Graham Swift - The Sweet-Shop Owner

Held up indeed.

And still he said nothing. Soft as they come. Only now, with the girl out of sight, pretending to busy himself at the counter, did he say, in the most unsevere way: ‘You’re getting held up rather too often Sandra.’ Mrs Cooper caught his eye, pursing her lips. Sack the girl, tell her to beat it. But he looked back with that dim, imperturbable gaze. What was up with him today? She blinked. It ought to be easy to tell a man like him what to do. But it wasn’t.

Sandra emerged from the stock room fastening the buttons of her shop coat.

‘Morning Mrs Cooper.’ She overcame a yawn.

Mrs Cooper stiffened. (Mr Chapman, looking on, anticipated the reply):

‘I suppose it is still morning.’

The girl hoisted herself onto a stool. She crossed her legs, baring her thighs, and slouched carelessly forward. One shoe dangled under the counter from the tip of her toe. It was a slack mid-morning period, which extenuated her lateness. She leant against the counter, unconcerned with explanations, resting on her elbow and propping her chin on her red fingernails.

‘Well don’t just sit there,’ Mrs Cooper said. ‘Tidy up those shelves.’

‘Get out some new birthday cards Sandra, would you, and put them on the racks.’ Mr Chapman spoke at last.

‘Yeh.’

The girl got up slowly.

Yes, without her own little prompts, Mrs Cooper thought, he wouldn’t get her to do anything. Let her lollop like that all day next to him. You could tell why, too. You could tell why he never sent her packing like he should, never had a harsh word. At his age. And with a heart condition. Mrs Cooper’s thoughts grew wild and tried to check themselves, as they always did when she was forced to consider Mr Chapman capable of lust. She straightened her shop coat and turned to a customer.

‘Would that be tipped or plain sir?’

The girl moved across the shop to a low, deep drawer beneath the racks of birthday cards and began rummaging unsuccessfully. Mr Chapman got up to join her.

Well, wouldn’t you know it?

But she didn’t have to pit herself against that girl’s foolishness. When had she ever been late for Mr Chapman, or needed to be shown where things were? And yet — she saw how when Sandra leant she leant towards Mr Chapman, and when she lolled on the counter she lolled towards Mr Chapman. And she saw how Sandra had seen (it hadn’t taken her long, for all her being a slip of seventeen) that she, Mrs Cooper, had leanings of her own (though they were leanings of a different kind, sixteen years had gone into them) towards Mr Chapman. All of which led her to little panics and to the need to hoist on her armour and trim her nails to the fight. Little bitch. What a struggle it all was. And she knew she couldn’t win; she had no answer to that girl’s ‘So what?’ But you had to soldier on, if you wanted your reward.

‘Matches sir? Change a five pound note? No trouble.’

That voice spoilt it of course.

‘This one ’ere, Mr C.?’

There it went, like a rusty hinge.

‘No, the other box, at the back.’

Mr Chapman bent down and reached inside the drawer. His face was plum-coloured. Sandra sat back on her heels. The box was jammed so Mr Chapman had to bend closer. Sandra held out two slender, dithering arms, one with a blue plastic bracelet round the wrist, as though to grasp Mr Chapman.

She watched them, feeling spurned. Suddenly, the box came out. Mr Chapman straightened, rose, then abruptly reached to grasp the display rack, breathing hard. Ah there! She swelled again with a sense of her own significance. The poor man. What he needed was looking after.

‘All right, Mr Chapman? Look what you’ve done you stupid girl! Making him bend down like that!’

She opened the flap in the counter to step forward. ‘All right?’

He recovered.

‘Yes, yes, all right.’

But his voice didn’t seem grateful for her concern. For he bent down again — the obstinate fool — towards Sandra, who said, ‘’Ere, you wanna watch it.’ And, just for a moment, he put his hand, for support, on the girl’s shoulder. So even there, where she had the advantage, she couldn’t win. She shut the flap. Couldn’t he just have another little spasm, so she could take charge quite firmly; make him sit down, fetch him some tea, tell that girl to clear off out of it; take one of his pills from the bottle and scold him with her eyes: See, that’s what you get, not being your age. It was a nurse he needed, not some bit of fluff who showed her legs. But she felt herself grasping the counter as if it were really she who needed support.

Sixteen years.

Light flooded in at the window. Over the road the sun had begun to touch, on the corner site, Powell’s trestles of tomatoes and watercress; but it would be several hours before its rays probed the Diana café or lit the ‘For Sale’ notices in Hancock, Joyce and Jones. In the Prince William they would be laying out beer-mats, placing ash-trays, cutting the cheese and ham sandwiches. Before opening the door, at eleven, with a cool gust of beer.

He breathed, rather hard, and looked, with just a hint of anxiety, at Mrs Cooper. That was what she expected. ‘How about more tea, Mrs Cooper? I’ll take one of my pills.’ You had to humour the woman. Loyalty replaced the reproachfulness in her eyes, and she disappeared obediently through the plastic strips.

He returned to his stool at the counter and watched the girl, standing in the sunlight from the window, arrange the cards. Did she tempt and console, as Mrs Cooper imagined? Did her little provocations work on him? No. So why had he hired her? — it was after Dorry had come that last time. As a sort of cheap replacement? But there was no comparison. Dorry, at seventeen, had not known what to do with her beauty — she’d buried herself in books, as though to disown it. This girl traded so much on her attractions (no, you couldn’t call them beauty) that they sometimes seemed to him not to belong to her at all. So perhaps it amounted to the same?

He watched the girl finish her task, run her hands over her hips and, now that Mrs Cooper was out of sight, turn to him with a pleased, half conspiratorial smile.

The kettle whistled in the stock room. Sandra returned to the counter. He motioned quickly to her. ‘Here, before you have your tea,’ (and before Mrs Cooper could see). His hand moved, holding the ring of keys from his pocket, to the drawer under the till.

He took the brown envelope with Sandra’s pay and handed it to her.

‘Expect you’re waiting for this.’

The girl’s face came close to his. Her sticky, spearmint-scented mouth moved up and down.

‘Going dancing tonight, Sandra?’ he asked. (For Sandra had told him once, she went dancing every Friday night, at a disco called Vibes. It was an excitement that had become a routine).

‘P’raps.’ She gave a little frown. ‘What about it?’

He had taken out the second envelope.

‘Here — don’t ask any questions. Buy yourself a new dress.’

He indicated the edges of five five-pound notes pro-truding from the envelope. She widened her eyes, stopped, for once, her endless chewing. Then actually blushed. As if Mr Chapman really did have some old man’s fancy for her.

‘Oo — ’ere — ta Mr Chapman. But —?’

But his face showed nothing. He looked at her coolly (Sandra thought he had never looked so distant).

‘There. A dress, mind you. Nothing else. Don’t ask any questions.’

Mrs Cooper appeared with two mugs. The light reflected crisply off her glasses. She passed the girl as if she wasn’t there and gave him one of the mugs. ‘There. And here’s your pills. Now you take it easy awhile. Don’t argue.’ She put her own mug on the counter. Then she turned to Sandra, with another flash of her spectacles, taking in her slim picture of health. ‘Yours is in there,’ she said. And added with venom, ‘I’ve sugared it!’