The Sweet-Shop Owner Read Online Free Page A

plan would emerge) and say, ‘Miss Harrison? How do you do?’ and, as she looked up, half in annoyance, half with the look of a girl caught playing truant, continue in his dumb way, ‘Passing by … er, lunch-time … couldn’t help … laundry lists are ready.’ And she, recognizing who he was, recovering that old command, must nod, say, ‘Ah yes,’ and turn her head away to look over the railings. She would let him linger, if he must, but she wouldn’t welcome him.
    She wore a straw-coloured outfit; heavy, unnecessary make-up, as if to mask her face.
    ‘Cheerful bunch,’ he’d said, eyeing the children, mouthing the words in the blunt, crass way he’d read the items on the laundry list. Her face didn’t move. ‘Hey, look at that!’ – as a boy swung higher and higher till it seemed he would either fly off or turn full circle. And he’d pulled from his pocket, in a greaseproof bag, four cheese sandwiches which he extended to her in a gesture at once bluff and chivalrous, like a knight laying down arms.
    ‘Oh – no thanks,’ she said, slightly ruffled – for it was not like her to be lingering in parks, to be watching children on swings, to be speaking with strangers. Yet she was.
    They stood in silence, thinking of things to say.
    ‘You like watching children …?’ Her tone seemed to say: ‘You’re a child yourself.’
    ‘Yes. Don’t you?’ His cheek was full of cheese sandwich.
    She didn’t answer; only looked at the swings with anxiety.
    ‘I sometimes wish,’ he said, trying hard to empty his mouth, ‘I could join in myself.’
    ‘But you wouldn’t?’
    ‘Why not?’
    He saw the sudden challenge in her eyes. And was that a smile somewhere in that held-aloft face?
    ‘Well, if you feel that way …?’
    ‘It’s Chapman. Willy Chapman.’
    ‘– why
don’t
you?’
    ‘Why don’t I?’
    Her head seemed to wobble on her neck.
    And he hadn’t hesitated. He gave back her look (did she think he was stupid?). He knew it was a test. He crushed up the grease-proof bag with the remainder of his sandwiches inside and stuffed it in his pocket. He walked to the end of the railings and across the patch of asphalt. Children stared at him. And looking back at her, very straight, defensive, he knew that was how it would be. She would stay, always, behind the railings, watching his readiness, his simplicity, his taking things at face value. She wouldn’t join in. She would watch; he would do. For he did it now, went up and did it, the man from the audience taking the stage. He climbed the steps of the kiddies’ slide, hitched up his jacket and slid down. And as he did so he knew he was hers.
    *
    Yes, that was pattern. That was not adventuring. She had said, Why don’t you? And he did. And afterwards it was precisely the predictable formula that pleased him: meeting in parks, sitting on benches, his being the humble suitor, buffing his shoes, scrubbing his nails before seeing her, being spruced and set-to by obsequious parents who saw the chance of a fortune.
    And there it was – a fortune – duly made over to him by the proper forms and ceremonies, in the corner of a railway compartment, bound for Dorset, while the golden light of a late June afternoon flickered through the gaps in passing roof-tops. And it was saying, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry, Willy, about all that nonsense.’
    ‘They’re always passing judgement, making comment. Jack and Paul especially. Forget them Willy.’
    A breeze blew through the open window. There was pink and blue confetti in her hair.
    And what she was really saying perhaps was: ‘Don’t talk of Father and Mother, or my brothers. I don’t want to discuss them. Don’t you see? I was the only daughter, I was the odd one of the family. I was a beauty. I had no life. That is why I chose you – with no talent, no initiative – for the justice of it, the symmetry. Don’t think I will change.’
    He had put his arm out to her. ‘I’m not thinking of