Part Four – Harry’s Shoppe

Today I share Part Four of ‘Stookey Hill’ – meet Harry, owner of the local mini-mart!

Part Four – Harry’s Shoppe

Harry Dinkum had bought the modest premises he now occupied in the spring of ’77. After a whirlwind romance with the woman who later became his wife, Bettina, he spent his entire inheritance on No. 43 Stookey Hill. Initially he had no intention of living out the rest of his years in it, since he believed that he was quite the entrepreneur at heart.

Prior to this purchase, however, he had owned an ice-cream van and did a fairly decent trade in what was highly suspected by the more wary of locals to be stolen goods. After all, most whipped ice-cream is not passed on via unmarked brown boxes. However, he vehemently denied it and no one ever did anything other than spread sceptical gossip so that was that really.

However, one brush with the law in 1982 scared him sufficiently to ensure all his future business endeavours were upright and he ran what turned out to be a moderately successful one-stop-shop.

Bettina used a back room to cut hair and had a similarly moderate income from a clientele who were growing old with her. She joked that some of them soon wouldn’t even have any of their own hair left to cut. It was a joke that didn’t always land well. Especially with Mr Emerson who was bald on the top and only came for a quick trim around the ears. He also thought twelve pounds was steep for the snipping of what was very little hair, but he came really for the banter. Bettina was a hoot.

For the most part, Harry saw regulars too. He was competing with the ‘big’ supermarket at the far end of the street, one of the huge retailers that had their ‘suburb’ shops, selling everything at a price Harry couldn’t compete with. But between loyalty, laziness and the desire to ‘not let the corporate giants win’, Harry did a good enough trade.

One of his favourite regulars was Mrs Dorado from across the street. She came in most days, bought a lot of bread and ham and wasn’t above eating a few out-of-date baked goods here and there. In fact it was because of Mrs Dorado he started selling those small half-loaves. She used to complain about how much she had to throw away because the small freezer compartment above her fridge wouldn’t store it.

He liked to think of himself as a bit of a philanthropist – a man of the people. He couldn’t stand that Alan Limpton, though, who thought it was money that made you that. No, it was kindness and thoughtfulness and the good of your own heart. Even if Bettina did laugh when he said that, saying he wasn’t as much a man of the people as much as he was a man who liked to make a sale. He thought these things could both be true, but she just laughed even more. Hurt his feelings a little bit.

Anyway, he sold a lot of those mini-loaves and that was good enough for him.

It was one Tuesday morning when the bell jangled and he looked up to see Mrs Dorado struggling in with her wheeled shopper. He didn’t know why she grappled with it so. It had only three functioning wheels, and the handle had been duct-taped to death, so that she would stand and pick residue off her hands while she caught him up with the events of the last twenty four hours. She also only bought a few items, which she then dropped into the bottom of the shopper and no doubt struggled to reach once she was back at home.

“Morning, Mrs D!” he exclaimed, looking up from his newspaper. He liked to read the newspaper. Well, look as though he was. He read some headlines, checked the sports fixtures and then did the puzzles. Except he was yet to finish one. He didn’t usually get the ones where the words had more than seven letters.

“Harry!” Mrs Dorado was wrestling the shopper in backwards and one corner of it appeared caught in the jamb of the door. The electronic detector above it kept pinging the door open at which point she tried to pull it through, then once it could no longer detect her, it closed again. So there she was, bouncing in and out of the door making no progress.

“Do you need help?” Harry looked at her over his spectacles. Like the paper, they were there for show. They were actually his Uncle Terry’s who, rest his soul, had passed on last Spring. In a moment of silliness, Harry had tried them on and, upon checking his reflection in the mirror, decided they made him look intelligent. He didn’t ask Bettina what she thought. She didn’t even seem to notice that he intermittently donned a pair of glasses that looked like relics from the fifties.

“Nope, I’ve got it,” said Mrs Dorado, deciding to exit entirely before trying again. To no avail as the shopper did not exit with her and, instead, crunched in the door as it closed once more.

Harry took his glasses off and decided that despite her protestations, she did need help. The door opened on his approach and he bent to inspect it. Mrs Dorado, slightly put out that he had come to help her – she considered herself to be fiercely independent – decided to pull the shopper. Harry pulled it the other way. What then ensued was a ridiculous back and forth tug-of-war as to the two determined that they would be the one to fix it.

