Eejit knickers

Walking past the charity-shop window, I saw my past for sale hanging up by the ear. Special Offer—£1. It was too good a bargain to miss. I breenged into the shop. Racks of clothes being picked through by a stooped wee woman with a stick. She glared over at me as if I might be competition for a blue cotton housecoat. I could have told her it was too big for her, but she was already wrestling it into her basket. A tall guy was up at the top end leafing through the wall of books. He’d already pulled out a pile of thick novels, an uneven jumble at his feet. The volunteer stood behind the till with a thin-lipped smile on her face. Stack of grey hair, she’d have been lovely when she was younger.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

I took off my specs and cleaned them on my sweatshirt.  The shop was cold and she wore fingerless gloves, but I found myself sweating. ‘That hing in the windae—’

‘Oh, yeh, the Special Offer.’

‘Aye.’

She was quick to nip in before I said any more. ‘You can have it for 50p.’

I licked my lips. ‘Jesus.’

‘Is that too much?’

She didn’t wait for an answer. Serving the tall guy. He came up to the counter humphing a pile of books that threatened to get out of both hands. They chatted as if they knew each other. He might even have fancied her, although she was more my age. I wanted to get involved in the conversation, say something witty. But eventually he swept the books he’d selected into his Berghaus rucksack, paid for them and marched off with a cheery wave. He held the door over their heads to let a man and woman into the shop, and smiled at them too. He hadn’t seemed to notice me waiting in the queue, but I’d been there first.

‘That hing,’ I said to the shop assistant. Now I came to think of it, she’d quite a nice smile. She might even have used a sun lamp, or whatever it was called now. My memory wasn’t what it was.

She leaned ever so slightly over the counter. I leaned forward too. ‘The Special Offer,’ she whispered, ‘Junk.’ Shook her head and screwed up her pretty face. She confided in me. ‘The boss, she’s under a bit of pressure sales wise.’ She stood a little straighter, glancing over my shoulder.

The wee women hobbled over to the counter, and I stepped aside. She put the housecoat down on the counter and looked at the shop assistant, glared and me and then back at her. ‘Much is this?’

The shop assistant picked it up and checked the tag. ‘Two pound,’ she said.

The old woman sighed and huffed. She looked up and me and then at the shop assistant. ‘But I’m a pensioner. And I thought this was a charity shop!’

‘I don’t set the prices,’ the shop assistant tried to make light of it. ‘And I’m a volunteer.’

‘Aye, volunteer, right,’ she sneered. And looked up at me to confirm that volunteers were like leprechauns they didn’t actually exist.

‘I can give you it for £1.50,’ said the volunteer.

‘Aye right,’ she made a grab for her stick at the side of the counter and shuffled towards the door. ‘You think I’m made o’ money.’

I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. She gave me a tight smile. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said.

I nodded, ‘You get that a lot?’

‘All the time. You wouldn’t believe it…And shoplifters.’ She glanced at the couple perusing the crockery. Glass cabinets with the semi-valuable inside. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this, but the Eastern Europeans are the worst.’

Tightness in her brows when I didn’t say anything that curdled to a frown. The man and woman circled the glass cabinets. ‘Excuse me.’

She darted towards the glass cabinets, leaving me standing at the till. I heard her pleasant voice offering assistance to the man and woman, ‘Can I help you?’

I should probably have left the shop then, perhaps after dipping the till. I glanced over at the rack of men’s clothes. Some of them didn’t look too bad. I walked over to have a closer look. Many of the tops had designer names and looked new or newish. No obvious junk. I picked out a Wrangler zip-up jacket priced at a fiver.

The sallow skinned couple were being escorted out of the shop. They all smiled at each other as if it was a great joke. I took the jacket over to the counter and held it up for her to check the price.

‘Five pound,’ she said in an overly cheery voice. Waiting to see if I’d try and beat her down and make a further saving.

I smiled, dipping into my wallet. ‘I guess you get a lot of people paying wae credit cards, or even their phones!’  

I gave her a tenner, and she rang it up. Counting out the change in her head, blue-grey eyes flickering. Her hand fluttering before she handed me the coins.

‘That other hing.’

It became like a running gag between us. She gave me four quid and held onto the last coin. ‘The Special Offer.’

‘Aye, you hink I could try it on?’

She shrugged. ‘That old thing! We get a lot of stuff. You wouldn’t believe it. People gie us things like their dirty washing and expect us to be able to sell it. Offcuts of their wallpaper. A Bearsden woman came in and gave us four paintings she’d done. They went straight into the bin out back.’

I laughed, but she remained serious. ‘But she came back. You know the type? When I said I didn’t know what happened to the paintings, asked to speak to the boss. We had to makeup some cock-and-bull story about having sent them to another branch. But she wanted to know their phone number, said she would check—’

‘That’s Bearsden for yeh.’

‘Then we’d the guy that came in with a 150 000 word novel set on a space rocket.’

‘Jesus, that’s murder.’

Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. ‘He said it would be worth millions… That’s what your blue bin is for, waste paper. All those trees dying for no good reason.’

‘It was probably the husband of the Bearsden artist.’

She left the pound coin on the counter. Her flat shoes made little noise on the worn carpet as she pulled open the shutter on the shop window and leaned across with a grunt. She came back carrying the Special Offer by the ear. ‘Fusty,’ she crinkled up her nose and let it fall crumpled on the counter.

A sharp pain in my head and I was grabbing for the counter before I fell. The denim jacket falling to the ground. She came around the counter. Put her arm around my back to support me and squeezed my hand.

‘You alright?  You diabetic or something?’  

I took a deep breath. She smelled nice. Steadied myself. ‘Nah, nah, I’ll be fine.’ Tried to keep it low key. I waved a finger at the Special Offer. ‘I’ll maybe jist try that on.’

For what seemed like a very long time, she looked at me, perhaps waiting to see if I was going to topple over again.  She glanced at the pound coin before making her decision. ‘Aye, take it. You can have it for nothing. I think somebody pulled it out a skip and handed it in, or something.’

‘That would have been my wife, eejit knickers.’

‘That’s a shame,’ she replied.

‘Now, every age seems younger when your no there. It still hurts. Part of you being skipped oer.’

Another customer with thick glasses came into the shop. She looked relieved to go and help orientate him by holding the elbow of his thick coat.

I went to the changing room to try my past on. But there was something missing. I patted my pockets, but couldn’t remember what it was. It no longer fitted.