THE NEW SHOP

Janice Winters, 81, is feeling her age...

Janice Winters hadn’t always been Janice Winters. She’d been born Janice Grant and in she’d spent a few years as Janice Jones before ending up as Janice Winters after marrying Peter, and Janice Winters she’d been for the past forty or so years. And here she was in the familiar town that she’d called in most weeks of her twice-married life before widowhood has struck her, and into the gigantic shopping mall, the Deadnought Centre, with its cunningly arranged seats that kept her in view of the better shops while she rested her weary legs.

And she had to do that. Even though she used a stick to help her along she needed to sit down every so often, and the Deadnought Centre seats had become a blessing over the years.

So she sat down in one of them and waited for her heart to stop its thumping because these days that was accompanied by pain and she’d never had much time for pain.

These days it was getting worse, but she supposed that at eighty one she should be expecting the odd message from her flesh, warning her to take it easy. So she sighed and flinched because the pain decided to poke her in the ribs like it did occasionally.

Then she saw something strange. The open doors to a shop that shouldn’t be there because it occupied a space between Primark and Ann Summers and to her certain knowledge there just wasn’t a space for anything wider than a signpost between those two shops.

Yet the doors to a shop that she’d never seen before, she couldn’t see what it was called, were wide open and the odd figure actually going in.

There was old Mrs Landbury, she’d known her for donkey’s years, and the poor old soul was most unsteady on her legs, almost as bad as she was.. But the shop doors absorbed her and she vanished out of sight.

Then Ted Bingham. She knew him all right, she’d even let him stay the night once, less than a year ago, even let him share her bed because she only had toe one made up and ready for use, and she wasn’t quite sure what she’d hoped would happen but she did miss Peter at times like that, but nothing had occurred. But then, Ted had been just about grown up when she’d been at school because, when she left school, he was her boss in the council offices where she had her first job. He wore a smart suit back then and had an eye for a pretty girl, but Samantha Staines had been the prettiest girl in the department and had gathered all the favours that might be going to her more than adequate bosom. Anyway, she’d passed away a decade or more ago and you can’t feel jealous of a puff of smoke from the crematorium chimney, can you?”

That pain in her chest wasn’t going away and for a moment she felt a bit worried. But she’d had one heart attack way back, and she couldn’t remember it feeling like this, so she forced herself to stop worrying.

“Are you all right, dear?”

She looked up at the friendly face of a passing policeman who’d come to where she was sitting without being noticed.

“I’m fine, officer,” she lied, and gave him her special smile which, unknown to her, forced itself out like a wincing growl.

“Well, ma’am if you need any help…” he assured her.

“I’m sorry officer. I was wondering at that shop over there?” She pointed to the door that shouldn’t be there, and yet it was.

“You mean, Ann Summers?” he asked, and blushed, “my misses goes there once in a blue moon. I think there’ something rugged about the underwear they sell, anyway, she swears by it and makes it last… and if you’re all right I’ll see you later…” And he sauntered off, hands behind back, an archetypal policeman, the sort from days of yore.

Why do people always say they’ll see me later when I know they won’t? But she didn’t let the thought trouble her because Elsie Wainwright was struggling trough the entrance to that strange new shop and she rather wanted to exchange a few words with Elsie. So she tried to pull herself up, but the effort was a little too much if all she wanted to do was exchange pleasantries with someone who lived round the corner from where her bungalow wa anyway, so she settled back, a little awkwardly, and whe she looked Elsie Wainwright was no longer anywhere in sight.

“Are uou all right, Janice?” came a voice, and she forced herself to look up..

It was Johnny Price. She’d walked out with him for a couple of weeks after Peter died, but it had all seemed so unfaithful to a man she’d really, really loved, and she’d stopped it.

“You wanting to look in that shop?” asked Johnny, “because eif you are I’ll go along with you. I’m feeling less than par myself and they might have a café, you know, somewhere to get a cup of tea.”

Maybe that’s not such a bad idea… I’d like to know what’s for sale...she thought. “Maybe,” she replied, and he had to help her stand up because the pain was there again and she couldn’t quite manage on her own.

“By gummy, you look like I feel,” he muttered into her ear, and together they tottered rather than walked to the open swing door of a shop that shouldn’t be there.

“I need some new pants,” he whispered into her ear in that suggestive way that had always been his way.

“I’m just curious,” she forced out.

And suddenly they were passing the swing doors of the new shop, the one that had never been there before, and a uniformed and very smiley greeter came up to them.

“Does madam want any assistance?” he asked.

“A cafe… a cafe…” she forced out between the shooting pains that threatened to smash her ribs.

“Of course, madam, on the third floor but we do have a lift. Would madam like to use the lift? It’s very clean and quick…”

“Yes… please.” Janice felt she wouldn’t manage another step on her own.

She looked back to where Johnny was standing, but he’d gone. Left her own her on her own! Just like him! Probably too busy buying his pants to be bothered to help an old friend like her. Sod him! She’d let him know what she thought next time she saw him.

“This way, madam,” said the greeter smoothly and soothingly, “it’s the third floor that you’ll want… I’ll press the button for you, you’re safe in my hands…”

“You’re so kind,” she forced out, and she felt herself losing weight as the lift, she assumed it was a lift but she couldn’t actually remember getting into it,shot upwards. It was such a light feeling, lighter than air, and the pain went away.

The illuminated numbers showing the floors flickered and, then two, then it came to three, and stopped. The door slid open, and, using her last remaining strength, she stepped out.

It was the loveliest, the most beautiful, the most fragrant of gardens, and she sank into a chair that glided towards her.

“That’s better…” she breathed, and it was. Better than better and better for ever.

“I knew you’d come sooner or later,” smiled Peter, and he sank into the chair next to her.

He might have been decomposing, but she didn’t care. It was Peter and she’d missed him more than words can tell.

“At last,” she grinned, “my love…”

© Peter Rogerson 19.08,23

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