the window-dresser

The window-dresser sat on the low redbrick wall by the market outside the shopping mall. The wall hemmed in one of the town centre's 'green areas', a triangle of straggly grass, broken saplings and dusty bushes, their foliage strewn with coloured scraps of litter like scruffy flowers.

On the grass, surrounded by empty cans, were three drunks. Flat out on his back was an oldish man. He had stained clothing, broken shoes and a half-zipped fly. His bloated face was rivered with veins, like raspberry ripple ice-cream. Beside him was a younger man with dreadlocks, big boots and a dog-toothed jacket of the sort worn by farmers. He sat and took frequent swigs from a brown plastic bottle of cider.

The third man was an old West Indian with a long white beard. He drank from a bottle wrapped in a Tescos bag. He noticed the window-dresser sitting there looking at him. He smiled broadly and raised his bagged bottle to her. She politely returned the smile then quickly turned her head away.

The window-dresser ran her fingers through her henna-dyed hair, then let it spill over her narrow shoulders. The silky redness of her hair was enhanced by the paleness of her thin face, which in turn seemed an almost ghostly white against such strength of colour. The contrast was heightened by the severe violet and purple of the eye shadow and lipstick she wore. Altogether, her face resembled that of a hand-painted porcelain doll.

The window-dresser pushed her hair back from her face and behind her dainty ears, each pierced with rows of silver sleepers. From three of the sleepers dangled little silver creatures; a bat, a fish and a butterfly. The creatures swayed back and forth as she lowered her head to take a bite from the giant tomato and cheese roll she had brought for her lunch from the bakers in the shopping mall. Crumbs tumbled into her lap and a blob of tomato pips squeezed out onto the sleeve of her top. She flicked the tomato pips away. They left a small dark stain on the blue cotton.

The window-dresser's thoughts drifted to the display of clothes she had been arranging that morning. She liked that time of year when the last of the gaudy sales posters were stripped from the windows and the new stock started to arrive. It felt good to remove the primary coloured woollens that hung wearily in the intermittent spring sunshine and replace them with what the store called its Exclusive Easter Collection; variations on a theme of last year's cat walk fashions, the same styles and colours that would soon appear in all the stores.

Gentle pastel shades were in again; rose pink, sky blue and sherbet yellow. As the days grew warmer she would enjoy watching those fresh colours gradually emerge on the streets, the passers by blossoming in the sunshine, just like the cherry trees in the uptown avenues she passed on the bus journey into work.

The window-dresser stood up from the wall. She straightened her long dark skirt, wiped again at the tomato stain on her sleeve, and brushed the crumbs from her lap. She screwed the paper bag into a tight ball, and dropped it into a litter bin as she wandered towards the market.

The window-dresser enjoyed looking around the market. Beneath striped tarpaulins hung on rusted frames, were racks and benches piled with all kinds of everything the discerning browser might desire. On one of the fruit and veg stalls among apples and oranges, leeks and onions were green bananas and sweet potatoes, mangoes and star fruit.

"Come 'orn ladies. Get yer loverly ripe pears!" a man called out as she passed by. The man had dated sideburns and a slicked-back quiff. He wore a stripy blue and white apron over a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off the tattoos on his muscular arms.

The man was serving a harassed looking mother who fiddled with the clasp on her purse. Three blonde-haired toddlers crowded waist-high round her, watching the man fill a brown paper bag with Golden Delicious and weigh it on an old fashioned set of scales. He spun the corners of the bag tight between his nimble hands, took a pound from the lady, pulled a fistful of coins from a money bag round his waist and, with a wink to the kids, picked out her change. "There ya go doll. Ta very much. Only thir'y pence a paund. Yer loverly ripe pears. And the next please. Yes madame what can I do you for? "

The man's voice was drowned out a bit further on by the jangly guitars of some obscure sixties instrumental hit blaring out from the record stall. There were LPs on that stall you wouldn't find anywhere else; picture discs and imported bootlegs on crazy coloured vinyl.

As the window dresser strolled on she marvelled at the aromas that wafted all around her - fish, plastic, shampoo and cardboard, peaches, cotton, leather, Geraniums. The different smells mingled, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes curiously and sometimes quite nastily. But that didn't really bother her.

Against her better judgement, the winow-dresser lingered at the army surplus stall which offered a range of combat trousers, desert boots and flying jackets, along with knives and futuristic gas marks. The window-dresser found all that military gear profoundly disturbing.

Of course, because of her job, she had a heightened awareness of the images that certain clothes projected. However, the fear that always welled up inside when she passed the stall went deeper than mere professional sensitivity.

