Huntress

THE SUBURBAN HUNTRESS
By
Kim West

And Lo! the huntress shall replenish. She shall open doors and list
missing items, looking forward to the following week and the
intricacies of her family's comings and goings. Having stared long and
hard into her fridge and realizing that, as usual, many an item has
gone absent without leave, her hackles rise: Who are these people that
they should take and take and never replace? Her hackles thus arisen,
she adds many items to her list, gathers up her puce handbag and
departs by the front door.
The Huntress swivels her head for a brief glance back at her home,
while simultaneously opening the car door. The curtains upstairs are
drawn.
"I will return" she murmurs, as she steps into her car.
"I will return laden" she intones as she secures the door.
"I will be back" she promises and with a swish snaps on her seat
belt.
A quick scan of the current state of her strenuously up lifted hair and
the engine is sparked to life. A smile twitches at the corner of her
cardinal red lips and with a lowering of the head and slight flare of
the nostrils, the Huntress and her faithful stead surge out of the
drive. Her first port of call is to the local garage, where she is
served nonchalantly by a spiritless young man with a deathly complexion
and a long lank fringe. Her stead now replenished, the Huntress is
ready and her expedition begins.
It is mid-morning and the traffic is dire. There is a need for much
skillful manoeuvering, swooping, darting and much drumming on the
dashboard. Finally the car park is in sight. There is a long queue and
her stead must be held back, as opportunities to park will be assessed
well ahead of time. This Huntress has great foresight, observing with
some disdain that many times an ignorant motorist will dart forward
impetuously to commandeer a parking slot out of turn.
She knows that sort of thing doesn't go unnoticed. There are unwritten
rules to be obeyed. These social nuances are for her the very essence
of a civilized way of being. As if to affirm her grace and dignity, the
car-radio is playing an excerpt from Song of the Earth. She watches and
waits, lips pursed, haunches nipped in. This waiting is all part of a
necessary sense of ritual and soon a very pleasant man and his wife
approach their car and indicate that they are about to leave. Huntress
smiles warmly and flicks her indicator, purring forward a little and
hovering at a respectful distance, she allows them space to reverse
out. Civilized gestures of social grooming are exchanged: A wave and a
nod.
"What nice people" she mutters as she slides in to replace them.
A moment is taken to cast aside her sensible driving shoes and she
emerges on the very high heels that she is accustomed to. There is a
whisper of petticoat and skirt, as she turns to shut and lock the car
door. A tall woman this huntress and clad from proud high shoulder to
shapely calf, in a pure white knitted costume that flounces around her
as she sets off, handbag clutched to her composed breast. She deftly
weaves in and out of the spaces between the cars, making a beeline for
the line of steel chariots.
The Huntress chooses hers, having test-driven a few and checked out
their steering. She exudes calm and authourity as she strides towards
the glass doors.
"It is I" she purrs and in a whisper they part, closing quickly behind
her. Now for the barrier, with the steel chariot before her:
"Open Sesame" she commands and they too part to allow her passage, as
she glides through.
"And now my list."

On her left are the pre-packed vegetables. She will not buy these. She
will weigh her own. She will feel each tomato with her sculptured
cardinal red nails, and only those resisting her squeeze will be placed
into a small plastic bag to be weighed out. Each cucumber needs
assessing for length, width and firmness at the tip. She proudly
chooses the best of about twenty-five, placing these items most
carefully into the front section of her steel chariot. This sort of
care will be taken with every single purchase until her trolley is brim
full of the best there is available. She has a practiced hand and a
practiced eye. She is a sophisticated strategist of sell-bys; A fully
paid up citizen of the international cuisine of the world of ready-made
meals; A walking encyclopedia of weight watchers points. For her there
are no contretemps with other shoppers. Who would dare? This huntress
sails through where others squabble over their pasta sauces. Not for
her will unpleasant moments linger over an accident with a trolley. She
will glide by the multitude of mini- and mega- dramas that may reach
their denouement over the choice between a leg of pork or a farm fresh
turkey, or the need for double cream as opposed to the undoubtedly
blander low-fat cr?me fraiche option. Our huntress will be selecting
her chocolate chip biscuits with care to avoid any crumbled
contents.
Nobody would communicate with such a shopper other in deference. She is
familiar to them, yet distant. Those two with sad eyes who are openly
fighting about how much sliced ham to buy, used to run a small corner
shop when she was a little girl. That bleached out mother with tears
welling in her eyes as the children whine, is the daughter of a woman
she used to go to school with. This huntress has kept herself apart.
She has retained that feeling of self that others lose through the
rough and tumble of compromise or social injustice. She swims
regularly. She attends a spiritualist church. She loves her mother. She
sleeps in red sheets.
As she manoeuvres her laden chariot through the checkout a helpful
assistant will pack all her groceries and a young boy will be called to
help her to her car and to load it up.

