Conversation In a Lift

Conversation in a Lift. An elderly lady and I was in the lift she was going to the eight floor and I to the seventh. We stood there looking at the dial, to avoid eye contact, and then the lift, somewhere between four or five, stopped. I pressed the red alarm button, so did she just to make sure. Two strangers stuck in a lift, say something clever I urged myself. “I´m not really Portuguese” I said and wondered why I felt the need to tell her that. “I´m a Greek, she said, lived in London for forty years my husband ran a shipping company but he died so I came here to live.” She would never have told me this if it hadn´t been for the bloody lift that had forced me into being sociable. She spoke with an upper class accent which annoyed me, how could I respond by telling her I used to be a cook? The lift shuddered and she held on to my arm. Then the escalator began moving up again I gallantly stayed with her to the eight floor, before going down to my own flat. I have seen her since when she is out walking her dog; she pretends not to see me.