The Sweet-Shop Owner by Graham Swift

Author:Graham Swift
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307829818
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-10-02T21:00:00+00:00

18

The telephone was ringing on the little shelf next to the doorway into the stock room. Above it, on the wall, was the list of vital telephone numbers (St Helen’s Hospital had been crossed out, but it was still the same list) and next to it, fixed with Sellotape, the postcards from Mrs Cooper’s more leisured friends. Torquay and San Remo, in predominant blue. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Mrs Cooper, as he began to raise himself from his stool by the fridge. The sun had moved round so that the awning obscured it, but a shaft penetrated inwards from a corner of the window. It fell fully on her face at the phone; but her skin was pale and chill-looking. She stepped back, holding a hand over the mouth-piece, deliberately jostling Sandra at the paper counter – who, in Mrs Cooper’s view, was not worthy enough to answer the phone.

‘It’s Pond Street, Mr Chapman. They say they don’t have the usual orders for Callard’s and Fry’s. Have you forgotten them’ (she hesitated – Mr Chapman never forgot) – ‘or have you got them here?’

‘No, that’s fine Mrs Cooper. I didn’t make those orders.’

‘Didn’t – ?’ She looked momentarily flummoxed at this unprecedented lapse. ‘Didn’t – But what shall I – ? Here, are you all right, Mr Chapman?’

He was looking straight at her, but as if he didn’t see her. His fingers gripped the rim of the fridge.

‘Tell them,’ he said, as if forcing aside a distraction, ‘I’ll explain when I bring their money round. And tell them that might be a little later this afternoon.’

She paused, raised a puzzled eyebrow, but turned back to the phone. As she spoke she glanced at him, then at the blue postcards above the shelf.

*

‘Please come in, Mrs Cooper.’ He twisted the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ and bolted the door on the inside, on a damp September evening in 1958. And there she was in a blue twin-set, putting a face to the letter she’d written, sitting behind the counter, brushing imaginary specks from her knee.

‘I’m sorry it had to be this late, but I couldn’t show you the ropes with customers coming in.’

‘Oh, no trouble Mr Chapman.’

Her hair was fair, still thick, and the beak-like nose and straining throat less prominent amidst a general plumpness.

‘Now let me show you what’s what …’

And so he’d explained, extending an outspread hand to the four corners of the shop, with an air, perhaps, of proprietorial pride. For they’d swelled and multiplied, those items to which he gestured. The coloured wrappers had thickened and brightened, like synthetic fruit on the wooden shelves; the trellis-work of racks and cardboard displays flourished. A new till and scales stood on the counter. And, outside, bright new blue paint, a large new name-board and a clutter of signs, some of them lit at night, adhering to or projecting from the walls, made it seem that the treasures within had spilled out onto the pavement.

And yet it wasn’t pride, now

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