by Nicola Slade
‘Goodness!’ Julia’s response was satisfyingly astonished. ‘What about experience? Have you ever worked in a shop, Finn? I don’t recollect one being mentioned. Or didn’t he care?’
‘Not in the least.’ Finn was still giggling. ‘I told him the score and said I’d no retail experience but thought I could pick it up quite quickly. He nodded, which was a mistake as he was a bit dozy, but he perked himself up and started asking questions.
‘Like I said, it was the most insane interview. First of all he agreed and said I wouldn’t have any problems with the till and so on, then he looked a bit shifty and the interview went a bit wobbly.’
****
‘Do you have any views on drugs?’ the shop owner had asked her in a rather stilted manner.
‘Drugs?’ She stalled a bit then shrugged. What the hell, might as well tell the truth. ‘Not really, tried when I was at university, nothing heavy; got the munchies and went to sleep, if you want to know. Didn’t really do anything for me so I didn’t bother again, haven’t thought about it since. Does it matter?’
‘Not a bit,’ he said, grinning at her in a much more natural manner until he glanced down at a crib sheet on the counter and asked another of those stilted questions.
‘Do you have any views on clairvoyants?’
She was ready for him this time, though even more surprised at the direction this interview was taking.
‘You mean am I religious? Am I an anti?’
He nodded, watching her eagerly.
‘Well, I probably wouldn’t have come in here, would I? Still less have bought a pack of tarot cards. No, I think it’s all a bit of fun, like most things, unless you get too intense about it.
****
‘And that was about it,’ she told Julia that night. ‘Except he asked if I’d mind standing in for the fortune teller who comes in twice a week. Seems she has a habit of letting them down and no, he didn’t make any cracks about unforeseen circumstances.’
‘Fortune telling?’
Julia shrieked with laughter and Finn, after a momentary sulk, joined in.
‘Well, why not?’ she demanded. ‘I told him I’d never done anything like it and I’d not the slightest scrap of talent but he didn’t care. He said I was a nice, friendly sort of woman and that was the most important thing. The rest of it, he said, I could soon pick up and give the punters what they wanted. I said wasn’t it fraud and he just looked at me, with this goofy, country-yokel oh-so-innocent stare and laid it out for me. The people who come into the shop, he said, either believe in the stuff he sells, or they’re ready to be convinced. Same with the clairvoyant: what they’re looking for is reassurance and a comforting vision of the future, they don’t mind vagueness; he said the lady that’s usually there has a degree in Vague. Of course there’s always the odd one or two who expect details, you know, shoe size and birthday of the tall, dark stranger on the horizon, plus a month-by-month agenda they can compare with, but there aren’t so many of them, he reckons and they can usually be fobbed off.’
She drew a deep breath and grinned at her big sister.
‘I wanted a complete change of lifestyle, didn’t I? I think it’ll be fun and it’s certainly a challenge. Didn’t you always say I should meet challenges head on? There you are, I’m doing what I’m told for once.’
****
Finn soon felt she had spent her whole life in the little bow-fronted shop round the corner from the main square in Ramalley.
‘You were right,’ she remarked in surprise to her boss. ‘It’s so easy to pick up and it’s fun as well, I didn’t expect that.’
He gave his lazy, dozy grin as he squinted down at the joint he was smoking and nodded.
‘Told you, di’n I.’
Finn smiled then had a thought.
‘Hadn’t you better get rid of that?’ She indicated his cigarette. ‘What if somebody comes in and tells the police?’
‘What? A raid? In Ramalley? You seen their Drug Squad? One fat old bloke used to go round the schools when I was a kid. They give him this job to see him out to his pension and they called it “Drugs” just to get some funding. You gotta be joking; they’re all too busy faffing about parking in The Square and bumps on the bypass.’
His name was Hedgehog. Why? Because, he said when she asked, and he took off the bobble hat and showed her. His hair stood up on end, brown and bristly with blond tips.
‘Um, yes, I see what you mean.’
She stared frankly at him, seeing also the small black eyes and undeniably tapering snouty nose.
‘Actually,’ she pointed out, ‘I think you look more like Eddie Munster.’