Now she will return to the house of the sleeping and methodically
replenish her cupboards and fridge. Then she will brew herself and
much-deserved cup of Lapsang Souchong and wait for her mother to
arrive.

Meanwhile, back at the supermarket.........
"If this doesn't stop I'm going to scream my face off. It's time to
stop feeling so depressed. It's time to start screaming and when I do
scream it will change everything. All these troubles will dissolve and
I will be transported to a beautiful, peaceful ,Cornflakes meadowland
where my kids wcan happily roll on Telly-tubby-hills. A place that's
like an advert for a better kind of washing powder that bleaches out
the bruises. I won't be here, I'll be there with them. What will be
left here will be the memory of my scream.
My scream will be gloriously long. Like that famous artist's one,
Munch. It will spiral up and away from this place and I will follow
where it leads. You see it's not enough for someone like me to work
hard or to try hard to understand things. I just never do seem to get
it right and it always comes back to me having been stupid or
something. People do turn their heads and talk about me. I know that.
Well they can talk if it makes them feel better. They probably are
better than me, I suppose. That's not going stop my kinds playing up,
though is it?
Then there's the staff:
"You know you should not let your son run around here madam. He might
fall over and hurt himself."
"Is your child alright madam?"
"Madam! Please keep your children under control. You will have to pay
for those crisps they are eating."
If I should stand here in this empty aisle and scream my best scream,
will anyone care? Will it upset a few mild mannered folk? Won't it do
them good to hear me? They've stared long enough.
That's all they care you know. Would they be so good at it, given the
circumstances? Who would be? There's some of them got their kids so
strictly under control, hanging on for grim death to their mummy's hand
or to the edge of the trolley. They're smart little beggars with combed
hair and faces scrubbed clean and pulled up socks. Well, my kids would
be like that if I could make it happen.
"Darren put that down!"
Yes, my Kirsty would be sitting pretty in the trolley with no struggle
and a pink dress all freshly pressed. Jason would be looking for the
loo-roll and Darren would be holding my hand. Yes well that's not how
it is. Kirsty has been grizzling for the last hour. Her nappy's sodden.
Jason is lost and Darren's sitting on the floor bawling because the man
told him off. Everyone's been staring at us since we came in here. All
I'm trying to do is to get my weekly shop.
I should have done this a long time ago.
Open mouth
Deep breath
Shoulders back
Mouth wider, like the picture by Munch
Now...

The children shall stop in their tracks and the mothers shall tense in
recognition. The manager shall take alarm and call his assistants to
him. He shall send out a posse to find the screamer. At the checkouts,
all is at a standstill and faces are frozen for the moment in fear or
anger. The ladies on their tills try to glean information from one
another.
"Stay at your posts" comes the command.
Shoppers abandon their trolleys and leave the shop, crowding back
through the entrance barrier. Outside the shop a woman is overcome by
emotion.
"It was awful: A truly awful sound" she kept repeating. In her
distress, she has abandoned her shopping.
The manager and his assistants have scoured the building, but no one
can identify the screamer. Yet the bleached out mother, now
uncharacteristically serene, completes her shopping. Her children know
who it was. The wide-eyed child sitting in the trolley stares at the
lollipop suddenly thrust into her hand by her brother. The older boy
has the younger one by the hand and they walk quietly behind their mum.
She has a contented faraway look in her eyes. She can't remember ever
feeling this clear. All she needed was the space to do it. The trolley
is magically filling itself up, as the boys search and retrieve the
familiar own brand loo-rolls, washing powder, fish fingers, tea-bags
and skimmed milk. With panache and mum's acquiescence they also select
their favourite Telly Tubby yoghurts.
The manager is still seeking out the source of the primal scream, a
sound he will never forget. Neither will his many customers who
suffered its impact. A scream like that plugs deeply into the
subconscious and can resurrect your dead.
Out of the shop and down to the bus stop. Kirsty in the pushchair,
Darren and Jason holding on either side. The sun's shining. The
bus-conductress smiles and helps them onboard. She sits staring out of
the window, holding Kirsty close to her, the boys squeezed in either
side, still firmly holding hands.

