by Adam Thorpe
Paul suddenly sticks his hand out and makes it go floppy, wrinkling his nose. ‘We have it in every size except yours, sir,’ he says in a girly, high-pitched voice. Then he looks down at the cobbles. ‘Oh, is it Camembert or double Gloucester today?’
She’s a bit shocked at first, then smiles. ‘Crikey. Got a bit worried there. I mean, that you were being prejudiced about gays. Did you actually watch that, then?’
‘Before I’d even started in the shop. Classic British comedy. Loved it. Only lasted two or three seasons. Living it now, except the joke’s on me.’
‘I used to laugh and laugh,’ she admits. She wasn’t about to, she was going to pretend it was beneath her. Have You Got My Size? was proper trash, she always thought. Very silly and very camp. She tries to think of one of its punchlines, but it was a long time ago.
They have the same taste, anyway. Good sign. He has it in him to be funny. Unless he liked it because it was full of homo in-jokes. ‘You can probably find every episode on YouTube these days,’ she adds. He’s lightened up. A glimpse underneath the crust. Tasty.
Recently she’s begun to feel low more often. Lower than usual. Sitting alone in her flat, in the quiet. Chewing through her spinach and ricotta cannelloni freshly nuked in the microwave; she can’t be bothered to cook properly these days. Chips dipped in lemon and coriander hummus will do her just fine. Fancy cakes and a coffee. The mice scratching in the roof, whistly noises up the chimney. Wondering where it’s all gone to, heading for fifty. The best years. And the toddlers: she could be their grandmother, easy-peasy. Granny Sheena. Dear God.
She meets Paul by chance in front of WH Smith’s in Cornhill. He’s listening to that busker with the tattoo on his neck who used to do deliveries chez elle for a bit. He has a lovely voice and plays old rock numbers on his guitar. Led Zep. The Doors. It is T. Rex right at the moment. Homeless type, but a bit of a cutie. Better than most of what you hear on the radio, she remarks. ‘It’s because this guy’s pure, Sheena. No microphone. No electrics. I wanted to be Marc Bolan when I was thirteen.’ His feet must pick up the chewing-gum splats, she thinks. She was still reading Bunty when Bolan was glam.
And subsequently spots him down the slope a few times, unlocking the shop. A wave.
She faces the full-length mirror in her fishnet teddy and it is scary: the face doesn’t go with the nice young body, naturally rounded breasts and all. She has to wear glasses to see the prices these days, looking over them at the customer like an old biddy. The pastures might be new but the rest never is.
Not that her life hasn’t been rich, out of hours. She’s left quite a trail of proper boyfriends, aside from the no-strings hooks. Rovers, most of them. A Spanish bass guitarist called Sandro, love of her life until she realised she was sharing him with the drummer, Cliff. A mildly schizophrenic puppeteer. Several husbands over the years – but never hers. One leading to another by various local connections. The longest fling being with a London-commuting knockout called Bob, Bob Springfield, while his wife said nice things about Mother Hubbard’s shop frontage on the council. Already old history – almost a decade ago! Kicked the bucket recently: coronary. Not much past fifty. Always full of fizz, but overdoing it probably. Designed robot spot-welders of all things, mostly for the Chinese. Nice hams.
Though Lincoln isn’t quite as local these days. Burgeoning is how estate agent Damon now puts it in his flash corner window at the top of the hill where the old record shop used to be; burgeoning blah blah in its sylvan setting between fen and wold. Quite the poet. Burgeoning with foreigners, that’s for sure. Damon looks about nineteen but is not her type, not one bit. Big-bearded Mike bang opposite her is tall but has very rounded shoulders and a moth-eaten cardie with dandruff down the front in sort of floury streaks. He’s probably about her age but going on seventy. She’s never so much as dipped a toe into Chapter Seven: too dark and off-putting behind its peeling bay window, and you can’t give used books as presents. She’ll smile at him across the cobbles as he fiddles with his stock, but she’s lucky if he smiles back. He’s had these drop-jaw gorgeous young assistants now and again, both sexes. Pays them nothing, apparently: good for their CVs. Maybe that’s what she should do. She’s had schoolkids doing their Year 10 work experience, more trouble than they’re worth, but what she needs is some young Johnny Depp lookalike to help fold the tiny buttoned cardies. Highly unlikely, and he’d be homo.
