A Random Act of Kindness

by Sophie Jenkins

  ‘David Westwood.’ I even like his name. ‘He’s got the stall next to mine. He’s already in a relationship, so don’t look at me like that.’

  ‘But is it serious, though?’

  ‘Yes. Absolutely. She encouraged him to follow his dream.’

  Lucy ponders on this for a moment. ‘Got to be straight with you, Fern, it doesn’t sound like he’s the one, either. If you mainly like him for his shoes, I think you’re on safe ground, though. There are plenty of brown shoe-wearers in London.’

  I’m thinking about these words of wisdom when I get to the market early the next day and my look is dishevelled bohemia; a comforting floral maxidress that covers me up from my neck to my feet. The weather’s getting warmer and I’m hoping it’ll be busy, to distract me from my heartache. As the sun warms up the canvas, the smell reminds me of festivals, which in its turn reminds me of Mick.

  David comes just before nine with his trolley stacked with boxes.

  ‘Good holiday?’ he asks with a smile.

  ‘Not really, no,’ I say, folding a cashmere sweater. I glance at him quickly, curling my hair around my ear. ‘My boyfriend, Mick, broke up with me.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looks dismayed. He reaches out and pats my arm slightly awkwardly as if it’s something he’s not used to doing. ‘Sorry to hear it.’

  He smells of limes and spearmint and I feel strangely consoled by the gesture.

  As he sets up his stall, a woman coming along the alley grabs my attention. She’s petite, wearing a red tunic, purple tights, a yellow baseball cap and a scarf in neon colours. It’s a bold look, because nothing goes with anything, but what strikes me is that she’s not wearing her clothes proudly; there’s something self-consciously apologetic about her hunched shoulders that intrigues me.

  She starts looking through the rack, pulling out black dresses. She sees me watching her and when I smile, she seems to come to a decision. ‘Can I just ask you for a bit of advice?’ she says, draping the black dresses over her arm.

  ‘Sure,’ I reply.

  ‘The thing is, I’m colour-blind.’

  ‘Ah, that explains it!’ I realise it’s not the most tactful comment and I’m about to apologise, when she laughs.

  ‘Crikey, do I look as bad as that? Okay, well, I’ve got a new job and I need a work wardrobe because I can’t tell if the clothes I’ve already got match, you know? I find it hard to work out colours. Can you tell me, what’s this tunic I’m wearing, grey or red?’

  ‘Red.’

  ‘Red? And these tights are green, aren’t they? Yikes, I must look like one of Santa’s elves.’

  ‘They’re purple.’

  ‘I never wear purple!’ She looks down at her legs. ‘I’m wearing purple? Shit!’

  I start to laugh. ‘What colours do you normally like?’

  She looks at me through her huge dark pupils. ‘Strong colours. Bright colours. But most colours look like mud now and yellow looks like white, so it’s hard to tell.’ Our conversation is interrupted by a cheery greeting.

  ‘Hi, Fern!’

  ‘Oh! Hi, Gigi!’ Her pink hair is tied up. She’s wearing a leopard print shirtdress and leopard print shoes. She’s holding David’s steel flask and she fake-hits him on the head with it.

  ‘Look what you forgot! He’s normally so sensible,’ she says, glancing back at me. ‘Aren’t you sensible, David?’

  ‘Very,’ he says impassively, but then he smiles.

  I turn back to my customer, who’s holding on to the black dresses. She asks to try them on, so I pin up the curtain while Gigi looks gleeful and gives me a double thumbs-up.

  The woman comes out and nods. ‘Yes, I’ll take them.’

  But I’m intrigued. ‘So you like bright colours but you have to wear black for work?’ I ask, knowing from personal experience what that feels like.

  ‘No, I don’t have to wear black, it’s not the dress code, but I thought it might be the answer to my colour problem. I’ll know where I am then. I can’t go wrong with black, can I?’

  ‘True. But you don’t generally wear it,’ I say.

  ‘No, I love colour.’ She moves the strap of her bag further up her shoulder. ‘I haven’t always had this problem with my sight – it came on gradually. My night vision went first. My boyfriend kept asking me why I was driving so slowly and why I was hunched over the steering wheel as if another six inches of vision was going to make any difference. I went to the opticians and he asked if I’d ever noticed that my pupils are always quite large.’ She laughs. ‘I always thought that was one of my good points.’

