The Shooting in the Shop

Four

Jude was already away cooing at the array of discounted goods that Gallimaufry had to offer, so Carole thought she’d better join in. She was still slightly upset by her neighbour’s reaction to her proposed presents for Gaby and Stephen, but at least she’d show willing by looking for alternatives.

“Perfect!” squealed Jude as her friend approached. She had perched a tinsel crown on her head, and she was holding up a box whose contents were a sudoku jigsaw puzzle. Carole thought it was a pointless present. Her mental workouts were with words rather than numbers. Now, if they made a jigsaw of The Times crossword, that might have engaged her attention. Except, of course, you could only answer the clues once, and when you’d done that, all you’d be stuck with was a jigsaw.

“It’s the perfect present!” Jude continued.

“For whom?”

“Georgie.”

Carole had a rule with herself, that she would never ask for information about her neighbour’s friends. If such information was volunteered, fine, but she didn’t want to appear curious. It was a rule she broke frequently, as she did now, asking instinctively, “Who’s Georgie?”

“Former client of mine. Came with a terrible pain in the neck.”

“And you cured her of it. You healed her?” asked Carole, failing to keep her distaste out of the word.

“Well, she got better. I think getting divorced probably was more effective than anything I did for her. Her husband was the real pain in the neck. Anyway…” Jude rattled the box – “Georgie’s hooked on numbers. She’ll love this.”

Carole couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Well, I wouldn’t like it.”

“Nor would I. But that’s the point about presents. They aren’t meant to appeal to you. They’re meant to appeal to the recipient. And this particular jigsaw will suit Georgie down to the ground.”

“Good,” said Carole flatly. Then a new thought came to her. “Is Georgie going to be at your open house?”

“Possibly. I think I invited her.” Yet more inappropriate vagueness about the serious matter of giving a party. “But I’m spending Christmas Day with her. First one she’s had without the husband around. Which in one way makes her quite ecstatic, and in another way worried about being lonely. So I said I’d join her.”

This was new information. Jude had said she was Christmassing in Fethering, without being more specific about exactly where in Fethering. But Carole didn’t comment, instead focusing her attention on the potential presents on display. She couldn’t see anything that came within a mile of suitability for either her son or daughter-in-law. Who could possibly want a wind-up skeleton? Or an apron in the pattern of a Friesian cow? Or a Russian Father Christmas doll, inside which was a smaller Russian Father Christmas doll, inside which was an even smaller Russian Father Christmas doll, inside which…? Yes, Gallimaufry really was a place for people with more money than sense.

On the other hand, the discounted prices were not bad. Assuming, of course, that there was an appropriate price for something you wouldn’t give houseroom to.

“Oh, look, these are great!” Jude enthused.

“What on earth are they?”

“They’re finger puppets of famous philosophers. Look!” And in no time one of Jude’s hands was playing host to Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein.

“But what use are they? Who could possibly need anything like that?”

“‘Oh, reason not the need!’” Jude quoted. “King Lear got it right, you know. If we stuck only to what we needed, life would be a very dull business. It’s the things we don’t need that make it bearable.”

“I thought you were supposed to have green principles.”

“What on earth gave you that idea?”

“Well, come on, Jude, you’re into healing and wind-chimes and essential oils and joss sticks and crystals and – ”

“And all other kinds of New Age mumbo-jumbo?”

“Now I didn’t say that.”

“No, because I saved you the trouble.” There was the shadow of a grin on Jude’s rounded face. She enjoyed these sparring sessions with her neighbour. For her they contained a strong element of teasing, and even Carole didn’t take them quite as seriously as she used to. “Anyway,” Jude went on, “just because I believe in some things you don’t believe in, it doesn’t mean I believe in everything you don’t believe in.”

“So you’re not worried about saving the planet?”

“Yes, I am, but not to the exclusion of everything else. I don’t want to save a planet that ends up dull because nobody allows themselves any kind of indulgence. It’s the little embellishments of life that make it worth living. And those embellishments needn’t be expensive. There’s an old Chinese proverb – ”

“Is there?” said Carole, with a sniff that summed up completely her view of old Chinese proverbs.

“Yes. It says, ‘If I had one penny left in the world, I would spend half of it on bread, and the other half on flowers.’”

Carole sniffed again. “The penny isn’t legal tender in China. It never has been.”

“I think the proverb may have been translated for English audiences.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway…” Jude’s brown eyes twinkled as she waved her hand, wiggling Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein in front of her neighbour’s face. “Do you think these’d be suitable?”

“Suitable for what?”

“As presents.”

“For whom?”

“For Stephen or Gaby?” Jude replied innocently, precisely aware of the response her words would attract.

She was not disappointed. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Well,” said Jude, full of mock-penitence, “you know them so much better than I do. I was just thinking something like this” – another wiggle of philosophers – “might appeal to their sense of humour.”

Carole wondered momentarily whether her son had a sense of humour. Gaby did, she felt sure, and Stephen had relaxed so much since their marriage that maybe by now he had developed one too. Maybe a sense of humour was contagious, like chicken pox.

“I think,” she said, “I’m going to do better sticking to the M and S shirts for Stephen.”