He was delighted with the comparison.
‘Pity you di’n’t turn up years ago,’ he mourned. ‘Coulda bin called Eddie instead of Hedgehog.’
****
‘It’s going really well,’ Finn reported to Julia. ‘I thought I’d be bored out of my mind working in a shop after the stress of my last job, but it’s fun. Lots of interesting people and I get to play with the goodies. We’ve just got in a consignment of CDs of West African chants, and Hedgehog and I sit and drone away for hours. Oh yes, and I’ve seen that guy every lunchtime. You know … Bonnie Prince Charlie? I know he recognises me but he stalks past with his nose in the air and pretends he hasn’t seen me.’
****
Ten days later Finn turned up at work and immediately found herself embroiled in an episode of the on-going protest about the shop by the congregation of the chapel back in The Square.
‘Used to be the Primitive Methodist chapel,’ Hedgehog told her as they cleaned the graffiti off the shop window. ‘Now it’s them Primitive Wimmen they got in there.’ He guffawed and shook his head in amused tolerance. ‘They’re bible thumpers and a load of daft old biddies, most of them, but that cow that’s their leader, she gets right on my tits.’
Scrubbing away at the words ‘God will get you where it hurts’, Finn could only agree and when she met the leader of the God’s Glory Mission she saw exactly what Hedgehog meant.
Well-established in the shop now, she was running errands all over town and after a trip to the stationers she turned the corner into Paradise Row to be met at the shop door by a stranger.
‘You poor, poor creature,’ a voice oozing sympathy broke into Finn’s murmured apology for trying to squeeze past her.
‘So now that fiend of Satan has got an innocent woman in his clutches, while I’ve been away on holiday, has he?’
Finn stared at the woman now confronting her across the counter. Small, neatly dressed, pretty and prim, the chapel leader was gazing at her with melting concern.
‘Go now, my dear, while you have the chance,’ she urged, but before Finn could reply Hedgehog surged into the shop from the store at the back.
‘Out! Out now, you interfering old cow! If I have to call the police again you’ll be for it!’
To Finn’s surprise the woman went, pausing only for a hasty call on the Lord to witness her trials on His behalf and to intercede with Finn and show her the way of righteousness. ‘Ask him why he was arrested’, was her final suggestion.
‘Old cow.’ Steam was coming out of Hedgehog’s ears and Finn brought him a cup of tea to calm him down. ‘Ta. Oh, I know I shouldn’t get so riled up but she drives me bonkers. Still, she knows I mean it about the police, she’s had a warning, so I expect she’ll lay off for a while.’
‘So?’ Finn looked at him curiously. ‘Why were you arrested, Hedge?’
‘Load of bollocks,’ he snorted contemptuously. ‘I was in this pub one night – this was in my drinking days when I was still married – and this tart says to me, I bet you gotta big todger, Hedgehog. And her and her friends kept on and on about it, so I ups and unzips me fly and plonks it on the table in front of her.’ He grinned reminiscently. ‘You shoulda heard the screeching and bugger me if the silly tart didn’t go and complain to the cops. Never came to court, mind you, they got more sense, just told me not to do it again
.’ He winked at her as he said: ‘One good thing come out of it, the wife up and left because of it, so I was safely divorced by the time I had that lottery win, or she’d have got her claws in it.’
He drank his tea and began to look happier but his hand went to his pocket and he shot Finn a look of sly amusement.
‘Go on, girl, best light up the incense burners a bit, I gotta calm my nerves.’
She raised her eyebrows but complied and the scent of bergamot filled the room while Hedgehog rolled his own.
‘Oh don’t worry, girl,’ he grinned as he lit up. ‘I told you t’other day I don’t do nothing heavy, not nowadays, I just like a bit of wacky baccy, just the odd puff, y’know?’
‘Fine,’ she shrugged and drank her own tea. ‘So I’ll look after the shop for you when we are raided by the Ramalley drug squad and you get sent down, shall I?’