  I like her, not just because of her honesty, but also by just getting on with her life she’s given me some perspective on my own problems. She’s still holding the four dresses and I’m thrilled at the idea of making a sale this big, a sale that will put me into profit, but she’s so bubbly and open that I really want to help her.

  In my peripheral vision I can see Gigi taking a keen interest.

  ‘If it’s just the problem of colour, you don’t really need a new black work wardrobe, you just need to know what goes with what of the clothes you’ve already got, don’t you?’

  She chews her lip thoughtfully. ‘True. But my girlfriends aren’t much help. They tell me everything looks fine on me, nothing has to match, that nobody cares. But I care, you know?’

  I do know. ‘Me, too,’ I tell her. We like people who are like ourselves and she’s definitely like me.

  ‘I love what you’ve got on. Very Sixties,’ she adds, tongue in cheek. ‘Did you get up this morning and think, what would Twiggy wear?’

  ‘She’d wear Marks & Spencer,’ I reply, laughing. But I’ve got a plan. ‘Have you ever used a colour recognition app?’ I get out my phone, click on the app and focus it on her tunic. I show her the screen. ‘See? Flame red. You could get some iron-on nametapes and label everything in your wardrobe with the exact description of the colours so that you’ll always know what goes with what and what you’re wearing. Like if it’s pink, you could write down bubblegum pink or baby pink; or blues: indigo, navy, royal, denim, ultramarine, turquoise, topaz, sky, hyacinth, bluebell.’ I’m getting carried away with myself. ‘Well, it’s just an idea, anyway.’

  ‘But not black, you think?’

  ‘No, not black.’

  ‘Yes, okay, that would be amazing,’ she says softly, and she hangs up the dresses she’s holding and asks for my card. ‘Thanks. I’ll give it a go.’ I get her to write her details in my clients’ book – Hannah York – and I’m pleased to notice that I’ve now gone on to a new page.

  Once she’s gone, I stretch, feeling absurdly happy that I’ve been useful. But the feeling doesn’t last long. ‘What?’

  Gigi’s smirking, arms folded. She’s shaking her head. ‘Fern Banks,’ she says. ‘You’re not much of a businesswoman, are you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You just talked yourself out of a sale. She was going to buy those black dresses. Not just one of them, but all of them.’

  David blows a puff of sawdust off the wood. ‘Gigi—’

  She whirls round. ‘Yeah, Dave, I know. Tell me it’s none of my business.’

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ he says, but of course, Gigi’s right. I could have sold four dresses and I talked her out of it.

  The criticism stings, though. She’s right. What the hell’s wrong with me? I needed that money.

  ‘She wouldn’t suit black,’ I explain, trying to stick up for myself.

  ‘Who cares? A sale’s a sale. What did she write in that secret book you’ve got there? “Thanks, you mug”?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s my client book.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ Gigi flicks through it, and I have a flashback to school when she snatched my sketchbook from me once and held it out of reach before tossing it back to me, safe, I suppose, in the knowledge that there was nothing in it that would interest her.

  ‘Dave.’

  Dayve.

&nb
sp; He doesn’t look at her, he looks at me with understanding in his eyes.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘We’ve got to take her in hand.’

  Oh, the humiliation of it. ‘I don’t need taking in hand,’ I protest.

  ‘Trust me, you do, doesn’t she, Dave? My friends are always buying vintage. They make special shopping trips to some old flea market in Paris – you could put their names in your book, for starters. I know! Tell you what! You should come to my birthday! Dave, shouldn’t she come to my birthday?’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Dave, tell her she should come. It’ll be fun! Bring your boyfriend!’

  ‘Shut up, Gigi,’ David says.

  She gives him such a death stare that now I feel obliged to explain.

  ‘My boyfriend and I have just broken up,’ I tell her.

  She looks as dismayed as if she knew him personally. ‘Aw, Fern! Why?’

  ‘Incompatibility,’ I mumble, praying that she’ll drop it and leave me alone.