An intriguing diversity of independent shops, fast transport links to London and excellent schools help to under pin property prices.
‘Why are we intriguing, Damon?’
Damon shrugs, taps the cobbles and pulls on his fag.
‘And I think you’ll find underpin is one word,’ she goes on because he is cocky. ‘Like underpants.’
‘Are we looking at something we don’t like?’ he says to her, meeting her eyes through the smoke.
‘I’ll give it a shot.’
He snorts derisively, as if she is being serious. Shallow end of the gene pool, him.
She’s still tasting the barbecue she had last night at the smart new Korean place. Not much flesh for the price. This town has consumed her. Five minutes’ puff from the cathedral, yet the only time she goes is for the carols at Christmas. Quite calming, that is. Every year during that hour in the pews she loves England and vows to attend services and concerts on a regular basis, but the tourists and the evangelical types put her off (lame excuse).
Yet if she were to die suddenly in a tragic accident, the Echo’s obituary would go on about her zest for life, her many friends, her passionate love for the city and for the local countryside. With a blurred picture of her grinning out at the world. The immigrant from Hemel Hempstead, land of mini-roundabouts and Wally World. At least she can talk English proper.
Or maybe there won’t be anything at all. Not one word.
On Monday morning, just before opening time at eleven o’clock, shoulder aching from working the squeegee, she notices a young girl loitering in front of the shop the other side of the sparkling glass; she’s in burgundy school uniform which clashes with her hair, which is dark red. Natural colour because she has a redhead’s chalk-white skin and freckles on her nose. This is all I need, Sheena thinks, cold dribbles of water in her sleeves: Year 10 work experience. Forgot all about it. Looks twelve but must be fourteen.
She unlocks the door and greets the girl, voice turning husky and ending in a cough. Tormented by thoughts of Paul Cannon, by memories of his firm fingers on her feet, by dreams of shoes slipping from their moorings and travelling far out on the ocean’s glitter, she’s had one of those lonely weekends that demanded help from the vino quarter. As they say round here, she got fairly kegged. Now she looks at the girl through a blear of headache and an overtaxed liver, her haggard complexion disguised somewhat by the judicious use of spray tan. The return of the undead. Why does she never learn? At least she didn’t find sick in her hair, this time.
‘Me name’s Fay Sheenan,’ says the girl straight off.
A pause to catch up. ‘Oh. Sheenan? Well well, I’m Sheena Fleming. We’re going to get muddled!’
‘I don’t think so, Miss Fleming.’
It’s written on the form the girl is holding out. ‘Miss S. Fleming.’ Along with all the guff about health ’n’ safety and safeguarding. What on earth do they think could happen to a teenage girl in a kids’ clothes shop?
Fay is so thin she might be anorexic, Sheena surmises as she makes them both an instant coffee in the scullery at the back. It makes her teeth more prominent and her eyes bigger. The girl lives in the Ermine, on the west side, which is the rougher half of the council estate up on the northern edge of the city, when you’d expect the rough half to be the east. As a matter of fact, edge isn’t the right term because the estate is pretty much the north of Lincoln. Sheena has never more than skirted it. Parts of the city are no-go, or no-go for faint-hearted law-abiding types like herself. The local paper reports the details every week with calm nonchalance, as i
f splintering a stranger’s jaw or tipping someone out of their mobility scooter or walking about with a broken cocktail glass in your pocket is totally normal behaviour. It was like that even before the Poles and whatnot came flooding in.
This is the first council kid she’s ever had; the work-experience candidates usually come from upmarket families who are ex-customers, the teenagers nostalgic for their distant toddlerhood or pushed into it by their mothers for the same reason. ‘Oh,’ they always say, ‘it’s so much smaller than I remember!’ This is Fay’s first time. Her green eyes are like a cat’s in the dark, letting in as much light as they can. She doesn’t seem too demanding, doesn’t smell or look grubby like one or two of her middle-class predecessors, although she has an irritating way of tapping the chair’s bar with her foot.
