The Sweet-Shop Owner Read Free Page A

her basket, her amber horn-rims, her hair permed rigid as wire and her look of steely dedication. Sixteen years his assistant. She had been a plump blonde once. Besides himself, only she had a key. And she said, ‘I’ll get it,’ thrusting out herbosom, when there was something to be fetched: ‘You mustn’t strain yourself.’ And she said, ‘I’ll manage,’ that time when he had to go off and leave the shop, chasms opening beneath him, because
she
was in hospital, stricken but unfrightened, tubes and wires plugged into her. Dorry had come – that time.
    ‘You don’t have to begin so early, Mrs Cooper,’ he’d said. And she’d said, ‘Oh, call me Janet.’ But he didn’t.
    Mrs Cooper would come. She’d put her basket with her handbag against the wall in the stock room; take off her cardigan, pat her hair, put on her blue nylon shop coat, pick up the kettle with one hand while she did up her buttons with the other, and ask, as if every time it were a novel suggestion, ‘Tea, Mr Chapman?’ She’d make the tea and bring it to him, vigorously stirring in the sugar. He’d sip it as she filled up spaces on the counter with fresh stock, and he’d say, glancing out of the window, ‘Warm, Mrs Cooper, warm. Any plans for the weekend?’ And she’d say, as she always did, ‘Weekend, Mr Chapman? I’m surprised
you
know what a weekend is.’
    But, sooner or later, there’s a last time.
    He dried his hands, drew the comb through his thin hair. Passing back into the shop, he took from a box on one of the shelves a fat, half-corona cigar, undid the cellophane and lit it.
    And Mrs Cooper would say, coming in and seeing him puffing smoke, ‘Mr Chapman! You know you shouldn’t smoke them.’ And he would say, laconically enough, ‘But I sell ’em.’
    He perched himself on his stool and puffed hard. So Mrs Cooper would view him, peering in for a moment through the shop door as she rummaged for her key – behind glass, behind the undergrowth of display stands, wrappers and dangling toys – peering back at her, lastly, from behind blue fumes, his face red, swollen, like an overripe fruit, his eyes wide, impenetrable.

3
    ‘There is a place on the corner of Briar Street. It’s a good site. I’ve already seen Joyce and we have the first option.’
    She put down the cup and saucer on the table – the blue cup and saucer with the thin scrolls and the pink moss-roses. A wedding present. Her lips drew inward; they were shrewd, circumspect, even then. And he thought, Yes, of course – seeing it fall into place – I will be a shop-owner.
    ‘Do you approve?’ And she waited. For she wouldn’t overbear, insist – that wasn’t her way. She would let him consider and judge and say ‘I approve’ – that was the man’s role and the husband’s, and she wouldn’t deny it him.
    ‘Why not?’ he said, with a cautious grin. ‘Well why not?’
    ‘You will need to look it over,’ she nodded, ‘and see Joyce yourself. And you will have to know the prospects and get to learn the business. My brothers can help you there.’
    ‘Of course,’ he said.
    ‘Good. Then it’s settled.’
    She smiled. A lovely smile, like a shining seal upon a contract.
    And what she really meant, reaching again for her cup, sitting back and crossing her legs, smooth, perfect legs, under her beige skirt, was: I will buy you a shop, I’ll get you a shop. I will install you in it and see that you have all you need. Then I’ll watch. I’ll see what you can do. That will content me. I’ll send you out each morning and watch you come home each night and I shall want to know how you are doing. I shall want return for my investment. ButI shan’t interfere, only watch. You will be free, absolved; for the responsibility – don’t you see? – will be mine.
    Her lips hovered over the rim of her cup. Her face had this way of seeming to float.
    And all I ask in return for this is that there be no question of love.
    She fingered the pearls at