Chapter 5

by Sally

Becca was about to call Pip when a scruffily dressed woman with a mop of frizzy hair and an indeterminate age entered the shop and meandered her way towards the clothes rack. Clearly she was in no hurry as she extracted each item from the rail and carefully examined it. Then she tutted or sighed or both (but not necessarily in that order) and replaced the item before extracting the next. “Oh hurry up” thought Becca. She knew this sort; she wouldn’t buy anything anyway so why bother with the charade? Presumably she had nothing better to do to fill her time. Well Becca had, she wanted to ring Pip and have a good natter about the ‘exciting news’ whatever that was… news, any news, even news about needing root canal work would be more exciting than this.

 

Twenty minutes later ‘fizzy hair’ drifted back out of the shop having not bought anything. Becca reached for her mobile and was about to hit the ‘Call’ button when the shop doorbell clanged and in scuttled Miss Hyme, a regular customer and cheap second-hand book lover. She informed Becca that she’d heard about the Scouts bring-and-buy sale and that Miss Harrington had told her that all the unsold books had been brought here, so she’d come to see if there were any Mills and Boone as there usually were. 

“I like Mills and Boone” she said. She said this every time she came into the shop. She also always said ‘you can’t beat a good love story’. Becca braced herself. 

“You can’t beat a good love story” said Miss Hyme.

The minutes dragged by as Miss Hyme picked up each book and holding it at arm’s length, read the back, the first page and the last page before declaring

“I’ve already read that one” and placed it back neatly where she’d taken it from. Then she outlined the flimsy plot, the two-dimensional characters and the ending before asking

“Have you read it? No, then you really should, it’s very good”. 

Like they’d be any point now even if it was the type of book Becca would read, which it wasn’t. Becca wondered why Miss Hyme hadn’t put her incredible memory for fiction to more use. Then again, every plot she outlined appeared to be the same as all the others so maybe she didn’t need to have a good memory to recall it. Maybe she didn't really remember any of them but instead used the same plot over and over again as a peculiar form of conversation maker, "a bit like a parrot really, a bit like a parrot really", thought Becca, to relieve the tediousness. 

Miss Hyme also clearly had nothing better to do as the routine dragged on… 

“Have you read it?” 

…and on… 

“you really should” 

… and on… 

“it’s very good”. 

Becca wanted to scream “Oh just take the whole lot and go, you silly old bag!” but instead she felt herself sigh and then realised it had been audible.  Oops! 

It was almost half an hour later when Miss Hyme left the shop clutching two Mills and Boone’s, clearly satisfied with her purchase. Becca snatched up her phone just as two more customers arrived at the same time, arguing by gesture and nod about who should cross the threshold first. “Oh for heaven’s sake!” ranted Becca to herself, “anyone would think there was something worth coming in here for!”

The afternoon dawdled by. It must have been the longest (and busiest) Wednesday afternoon on record, the shop was never empty. “Is there nothing on day-time TV for these people to watch?”, growled Becca as a poshly-spoken-save-the-planet-hippy muscled her way into the shop to make a big deal out of her 'virtuous reuse' in order to hide her tightfistedness. Becca felt frustrated, she wanted to know what the ‘exciting news’ was and she couldn’t have a good gossip with Pip while there were customers in the shop.

Eventually, it was closing time. “I’ve got to get out of here” she thought and grabbing her bag and jacket she made her way towards the door. She was about to turn the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ when, what she thought was a screwed up piece of paper on the floor beneath the clothes rail, caught her eye. As much as she hated this job she also liked to make sure the shop was as tidy as a shop full of junk could be for the following morning. As she bent down to pick the paper up she realised it wasn’t paper but material. ‘C.R.’ was neatly embroidered in the corner. Becca frowned, there was something vaguely familiar about this, and then, she felt a sinking guilty feeling as she remembered the distress she had caused Mr Heath the previous day. Of course, ‘Celie Rose’, it was Mr Health’s handkerchief, he must have dropped it. Becca suddenly felt a pang of remorse and deciding to make sure his beloved ‘Celie Rose’ was returned to him next time Mr Heath came in to buy stamps, she shoved the handkerchief into her jacket pocket.

Turning the sign on the door, Becca lifted the latch and pulled the door shut behind her. At last! She reached into her bag, fished out her phone and was about to hit ‘Call’ when it rang. ‘Pip’ flashed on the display and Becca pressed ‘Answer’.

“Hi…” said Becca but before she could say anymore Pip interrupted her “You’ll never guess what!”

“What? WHAT?” said Becca.