Spiderweb by Penelope Lively

Author:Penelope Lively
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241960318
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Chapter Ten

The procurement of food is an activity of social significance in all societies. From hunting and gathering to shopping. In the Maltese village, where few people had fridges and food perished fast, the women paid five or six visits a day to the various suppliers. On each occasion they exchanged news and views and checked up on what was going on. Similarly in the Nile Delta. Working in the inner cities of the eighties Stella had noted the blow struck by supermarkets to this crucial conduit of communication. The corner shop puts up a brave struggle, but it has lost its significant status.

In Somerset much the same applied, except that local establishments still had some clout as centres for the exchange of information and opinion. It was this that drew Stella frequently to the general grocery in the village nearest to the cottage, where prices were high and choice restricted. She had always seen shopping as an essential daily move for reasons over and beyond the need to get hold of some food.

The general store was called a Minimart and sold nothing whatsoever of local provenance. What was on sale could have been found in Salford, Brixton or Glasgow, and a good deal of it in Boston, Singapore or Adelaide. The proprietor, on the other hand, was a product of the place. Her family name reverberated across the pages of local newspapers and on the gravestones in the churchyard. A brisk forty-something, known to all as Molly, she presided from behind the till, darting out to find things for feckless customers or to replace goods dislodged by small children. It was neither possible nor expedient to complete any transaction without a conversation.

‘So are you feeling properly dug in here now?’

‘I am indeed,’ says Stella. ‘I’ve even lost track of how long it’s been.’

‘A couple of months, I’d say’ Molly pauses, considers one of Stella’s purchases and rings it up on the till with deliberation, ‘lived in the country before, have you?’

‘Well …’ Stella thinks of the pulsating agricultural life of the Delta. She considers that Greek village, the stark sweep of the Orkney island. Country life? Of a sort, but not in the sense that Molly means. Molly’s context is precise. Country life, to her, means a place like this – or rather, these specific westerly hills, these fields and villages. ‘Not quite like round here.’

‘Getting to know your neighbours?’

There is a hidden agenda here, Stella sees. She is supposed to say what she thinks of her neighbours. ‘Everyone has been most welcoming,’ she says, with stern neutrality.

‘Of course you’ve got quite a mixed lot along the lane there now. John and Sue Morgan go way back, and Stan Watson. And the Laytons – not that I see much of them now, their daughter takes them into the Minehead supermarket once a week. Karen Hiscox comes in now and then, and those boys – not what you might call charmers those two, are they? Never a civil word. That Bristol family don’t come in except for the Sunday papers.

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