Graham Swift - The Sweet-Shop Owner

He felt weak, despite the effects of the pill, but he said, ‘Yes, yes.’

‘Think it will last?’

He looked up, momentarily puzzled.

‘The weather.’

‘Oh — the forecast was good this morning.’

Bryant ran his palm over his bald crown.

‘As long as it lasts for the weekend,’ said Miss Fox.

‘Going away somewhere?’

‘Broadstairs. With my sister.’

‘That’s nice.’

A customer entered and Bryant said in a self-conscious, impatient voice, ‘Susan, see to this gentleman will you?’

Bryant leant forward towards him, while Miss Fox moved down the counter. Bryant liked to display his authority and to indicate to Miss Fox that he had a special, confidential relationship with Mr Chapman which allowed him to delegate tasks. It was all quite transparent. He was hoping soon the shop would be his. He was waiting for Mr Chapman to pass it on. He even hoped that the Briar Street shop, Mrs Cooper’s claims notwithstanding, might one day be his.

‘About those copies of the orders which I phoned about. There was only one, Jackson’s — and he came yesterday. Have you got the others?’

‘No.’ He patted the briefcase. ‘There’s some receipts, some wholesalers’ lists — and, the usual. I didn’t make out those orders.’

‘But —’ Bryant looked confused — ‘we’re getting rather low on some lines.’

‘Never mind. You’ll see,’ he said calmly.

Bryant frowned, scratched his cheek, seemed to be about to ask something, but then smoothed his expression. He resented his employer’s insistence on doing so much of the paperwork himself; and the fact that that paperwork was now becoming lax and haphazard seemed further proof that the boss should step down.

Miss Fox moved up the counter, having served the customer.

‘Broadstairs?’ resumed Mr Chapman, undoing the straps of his briefcase.

‘Yes — my sister and her husband have a holiday flat down there.’

‘Holidays eh?’

The girl smiled. She had a sober, rather flat face which rippled now and then with girlishness. He half suspected that Bryant and Miss Fox didn’t get on.

‘Parents going down too?’

‘Yes — maybe.’

‘Good.’ He fished in his briefcase. ‘Well I’d better do what I came to do.’

The pain in his chest had subsided and he breathed more easily. Bryant and the girl still looked perturbed, but they seemed more reassured when he produced the familiar buff envelopes. Well, they would be surprised again. Out of common propriety they wouldn’t open their packets and count their money now. They would see the usual figure on the advice slip inside the opaque envelope windows. Perhaps later, after he’d gone, they would check their money separately and not dare to tell the other their discovery, in case of jealousies, recriminations. But they would know. One hundred for Miss Fox. Five hundred for Bryant.

Paid.

Sandra walked into the shop, the new dress, in a smart pink and brown carrier bag, in her hand. She was late, but she didn’t care. Mr Chapman wasn’t back yet. Only the old cow, alone at the counter. She swung the carrier bag casually and met Mrs Cooper’s eyes.

‘You’re not going to walk back again?’ said Bryant belligerently. Then, placatingly, ‘Here, let me run you back in my car.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ And then, reshouldering his jacket and eyeing his watch, ‘You’ll be getting the rush from the school any minute.’

‘Get the bus back along the High Street,’ Miss Fox urged, looking confused.

‘Yes, maybe. You enjoy that weekend now. So long.’

He took a last, curious glance around the shop. He’d never told them, Bryant or Miss Fox, that once he’d come here on the way home after school, for comics and liquorice sticks. Vincent was a fat, round-faced, jovial man — like some figure in a pack of ‘Happy Families’. Now his own name was over the door.

He stepped out and up towards the school, not down towards the High Street; and was aware of their eyes, inside, watching him helplessly, as if, as he left, he had turned the key in the door.

‘And what’s this then?’ said Mrs Cooper. Her hand was on the edge of the carrier bag, into which she had peered beadily, spotting the red dress.

Down Russell Street. Steadily. The body is a machine. The sun fell on his back, sending a shadow out in front of him which gave his blunt and portly frame an air of sprightly elongation. Behind him they were coming out of school. Out through the mottoed iron gates. Blazers slung over shoulders, sleeves rolled; loose, restless limbs. They carried books and bags carelessly and had their uniforms adapted so as to keep in the fashion: wide-bottomed trousers — once it was tapered legs and sharp-toed shoes — and platform heels. They scuffed along by the railings, under the chestnut trees, loosening the blue and cream striped tie he had once worn. White shirts and blue blazers under dappled leaves. He let them pass him as if he were being overtaken in a race.

‘Nothing better to squander your money on?’ said Mrs Cooper.

‘Can spend it how I like, can’t I?’ said Sandra. She bent over the fridge, took out a can of Coca-Cola, pulled off the ring-tab and, as Mrs Cooper’s lips drew tighter, said coolly, ‘It’s all right, I’ll ring it up.’

‘Nothing but spend!’ Mrs Cooper said. She’d put a hand inside the carrier bag and was feeling the slippery material.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Sandra added, ‘I wasn’t really spending anything. More of a present.’ She tilted her head aloofly. ‘Mr Chapman gave me an extra twenty-five quid this morning. He said to buy a new dress with it.’

She swallowed a gulp of Coke.

‘What did you say?!’ Mrs Cooper’s face was pale and contorted as if she were about to scream. ‘What?!’ She clutched the carrier bag and looked suddenly, with widening eyes, at the front of Sandra’s T-shirt as if she’d spotted the signal to attack.

Not now, not now. Wait, watch. Look at what’s fixed.

He was leaning with one hand on the railings beside the children’s playground. Someone said, ‘You all right?’ and held out a hand, and he said, ‘Yes,’ though it was difficult to speak. The common was as crowded as when he’d passed in the opposite direction. Children on the swings in the playground and under the willow beside the paddling pool. School-kids going home. Boys from John Russell meeting girls from Allandale and St Clare’s and sprawling on the grass. But none of this belonged to him. He felt cold in the sunlight.

Not now. Breathe. Spire of St Stephen’s, dome of the Town Hall. Look at these things. I was an athlete once.

The grass beside the playground was worn and thin. He lowered his head to stop the giddiness. Against the foot of the railings litter had blown and wedged itself. Cigarette packets, newspapers, sweet wrappers.

Dorry, I sent you the £15,000. You’ll come.

They watched him cross by the traffic island and then disappear for a moment as he stepped onto the near pavement. It was almost four-thirty. He was walking in a shuffling, unsteady fashion, his sleeves rolled, his jacket draped loosely over one shoulder.

Mrs Cooper gripped the edge of the counter. All things being normal, she would have been ready now, as he staggered in through the door, with her ‘I told you so’ and her ‘What did you expect?’, ready with her taunts and then, sitting him down, fussing round him, with her un-diminished devotion. But something had happened. She had torn apart the red dress. She had pulled and Sandra had pulled; and she had felt suddenly, in pulling, that it wasn’t a dress at all but Mr Chapman she was pulling, back and forth, in the most shameless way; and when it had ripped suddenly down the seam it was as though Mr Chapman had come apart, in the same flimsy fashion, and that was all there was left of him.