Grave Misgivings

by Caroline Wood

  Ronnie’s decision to expand hardened and tied itself neatly like a sturdy pair of lace-ups. He found his second shop-unit in the next village, after careful research into its requirements for cobbling. In his modest manner, he opened without a fuss, and ran the second shop in the conscientious and courteous way his established customers had come to depend on. Friendly and polite, Ronnie remembered his Mum's advice to keep himself to himself. He knew that the Lord helped those who helped themselves, so he intended to build up what he liked to think of as the family concern all by himself.

  He spent half the day in his original shop, and opened for afternoon trade in the new premises. That way, both places were convenient for customers at some point each day. He took to eating his sandwiches in the van as he drove from Toe Caps to his afternoon sessions behind the rapidly filling new workbench. The ducks seemed untroubled by black polish on their crusts, as Ronnie passed the village pond and hurled in the remains of his lunch.

  Months passed and Ronnie worked late into the evenings. During the day, he listened to the little radio he'd bought for Mum, and talked to the presenters as he clamped leather uppers to their new soles, or fitted metal toecaps. Mum would be proud of him now, doing so well on his own. The doctor at the hospital had told Ronnie not to take too much on, told him to avoid stress, and to ask for help when he needed it, but Mum knew him better. She was right about hard work being the only way to get on. As the light mornings came round, Ronnie got up early and repaired several pairs of shoes before the first signs of life appeared on the road. Then he’d dash to the other shop and be ready to start on the pile waiting there. New customers appeared throughout the afternoon. Ronnie looked forward to turning round the open sign on his door so it said closed. Then he'd have tea from his flask, and work his way through the shoes, pairing them up afterwards with thick elastic bands. He didn't manage to polish them all these days, but most were clean enough.

  His headaches started to come back, but Ronnie still set off for the shop at the crack of dawn, and worked through the day. Sometimes he stayed all night, sleeping on his fold-up bed, too tired to drive home to the empty house. Then he’d get straight to work before the never-ending stream of customers. They expected miracles on their worn out boots, sandals and shoes. Ronnie wanted to be left alone to get on with his mending. He didn’t want to search for repaired shoes at the back of the shop, while customers stood tapping their impatient fingers on his counter. He started to keep the closed sign in the door while he got on with things. He just wanted to catch up without interruptions. The doctor had told him to avoid stress, and Mum would be on his side.

  ‘They'll just have to wait,’ she would have said. ‘If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.’

  So Ronnie locked himself away, tackled the jumbled heap of footwear, and tried not to listen to the voices from the radio. The headaches made him want to bang his temples against the wall, but he knew that hadn't helped before. When he looked at the shoes, Ronnie got that old feeling again. It was like spinning. Everything speeded up, he couldn't remember properly, and his headache thudded harder.

  Ronnie kept both shops closed for a week so he could get up-to-date. Once he was organised and sorted out, he started again, and was soon sweating over his workbench for hours. He forgot to eat. He slept badly, sometimes not at all. Occasionally, he shouted at the voices to leave him alone. The door rattled sometimes, as customers tried to call in for their shoes. Ronnie swore under his breath. ‘Just fuck off and let me get on with it. I'm working as hard as I can.’

  The idea came to him as he passed the hopeful ducks late one afternoon. He decided to take the advice of that doctor. If Ronnie felt under pressure, the doctor had told him, he should find ways of distributing the load. Ronnie filled three boxes with shoes from the back shelf and late that night, went for a drive in the countryside. Just like he’d done with Mum, after the Sunday roast. Every now and then, Ronnie stopped the van and placed a shabby shoe in the middle of the road. Then he drove off to find other suitable spots to delegate his workload. This was the solution he’d needed. The pressure eased at the shops, and Ronnie turned the signs to open again to let his customers come back in.

  He went out every other night, driving further to find places for the shoes. He left them in deserted roads. Sooner or later, he thought, people would pass the spot and wonder how a single shoe got left in a quiet country road. Ronnie turned his thoughts away from the questions his customers would ask when they returned to collect their scattered footwear, and busied himself instead with his new activity. It had become more time-consuming than the type of cobbling he’d previously practised. He took pride in finding just the right place for the shoes, and sometimes he got out of his van before driving off, to adjust their position in the road.

  His new occupation was successful – there were no more daunting mounds of pungent leather and laces, or un-stitched uppers. Now he didn't even have to keep the pairs together with elastic. He just swept the next batch into his delivery box and set off on his night-time travels. He liked the quietness of working on his own through the night, and was pleased that he could get so much done. The sky always seemed enormous and so dark, with thousands of minute stars, like pinprick holes in black leather brogues. Sometimes he took the little radio with him, on the passenger seat. It tuned itself in and out of frequencies. Mum talked to him through the tinny speaker.

  ‘Hard work never killed anyone,’ she said. ‘There’s just you and me, Ronald. We don't need anyone else pushing their noses into our business. We're all right on our own.’

