Pete Atkin sings
An Empty Table

by Clive James and Pete Atkin,
from Winter Spring

[Much more at www.peteatkin.com]

LYRIC:

Outside the restaurant where we used to see
Each other eye to eye and knee to knee
The colder weather keeps our table free
If I was there I know you wouldn't be
But no-one else is either
So they won't miss you and me

It's just a place where you and I once met
With nothing to get over or forget
The warmer weather filled the open air
With half a fun-fair, half a thoroughfare
And you leaned back in laughter
[male singer: ] With your lovely shoulders bare
[female singer: ] Looking far too cool to care

An empty table
Where we were face to face
It was our go-between
The air above it was our breathing space
And now the rain has washed it clean
Where we broke bread, not a fragment to be seen
Not a crumb, not a trace of crust
Just
An empty table

One empty table more
Than I ever bargained for

There were crowds who came to watch the river
While we watched them as if they'd be there forever
I can't forget all that as I walk past
I try to underplay the overcast
By calling solitude my great romance
And being glad no-one can see me glance
At an empty table
And the glance become a stare and the stare become a trance

But crowds are always melting in the cold
In that respect the opposite of ice
And folding chairs, well, what they do is fold
They do it once and they can do it twice
And they will soon be back if we're together when
It's warm enough to sit outside again
And all the world flows by, not just the solitary men
Who stop as if they see themselves when they were not alone and then
They see us looking back and walk away

Outside the restaurant where we used to see
Each other eye to eye and knee to knee
The colder weather keeps our table free