The Sweet-Shop Owner by Graham Swift Page B

you know, that belongs to one of Father’s friends?’ But the fence was broken now, the rows of trees had not been pruned since the beginning of the war.
    Victory, victory. But not for her. Along the path by the privet hedges and blossoming trees her face had tensed, as if to a vigil still to be maintained. Hancock? Was it Hancock? With his false fighter-pilot’s moustache. ‘Watch him,’ old Jones had said. But when he asked, ‘What was all that about?’ she only said, ‘That nonsense? Some day I’ll tell you.’
    Later, up in the bedroom, she said suddenly, spreading her legs: ‘All right.’
    Victory. But not for Mr Harrison, sinking slowly, surely in his coma, till he died in the small hours the following morning. ‘Peacefully,’ said the hospital. ‘Peace’, said the gravestone in St Stephen’s churchyard. That was Irene’s word: Peace. And had he found it, old Harrison, while his daughter stood, on the eve of victory, by his deathbed? For he’d leave the house to Mrs Harrison (she wouldn’t want it – a month after the funeral she’d go to live with Aunt Mad) and the flagging laundry to Paul (far away, in the Far East, where victory was yet to come); but the money, most of the money would be hers.
    The searchlight Vs waved over the apple boughs. And what was that, from behind the fence? Voices in the grass.

II
 

14
    As the clock showed half-past ten she opened the shop door. She stood for a moment in her white T-shirt, with buttons at the front, and blue skirt that barely hid her bottom, flipping back her brown hair, glancing at them with that look that said (in answer to everything): ‘So what?’
    Well now we would see, thought Mrs Cooper, looking along the counter, whether he’d give her what she deserved or not.
    Though she knew, of course, he wouldn’t. He indulged her, this brazen little seventeen-year-old. Pretended not to notice her idleness and impudence; treated her cheek almost with kindness, while her own long devotion he met merely with civility. ‘Thank you Mrs Cooper. That’s kind Mrs Cooper.’ ‘Mrs Cooper’ indeed! And he’d called that child ‘Sandra’ after only a week.
    She watched him. He was counting out change but he had one eye on the girl.
    ‘Sorry I’m late.’ The girl grinned, unapologetically, and spoke in that slack, rubbery way which seemed to go with the chewing gum she continually worked and tugged around her mouth, making little sticky noises. ‘Got held up.’
    She lifted the flap in the counter and passed through the gap, holding her stomach in and making small, sideways movements with her feet – an unnecessary performance, only designed to demonstrate her slimness.
    ‘You’ll get held up one of these days,’ Mrs Cooper said.
    ‘Yeh?’
    Then she went into the stock room, slipping off her shoulder bag, to fetch her shop coat. Which she hardlyneeded, of course. Hers was pink, in contrast to Mrs Cooper’s dark blue. When she’d first got it she’d taken it home and raised the hem six inches. And once – it was a hot day three weeks ago, just like today – she’d stripped to her underwear to wear only the shop coat on top. Mrs Cooper had gone into the stock room and there she was in her knickers. It might have been Mr Chapman who’d walked in.
    Held up indeed.
    And still he said nothing. Soft as they come. Only now, with the girl out of sight, pretending to busy himself at the counter, did he say, in the most unsevere way: ‘You’re getting held up rather too often Sandra.’ Mrs Cooper caught his eye, pursing her lips. Sack the girl, tell her to beat it. But he looked back with that dim, imperturbable gaze. What was up with him today? She blinked. It ought to be easy to tell a man like him what to do. But it wasn’t.
    Sandra emerged from the stock room fastening the buttons of her shop coat.
    ‘Morning Mrs Cooper.’ She overcame a yawn.
    Mrs Cooper stiffened. (Mr Chapman, looking on, anticipated the reply):
    ‘I suppose it
is
still