Issue 24 - September 2012 (PDF) - Chipping Norton Times

14
A Short Story by Nicholas John
WAITING FOR SIX
Women with pushchairs, dangling toddlers; old people
wandering the aisles. I hate shopping. I mean it, I really
hate shopping. And she knows it, lets me off gently,
though I don't deserve it.
"Why don't you just go and get a coffee? Meet
you in the café, just give me twenty minutes, okay?"
I mumble agreement. I can never find what I'm
looking for anyway, even if I actually want anything. The
escalator pitches me into the lingerie department, acres
of nylon bras and huge posters of uplifts and frilly
knickers. Men's Fashion in beige - New Men with cheery,
self-satisfied grins and full heads of hair, dressed like
they're off to dinner on the boss' yacht. But, look around,
if you want a pair of elasticated trousers, you're in the
right place. It occurs to me I need a new pair of slippers.
Dislocation.
"You could make more of an effort, couldn't you?
You could just try and pretend to enjoy it at least. Treat it
like a day out - "
"What, like Alton Towers or the zoo?" I snap
back. Unreasonable or unresponsive - which is it to be?
"I'm having fun - no, honest, I am!" Spiteful and brittle.
I'm an unbeliever in the temple of the godless.
And I'm going to pick away at the pieces. Bit by bit, like a
kid worrying at a scabbed knee. We both know that I'm
not going to let it go, not till I've done some real damage.
My father's son.
"I sometimes think you do this on purpose," she
says quietly while I stir my coffee, knowing it will never,
ever taste any better.
"Think what you like," I say, but she already has,
probably in a previous lifetime. Her mother's daughter.
In the precinct, the polished shine of marble
floor leads to the Exit, where the High Street clings to the
grey of the late afternoon. I see our reflections in shop
front windows, but it's another, uncertain couple who
stare back, adrift in an unknown world of their own
making. The traffic's at a standstill and I'm two yards
behind her, trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement.
A red car has stopped in the entrance to the car
park, just yards from the barrier, a woman sitting in the
driver's seat. The woman's reading a book, but it's none
of our business. I carry the bags toward the car: push
change at the ticket machine, load the backseat, try to
leave the sinking feeling behind, but it's lodged tight
inside, immoveable.
"What's she doing?"
I turn around, half in, half out of the car.
"Nothing, just sitting there."
Two more vehicles have pulled up behind the red car, but
it still doesn't move forward.
"Do you think she's
alright?"
"Looked okay to me. She was
reading."
A lady gets out of the car behind. It's blocking the
yellow, criss-crossed grid and she can't move forward or
back. I momentarily lose sight of her behind the ticket
machine as a first, few, small drops of rain begin, almost
delicately, to fall.
"What's going on now?"
I don't reply, but I'm curious, a bystander. I can
hear the shouting, see the arms waving, but I feel
curiously detached, distanced, like I'm watching a play at
the theatre. A comedy of errors. The red car finally
lurches through the barrier.
The second lady's furious: sees us watching.
"She was waiting for six. Can you believe it? Six
o'clock. Trying to save money, waiting for the evening
rate." Shakes her head, gets back in her car. We look at
each other and I look at my watch.
"5.58."We both laugh and the tension releases
like air from a valve and we grasp at this unexpected
reprise. But it's short-lived.
"You do that, you know," she says as she pulls out
on to the main road.
"Do what?" I know what's coming.
"You know, find some stupid, forgotten principal
and hang on for grim death."
I glance sideways; she's smiling, but it's loaded. I
don’t want to answer, because there's no point really.
She's right after all. She always is. Here we go.
" I can't help myself."
"Try occasionally. You might feel better."
"Don't bank on it - "
She can read me like a book. And she reaches down
inside and tears the page a little more.
"You do it over and over, don't you? You're not
content to let anything lie, are you?"
"Not really, no - "
"It's a game to you isn't it? And I can't play it any
more. You just keep on pulling everything apart. Again
and again, three, four, five times." She looks at me,
hands gripping the wheel, joints whitening. "What are
you doing now?"
I'm staring straight ahead. The windscreen wipers
click and scrape at the drizzle. We've reached some kind
of crossroads.
"Waiting for six." I say and close my eyes.
Nicholas John©09/12