Shop Girl

by Mary Portas

Lawrence hands me the mirror and I stare at myself. My temples and cheeks are dusted with fuchsia eye shadow and there’s a huge red zigzag edged in blue running from my forehead down over my right eye and onto my cheek. My hair looks as if I’ve just stuck my finger into a plug socket. I look like a miniature version of Bowie himself.

  ‘Briiiiiiiiiiilliant,’ I squeak.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Michael squawks.

  ‘Muuuuuuum! I’m ready. Are you coming?’

  Michael drops the needle onto the record and there’s a few seconds of crackling before the music starts: piano notes overlaid with bass guitar and drums. I start swaying in front of my brothers and sister as I wait for Bowie to begin the opening lines of the song and I start to sing.

  Mum walks into the room and looks at me singing. ‘Don’t you look grand!’ she says absentmindedly. ‘Now I really must get over to Jean’s. There’s a lot to do for the church jumble sale tomorrow.’

  But I hardly notice her leave. I am lost in the moment. Michael, Joe, Tish and Lawrence are my audience and there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

  Wimpy burger

  The plastic table is covered with Coke stains as I bite into my burger. Tish and I came up on the train to Euston together this morning and got the bus east to go shopping at Petticoat Lane. I love the market there: crowds of people clustered at stalls piled high with everything from kitchenware to clothes. It is like going to second-hand shops with Mum to pick through things in the hope of finding a gem with the added thrill of the pressure to buy.

  ‘Get yer purse out, love!’ traders roar, as I look at plastic sandals or bottles of cheap perfume. ‘Won’t stay long so make yer mind up.’

  On the hard plastic seat beside me is an orange bag containing a tank top with a diamond knit in emerald green and burgundy that Tish has just bought me.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ I say, between mouthfuls.

  ‘’S all right,’ Tish says. ‘So do you promise you won’t borrow any more of my stuff?’

  ‘Of course.’

  My older sister looks at me sceptically. I am continually digging into her make-up bag and rifling through her new clothes on the sly. ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Well, make sure you do, okay?’

  Tish has just done her O levels and after years of misapprehension – she wondering why I don’t like dolls, me amazed that she does – we have finally begun to find common ground: learning song lyrics together and practising putting on make-up, we pore over the pages of the NME, laugh at Cathy and Claire’s advice in Jackie and read about fashion in Honey. Now and again, we also nick Joe’s 21 magazine.

  He is working on a building site for the summer holidays and has already decided that he will carry on doing weekends when he goes back to school for his final year. We all know that he is just sitting it out until he can officially leave. Despite my parents’ belief in education, the Catholic comprehensive system is not the place for a creative boy like Joe. School is all about learning to follow the lines, not blurring them with creative thought or expression. Joe’s passion for art sustains him and he has sat his A level at just fifteen. But he knows one exam won’t be enough to get him anywhere and insists he enjoys the work on a building site – mostly because he has almost as much money in his pocket for those summer weeks as Michael, who has left school and is training to be a surveyor.

  ‘Why didn’t you want the blouse?’ Tish asks, and takes a sip of her Coke float.

  There are some things we will never agree on. I pick up my strawberry milkshake. ‘You know why,’ I mutter darkly.

  ‘Oh, Mary! You can’t be serious? You really think that you’re never going to wear a blouse again?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But that’s stupid.’

  ‘It’s not. You weren’t there.’

  ‘It was a freak accident. That’s all. It wasn’t the blouse’s fault.’

  I look at Tish. ‘But it was so embarrassing!’ I wail.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And that’s why I will never wear a blouse again. Never.’

  Tish raises an eyebrow as she looks at me. ‘Okay. We’ll see how you feel in a couple of years, shall we?’

  I mean it. What happened at Pinner Fair two weeks ago will never be forgotten. I went with some friends from St Joan’s and it was the first time Mum had let me out in the evening alone.

  ‘I want you back here by nine, Mary,’ she said, as I left. ‘Not one minute later otherwise I swear to God that you will not set foot outside this house alone again until you’re twenty-five. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Good. Now here’s fifty pence.’