Whilst at the other end of town:
"I'm going to see Maureen now father."
At the bus stop the old lady fumbles for her bus pass in the bottom of
her handbag. It annoys her that she forgot to get it out and put it in
her purse before she came out. She never used to have these problems.
This new handbag that Maureen brought her must take some of the blame,
because since she has had it, she can't find anything. It seems to
thrive on eating everything that she pops into it.
"No, now that's a silly idea. They'll call you mental." She reminds
herself. She must stop having silly ideas because her sister Grace had
silly ideas and look where that got her. These silly ideas are not the
least bit good for her and they end up making her cross. Maureen
mustn't know that the new handbag is such a problem. It's calf
leather.
The pressure to find her bus pass is now pressing on her, as the bus is
drawing near. She gets on, still with her hand in the bag groping for
the elusive pass. To her displeasure, she has to sit facing backward on
those high seats at the front. It's an older bus. Not one of those
lovely modern ones. Sitting there is about the worst place for her
because she hates to have to stare at people. There's always someone
who sits there staring back and then she has to look away. Also, there
is almost always someone who looks a bit odd and she doesn't want to
see anyone like that. For instance, that time when she got stuck
staring at a very fat man who had squashed himself onto the seat next
to a little girl. The child's mother sat behind with her friend and
looked very worried for the rest of the journey. Another time, there
was a scruffy man with unkempt hair who picked his nose. She couldn't
bear to look at him, but she kept finding herself looking back to check
if he had stopped, which he did not for some twenty minutes of the
journey. She often felt so helpless, because she wanted desperately to
stop these things happening. She needed a better world and she prayed
for this better world every day of her life.
Today she found herself wedged in between a black woman and a smart man
reading a magazine. The black woman kept fidgeting and made it obvious
by doing so that she felt that there hadn't been enough room for
another person on the seat. The man was motionless, dedicating himself
to his magazine. Having found her bus pass at last, she sat clutching
it and tried to settle down, but was then horrified to notice that the
man sitting next to her so dedicated to his reading, was actually
browsing through a soft porn publication. One quick glance told her all
she needed to know. She wondered if there was a law against reading
such materials in public. She shivered to think of those poor young
women lured into revealing their private parts so audaciously. The
sadness swamped her. That she should be seated next to such a
man.
Sometimes it happens slowly, but today the pain is coming much more
quickly. The burning is deep in her heart and it consumes her.
"I'll have to get of the bus" she gasps. Of course it is well before
her stop, but the enclosed space is unbearable.
"Excuse me. Excuse me." She lurches at the standing passengers who part
and make way for her, aware that she is clutching her chest. The
conductress escorts her down off the bus and sits her down on a
conveniently nearby bench.
"What's the matter love? Shall I call an ambulance? "
"No, no. It's just my angina. I'll rest here and take one of my pills,
if you can find them in my bag for me. Then I'll give my daughter a
ring. There, look I'm better now."
Faces press against the window of the bus, all wanting to get a view.
Some look at watches, impatient to get the bus going again. Some sit
down again, seeing the old lady revived.
"You got money for the telephone?" says the conductress, pointing down
the road to where the telephone box is.
"Yes, yes. I'm alright now."
The man with the magazine has brought out her shopping bag and places
it beside her.
"Thank you."
The bus moves away. No one looks around now.
For a long time she just sits still, holding her handbag on her lap
with one hand tightly and her shopping bag handle with the other, like
she is on the bus after all. Gradually as the effect of the pill kicks
in, she loosens her thoughts and she finds herself thinking of the
weather. It isn't a bad day. She didn't need her coat, her lined
mackintosh would have been enough. Her feet are a bit hot in those
bootees, but she's got her slippers in the bag for later at Maureen's.
There's a scruffy little sparrow landed on the arm of the bench. She
notices him.
"Hello my little fella. What's your day been like sweetheart? Come to
mummy."
The bird stares head on one side, but does not reply.
Her pain has eased down now, as the magic little pill takes effect. She
has a puff on her inhaler too. She's always been better out in the open
