I took a calculated risk and parked on the double-yellow lines outside Mishri’s Newsagents on the way back from the rehearsal on Sunday.
There were one or two dribbling slack-jawed yokels in the aisles so I went straight to the counter. ‘Can I have a box of that lovely Earl Grey tea you stock, please, Mr Mishri? Twinings, I believe it is.’
‘Oh, no, no no, no, no, Mr Davy, you certainly cannot, my young sir.’
‘You haven’t run out, surely. I think I’m the only one in the village who buys it. Ha ha.’
‘Well that’s just it, you see, Mr Davy, sir. Nobody else likes it.’ I could hear mutterings of concordance coming from the back of the shop near the pork scratchings section.
‘I know. I just told you, I – ‘
‘You haven’t been in to buy any since Christmas, Mr Davy, sir, you see.’
‘That’s because I bought some at Christmas, and now I have run out, so I am . . . Oh, look, it doesn’t matter. Do you have any bottles of Stella in the cooler?’
‘I can’t afford to buy you special tea, Mr Davy, and then not have you come in to make a purchase of this item on a regular basis.’
A fat, planet-sized woman standing behind me was tutting and sweating. She was muttering something under her breath that sounded like, ‘Voodoo, voodoo, magic bingo voodoo,’ which unsettled me slightly – as you can imagine – and inflamed my impatience further.
‘Look, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to the Co-op.’
As I was leaving, Mr Mishri’s wife popped up from behind the counter and began berating me with a stiff finger and her usual mournful rectitude. ‘Hey, Steve, You should stop dying your hair! Get some smart clothes and find a nice young girl to settle down with.’
Apart from her getting my name wrong again, Mrs Mishri’s trenchant observations and comments did not sound too dissimilar to those often levelled at me by my mother. In fact, they were exactly the same.
‘You always look so lonely, Steve.’
‘Good grief. I only came in to buy some bloody tea.’
‘No need to swear, Steve. And you can’t park there, you know. Did you not see the sign? It’s a big sign, Steve.’
‘It’s a broken sign,’ I informed her in exasperation. ‘It says No -king. I thought you were both staunch republicans.’
She shouted something else but I was already getting into the car. It was probably, ‘Thank you. Please come again.’
When I got home, I glanced at my reflection in the hallway mirror. I was not surprised to see steam hissing from my ears.
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