That lunchtime, there was a special offer on sinister SAS style Balaclavas. And it felt to her as if there was someone or something staring through her from the empty eye slits. She shuddered and continued hurriedly towards her favourite stall, the one with all the plastic toys from China and Taiwan.

At the back of the stall were stacks of faded boxes containing talking dolls, Action Man clones and pump-action water pistols. In front of the boxes was a lady in a hideous cardigan, knitting an even more hideous cardigan. In front of the lady was a table full of clockwork frogs and submarines, transparent pink ray guns and disposable digital watches.

After she had had a good nose through the toys (pretending she was perusing possible gifts for a non-existent nephew), the window-dresser moved onto the smaller stalls that sold scented candles, jewellery and suchlike.

Serving on one of those stalls was a girl she recognised. The girl had very short, bleached-blonde hair, big hooped earrings and bright red lipstick. She wore a shiny black bomber jacket over a hooded grey sweatshirt. The window-dresser tried to think where she had seen the girl before, then she remembered; the girl had been at a party a couple of months back.

The girl was showing a tray of rings to an old lady with purple hair and a tartan trolley bag on wheels. The window-dresser went up to the stall and peered over the old lady's shoulder at the rows of rings slotted into the tray's fake velvet lining. The rings were crudely cast in the shape of skulls and dragons heads, coiled snakes and crosses. Maybe the lady was considering one as a present for a devil-worshipping grandson, thought the window-dresser, or possibly she was just intrigued by the ghoulish designs.

The window-dresser's eyes met those of the girl, who grinned in recognition. She was about to say hello, but the lady interrupted.

"Yes, it was that one there with the leaves I liked the look of," the lady said, "the one with the little leaves."

The window dresser and the girl grimaced at each other over the lady's bowed head, and giggled at the idea of this nice old granny walking around with a sprig of tin cannabis leaves wrapped around her forefinger.

"How much is it then?" asked the lady. "The one with the little leaves there."

"They're all a fiver," said the girl. She giggled again.

The old lady scowled.

"Oh," she muttered. "Here, let me try it on."

The girl handed the old lady the ring. The old lady slipped it onto the index finger of her right hand. She held her hand up in front of her face and wiggled her wrinkled fingers as she admired it. The girl put her hand over her mouth to stifle a fit of giggles. But it was no good. She spluttered out gasps of laughter, and the window-dresser began to laugh in sympathy. The old lady looked from one to the other and shook her head.

"Am I missing something here?" the lady asked, bewildered.

"Sorry," said the girl. "We weren't laughing at you."

"I should hope not," said the lady huffily. She turned and wheeled her tartan trolley bag away.

Their giggles subsided and the girl said, "You were at Dave's party weren't you?"

The window-dresser nodded.

"Still seeing that fella you was with?" asked the girl.

The window-dresser nodded again.

"He looked nice, said the girl.

"Yes. He is," said the window-dresser.

They smiled at each other, silent and uncertain for a moment, then the girl asked, "Well, how are you anyhow?"

"Oh, not too bad" the window-dresser replied. "How about you? Still drinking lots of vodka?" she asked, recalling how the last time she had seen her, the girl had been lying half way up a flight of stairs in an alcoholic stupor.

"Naaa, not that much," said the girl, wrinkling up her nose. "Does your head in after a bit." The window-dresser nodded. "Hey," said the girl suddenly. "Wait a minute. She never bloody paid for the ring."

She leaned over the front of the stall and arched her neck to look up and down hoping to spot the old lady in the throng of passing shoppers, but she had long since disappeared among them.

"Cheeky old cow," muttered the girl. "Would you believe it?"

The window-dresser shook her head and checked her watch. She was already five minutes late.

"I suppose I'd better get back to the shop," she said.

"Right," said the girl. "See ya then."

"Yea, see ya," echoed the window-dresser. She smiled and strolled away, making a mental note to drop by the stall next time she was passing, just to say hello. None of the people she used to bump into at lunchtime ever seem to be around anymore. Yes, she thought, I'll definitely have to go and see her again sometime - not too soon, next week maybe.

As the window-dresser walked back towards the shop she saw that by the side of the supermarket a small crowd had gathered. Although she was already late, she could not resist the temptation to go over and investigate. As she got nearer she could hear the sounds of music; a guitar being strummed and the dull thud of some kind of drum. She found herself a place at the edge of the wide circle of onlookers.

