Wool Shop

“Can you ring Mrs Bell and tell her the Bergere Alaska has arrived, Carol?”

Sandra doesn’t do French pronunciation and she makes it sounds like Burger, but I don’t dare laugh.  She’s a huge woman with flaming red hair and massive biceps. 

“Okay, I’m just with a customer, Sandra.”

I’d rather I wasn’t - this one’s a nutter.  What is she giving me now?  Blimey, it’s a drawing of her dog; complete with measurements!  I hope she didn’t hear me snort.  Yes, of course she did, but she doesn’t seem too bothered.  She has that faraway look of someone heavily medicated. 

“How much wool do you think I’ll need?” she asks eagerly.

I hold up the scrappy piece of paper and look at her diagram again.  It’s all wrong.  Dogs don’t have round ears like that.  Perhaps Mizzi is wearing earmuffs to go with her overcoat?

“Well, you haven’t given me her circumference,” I find myself saying.  “So I can only make a rough guess.”

“She is rather fat - middle aged spread.  Border terrier.”

I can’t tell a border terrier from a naked mole rat, but I convince her that she’ll need an extra ball in that case and she toddles off quite happily with her two balls of fluorescent orange chunky.  Poor Mizzi; she’s going to look like a four-legged tangerine.

“Perhaps there’s a coach party from Bedlam in town today?” I say to Barbara, as I move away from the till to tidy up the wool shelves, but she just looks at me blankly.  Some days it’s like that in here.  So far I’ve been asked if we sell spider repellent (no, I think you’ll find this is a haberdashery and wool shop, Madam) and have been treated to a double act from a cockney Darby and Joan.  They were laughing their bleeding heads off at how droll they were.  The woman kept calling me “sweetheart” and pawing at me.  I hate that.  Customers should respect physical boundaries, in my opinion.

“Here comes Biddy!” whispers Barbara urgently from behind the till. She even puts her hand up to the side of her mouth, like we’re in a play, or something.

“I’m hiding.  Tell her I’m on my tea break.  No, tell her I’ve got a touch of Ebola.”

Too late – she’s spotted me.  Biddy’s eyes are sharp, though they’re milky with old age. 

“Hello, Cheryl.” (I don’t bother correcting her).  “I’m looking for a charcoal grey for my nephew in America.  I want to knit him a fisherman’s rib.”  My heart sinks.  She’s always bringing her moth-eaten looking knitting projects in for me to unravel. Her white hair stands up in wisps like a messy halo, giving her the look of a demented angel.  Demon, more like - look at her bony Nosferatu fingers.

“Are you cold, Cheryl?” 

Crikey, I must have actually shuddered!

“No, I’m fine thanks, Biddy.  Let’s sort you out with some yarn.  Double knit is it?”

Biddy leaves with a bulging bag and grinning from ear to ear.  They usually do.  Very few of my customers escape empty handed and most of them lap up the attention I give them.  I’ve got one woman, a regular, who follows me round like a little puppy, umming and ahhing and asking daft questions.  I don’t mind, though – she’s harmless.  It’s the thieves I can’t stand.  You’d be amazed too if I pointed them out to you; middle class, middle aged women who could afford to buy the wool, but would rather stuff a couple of skeins into their Radley handbags while my back’s turned.

I wish I could think of a way to get revenge.  I’ll ask Sandra if she can think of something.  She was telling me how she poisoned her last boss.  He always got her to make his coffee in the morning and one day she ground up laxatives to lace it with.  Only they didn’t dissolve; instead they floated on the surface like pond scum.  She told him it was a failed experiment at making cappuccino.  Off work for two weeks, he was, poor sod.  I’ll never be able to accept a drink from Sandra now.  You never know with some people; you can piss them off without even knowing and then the grudge festers like a boil until, one day, you go to put your uniform blazer on and find that the sleeves have been sewn up.  Or there’s a dead mouse in your staff locker.  I hope that wasn’t Sandra.  Perhaps it just crawled in there and died?

Time for my lunch break, such as it is.  I only get half an hour.  I’ll wolf down a sandwich, flick through Hello magazine, have a pee and then it will be time to go back on the shop floor.

“I’m off to lunch.”  I wave at Sandra who’s with a customer at the cutting table.  She grins at me, snipping the fabric with a pair of scissors and tearing it straight across with one firm tug of her bare hands.  Is that an evil glint or a friendly sparkle in her eyes, I wonder?

“Alright, Carol.  There are some homemade cupcakes on the staff room table.  Help yourself.”

“Er, thanks!”  I flash a smile in her direction and hope it masks the glimmer of fear in my eyes.

In the staff kitchen I admire Sandra’s culinary creations.  She’s even put them on a special cake stand.  They’re beautiful - swirls of pastel icing and pearly glitter.  It’s not even ordinary buttercream, but marshmallow frosting.  I can tell by the sheen.  How could I pass up a cake as gorgeous as these?  Not even Sandra’s obvious psychopathic streak is enough of a deterrent.

I select a cupcake from the plate.  It’s as pink and frothy as a ballerina’s tutu.  I cross my fingers, close my eyes, take a bite and hope for the best.