“Here, kick this bit,” John Skipton, who always stopped mid-morning for a hot sausage roll, booted the shopper and kicked it clean through the door. It teetered on its three wheels for a moment before landing on one side. It was intact but definitely a little scruffier for its scuffle with the automatic door.

“Thanks,” Mrs Dorado grumbled, leaning to pick it off the floor. But John Skipton was gone. He only had one motive and that was an overcooked sausage wrapped in ever-so-slightly blackened pastry.

“Bread?” asked Harry, reaching for his glasses so as to resume his intellectual appearance.

“Yes, and ham. I didn’t like the breaded ham, though. The yellow stuff round the edge was not good,” Mrs Dorado followed Harry to the refrigerator cabinets.

“That’s the bread bit of the breaded ham,” Harry said, peering in to see what deli options he had.

“It looked like something you get an ointment to treat,” Mrs Dorado said, shuddering at the thought, “and there weren’t as many pieces in it as the honey roast…”

“There are eight slices in all the packs,” said Harry, trying to rummage around for what would be an acceptable packet. Mrs Dorado had virtually impossible ham standards. Not too much fat, no bits that looked streaky and no spongey bits – whatever they were. Oh, and now apparently no breaded crumb.

“Well, there were not eight slices in that last one, there were…” Mrs Dorado’s voice trailed off. Maybe, she thought, the electric man had them like that last one who had stolen ham…did he take her money and her ham…

“I’ve left a couple of quid here, Harry, I can’t wait any longer. I’ll get my change later!” John Skipton shouted across the shop.

Harry rolled his eyes. Yes, he had best make sure he came back for his two pence. Maybe he could sell John Skipton some patience too.

“I’ll take that one,” said Mrs Dorado, plucking a packet from Harry’s hand and then waving it at him to shoo him away.

Harry resumed his spot behind the counter, ringing through the £1.98 sausage roll and placing a two pence piece on the cash register for later when John would inevitably be back.

Kelly from The Frog and Cricket came in for some cough sweets, then Gloria (or Glorious Gloria as she was known locally – more on that another time) came for the paper and a few sundries. She had a brief natter with Mrs Dorado as they talked about the weather and how the nights were drawing in and then left. Mrs Dorado laid out the three items she had: bread, honey roast ham and a pint of milk.

“Much else on today Mrs D?” he asked as she rifled through her pockets to retrieve her money.

“No, not much. Mark will be home for his lunch,” she pointed at her purchases as though that explained lunch, before dropping them into the bottom of her shopper.

Harry just nodded. He wasn’t very keen on that Mark chap. He had a shifty look about him. Gave him the heebie-jeebies. Although this was mostly based on the funeral. Or memorial, as it was.

The late Julio Dorado, Mark’s father, had died many years ago. Harry couldn’t quite remember how many years – ten? Fifteen? Anyway, Julio had mysteriously disappeared one night. He had a canal barge which wasn’t tied up where it should have been. It hound been found drifting dangerously close to the locks with no one on it. The assumption had been that Julio had drowned, but there was never a body. No sign of him anywhere. There had, of course, been some local speculation that maybe he had run off. But there was no evidence of that. He had just disappeared, assumed dead.

The memorial, from Harry’s perspective, had been a strange affair. Mrs Dorado had, understandably, sobbed throughout. Less explainable was the intermittent pausing in the sobbing to send a text message. But Mark…there was something off about Mark. Harry liked to think he could sense these things. Spidey-sense! He would joke. Bettina thought that was funny and told him he was too plump to be a superhero. That made him smart a little but she wasn’t wrong.

“Yes, but some things I just know,” he said, tapping his head knowingly. That just made her laugh even more though.

But that Mark – yes, something amiss.

“Why, though?” his pal Grimby said when they sat with a pint up at the bar of The Frog and Cricket, “everyone mourns in different ways.”

“I know, I know,” Harry traced the top of his pint glass with his finger, “but I tell you…one day we’ll find out.”

Grimby just nodded, taking a gulp from his Guinness while both of them considered the possibilities. Of course, as it turned out, the reality was something they had never concocted in their wildest dreams.