A quiet Monday, the shop taking its time to warm up on a chilly autumn day, means there is time to explain things. Always greet the customer but don’t be too intrusive. Don’t display too much stock or too little. Keep an eye on those sticky toddler fingers. The worst are the even younger siblings left in their buggies beside a rack of dresses, half a soggy rusk in their hands and the other half on their face, who like to explore the texture and smell of clean cloth. Fay listens carefully. Sheena has no idea whether any of it is going in. For all she knows, the girl might have learning difficulties. Then Fay says, ‘You could just get really irated and then they’ll never forget.’
‘Technically a good idea,’ says Sheena with a sudden rush of affection for the girl, her matter-of-factness and total absence of side. ‘But, practically speaking, impossible: the mother would never come back. She may even accuse you of emotional abuse. You get all sorts, but the customer is always right, Fay. Rule number one, until you feel pushed to break it. The customer is always right.’
Later in the week, the girl says, ‘Who’s that weirdo over yon side?’
Sheena loves Fay’s expressions. A tall, angular mumsy suppresses a giggle. ‘Not quite so loud, Fay. That’s Mike Watkins – owns the bookshop. Ever been in?’
Admittedly Mike does look different, judged objectively. Somewhat like Tennyson, the local celebrity bard. What was that poem about the man with the beard? Probably not by Tennyson. There once was a man with an enormous beard. Something like that. Learnt it with Miss Wiles at primary. Fay shakes her head.
‘Have you ever actually been in a bookshop, Fay?’
The mumsy suppresses another giggle. Why did she say that? So crass!
Fay looks at her temporary employer past a rack of Armani Junior plum-coloured coats. ‘I wanted a book last year, so I looked in the library. Now they’ve shut the library down. It’s got a big padlock on the door.’
‘Try Mike’s then,’ says Sheena, feeling bloody awful. ‘They’re used books, so there are a good few bargains.’ She admires this girl, who will always stand out from the crowd with her deep-red hair and snow-white skin. For good or for ill. The look becomes more attractive with maturity, in general – if she can keep from getting overweight. The thinness isn’t anorexia, Sheena reckons; it’s more to do with a restless energy, burning up fat. Like working-class kids a generation ago. Scrawny, ferret-like. The opposite now. She could discuss this with Paul. He probably has a funny ecological diet, would have theories about obesity. Boston, fat capital of Britain. Or certainly of England. England-and-Wales-and-Northern-Ireland. ‘You can go over to the bookshop now, if you want. I’ll give you half an hour off.’
‘Off what? You’re not paying me.’
The kid can say these startling things. For instance (an hour or so later), that her friends mostly do their fortnight in Asda or Carpet Warehouse, because Asda gives you this certificate, a City & Guilds Accreditation Certificate. Whatever that means, Sheena would like to add. These bloody chains. Instead she says, ‘I can give you a certificate too.’ She’s folding a Ralph Lauren polo neck with faux-suede patches on the elbows. ‘The Mother Hubbard Certificate for Removing Sticky Fingers,’ she says, surprised at her own inventiveness.
‘I’d prefer to have a special cake in your flat upstairs,’ says Fay, stroking the gold embroidery on a Roberto Cavalli dress on special offer for £299. ‘If you don’t reckon I’m being too lippy.’
‘Honey, I like your lippiness. Look after the shop for ten minutes while I go get us a cake. Can you stay on another hour? We can phone your mum.’
‘I’m not allowed to be on my own. They told us. Elfnsafety.’
‘I take full responsibility. And I trust you.’
The girl grins broadly, showing her long and crooked front tooth. That ought to be sorted, at least.
Fay clearly loves the old beams, the cosiness, the shaggy rugs from New Zealand, the pots from Málaga, the cat Mungo from out of the Lincoln rain one evening. Or maybe it’s the Mr Kipling Viennese Whirls that Sheena’s dug out from the back of the kitchen cupboard. ‘My secret indulgence,’ she tells the kid, which isn’t true; she shoved them to the back because they’re cheap and sickly. Can’t recall which gentleman brought them. The girl buries her face in Mungo, who is also ginger, but Fay’s hair turns darker in contrast, almost carmine. She tells Sheena about her dog, Pooch. Stepdad Ken’s dog, really. She takes Pooch for walks and if some nobhead starts on her, Pooch starts on him. He’s without fear. Sheena finds it depressing that Fay walks a world where louts want to bully her. It seems a far cry from pink cashmere and sailor outfits at a hundred and fifty quid a throw, or from this cosy flat with the hearth flickering (gas but very realistic).
‘One day you’ll meet a nice kind-hearted lad,’ Sheena says, ‘with that lovely hair of yours.’
Fay shakes her head. ‘They’re all stupid moppets and nobheads who think they’re the cat’s mother. Stuck up their own arse. What the heck. How bout you, miss?’
Sheena smiles. ‘Oh, I’ve known a few Prince Charmings.’
‘Why didn’t you marry one, then?’
An image of Paul floats in her head, obscuring the others. Paul would like Fay, would find her original. Would he? Sheena has no idea, really. Of what he likes and dislikes beyond shoes and tea and music. She can only surmise. She’s not even capable of saying what dangerous sport he’s into. Could be rally driving. Or bungee jumping. All she knows is that she very much enjoys being in his somewhat depressed company. That’s love.
‘Miss Fleming?’
‘Call me Sheena. I sound like your teacher, otherwise. Why didn’t I marry one? Good question. Because Sheena is a ditherer. In other words, Fay, I am incapable of making a firm decision when it comes to love and commitment. I am about as clear and decisive as a mini-roundabout, of which there have always been loads in Hemel Hempstead. Where I hail from, as I told you. Voted one of the ugliest towns in Britain.’
Fay reflects for a moment. A serious girl. Sheena knows there’s something wrong with the mother and that the stepfather has had run-ins with the law. Fay may well think her employer is also a touch daffy, as they say round here. The firelight flickers on the girl’s face, giving its paleness a touch of rouge. The freckles on her stubby nose look painted on. One day the duckling will become a swan, of that Sheena is certain. She’s seen it before with redheads. A green-eyed swan. Sheena feels her toes curling in the deep woollen pile of the rug. In some ways she wants this moment to continue for ever.
‘Sheena, like … have you heard of Uggie?’
‘Wait there,’ says Sheena, not listening. She returns with her new camera, a digital with a swish lens. She cancels the flash: the light is adequate and she can’t bear red eyes, gleaming canines. Fay complains but then poses in a very artificial manner, hand under chin, a Facebook smile. Quite pert, really. ‘Try to look natural,’ Sheena says. Fay asks what she means by natural.
‘Normal.’ What’s normal? We’re all bloody freaks. The hand comes away from the sharp little chin. The camera clicks its fake, electronic shutter-click several times. They both take a look. The last one is approved by the sitter, ‘cos I look less of an ugly twat’. The background is
the ancient oak beams she so likes.
‘I’ll send it to you. Email?’
‘Only our Ken’s got a mobile. We’ve got a flatscreen, mind.’
Sheena returns to Paul’s on the following Monday, having given ye olde hair dye a day to settle. Fay has phoned to say she can’t come in the morning, a problem with the mother (the stepdad not being around). ‘She’s gorra bag on,’ whatever that means. Don’t tell the school! Itchy Feet opens at ten, Mother Hubbard opens at eleven. She has an hour.
She is glad she has stockings, as the veins stand out on her uppers these days. The left foot looks almost deformed. Maybe he is right. She likes narrow shoes. More flattering. Bunched-up toes. Cram them in.
‘I’m off to Tenerife for a few days, bang in the middle of the pre-Christmas rush,’ she says.
‘Sensible.’
‘Yup. I was thinking about some sandals. Or maybe even flip-flops.’
She finds her toes are curling now, like an excited little girl’s. She will take him away from the shoe shop. He is meant for better things. It is time to get serious. She’s not felt like this in years, not since Sandro. At least a decade. And did she ever enjoy just being in Sandro’s vicinity so intensely?
He looks up after a pause, as if he is thinking about something else. Her heart begins to slide down. ‘I’ve got some Havaianas straight from Brazil,’ he says finally. ‘I don’t stock polyurethane, so it’s all hemp. Hemp’s less of a barrier against the earth’s negative electrons, which are good for you. Rubber or plastic cuts them off. We’ll all be wearing these when the environment finally collapses.’
‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘Too much choice. This one is jolly.’
She has picked up a flip-flop with a sole covered in a rainbow from a shelf where all the flip-flops are cheerily coloured.
‘Oh, that. Reiki. A kind of Zen without the pain. Reiki shoes. The all-seeing eye or Buddha or rainbow sends healing vibes up through your feet.’