The Handkerchief

Becca works in the hospice shop. She fucking hates it. The stench of piss. The old biddies who have nothing better to do than buy old tat. The mentals who come in just to rant. She’s not exactly living the dream.

Today is Tuesday. Which means bagging up the shit even the shit bags don’t want and sending it to the depot for recycling. It also means Mr Heath will be in. ‘Just a couple of stamps, today,’ he’ll say. Then ‘What happened to that courteous Asian chap?’ or ‘I’ll have to be quick because Celie is in the car’. Celie’s his dead wife. Although you wouldn’t know it the way she’s always making trips to the post office with him and buying chops for his tea from the dry cleaners.

Silly bastard. Becca almost feels sorry for him. But not enough to have the same conversation she has week in week out as his nose drips onto her glass counter. She’s in no mood to humour anybody today. She has nylon trousers to fold and ugly old handbags to display. Only, she’s imagining the trousers are Stella McCartney and the bags are Celine; that she works in a boutique down one of the cobbled lanes off George Street – she can smell the Diptyque candles just thinking about it.

At least she can until a pikey with sour-milk breath demands to know how much the Miami Vice video is. She wants to scream ‘Who cares? Just take it and fuck off’, but she points to the price tag instead. It’s 50p. He seems delighted and starts rummaging around in the pockets of his stonewashed jeans – the only wash, she imagines, they’ve ever seen.

All she wants is to be a designer. Nothing too daring. Classic cuts. Valentino, Berardi, Mouret. Dresses that make stars shine, not land them on the what-was-she-thinking pages. Too bad the only thing college taught her is a sketchpad and swatch book won’t get you anywhere without a trust fund and a studio in Spitalfields. And how ironic that now at her most skint she’s working in a fucking charity shop. For free. ‘Oh you’re so good,’ the grannies twitter. ‘The world needs more young ladies like you.’ But she’s too busy staring at their whiskers to listen, making a mental note never to grow a beard. Besides it isn’t true: the world has quite enough young ladies like her, which is how come she can’t find any work. Victoria-fucking-Beckham beat her to it. And good as Fashion Retail Manager will look on her CV, her career already feels over before it has begun.

The hippyshit bells on the back of the door jingle away like Santa himself is about to burst through. ‘Good day, young miss. Just a couple of stamps, please, and I’ll take some envelopes if you have them. I’ll have to be quick, though – my wife is in the car and she does fret…’ The inevitability of it all is just too depressing. Becca can’t help herself:

‘This isn’t the post office. They closed it when Cameron came into power. He’s the prime minister, by the way. And your wife died a long time ago, Mr Heath. Long before the economy did.’ Shit. He looks gutted. Why did she say that? Nev’s right, she is a bitch.

‘I, I… oh, I feel rather… Oh.’ He looks so pathetic she can’t bear it.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Mr Heath.’ A flicker of recognition.

‘Celie. My Celie,’ he splutters between shuddering sobs. Fuck. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I take it back,’ Becca blurts. ‘It’s fine. Everything’s fine. She’s probably just at the butchers, I didn’t mean to…’

Mr Heath crumples onto a chair by the faded jigsaws. ‘Dear Celie. Of course she’s gone. Of course,’ he says, resigned. ‘I do try to remind myself every day, you know? I’ll wake up alone in that giant oak bed… and I’ll say “Gordon, she’s gone. It’s just you now old chap.” But then I’ll go downstairs and I’ll catch sight of something, the carriage clock she wound religiously, the chair she nursed our son in, the china figurines she polished so lovingly… And there she is: frying up my eggs like she’s never been away. And it’ll be all “Come along, Gordon, bingo today, let’s get a good breakfast in you” or “Don’t forget to take your navy cardigan, dear, we don’t want you catching a chill”. And before I know it she’ll have slipped her hand in mine and we’ll be taking a stroll together, the way we used to along the pier in Southwold all those years ago…' He stares ahead the whole time as if he's watching an old cine film. Then the projector in his mind suddenly jams. 'She was doing the flowers for the harvest festival when she died. A stroke they said. Everyone agreed it was a fitting way to go. Summoned directly from the house of God. I’d nod and say "Of course, of course". How were they to know I may as well have been in that coffin with her? Because Celie’s heart used to beat for the two of us, you see. Soppy I know, but there it is. And that smile… It still…’

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a hanky as a tear threatens to fall. ‘She always insisted I carry one. Would starch them while she listened to the wireless.’ He thrusts the faded rag in Becca's face. ‘Those are her initials, see? Celie Rose. She embroidered them on every hanky: “So you’ll always carry me with you,” she’d chuckle. But I didn’t need a handkerchief to do that.' He shakes his head. ‘Silly old fool, listen to me. You have work to do, and here I am wasting your time conjuring up ghosts.’ He hesitates then looks around uncertainly. ‘I’ll just take a couple of stamps and be gone.’

Becca has been so lost in his words, the request is a jolt. ‘This isn’t the…’ She stops. ‘I’m afraid we’re out of them today. But you could try the newsagents next door. They’ll have some.’

‘Will do,’ he smiles, reaching for his shopping bags and heading off to live out his past.

Becca feels as if she’s in free fall. She distracts herself by dusting the ornaments. Ordinarily she would be asking herself why people feel the need to clutter up their windowsills with so much hideous rubbish. But, right now, all she can think is ‘who will give a shit about me?’ She imagines Nev rummaging through her stuff after she’s gone, keeping her iPad and tossing out the rest. And then she realises how much she envies Celie Rose with her crappy clock and her tacky figurines, and a man who falls in love with her every day.

* * *