Paint by Helen Carr

Confident of having prepared for any eventuality, I drive to the DIY shop. My mission, to get  paint for the improvement of the Arts Centre cellars. They are to be used for mental health and well being workshops in the Art for Health Festival.

There’s too much colour choice. I reject purple and green; too dingy. The cellars have little natural light. Maybe white would be best…but rather clinical… A nice young man with a thunderbolt tattooed on his neck asks me if I need any help.

“I’m looking for something suitable for mental health,” I say. He takes a step back.  

“Is it for yourself or…or…?” 

I explain the situation and he laughs in a relieved way.

“How about pink?” he says. “It’s my gran’s favourite colour and she’s bonkers.”

I don’t know whether to laugh or report him to the manager. 

“I don’t think it’s a laughing matter, young man,” I say pompously. 

He smirks patronisingly. I probably sound just like his gran. And look like her.

With the energy of the insulted, I shed all indecision and rapidly choose bright orange and golden yellow. Looking for one of those low trolleys to shift the paint to the check out, I spot an employee hanging around the automatic doors doing nothing. On closer inspection he turns out to be an elderly man, too old to do much in the way of DIY I would have thought. 

“I’m not supposed to but I will. I never turn down a damsel in distress. Follow me my dear,” he says, limping ahead of me.

He tracks down a trolley at the customer service desk where a girl with impossibly long nails, each decorated differently, is prodding at a calculator. As we make our way to the paint aisle, Fred, according to his badge, tells me that his official role is to greet customers and direct them to the appropriate part of the store. When he tells me again that he will never turn down a damsel in distress, I begin to wonder whether I should have lured him from his post. He may never find his way back again. Quell ageist thoughts and concentrate on finding my paint. The tins I left on the floor have disappeared. I try to take the trolley from Fred, telling him that I can manage on my own now.

“Nay, lass,” he says, “I’m here to help.” 

When I explain that my tins have gone, he says, “Health and safety. They’re very hot on that, ever since they got sued last year. Chap slipped on some linseed oil, broke his leg. I’d’ve gone to court  in his place…”

Experience impulse to scream. Will I never get out of this vile shop? The fluorescent strips are doing strange things to my eyes, and Fred talks on and on …

Pulling myself together for the final push, I find the paint, which Fred places in the trolley. His incessant talk has turned to whether I live alone and might need a hand with the decorating, as he knows what it’s like to be alone etc. I tell him I am decorating a room for mental health workshops. This seems to quieten him for a while. After checking out, he insists on accompanying me to the car. He dumps the paint tins in the boot.

“There’s only one thing for mental health, lass,” he says, turning to me with an intimate inclination of his balding head. “Regular sex.” 

He winks at me repulsively before trundling off with the trolley.

“I’m ‘ere every Wednesday,” he calls back over his shoulder.

“I will be reporting you to your manager. For harassment,” I shout after him across the car park.

I had hoped for paint. Being propositioned by a pesky pensioner is an eventuality I had never considered.