  Ronnie went full-time with his night-work in the end. He kept both shops shut. Puzzled, angry customers and curious, concerned neighbours peered through the window, or banged on the door for their shoes. People started to talk, but Ronnie was too busy listening to the voices in his head.

  His own shoes never came off his feet; he was muddled about the time of day, and about when he should go to bed. Or if he had already been. After the next batch, he told himself. He mused over the thought of going home to one of his Mother’s casseroles and how he would watch the news before having an early night. Until then, he told himself, he had to get rid of the remaining shoes.

  His mileage increased as he made longer journeys to find unused roads. Sometimes he wound the van window down and threw out four or five odd shoes, about a mile apart, not bothering about how they landed. He felt much better now he was in control of his work again. Perhaps the doctor had been right – stress and pressure could be bad for you. But Ronnie had dealt with it by himself and couldn't wait to see Mum's approving smile when he got back home.

  ‘That's right, Ronald,’ she would say, ‘you never did need them interfering doctors, or all those tablets. Just a nice steady routine and plenty of hard work.’

  Ronnie tossed the last shoe out of his van and headed back for the house, his thoughts of dinner confused slightly by the sight of children on their way to school. I must have worked longer than I realised, he thought. But a spot of overtime won’t hurt. When he got home, he filled the kettle, kicking Mum's old tartan slippers as he shuffled across the kitchen floor.

  The lady with Dr Last was very kind. She made them all tea and listened to Ronnie as he told her about his work. She held his arm as they went outside to the posh estate car parked in front of Ronnie's delivery van. It will make a change, he thought, going out in the daytime. And it will be nice to have some company.

  They drove past a black lace-up. It lay in the road, bent and dull, with bumps where toes had pushed against the leather. That hasn't seen a lick of polish for a while, Ronnie thought. He frowned, and question marks aged him, making a hazy web of lines on his face. The voices didn't know how the shoe came to be lying in the road either. Ronnie felt very tired

  * Resident Power *

  It’s not easy to say how I knew, but somehow I did. It was plain, even though there were no ‘Do Not Touch’ signs, that the food on display was not for sale. I had only gone
in for one postage stamp, and then I stood idly scanning the shelves for something to take home for tea. One packet of biscuits protected a small oblong of the wooden shelf from dust. There were no cakes, no buns. Not even bread.

  ‘No call for it,’ was her reply when I asked.

  She’d been viewing me from her side of the smudged glass screen at the post office counter. She was hazy to me – I could see reflections of the sparsely stacked shelves, but not clearly define her solid form.

  Two tins of carrots and a small tin of evaporated milk were spread above the biscuit section, trying to make a display. Rusty specks decorated the tops and edges of the tins, and the labels had faded. The serving-suggestion carrots were a pale, unhealthy looking yellow. Dusty spider threads held the tins in place. An earwig excavated crisp folds of peeling label.

  There was nothing tempting to eat here, so I settled for practicalities. I reached for a packet of washing powder, next to the lone twin-pack of toilet rolls. As I lifted the solid, slightly damp box, an uncurling of baby woodlice brought the shelf to dusty animation. I watched as the grey frilled creatures plinked to the floor, and then I heard the post office counter being lifted up.

  She moved towards me by leaning from side to side. Her feet shuffled along without leaving the ground, and her immense size was transported as if on wheels. There was no doubt about her scrutiny – I could feel constant observation burning into me, locking onto every movement, every blink or twitch. But if I looked at her, she made no eye contact and just kept watching me without showing it. She rolled her head from the left shoulder, across her collarbone and over to the right shoulder. It was a long slow movement, during which she examined me closely – extracting information in a sly, slow stare. While her head faced down, her pupils strained up from the secret folds of her eyelids, and she swept in my image with her radar.

  ‘That’s my last one,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to put it back.’

  I could feel the heat of her effort to mobilise the bulk she carried, and tried to catch her gaze as it skimmed past me again and again. The stubby, white hairs of her eyelashes on her downcast lids were as close as I got to any visual connection. I bent my knees slightly, to try and see under those little white fringes shielding her elusive, watchful orbs. I clutched the damp packet for a few more moments and then replaced it on the dirty shelf, filling the newly vacated woodlice camp. She nudged me slightly as she lifted a heavy arm to straighten the disturbed arrangement.

  ‘Was there anything else?’ she asked, and her head made the same mine-sweeper roll. I looked at the empty shelves. I wanted to leave, to run outside, back to the sunshine and open air, but I felt heavy, dulled. I remembered the stamp but I couldn’t recall what I wanted. My memory felt slow and dimmed. All I knew was that I’d gone in to buy a stamp. I gave my request to the top of her swaying head as I sensed her vision piercing my surface layers and uncovering my thoughts. I followed her back to the end of the shop and she closed herself in behind the glass barrier. We exchanged coin and postage stamp under the grille. I noticed a slight trembling in her pudgy fingers as she pushed my change towards me. A cloud of dust puffed out of the stamp book as she banged it shut. Then she gave a flat, dispassionate command.