  I felt invincible as I walked down the road to meet Geraldine Quinn. I was on my own and off to meet my friends wearing flares with a cheesecloth shirt, which had a string of tiny buttons down the front, and a wing collar jacket. I was finally growing up.

  Geraldine and I got on the bus together to Pinner, met up with our classmates and the next couple of hours were a whirl of trying not to break my neck on the waltzers and stuffing my face with as much candyfloss as I could stomach. But just as I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, I saw Ian Partridge in the queue for the Cage with his brother Alan. Dragging Geraldine with me, I got in the line behind them as the Cage rotated onto its side and teenagers screamed their heads off in the air above us.

  Nothing was going to put me off the chance of getting up close to Ian Partridge. When our turn came, I walked onto the ride with Geraldine and clung to the bars either side of me as a man casually clipped me in with a bit of frayed rope. Ian and Alan were on the opposite side of the ride to us and I stared at Ian, willing him to notice me.

  The Cage started to spin. Slowly at first and level with the ground. As it spun faster and faster, gravity pinned me back against the bars of the ride, holding me steady as the Cage turned on its side. The world was a blur of colour and light. Geraldine was screaming beside me. Eyes fixed ahead, I remained completely silent, hoping that Ian would notice my bravery as we spun around at a hundred miles an hour.

  And then the buttons of my cheesecloth shirt started to ping open one by one.

  Fixed like a condemned man to a stake, there was nothing I could do. My blouse ripped open displaying my completely bare – and flat – chest to everyone on the ride. Ian was crying tears of laughter and me of shame by the time we came to rest and I pulled my shirt around me. I was so upset that I threw up the moment I got onto solid ground.

  Maybelline lip gloss

  ‘Hand them over!’

  The boy has a face like a rat’s, as do all the other kids with him. Rat Boy is from a family as rough and tough as they come, the scariest family in North Watford.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Give them to us.’

  The boy steps towards me and I feel Lawrence moving closer as well. I look down at my brother and he stares at me. I don’t want him getting beaten up by this lot. I give him a warning look and move towards Rat Boy.

  ‘I’m not giving you anything.’

  In my hand is a plastic bag full of sweets that the Gang just clubbed together to buy: tubes of Rolos and Opal Fruits, bags of Jelly Tots and Aztec bars. It’s a hot summer day and we’ve all met up at the van for the afternoon. We don’t come up here so often now but still do once in a while. We were just minding our own business until this lot turned up: rough kids who come up here every now and again to nick stuff off us.

  ‘You’re not having them,’ I say, and Rat Boy steps towards me again.

  His clothes smell of mushrooms and his breath of smoke. I wonder if he’s going to hit me. I’ve never been punched in the face before. He curls his lip as he looks at me, eyeing up the plastic bag as everyone stands still, wondering who will make the first move and what it will be.

  ‘You all right?’ a voice says.

  I turn to see Stephen Bradley – massive bike, leather jacket and a lot of attitude. He is the type who could smack anyone’s f
ace in. My heart thumps as I look at him. ‘Yeh,’ I say.

  Stephen Bradley isn’t the best-looking boy around but he’s got real swagger.

  Rat Boy goes still as Stephen walks towards him.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Stephen growls.

  Fear and defiance wash across Rat Boy’s face. Would he rather get a pasting or back down in front of his mates?

  ‘I said fuck off,’ Stephen shouts, and Rat Boy knows he’s lost.

  He turns and starts walking away as the rest of his group trail after him.

  I stare at Stephen in awe. ‘Thanks,’ I whisper.

  Trudie, Michelle, Carina, Debbie, the Sweeney brothers and Lawrence start to laugh with relief as Stephen scuffs his boot on the ground.

  ‘’S all right,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Wanna see the van?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  We climb into it while the others wait outside. It’s an old blue Ford Transit with a cab in front and enough space to stand up in the back. We’ve stuck posters on the wall that Tish didn’t want in our bedroom – one of Slade because Dave Hill’s monster fringe freaks her out and another of Alice Cooper who she thinks is just plain weird.

  An old transistor radio is playing ‘You Can Do Magic’ by Limmie and the Family Cookin’.

  ‘It’s nice,’ Stephen says.

