The Shopper.
This lady just popped into my head – I have no idea where she came from
I always go up to London by coach because it stops at Marble Arch, and it’s stylish, you know, the coach, shiny, ruby-red, dark tinted glass. And I step right out onto Park Lane, near the posh car showrooms and the Dorchester Hotel. It suits me. I can’t bear those tube station corridors with their beggars, buskers and smells. I get dressed up for London. I don’t want it all tainted the minute I get there, do I?
And I do look good, I know that, for a woman of my age. My outfit is just so, and too expensive to crease. Today it’s a cream suit with pencil slim skirt and soft ivory silk blouse. I’m wearing my thickest, chunkiest gold link necklace and bracelet, strappy high heels and matching bag. My hair is immaculate, I know it, shiny and black, perfectly shaped by Louise in the precinct. It comes a bit dear these days, the cut and the immaculate black, but it’s worth it. No need to look old before your time is there?
Now I have it all in front of me. Oxford Street. Well not the whole street, it’s not my class anymore. No Bourne & Hollingsworth, no Marshall and Snelgrove, but Selfidges, Selfridges is still there, like a great concrete ocean liner, flags flying, promising luxury and excitement. I can lose my self in there, among the bright lights and the marble. I feel at home, safe but excited. I go straight to the designer sections. I know what I like and I’m straight in like an arrow. I don’t have to look for bargains these days, not me, and I don’t have to patronise cheap shops with communal dressing rooms. A bit of dignity, that’s what I like, and nice carpet, and assistants that stay outside. Not that my body is something I’m ashamed of. I’ve kept it nice, the lingerie is elegant, none of your dreary M & S.
A successful shop, then lunch in the restaurant, self service and not very smart, but decent enough, and quick. Then a taxi, well you can’t take a bus to Harrods. It’s like going into a palace isn’t it? The domes and towers, like Hampton Court, and after dark twinkling with tiny lights. Magic really. Once I’m inside I let out a sigh of relief, I always do, it’s my place. Shoes, that’s what I want. Just the smell of all that expensive leather is as good as a couple of gin and tonics.
What a day. I catch the four thirty coach home, beat the rush hour, and I can lean back and get a little shut eye once we’re on our way.
I put my key in the heavy oak door and my heart does sink a little. It always does. It’s the thought of what’s on the other side. All that dark wood panelling; the brown carpets, bought in his parents’ day. “Good for years”, he says “no need to replace those. Why change?” Everything dowdy, everything dull, glass cases with stuffed birds and animals. Sometimes I hate his parents for leaving us this house. Why couldn’t there have been an older son, and we could have bought a smart little bungalow and had our own things. After all those years in army quarters how I had looked forward to making my own home. The house is quiet and I go straight upstairs with my glossy shopping bags. I put everything out on the bed and look at it, feel it. Beautiful. Fresh.
When I go down I know exactly where he’ll be, so I kick off my shoes and put on my pink furry slippers and down the stairs I go. He is sitting in the comfort of his favourite leather armchair. He stares mildy into space, one of those silly mini-cigar things in his hand, dropping its ash unnoticed onto the carpet. A crystal tumbler of whisky sits at his elbow. The little remaining grey hair clings in wisps around his ears and curls into the nape of his neck. The sharp blue eyes, which could pick out a crooked cap badge or a faulty hair cut at twenty paces are now rimmed red, the blue fading almost into the white.
How can he manage to look such a mess? Don’t I see that he has clean, good clothes to wear every day? Don’t I buy him cashmere sweaters and silk ties? Still, there he is, his corduroy trousers out at the knees, his scuffed old leather slippers and that green cardigan which is donkeys years old. I remember I knitted that for him on his first tour of duty to Northern Ireland. It’s ancient history!
Then he notices me, and the smile lights up his face, the blue eyes crinkle and shine, and he gives me that special look which has only ever been for me. The look on the face of the smart young soldier walking across a dance floor forty-odd years ago, walking towards a skinny teenage girl, awkward in her cheap new shoes and her sister’s dress. A look that’s never changed. He stands up and holds out his arms to me. “Had a good day, old girl? Like a Gin and Tonic?” I put my arms around him, and snuggle in to him. It will make a mess of my hair, but never mind. Just briefly we hold each other, and that old cardigan does feels very soft and warm. No I can’t understand it, never have been able to fathom it out, him and me, all those years of wear and tear and still as good as new.