There, in the centre of the crowd, were a man on a unicycle, a juggler and a makeshift band. The band consisted of two young guitarists and a dishevelled care in the community case who rattled a crescent-shaped tambourine and kicked a bright green litter bin in time to the strumming.

The unicyclist and the juggler appeared to be a team. They both had long black hair shaved at the sides. They wore red polka dot bandannas, matching black vests and baggy ripped jeans held up by rainbow-striped braces. The jeans had so many tears in them there hardly seemed any material left to keep them together. On their feet they wore different colour plimsolls; one green one and one blue one each.

As the juggler juggled, the cyclist rode, weaving around the musicians and leaning perilously over. Every so often he pretended to slip, leaning so far over it seemed as if he surely must fall, drawing fearful gasps from the crowd, followed by loud applause as, at the very last moment, he miraculously righted himself and continued to pedal nonchalantly along. Through all these antics the lunatic man shook his tambourine and kicked and kicked the litter bin whilst the guitarists kept on strumming.

One of the guitarists had tangled, shoulder length hair. He wore dirty, red baseball boots, inadvisably tight black jeans and a T-shirt, which bore the name of some obscure indie band she had never heard of, stretched tight over a prodigious beer belly. As the wild guitarist strummed, he stamped his foot and swayed his whole body in time to the music - rows of bangles jangling on his chunky wrist as he maniacally thrashed his hand back and forth over the strings. In contrast, the other guitarist appeared very subdued, apparently disinterested in the near chaos surrounding him, except for an occasional comic frown at the antics of the unicyclist.

The quiet guitarist had twinkly green eyes and a mop of untidy, sand-coloured curls that fell across his forehead and straggled engagingly over the tops of his ears. He was not handsome, thought the window-dresser, not prettily handsome, but there was something rather nice about his detached smile. She liked the baggy blue jumper he wore, comfortable and casual, the sleeves rolled up revealing slender tanned forearms that gently cradled, rather than clutched, his guitar.

Suddenly, the window-dresser found herself staring into the guitarist's green eyes. He nodded at her, she was sure he did. She glanced round quickly, just to check that she hadn't accidentally intercepted an exchange of glances between him and some other girl in the crowd. Then she looked toward him again. This time the guitarist definitely smiled at her. She smiled back at him, then lowered her head slightly, letting her hair fall across her face to hide the faint red flush that had risen in her pale cheeks. I wonder if he'll come over when he's finished, she thought? If I stayed a little longer he might.

She glanced down casually at her watch. With a rush of disappointment she saw that she was already more than half-an-hour late. With a wishful backwards glance she started back to the shop where her mannequins patiently waited half-clothed in the window.

A couple of seconds after the window-dresser had left, the quiet guitarist glanced up expecting to see her still stood there smiling in the crowd. When he realised she had gone, he hesitated for a moment, then quickly unstrapped his guitar and laid it down in its case.

"I won't be a minute," he told the wild guitarist who nodded and grinned and continued to flay his fingers across the strings of his battered instrument.

The onlookers parted to let the quiet guitarist through. And he walked briskly round the outside of the crowd searching for a glimmer of the window-dresser's long red-hair. He came to the empty space where she had stood between a tall thin man and a rather large lady in a brightly patterned dress. The quiet guitarist leant forward to look through the crowd, using the backs of two young men in suits for support. One of the men turned round. He had a gold tie pin, a moustache like a thirsty eyebrow and a menacing glint in his eye.

"Oi!" he said angrily. "What's your bloody game?"

The quiet guitarist let go of the man's shoulder.

"Sorry mate," he apologised. "I'm looking for a girl."

A workman with a red face and a shirt covered in plaster dust turned and quipped, "Ain't we bloody all mate."

The quiet guitarist laughed politely, then reconciling himself to the fact that the pretty, red-haired girl had gone, he made his way back through the crowd to his guitar.

When the window-dresser returned to the shop, the floor manageress was hovering by the entrance to the ladies wear department waiting for her.

"So there you are," said the manageress, arms folded across her heavy, sweatered bosom.

"I'm really sorry," said the window-dresser. "I just didn't notice the time."

"What have you been up to then?" the manageress asked curiously, noticing that the window-dresser's complexion was still slightly flushed.

The window-dresser looked slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, nothing much," she answered vaguely.

"I see," said the manageress suspiciously. "Well please do try to keep a closer eye on the time in future."

"Sorry, yes I will," murmured the window-dresser.

"Well you better get on with that display," said the manageress. "It really should be finished by the end of the afternoon."

"Yes, of course," said the window-dresser absent mindedly.