  I wish I’d brought Tish’s roll-on lip-gloss with me. I stare down at my shorts and T-shirt. Why aren’t I wearing my flares?

  ‘Want one?’ I say, holding up the bag to Stephen.

  He pulls out an Aztec bar, opens the wrapper and takes a bite. As he chews, I send up a silent prayer of thanks that I left my braces at home this morning. Mum’s always after me because I take them out whenever I can and often lose them. I forgot them at the bus stop once and the dog got them another time.

  Everything goes still as Stephen leans towards me. His kiss tastes of chocolate. Pictures from Jackie photo stories flip through my head as I wonder what to do with the tongue that’s furiously rolling around in my mouth. Then Stephen suddenly pulls away. ‘Better be going,’ he says.

  I want the ground to swallow me up. I bet he’s had loads of kisses.

  ‘Let me know if you have any more problems with that lot, won’t you?’ Stephen mutters, as he turns to leave.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I mean it. I don’t want them bothering you.’ Then he turns and gives me a long, slow smile. ‘See you, Mary.’

  I look around me as Stephen climbs out of the van. It suddenly seems different somehow: the old toy fur is dirty and the posters ripped, a place full of bits of junk where kids hang out. It’s no place for me any more. I am thirteen. I am a woman now.

  Price’s candles

  ‘Not again!’ my mother exclaims, as we are plunged into darkness.

  Power cuts are regular now. The television stops at ten thirty p.m. and Radio 4 keeps talking about the three-day week. My father looks worried much of the time. He has hushed conversations with my mother as the two of them sit at the kitchen table.

  ‘Where’s the torch?’ Mum asks, as we stare into the pitch black. ‘Let me get the matches. Where are the matches?’

  There’s a scrabble and my mother lights the end of a candle that she always has sitting on the window ledge now. Her face looks ghostly as she stares at Lawrence and me sitting at the table doing our homework.

  ‘Don’t you be thinking this is an excuse to stop working!’ she cries. ‘Let me get some more candles.’

  We are pitched into blackness again as she walks into the hall. There she will open the door to the cupboard under the stairs where she has stockpiled enough candles to see us through a nuclear attack.

  Vesta curry

  Mum puts a bowl of steaming mash onto the table.

  ‘That’ll not be enough, that bit of rice,’ she says. ‘So I’ve done some potatoes too.’

  We stare quizzically at our plates. After a lifetime of mince, chops and liver, we’re not sure what to make of curry. Dick Froome persuaded Mum to try it when she went to place her order a few days ago.

  ‘It’s Indian,’ she’d told me, as she opened a cardboard box and emptied a stream of what looked like Bisto granules into the pan, added water and stirred furiously.

  I push my fork into the brown sludge on my plate.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Joe, and I know he’ll never eat it.

  ‘Beef curry,’ says Mum. ‘Just try it. Dick said it was very popular.’

  I spoon mash onto my plate and mix it into the curry, which is oozing water, the sauce separating quickly and leaving a watery trail underneath the rice. As Mum eats determinedly, Dad digs his fork into the food, raises it to his lips and opens his mouth. If he could hold his nose and swallow at this second then I’m sure he would.

  But it’s 1974 and the world is changing. Even in Watford. Mum’s started wearing mustard slacks, people are eating something called chicken chow mein and the sweet shop is being run by Mr Hussein, who is from Pakistan, now that Mr Tite has retired. At home things are on the move too. Tish has started going out in the evenings with friends like Khalid and Zephyr, who make me gasp in admiration because they wear five-button Oxford bags. I’m filled with envy at the freedom my sister has as I walk to the church youth club or sit at home with Mum and Dad.

  ‘You can go out to a market for the day but you’re fourteen and certainly not old enough yet to be going to pubs,’ Mum tells me, as I plead with her to let me go out with Tish. ‘We don’t want the police here again, now, do we?’

  ‘But Tish will make me up to look older,’ I say. ‘Everyone says I look at least sixteen.’

  ‘Well, you’re not, and I’m not letting you out to get up to God knows what shenanigans.’

