No Wonder I Take a Drink by Laura Marney

Author:Laura Marney [Laura Marney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908643049
Publisher: Saraband
Published: 2012-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

When I went into the shop it was empty and Jenny was nowhere to be seen. This was good. This put me in a position of strength. When she came back she’d have to apologise for keeping the customer waiting. She’d be raging that, on this occasion, the customer was me. I’d give her a warm forgiving smile, thereby letting bygones be bygones, and we could take it from there.

Actually it wasn’t that unusual for Jenny to be absent when the shop was quiet. Locals knew that they just had to shout, ‘Shop!’ and eventually Jenny would stop what she was doing, stocktaking or whatever she did in there, and come through. Her multicoloured plastic fringe curtain was the dividing line between home and work and she popped between them all day long. Although we were friends, it was strictly front shop. I had no idea what her living quarters were like seeing as she’d never asked me in.

I’d never passed through the curtain, and I often thought that it could be another world in there. Sometimes at night, when time hung heavy, I entertained myself imagining what lay beyond the fringe. I picture it like Narnia or the Land of Oz or London of the Swinging Sixties. How my long dark evenings would fly in as I fancied Jenny’s decor in swirling psychedelic purples and greens. This would be broken up by posters of topless black girls with outsize Afros smoking outsize spliffs. Curled inside one of those white plastic egg-shaped suspended chairs, Jenny maybe smoked a few spliffs herself.

Jenny footered about in the back shop even when she knew she had customers, she could hear the bell on the door. At first it annoyed me but later, as I adjusted to the pace of village life, it didn’t. I wasn’t one who shouted, ‘Shop!’ If Jenny wasn’t there I’d take the chance and get a free read at her magazines.

A precedent had been set a few weeks ago, in those happy days before our International Brigade tiff. Jenny was leaning across the counter, mug of tea in hand reading the Press and Journal. This reminded me that I wanted one and I asked her for a copy. Cool as a cucumber she finishes what she’s reading, folds it up and hands it to me. I had to laugh.

‘I’m not having that, it’s second-hand, you’ve just read it.’

Jenny was laughing as well but it didn’t stop her making an excellent retort.

‘Och no dear, you’re mistaken, I wasn’t reading it, I don’t have time to read while I’m at my work. I was checking it for mistakes, typing errors and the like, smudged photos. I wouldn’t want you getting a defective newspaper. It’s not second-hand, it’s quality assured. We aim to please.’

So it was a two-way street, if she could read my newspaper, I could read her magazines. She didn’t mind. She’d come in from Narnia and catch me reading Chat or Take a Break and ask me if I’d read the one about the woman who killed her kids.

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