  ‘Well, that’s it. You’re coming to my party,’ she tells me in an ‘I’m not taking no for an answer’ tone of voice. ‘We’ve got the place for the weekend and it’s got a lake and swans and’ – she waves her hand vaguely – ‘sunsets.’

  Gigi, all abrim with self-confidence, is unlikely to understand that I’m not that crazy about partying at the moment, especially with strangers. While I’m thinking up another way to refuse, she says, ‘And I need to find something gorgeous to wear. Is this new stock?’

  Gigi looks through the clothes on my rail and at the ones hanging up – I hope she’ll like the Jaeger pleated skirts, because they’ve lost their appeal for me. She shows no interest in them but she likes a Seventies Ossie Clark dress that I bought on eBay. It’s a combination of yellow green and red, A-line, with a fitted black bodice, form-fitting and sexy. I’m really keen to sell it quickly.

  I pin up the curtain while she tries it on.

  When she comes out it’s too big on the bust and she looks down her cleavage as if she’s lost something. ‘Too loose,’ she says.

  Moss! ‘I could get it altered for you,’ I tell her smoothly, thinking about her friends, the vintage buyers. Hah! Who says I’m not much of a businesswoman! ‘Is that something you’d be interested in?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe, yeah. Depends. How long would it take?’

  ‘A couple of days,’ I say, chancing it. After all, he’s not that busy.

  She does a twirl for us in the shady alley and the dress billows out. She gets warm, admiring looks from passers-by – she’s got that kind of personality.

  ‘What do you think, David? If you can imagine it fits me perfectly?’

  He looks up briefly and his face relaxes. He smiles at her like a man in love. ‘It’s nice.’

  ‘There you go!’ she says to me, rolling her eyes. ‘Nice.’

  I laugh. I’ve met couples like this before, the ones who act as if they never get on when they really do.

  ‘So, my party. Give David your details and I’ll send you the invitation. Otherwise,’ Gigi says, with a pathos guaranteed to make me weep with self-pity, ‘you’ll be spending next weekend all alone. Fun is absolutely the best cure for a broken heart. Isn’t that right, David?’

  Again, he catches my eye in that deeply sincere gaze. ‘Yes. It’s a well-known cure.’

  He’s so lovely. ‘Well, actually, I work weekends,’ I say, kicking myself because I’d had the perfect excuse right there and I didn’t use it.

  ‘It’s just a couple of days – Dave’s taking the time off, aren’t you, Dave?’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ he says with exaggerated obedience.

  I want to explain that as I’ve just had a weekend off I have to catch up, but continuing with the argument makes it look as if either I’m enjoying being persuaded into it, or that I’ve made my mind up and I’m determined not to go whatever happens, and I hate that in a person.

  While Gigi changes back into her clothes, I call Moss and between us we arrange a time for the fitting.

  ‘Kiss kiss, kiss kiss!’ Gigi says with an airy wave and leaves us to take her Pilates class.

  Once she’s gone, I’ve noticed that David and I have fallen into some sort of comfortable, thoughtful silence, the same kind as when a boisterous child falls asleep and calm descends.

  He looks at me and smiles, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.

  KIM

  My son, George, comes here after work, by himself, to see how I’m holding up. He’s a good lad.

  My fifty-year-old lad.

  He hugs me. Pats me on the back. ‘How’re you doing, Dad?’ His voice is muffled.

  I pat him on the back. I say into his shoulder, ‘Oh, lad.’

  He puts the kettle on and while we drink our tea he asks me what needs doing, who I’ve informed.

  I’ve informed a lot of people. Him first, and the widows, and the undertakers, and Enid’s sister who lives in Philadelphia. I spent the day she died ringing people up.

  ‘How about the Pension Service, the insurance company, the Passport Office,’ George asks briskly.

  ‘No, no. Not yet,’ I add.

  ‘Don’t worry, I can do it. There’s a way we can do it all at once to save going over the same thing every time.’

  My lad, George.

  He knows all about this kind of thing. A long time ago, I gave him advice. And now, the tables have turned.

  ‘How about us getting you a computer?’ he says. ‘It’ll make your life easier.’

  ‘Easier, how?’

  ‘It’ll be easier to stay in touch with us, and the kids.’

  His grown-up children are kids in the same way my grown-up son is my lad.