  I stare dolefully at my mother as the contestants stand in front of the conveyor-belt on The Generation Game trying to memorize the line passing in front of them: a carpet cleaner and a case of champagne, an egg boiler and matching suitcases, a drill and the cuddly toy. It’s usually my favourite bit of the programme but tonight I want to be anywhere but at home.

  ‘Shall I get us some Angel Delight?’ Mum asks.

  I look at her, wanting to carry on arguing, knowing I’ll never win the battle.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, and she smiles.

  ‘You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Mary?’ she says, as she gets up.

  There is a definite distinction between good and bad girls for my mother. Good girls stay at home, study hard and are sensible when they go out. Tish is a good girl and that is why my parents let her. But bad girls’ heads are turned by boys, alcohol and discos, and the jury is still out on which path I’m to follow after all the pranks I’ve played at school.

  ‘Did you see what happened to her?’ my father said to me not long ago, after we’d watched a documentary called Dummy that featured a prostitute. ‘She ended up a hoor.’

  He’d stared at me intently and I’d gazed back at him in confusion. I knew he was worried but did he really think I’d end up a prostitute?

  ‘You must never let a boy touch you down there,’ Mum whispers, in a low voice every now and again. ‘Not until you’re married, that is.’

  Despite my kiss with Stephen Bradley and the best efforts of Carrie Lowman and Sister Mary Hill, I still hadn’t made proper head or tail of sex until a boy called Eugene gave me another envelope as I got onto the school bus. Eugene went to a local grammar school and had started writing me love letters soon after we met. He was tall and slim, and my heart raced whenever he looked at me. But the last envelope he gave me didn’t contain a love letter. Instead I’d opened it to find a piece of A4 on which he’d painstakingly stuck tiny pictures he’d photocopied out of Kama Sutra.

  I’d stared at the drawings in astonishment before taking the envelope home and handing it to Mum, who I hoped might explain. Given that I had never seen my parents naked, and their attitude to nudity had somehow convinced me that wearing navy knickers in the bath was appropriate, I should not have been surprised when she pur
sed her lips and wordlessly ripped the letter to shreds. The next day I found Mum waiting for me at the bus stop. Eugene had just winked at me on the 321 when I glanced down to see Mum on the pavement. As we got off the bus, she’d fixed Eugene with such a look of disgust that he hadn’t dared glance in my direction again.

  With a sigh, I dig my fork into the curry and eat a mouthful before looking at Mum. ‘Is it supposed to be crunchy?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m not quite sure,’ she replies. ‘Now just eat up.’

  Boots 17 mascara

  I’m tied to a stake and a girl from the fifth year is kneeling in front of me.

  ‘God be with you, Joan,’ she says, as she bends her head.

  It’s the final moments of Saint Joan and I’m ready to pour every last dreg of emotion into George Bernard Shaw’s closing scene. We have a new drama teacher called Mr Harold and he’s taken a chance on giving me the lead in the school play – it normally goes to an older girl. I was worried he might give the part to Katy Hill because she’s my main competition. She reads Harold Pinter in her spare time and is so bright she’s always top of the class.

  I take a deep breath as I stare out into the audience. I know Mum and Dad are sitting in the school hall somewhere but I can’t see them. The lights are too bright and, besides, I am Joan of Arc. I am about to be burned at the stake. My loyal followers are crowding around me wearing tabards made of sacking.

  I am wearing one, too, but have taken a few liberties with the rest of my costume. Instead of looking like a dowdy saint, my eyelashes are slathered in Boots 17 mascara and there’s a light dusting of Max Factor glitter powder on my cheeks. I wanted to look half decent for my big moment because I’ve never felt so myself as I have since starting to act in the drama club. It’s a new thing for St Joan’s. The nuns hadn’t made too much of theatre until Mr Harold arrived and started the club.

  He looks a bit like a young Peter Sellers in the battered old cords and pale blue shirts that he wears with oxblood-coloured brogues. He and his wife – who’s also teaching here – have decreased the average age of the teachers at St Joan’s by about thirty years and I adore them. Mr Harold in particular, though. Soon after he started the drama club, I’d said something or other to Geraldine Quinn when I’d been the one in charge of rehearsing some lines and she’d told me that I was bossy.