The manageress watched the window-dresser work for a while. How casually she positioned that arm and so carelessly bunched up the sleeve of that blouse, crumpling it like a pair of old socks. And will you look at her with those plastic flowers, dumping them in the vase like that, when normally, normally she'd spend hours arranging and rearranging them. Curious, thought the manageress, she was the last person you would expect to waltz in quite that late without so much as an excuse. Very curious indeed, she thought, I shall have to try and catch her off guard at tea break, and find out just what's got into her.

The window-dresser stared listlessly out of the window as the passers by who peered in at her stood among the mannequins. All of a sudden she said out loud, "I recognise that jumper."

"What's that?" said one of the shop girls as she squeezed past, her arms full of blouses on coat hangers.

"Oh nothing," said the window-dresser. But it was something.

There he was, the quiet guitarist, in his comfortable blue jumper, walking down the other side of the street with his guitar case in his hand. He looked across the street. Their eyes met and...he walked straight into an old lady with purple hair and a tartan trolley bag. The trolley bag fell over spilling groceries onto the pavement.

"Sorry love," said the quiet guitarist. He gave her one of his smiles, but it failed to placate her.

"You should look where you're ruddy well going," snapped the old lady.

The quiet guitarist stooped in the gutter to pick up a bag of frozen chicken wings, a pack of custard creams and a small jar of piccalilli. He started to put them back into the tartan trolley bag.

"It had better all be there," grumbled the old lady. "I know your sort. Thieving little so and sos. Heaven knows what you thought you was about, running into me like that."

"No harm done," said the quiet guitarist, as he stood up.

"There better not be," said the old lady. "If anything's broken, I'm telling you, you can ruddy well pay for it".

"It's all OK," he said. "I checked it."

"Hmmmph," snorted the old lady, and trundled her tartan trolley bag off down the street, muttering and cursing to herself.

The window-dresser watched the quiet guitarist as he stood in the middle of the pavement for a moment toying with his mop of curls. And as he picked up his guitar and started to walk away, she couldn't stop herself from leaving the window and rushing out onto the street. The quiet guitarist saw her and stopped. She smiled at him. He returned her smile and crossed the road.

"Hi," said the quiet guitarist.

"Hi," said the window-dresser. She swept her hair back from her face. "I saw you had a bit of trouble over there," she said, pointing to the spot where the quiet guitarist had bumped into the old lady.

"Yea," he laughed.

"She looked as of she was having a right go at you," said the window-dresser.

"Yea, poor old girl," said the quiet guitarist. "I think she thought I was trying to mug her." He extended his hand. "I'm Andy, by the way."

"Diane," said the window-dresser as she placed her hand in his.

She shivered slightly as his fingers gently gripped hers then slowly let go. There was a moment of awkward silence, with neither of them quite knowing what to say next, before the conversation was eventually resumed by the quite guitarist.

"Do you sit there often?" he asked. "On that wall by Tescos. I've seen you there a couple of times."

The window-dresser shrugged her shoulders, struggling to conceal her delight.

"I suppose so," she said. "I like to get away from the shops at lunch, its always so crowded."

"Yea, I know what you mean" said the quiet guitarist nodding. "All elbows and shopping trolleys."

"DIANE!!" The voice of the manageress interrupted them. She stood with her hands on her wide hips glaring at them as they chatted in the shop doorway.

"I better get going," said the quiet guitarist. "Don't want to get you into trouble with your boss." He turned as if to go, then abruptly turned back, at the same time as the window-dresser's hand reached out to grab his sleeve.

"I tell you what," said the quiet guitarist studying his feet. "If your lunch breaks are really that boring, maybe we could..." he stopped.

"Maybe what?" asked the window-dresser.

"Well, maybe we could go for a coffee some time," he said. "You know, if you're not too busy or whatever."

"Great," said the window-dresser instantly. "How about tomorrow?"

The quiet guitarist looked up, blushing.

"Yea, yea," he said. "Whenever you like."

"I'll meet you by Tescos at one then," she said.

"Sure," he said. "Tomorrow at one then."

She smiled and nodded.

"By Tescos at one o'clock."

She nodded again.

"See you then, then," he said.

"OK," she said.

He waved and went. She stood just outside the shop and watched him disappear down the street.

"DIANE!!!" shouted the manageress.

The window-dresser meekly returned to her window display.

"Honestly," muttered the manageress. "I don't know what's the matter with that girl today."

The window-dresser smiled softly as she pulled the hands and head from a mannequin and absent mindedly dressed it in a chunky blue winter cardigan.