the sulky undertone in which the scarf owner's 'Thank you' as she takes it that is so striking, but her facial expression, directed at the woman who has handed it to her. A look can be like a whisper audible only to the person addressed. This is not such a look, which I can see and decipher clearly from four feet back and several dozen degrees of angle skewed. It is of something between contempt and revulsion.

The woman in front of me looks in the scarf owner's direction just for a fraction of a second longer, enough to assure me that I haven't imagined the cast of the other's face. I want to say something but can't think of anything appropriate, useful, or that would make it better.

I can look at pictures in the paper of barefoot monks being beaten and ice melting that shouldn't be and while I think I'm concerned it's just an intellectual exercise. But this thing in the shop with the scarf I've been chewing at since. Though the woman in front of me has probably forgotten about it by now or washed it through by telling a friend who replied, 'Yes, some people are like that aren't they?'. And the woman with the scarf has perhaps changed her medication or is possibly on her way to changing herself. It was all in an instant, or it should be.