****
Back at the house Julia and her cohorts soon had Finn’s new studio flat in shape. Jonathan Barlow slid out of his back door whenever he could get away from the voice that never stopped even in his sleep, and he soon had a small electric cooker installed and working, along with a fridge-freezer, both of which Finn had spotted advertised in the local paper. Delia Muncaster offered the redundant washing machine from her cottage, left behind by the previous owners and a plumber was imported, at Finn’s expense, to install a shower and loo.
****
Mellowed by dicing with danger, namely risking a raid by Ramalley’s finest, Hedgehog decided to knock off early and leave Finn to lock up.
She was curled up in the peacock chair peacefully reading a book about auras when the shop bell rang and she looked up to see the chapel leader bearing purposefully down on her.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs er um … you know you’re not supposed to be in here,’ she stammered. Pity Hedgehog hadn’t given her some idea of how to get rid of unwanted Christians, lions and gladiators having gone out of fashion.
‘Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of the Lord’s work,’ came the proud reply, followed by the more mundane: ‘Hurry up, I’ve got a bus to catch. Where is that employer of yours? Out buying more of his sinful rubbish, I suppose?’
‘He’s gone home, and that’s where I shall be going in a few minutes. Can I help you at all?’
‘You can go down on your knees and pray to the Lord for forgiveness for conniving with that devil creature in letting this sink of iniquity loose on the town.’
‘Sorry,’ Finn shrugged. ‘I’m only the shop assistant, you’ll have to take it up with Hedgehog.’
‘Shop assistant? Shop assistant?’ The other woman’s face turned an alarming shade of crimson and her voice grew shrill with triumph. ‘You poor deluded sinner. Don’t you know that “assistant” is only an anagram for Satanists? Please …’ the sudden descent from rant to reasoning was unnerving, ‘… please, come with me to the chapel and let us pray for your soul.’
‘No.’ Finn was getting fed up now; it was no longer a joke, never a lion around when you needed one. ‘I can’t do that, it’s against my religion.’
‘What? I don’t believe it. What is your religion then?’
‘I belong to the Church of the Quivering Brethren,’ declared Finn stoutly.
‘There’s no such thing,’ the chapel spokeswoman said flatly, obviously not a great reader.
‘Oh yes there is,’ chimed in a new voice. ‘Several members of my family belong to it and I can vouch for Miss Fitzgerald; she’s an upstanding member of the congregation, does the flowers, quivers in the choir, all that sort of thing. Now, do let me show you out.’
Finn stared open-mouthed as Charlie Stuart politely but inexorably swept the unwelcome visitor to the door, locked it behind her and turned round the “Closed” sign.
‘Whew! Thanks a lot, I didn’t know how to get rid of her, short of physical violence. I’m surprised to see you here, though?’ She shot him a sceptical look and wasn’t surprised to see that he showed signs of embarrassment mixing uneasily with his customary glower.
‘Yeah, well, I’m not surprised you’re surprised.’ His sudden grin was disarming, lightening his face dramatically. Finn felt a familiar ripple somewhere around her diaphragm and hastily forced herself to consider heredity insanity. ‘I came in to apologise to you, for yelling and being rude.’
‘Apology accepted,’ she said graciously, noticing, in spite of being off men, the laughter lines in his face and the way his thick, dark hair flopped forward over his right eye. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘Pa set me right,’ he admitted. ‘He told me who you were. Julia’s sister, right? The Irish lady? She’s always seemed the only sane one of that crew Pa hangs out with and I thought you were probably like her.’
‘That’s big of you,’ she sniffed. “Sane” was probably a relative term, she considered, when used by a man whose father thought he was the rightful king of England, but she knew what he meant.
‘Look …’ hesitant and even more embarrassed, he ignored her sarcasm, ‘… how about coming out for a drink, you can shut the shop, can’t you?’
‘Okay,’ she said, locking up. ‘We’ll call it quits. Besides, Julia borrowed my car – hers needed a new exhaust and I was going to get the bus tonight. So, what shall we do, to celebrate our freedom? Do you want to go clubbing or something?’
‘In Ramalley?’ His mock horror made her giggle.