during an attack. This time it had been short and sharp, leaving her
weak, but calm because of it. If she didn't get so worried about things
it would help. She knew that too. But how can you just there and just
accept it all? She'd done her bit, bringing up Maureen and Dennis. She
taught them to be proud and respectful. She gloats over Maureen's
elegant house and possessions, never mind that Dennis was over the
other side of the world and never wrote. Maureen was enough for any
mother. Maureen took her out to concerts and even once to a play. It
was very modern, or at least she thought that it must have been,
because she didn't understand a word of it. There had been some dear
little Irish dancers come on in the middle of it and that had been
lovely. Maureen had sat very upright and when the Irish dancers came on
she had patted her mother's knee. She liked going out with Maureen very
much.
The sparrow flitted back onto the arm of the bench.
"Well my little man. I can't sit here forever, can I? I'll have to give
my Maureen a ring in a minute. Did you find a bite to eat? Did
you?"
She puts her hand out to touch the bird, but it's off and away before
she hardly moves.
"Time must be getting on. Must make a move. No good sitting here
dreaming. Come on Elsie shift yourself."
But no matter how much she tells herself, her legs don't want to
support her and she doesn't seem able to get up.
"My you look pale dear. Are you alright?"
A woman has sat down on the bench next to her. She smiles and says yes,
she's O.K. and will be going to phone her daughter soon to pick her
up.
"I've just had a bad turn myself" starts the woman, not looking up at
the other.
"I can't work it out what happened really. It was in the supermarket. A
dreadful thing..." and she breaks off mid-flow and is suddenly
sobbing.
"Oh dear, I'm sorry."
Elsie finds her another tissue from the little packet she always
carries in her pocket.
"Oh dear whatever must you think of me? It's so rude to bother you like
this."
"No love, don't you mind me. You just carry on. You've go tot get it
off your chest, haven't you? Better out than in, as they say."
Elsie found herself hoping that it wasn't going to be a long story or
too sordid. She knew that Maureen would by now be worried, as it was
well past midday. The woman had been talking for sometime before Elsie
tuned in again.
"and it came to far more than I had expected and I wrote my last cheque
and packed it all away into the bags and I was just leaving when there
was this awful scream. It felt like the bottom of the world had dropped
out and everything was floating in suspension. Then there came a rush
of people back through the entrance and I got out of there..didn't even
take my shopping"
It was difficult for Elsie to get any sort of grasp of what had
happened to this woman. Something about shopping and something about
screaming. She was losing patience. She could see that this woman had a
watch on and tried to angle her head so that she could see the time
without being obvious. The woman looked distantly at Elsie and realized
that she had been talking for a long time. She didn't even remember
when she had started. It was hard to stop, but the old lady had plainly
had enough.
"I'm going to ask you to help me to get along to that telephone box now
dear. I've got to phone my daughter and get her to pick me up if you
wouldn't mind."
So the woman took her by the arm and helped her up. She was still
talking, but Elsie wasn't listening to her. She was having to
concentrate hard on keeping herself steady.

"Mother! Oh Mother! Wherever have you got to? Where are you? I've been
worried sick love. You go and sit down and I'll be there in a
flash."

The mighty heart poundeth within the bosom.
A rescue mission for the Huntress.
The keys. Where are the bloody keys?
A quick look in the kitchen mirror, a puffing up of the hair and she is
gone from the house. Her faithful steed is waiting to roar into action.
Manoeuvres on this occasion are made with gusto. Some of the rules of
the highway may be disobeyed.
"Oh Mother! For God's sake be alright. I can't bear it if you're
not."
The wheels screech to a halt as, only at the last minute does the red
light register in her mind. Nothing behind, thank goodness. Another
quick look in the rear view mirror to check her hair and the lights
have changed again.
"I will soon be there. Do not fear. You will soon be safely in my car
and on you way."
Her head is tossed back and her eyes search well ahead, ready for any
manoeuvre that may be required.
"I'm coming"
Soon the rescue mission nears its close as the car turns into a main
road and there sitting on a bench near a telephone box is a little old
lady in a beige mackintosh. The car is quickly pulled in at the bus
stop and a tall proud looking woman emerges.
"Hello mum."
"Hello Maureen."