  ‘It’ll open your eyes,’ he says. ‘There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored. You can find anything on the Internet.’

  I grunt. ‘Your mother said it was a filthy place.’

  George laughs. ‘That’s because she was a Daily Mail reader. You only find what you look for, so don’t worry about that. Have a look at my laptop.’

  He takes it out of his bag, sets it up on the table and switches it on. Suddenly, up pops a photograph of us all last Christmas, sitting around his table, six laughing adults, twenty-four glasses, red wine on the tablecloth, party hats askew, cracker trinkets scattered, the crumbling ruins of a Christmas pudding on a plate. Takes me by surprise. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘It’s my screensaver,’ he says, tapping the keys. ‘Right, Dad, what in the world would you like to know more about?’

  It’s a tall order.

  ‘The Himalayas,’ I say.

  ‘The Himalayas generally, or do you want a holiday there?’

  ‘I don’t mind. What have they got?’

  ‘Both … either,’ he shrugs. ‘Here you are, here’s a holiday company – look, you just click on it. See?’

  ‘As quick as that,’ I say.

  ‘Or look, here, here you’ve got all the facts about the Himalayas or the Himalaya. See?’

  I’m impressed. ‘What else has it got?’

  George laughs. ‘You name it, it’s on the Internet. If you want to take up a new hobby, this is the place to look.’

  Golf is my hobby, but I haven’t played since Stan went. Stan was a better player than me. We saw the game differently – for him it was about beating me, and for me it was about getting out of the house for a few hours and having a drink on the nineteenth. Partly, it was that for Stan, too, getting out of the house for a bit, having a break from being a husband for a few hours.

  Stan’s view was that games should be played to win. He could remember a club competition hole by hole, telling me about every shot. He was a fanatic. Never forgot a drive.

  ‘I might go back to the golf club,’ I say.

  Tap-tap-tap-click, and there’s the clubhouse and the opening hours and the greens. And despite what the Daily Mail says, no sign of anything that would make Enid blush.
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br />   ‘Anyway, Dad, it’s worth considering,’ George says.

  I decide there and then. ‘No need! I’m going to get one.’

  George turns his head from the screen to look at me and he smiles; surprised but pleased. He’s a good-looking lad. ‘That was a lot easier than I expected,’ he says. ‘We’ll get you an Internet connection and you’re sorted.’

  ‘I’ve decided to take up new things,’ I explain to him.

  He smiles again. ‘Good for you. It’s never too late to learn.’

  I know what Enid would say.

  Without Enid I have no motivation to do anything. The dishes pile up and the dust gathers. I work my way through the tins in the cupboard. Oxtail soup, cream of tomato, minestrone, peaches in syrup, garden peas, baked beans, fruit salad.

  Next day, Betty comes round with Mercia. Betty’s tall and wearing a beige hooded raincoat. Mercia’s short and wearing a blue cagoule with the hood up; it’s tied tightly around her face.

  ‘Going hiking?’

  ‘Keeping my hair dry,’ she says, unpicking the cord under her chin. ‘Just had it done.’

  I’m a widower with two blondes at my door. Not bad for an 85-year-old. Enid wouldn’t dye her hair. Left it as God intended and it was as white as mine at the end. It’s unlucky for Betty and Mercia that Enid’s gone first, because come Judgement Day she’ll make sure Betty and Mercia have their trumpets taken from them for the sin of vanity, which she deplored.

  ‘Come in,’ I say and they follow me into the hall.

  ‘How are you? How are you really?’ Mercia asks me softly, tapping my arm.

  I turn back to look at them. They’re full of kindness.

  I’ve missed kindness, and suddenly terror and loneliness fill me. ‘Would either of you marry me?’ I plead. Then I start to bark. I can’t call it crying. The noise blares out of my chest and takes all of my energy away. I fall to my knees. I can’t stand.

  ‘It’s the shock,’ Mercia says.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Betty says, hurrying to the kitchen. ‘It’s hit him hard.’

  ‘Find some brandy, Betty,’ Mercia calls after her.

  I run out of air and raise my head to suck it in. Bark it out again hoarsely. Ashamed of the noise. Grief possessing me. On my knees and too old to get up. Too old to cope. I roll sideways, a commando roll, coming to rest against the cold wall.