‘If that’s what you want you’ll have to make do with the Reno which is the under-age drugs dive or the Working Men’s Institute where they still have club comedians. What I had in mind was a drink at the White Horse, or is that not cosmopolitan enough for you?’
‘It’ll do for a start.’
Over their drinks they compared career notes and Charlie raised his eyebrows at the number of false starts Finn confessed to.
‘You obviously like variety,’ he commented mildly.
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I didn’t want to settle down when I was in my twenties, so I travelled all over, and since then I just have a stupid habit of falling for men I work with. You know how most places are these days: no relationships with colleagues? It just always seems to be me who ends up leaving.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he held up his hands in surrender, ‘don’t shoot. Did I say anything? Is that what happened this time?’
Recalling her bare-faced blackmail she had the grace to blush as she shrugged and refused to answer, looking sidelong at him. What was that about a scandal with his wife? Julia had said something or other, hadn’t she?
‘Enough about me,’ she said firmly. ‘What about you? You’re married?’
‘No!’ The denial was explosive and she stared at him.
‘Sorry, I thought my sister said something about a wife,’ she said mildly.
‘No.’ He was less vehement but definitely upset. ‘No wife, no marriage. And I don’t want to talk about it,’ he warned as an afterthought.
Finn raised her eyebrows but didn’t pursue the question.
‘When you say Julia’s gang are weird,’ she changed the subject tactfully, ‘how did you mean? How weird exactly?’
He grinned sheepishly.
‘You mean as opposed to being completely sane and thinking you’re the direct descendant of the Stuarts and heir to the throne? Weirder than that?’
‘Uh-huh, I presume you don’t want to go down that particular road, do you?’
He shook his head in rueful amusement.
‘My father is … well, he’s himself and there’s nobody like him, but no, I don’t feel up to discussing that one either. Mind you, sometimes I get the feeling that he just does it to wind me up, God knows why. Anyway,’ he leaned back, relaxed, with long legs stretched out in front of him, ‘tell me about you and Julia. Is she really your sister? She must be a lot older?’
‘Simple enough,’ she told him. ‘The family moved to England when Dad got a job in London and I was a surprise afterthought when Julia’d not long turned seventeen. When Mum and Dad died Julia t
ook me over and mothered me. That’s why she’s got an Irish accent and I’ve no trace of one.’
‘I don’t know,’ he gave her a considering look, ‘just occasionally, there’s something in your voice, rather like singing.’ He drained his glass and tilted his head.
‘What about dinner? I know it’s a bit early but I’m hungry, how about you?’
‘Why not? I’ll just give Julia a ring. We’re supposed to be independent but she was muttering something about fish when I left for work. I’d better let her know.’
As she explained to Julia, Finn was aware that Charlie Stuart was trying to conceal a grin and when she rang off he stopped trying and laughed out loud at her.
‘What?’
‘You and me,’ he chuckled. ‘Tied to their apron strings. Hang on while I call Pa and remind him there’s cold ham and salad in the fridge.’
Over dinner in the only Chinese restaurant in Ramalley that served edible food they furthered their acquaintance, finding tastes in common. Travel was a theme in both their lives and Charlie, too, had spent years as an ex-pat, working for oil companies in the Middle East. They both loved the cinema but hated art house movies, sang along loudly to any tune going, adored animals and shared reminiscences of games at school.
‘I liked sports,’ Charlie told her. ‘It was just the games master and his clammy hands … Once I got to Oxford I enjoyed it. My mother used to tell everyone I was an Oxford rugby blue but she lied. I played for the reserve team that backed up the reserve team.’
She noticed, with interest, that Charlie seemed to be enjoying himself, his expression lightening and deep dimples appearing in his cheeks. She was gradually realising that the lowering dark scowl disguised a deep vein of shyness.
‘We were talking about Julia’s weird friends earlier on,’ she said, shifting direction. What am I thinking? None of my business if he loosens up or stays an anal retentive for the rest of his life. ‘If we discount your father who, although seriously eccentric, is an absolute sweetie …’ She stopped to allow his ironic bow of thanks. ‘Yes, well. So far I’ve met Rosemary who seems quite sensible, though lumbered with her mother who definitely qualifies as weird.’