Shopping by Rhona Gorringe
The radio and chattering birds woke me up. A warm finger of sun touched my face and I heard a slight wind rustling through the trees. The milkman was whistling and I heard the thump of his crate and the accelerated whooshing of his float as he went up our street.
Today Sally was taking me shopping and, most importantly she was going to advise me on a new coat. It seems daft to buy one in April but she said the shops were getting rid of winter stock and prices were reduced.
I know what I want. Not the hairy, itchy tweed of our school uniform nor the cold slither of something synthetic but a swathe of silky, smooth velvet, a gentle caress of sympathetic warmth. I want soft folds I can securely wrap round myself with a belt and a large collar I can snuggle into when the wind howls. And I want a bright colour, not that I can see it but I could feel it and I hope it would cheer up other people. Sally’s good at describing colour.
My payback to her is lunch at Luciano’s. Whenever I go there he always gives me a sweet smelling flower and wraps my hand around it. With the intensity of Proust’s madeleines I savour the thought of spicy salamis, olives, nutty parmesan-topped pastas and sweet gelatos.
Breakfast is easy with whistling kettles and pop up toasters. Gone are the days when I could cut the thick crusty farmhouse loaves. But I am thankful. At least I’m alive and have the satisfaction of knowing my attacker has ‘gone down’. Small comfort that it was mistaken identity. But I think of my new life and the new friends it has given me. My street is the best one in the whole world!
Tom from Scrap Metal has programmed my radio and I count the tiny bobbles on the remote for my favourites. He put up the grab rails in the bathroom and made a special rack with touchy-feely surfaces for the keys. His grandson put the squeaky dog-toy on my stick as a reminder not to leave it in shops. He said “It’ll make friends for you, too.” Indeed it has. Children play with it when I wait in shops and it is a conversation opener with their parents.
Richard, he of the hearty handshake and slight lisp, has made a crunchy gravel path to the front door and a loud bell for the back garden. His wife often brings me tasty samples, saying “It’s a new recipe and I’ve made too much,” her infectious tinkly laugh always makes me laugh too. I don’t believe her but her concern moves me. “Richard said he preferred the other recipe. That’s men!”
Microwaves are easy but you can’t beat home baking. Narrow as my world is, it has widened more than I could have imagined. We’re not grateful for what we have until we lose it.
A nice descriptive and gentle piece. I liked it very much. My only thought is that the narrator doesn’t have a lot of ‘character’ that I can relate to. She is too nice and thankful for me. If this was a longer story and I had been writing it I’d have had her in denial about all her negative feelings and stabbing Richard and his wife. But that’s just me.
Simon says: I like the gradualness with which this story is told. The unostentatious title, Shopping, becomes more relevant as the narrative proceeds and the reader realises what a challenge that everyday activity is for the central character. The little accretions of detail are carefully placed. We do not know that the narrator is blind until the end of the third paragraph, but then we understand her sensitivity to textures, like ‘the cold slither of something synthetic’ (lovely phrase). The major shock of the piece – how her blindness was caused – occurs in the fifth paragraph and the way the information is almost thrown away makes its impact more powerful. The writer has thought deeply about her character’s situation and shows great empathy in the way she has inhabited her life. And, of course, having a narrator deprived of visual awareness is a perfect way of fulfilling the brief. What’s more, the piece celebrates the intrinsic goodness of humanity
From Bob Baynes: This works for me. Very descriptive, and I don’t think there’s anything at all prissy about the last sentence. A nice, gentle little story, answering all the background questions that inevitably crop up when you read a short piece. The principal character comes across as a likeable, glass half full sort of person.