  ‘Give it back,’ she said.

  And I did.

  My energy had waned. I slumped with tiredness and disorientation. Time slowed and caught me in its web. She put the stamp back onside the book and placed a closed sign on the wooden counter.

  ‘I can’t serve you today,’ she said, from her sideways stance. ‘I forgot. It’s stock-taking today – always a busy time. I’ve got to count all the things.’

  My leaden legs dragged me to the door and I left without my stamp. I closed the door, aware that she had carried out a final inspection of me as I left her counter. I felt that I had somehow intruded and now she had driven me away from her empire. I’d only wanted a stamp. I left empty handed.

  Outside the post office, I shook my head and gulped down fresh air now that I was back in the bright daylight. I searched for signs of movement to shake off the stagnant surroundings I’d just left. Anything moving made me feel better. The scraps of circling litter, a clattering, jingling milk-float that stopped as soon as it had started, and the breeze blowing the fur of a grey-muzzled dog as it clicked past me on the narrow street. It was a three-legged dog, I saw. And definitely in a hurry – it had no time to sniff at lampposts or stop to acknowledge me. Its long claws tapped and skittered out of my hearing as the dog lolloped round the bending road.

  I decided to leave the stale dust motes of the post office behind me and walked back to the cottage. Miss Wisp had left a stock of food, all of it homemade. And it didn’t have the musty dampness of the offerings now being counted on those barren shelves. I made tea and put two oat biscuits on a china plate. I decided to sit in the garden and read. Later I would walk and explore the rest of the village. There was plenty of time. I had promised myself on the journey that I would unwind and relax for the week. I would let go of deadlines and routine. Seven days in the depths of the country, miles away from over-populated clamour, shopping centres and murderous roads – miles away from real life. It was just what I needed – an escape from the ever-spiralling pressures to the freedom of timeless afternoons and gentle meanderings. Vague daydreams unwound in my head – I saw myself wandering down country lanes on sunny days, or cycling along riverbanks; a book and a picnic in my basket, or stopping to chat with unhurried locals. And all this tranquil recuperation was being paid for by the wealthy Miss Wisp who wanted her plants watered, her cat fed and her cottage cared for while she visited her sister. It was an annual event, the gentle Miss Wisp informed me as we sipped tea at what I suppose had been my interview.

  ‘My sister comes back into the world for three weeks every year,’ she told me as she held out a plate of tiny triangular sandwiches. ‘We always have a holiday together on her second week – one of the Scottish islands.’

  Thoughts of this frail lady in the teeth of unpredictable weather seemed too harsh to contemplate. A south coast boarding house or a coach tour would surely have been kinder. But I was more intrigued by the matter of the sister, although had no place to ask questions. I thought that Miss Wisp was slightly confused, or had entered that stage of contented amnesia, when the living and the dead, the past and the present start to mingle together. I wondered if she might just be remembering her dead sister, or could perhaps be visiting her grave. As her small teeth bit carefully into softly spoken words, Miss Wisp gave the answer without me asking the question. Her sister was a Sister, and was being released from the convent for three weeks of conversation and different scenery. A bit like my own change of routine, Sister Cuthbert was having a break – leaving behind familiar, engrained habits. Images of non-stop chatter between the nun and the ancient spinster warmed me. But I noticed that Miss Wisp was staring into the flower borders. She told me that all Cuthbert wanted to do was watch television and read magazines. Still, they gave each other companionship, and some comfort in their otherwise solitary lives.

  I was shown round the garden, given polite instruction on how to deadhead perennials, and told what needed to be watered. The neat little shed was opened for my inspection – a warm, dry place holding trapped sunshine and stored apples. Next I was ushered politely into every room of the cosy cottage with its scent of fresh linen and lavender.

  ‘And this is your room,’ Miss Wisp said. We stepped into the small back bedroom – a room with a sloping ceiling, billowing white curtains and flowers from the garden on the dressing table. Propped against the vase was an envelope with my name on it. Miss Wisp turned and led us out, blushing at my compliments for her beautiful home. I guessed that the envelope contained my payment for the position of ‘House Sitter’. She would not want to deal directly with the embarrassment and vulgarity of hard cash. I smiled inwardly again at this delightful little old lady. Her manners, her timidity and her modest, secluded way of life all charmed me.
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  Before her taxi arrived, Miss Wisp introduced me to the cat. Neville was altogether weightier in appearance than his delicate, lacy owner. He was a solid cat with huge fluffy feet and deliberate intentions. Had he been human, Neville would be the sort of person to stride up and shake hands very firmly. As it was, he threw his feline bulk at my calves and looked up at me with a cheerful face. He was a straightforward, friendly cat who willingly made the eye contact denied me in the post office. I liked him instantly and was pleased when Miss Wisp told me that he enjoyed being stroked and pampered.