‘Is that a gun in your pocket?’
‘Silly me. Of course it is. I thought I left it out the back.’
‘So I don’t need to go chasing off for a spare.’
‘No. Not now.’
Half past nine, my weekly shift with Noreen. The back room is a clutter as usual with the clothes steamer blocking the emergency exit, several mystery bags waiting for collection by customers who promised to come back in half an hour two weeks ago, the two ends of a 1970s bed, an incomplete set of ancient encyclopaedias and the card machine teetering on its window ledge. I glance at the sink. Three dirty teacups and a stained coffee mug waiting for me to deal with them and no washing up liquid left. Downstairs the cellar is an absolute tip, stinks of old underwear and mouldy shoes. The men have been in early again and just dumped everything. You can barely squeeze between burst bags and collapsing boxes. Somebody has to make a start on all this and the manager isn’t in today - off on a jolly with the bloke at Head Office. He’s supposed to be ordering stationery and getting our ID badges updated.. I’ve been improvising price labels for weeks now.
‘Noreen, do you want to sort or tag?’
‘What’s it like down there?’
‘Usual.’
‘Urrgghh. OK, I’ll have a go. You get cracking on the clothes then. A lot of the old stuff needs to go out for the ragman today, and the rest needs re-pricing.’
We swap. Back on the shop floor I coax a wayward string of plastic barbs into the tagging gun and spear a home-made label. Blood oozes onto the counter, staining an immaculate pair of evening gloves bright scarlet. I swear. I’m mopped and bandaged just in time for the first influx.
‘Hallo Mrs. Dickson. Seen something you like?’
‘I had to bring that pink top back you sold me last week. I want to change it for another one.’
Hey-ho. She does this every single week. Meanwhile she is rummaging through the necklaces again and getting them into an impossible tangle while I try to find Darren a decent pair of jeans now his benefits cheque has come through.
‘Noreen!’ I hope she can hear me. A waft of cigarette smoke round the door, a flapping hand, the prematurely aged face grimacing at the filling shop. Somehow we get through the unruly queue of bargain-hunters with only one box set of Star Wars going missing. The phone’s going.
‘I’ll get that.’ Noreen’s ears aren’t all that good so I do the phone. I abandon her to the next melee.
‘Hallo? Help The Hopeless?’
It’s John the manager.
‘Sorry John - Noreen needs to use the card machine, can we be quick?’
‘Is that Jean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jean, can you ring round everybody and get them in tomorrow morning at nine?’
‘Why? That’s far too early for some people.’
‘I’m coming straight back today. Very exciting news. I need you all there.’
‘Noreen really needs the line ...’
‘OK. OK. See you all tomorrow.’ I hang up. Noreen and her blowsy customer pounce on the card machine and I can’t get on with the phoning till the very end of a typically hectic three hours. I’ve had no time to sort the clothes rails and the place looks like a jumble sale. But takings are good.
Nine am on the dot. A gaggle of grey-haired volunteers hunch in the doorway trying to keep out of the forecast downpours. Selina arrives with a key and we all pile into the shop, coats and brollies making puddles on the floor. John’s late of course. His Merc is illegally parked.
‘Good morning everyone!’
We wait.
‘Well - I spent most of yesterday discussing a very exciting initiative for Help The Hopeless charity shops. Guess who’s coming to see us?’
We can’t.
‘Mary Portas!’
There’s a stunned silence.
‘We’re having a makeover. We’re restyling as Boutiques.’
Hail hurls itself at the plate glass. There’s a deluge of questions. When is she coming? How long will it take? What about costs? Will we have to cut staff? Will the customers like it? Will we be on TV?
She comes down the following week. My morning. There’s this almost insultingly tall, dominant woman striding around my shelves tutting at the tacky display, swinging her expensively cut fiery hair over the still unsorted rails. People are constantly banging on the door despite the Closed notice. John is hovering, obsequious in an aura of Hugo Boss.
‘Jean is it? Can you pop out to Caffé Nero and get me a flat white?’
Get your own flipping coffee, I grumble to myself as I shiver by the crossing lights.
Back in the warm, Noreen and I earwig on the strategy meeting over mugs of weak Nescafé. All the stock must go (where???) and we start over. The horrible polystyrene ceiling tiles come down and we get plasterers in. We need concealed lighting and trendy magenta walls and creative shelving and hardly any rails because we’ll be selling quality rather than quantity, and the window display will now be professionally done - she knows a wonderful little man only an hour’s drive away who is so affordable we can’t ignore him. The back room has to be refitted to meet Health and Safety regulations, we need a dedicated line for the card machine, and the cellar will be disinfected, fitted, and painted Huntington White. Oh - and we’ll have to get used to a digital till. She has other things to do for the next three weeks but she’ll be back on the 29th to see her beautiful new boutique with its intake of younger staff, and greet its first customers.
Three weeks and I haven’t been able to get near the shop. It’s covered in flowery hoardings. I’m really missing it. My old ladies will have no-one to talk to. Darren can’t tell me if the jeans were OK. Haven’t seen Noreen, who seems to have gone to earth though she coughs in my dreams. A few of us have been meeting for coffee here and there to catch up on any news. What I hear is worrying. Old Sylvia was in tears when I saw her last week - she’s had a letter. So have Paula and Ricky.
Now it’s D-Day or should I say P-Day and it seems the whole town has clogged our corner of the High Street for the big reveal. It’s ridiculous that we should have to fight our way through the Police presence, the local Media, the assembled bigwigs, catching our clothes on chains of office, stumbling over bags and dogs just to get to work. Here’s Noreen; she rolls her eyes at the crowd as we step past the gleaming fascia and tasteful window with its single designer dress into an alien purple cave. Here’s Mary, smiling like the Cheshire Cat as she snips the required ribbon and poses for dozens of cameras. Here’s John, grinning in the background, disguising exhaustion. And who are these? Slips of girls in black leggings and tiny skirts both on their phones, draped over each other for selfies at that terrifying till. Then it’s all champagne and canapes and people fighting for pricey vintage they don’t really need until mid-afternoon and Mary has to go. Her car has displaced John’s - no-one has booked her. We are starving for real food, leave John with the dispersing mob to shut up shop, and escape for fish and chips.
Yes it all looks very nice. Very swish. But for a month now Help The Hopeless has been almost empty. I saw Darren’s face at the window one morning - and then he vanished. Mrs Dickson came in just the once, complained about the prices, and left without even exchanging anything. We have got used to the till, but it crashes at least twice a week so we have to keep paying a techie to fix it. John’s worried sick - takings have plummeted and donations have almost dried up. Most of the fancy stuff Mary Portas brought down with her from London still adorns the shelves and carousels; the locked glass display was broken into one Sunday and all our high-value goods were stolen.
‘Noreen?’
‘Yes?’
‘Fancy a mutiny?’
‘What do you have in mind, Jean?’
‘There’s a nice cane rubbish basket out the back by the phone, right under that poster of Ms. Portas. You haven’t had a cigarette break yet this morning, have you? I’m sure I don’t mind if you light up with your morning coffee, John’s out, and I have no idea where we might find an ashtray in this God-forsaken hole.’
‘Get your drift, Jean.’
Thirty minutes later we are in the embrace of the tardily summoned Emergency Services. A fireball rises into the winter air, and what’s left of Help The Hopeless Boutique thunderously caves in like the set of a disaster movie. ‘Oooooh!’ goes the crowd.
‘Selfie?’ says Noreen.
1500 words