“Well, all right, but you still can’t give Gaby toilet water.”

Carole grudgingly conceded that there might be some truth in that. She looked around at the display of discounted knick-knacks with something approaching despair. “But I still haven’t a clue what would be right for her.”

“It’s always struck me,” Jude began tentatively, not wishing to be too pushy with her suggestions, “that Gaby’s full of fun. She’s got a very bubbly personality.” Carole agreed that this was the case. “She’s also very girly in some ways.”

“Ye-es.”

“So I think you should give her something to put on.”

“Clothes, you mean? But I don’t know her size.” Carole anxiously surveyed the hanging garments in Eastern silks, crumpled linen and PVC. “I wouldn’t begin to know what Gaby would like to wear.”

“Oh, come on, you’ve seen her enough times. You know the kind of stuff she likes.”

Carole tried to focus on what her daughter-in-law did actually wear. Jeans and sweatshirts mostly these days, as she spent most of her time at home looking after the baby. While she was still working as a theatrical agent, Gaby had had a couple of dauntingly businesslike trouser suits, but those hadn’t seen the light of day since Lily’s birth.

“She likes sparkly things,” Jude prompted.

Yes, now Carole came to think of it, a lot of Gaby’s tops did have glittery designs on them. And she wore quite a bit of costume jewellery in what her mother-in-law would have described as diamanté. “So you’re saying I should get her a brooch or something?”

“No, I’m saying you should give her something frivolous. Something like this perhaps?” Jude’s hand, by now denuded of Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, reached up to pull something down from its hook. It was a six-foot long stole formed by sprays of feathers alternately white and silver.

Carole scrutinized the object. “Well, it wouldn’t be very warm, you know, as scarves go.”

“It’s not a scarf, it’s a boa.”

“Maybe, but what for?”

“For fun!” Jude replied with something approaching exasperation. “For when Gaby wants to glam herself up a bit. For when she wants to forget that she’s a wife and mother and remind herself she’s a girl.”

Carole continued to look dubiously at the boa. “Do you think she’ll like it, though?”

“I’m sure she will. And I can guarantee that Lily will like it too. In a few years’ time she’ll be using it for dressing up.”

The granddaughter argument swayed Carole, and when she looked at the cost of the boa, she was won over completely. Originally, it had been twenty-five pounds, which would definitely have come under her definition of overpriced. But that had been slashed to ten pounds, and then a further reduction had been made to four pounds fifty. Carole decided she had found Gaby’s present.

Emboldened by this success, she started wavering about the Marks and Spencer shirts for Stephen.

“You could still give them to him,” Jude suggested, “so that he doesn’t die of shock at not getting them after all these years. But then you could give him something else as well.”

“What kind of ‘something else’?” asked Carole suspiciously.

“Something frivolous.”

“Stephen’s never going to wear a feather boa.”

“No, I know he’s not,” Jude replied, though she couldn’t deny that the image was quite amusing. “But there are other frivolous things in here.”

Carole looked around the shop. In her view, a Santa Claus Willy Warmer was simply in bad taste. And she wouldn’t have dared to be present when Stephen opened such a thing. Nor was she attracted by a key ring with a small Rubik’s cube attached. The combined digital stopwatch and bottle opener didn’t do much for her either. And as for the thought of giving anyone a sumptuously boxed, gold-plated Belly Button Fluff Extractor…

“Maybe I should just stick to the shirts…” she announced uncertainly.

“No, Carole, don’t give up so easily. Put yourself in Stephen’s shoes for a moment. What would he like? What are his interests?”

“Work, mostly.”

“And his work involves…?”

“Money and computers, in some combination which I have never quite worked out.”

“Well, I’m sure Lola stocks something for computer buffs.”

“I doubt it. This isn’t a technology shop.”

“Ah, look, the very thing!” Jude swooped on a basket full of wind-up toys. “A Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel!”

“What?” asked Carole weakly, as the package was thrust towards her. Under a plastic bubble there was a translucent green plastic figure of an angel. Printed above it were the words: “Your Computer Angel deals with all your computer problems, glitches and viruses. Just wind her up and her flapping wings will spread her protection over your desktop or laptop. And when you turn the lights off, your Computer Angel will glow in the dark.”

“How does it work?” asked Carole.

“Blind faith.”

“No, I mean how does it work as anti-virus protection?” After long resistance to the idea of computers, Carole had recently become something of an expert on the subject. “There isn’t a software CD with it, as far as I can see. And it doesn’t have a USB plug.”

“Carole,” said Jude patiently, “it’s a joke. It’s just a fun thing. To bring a smile on Christmas Day to the face of a computer obsessive like Stephen.”

Her neighbour still didn’t look convinced. But then she saw the price tag: £7.50 reduced to £4.00, then reduced again to £1.50.

As she paid for her purchases, Carole and Anna at the till exchanged half-smiles, as if to say, “Yes, we have seen each other before.” But neither took the opportunity to embark on conversation.

And so Carole completed her Christmas shopping. Which meant that, as well as the Marks and Spencer shirts, Stephen Seddon would shortly be the proud owner of a Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel.