Mrs Barker's Humbugs

Tuesday morning. Half past eight. Door jangles. There she is.

Mrs Barker. Connie Barker, though I don’t think anyone’s called her Connie since George passed. She’s Mrs Barker now. Headscarf on. Shopping basket over her arm. Face like thunder.

You don’t need a clock if you’ve got Mrs Barker.

She sets the basket down on the counter. I pick up her paper. Daily Express, top of the papers, I always have hers ready. Fold it, and lay it in her basket. Not into her hand. Into the basket.

“Morning, Mrs Barker.”

“Morning.”

She doesn’t say my name. Never has. Not once in fifteen years. It’s not rudeness. It’s just Connie. She keeps a certain distance.

“Humbugs.”

Not “quarter of humbugs, please.” Just “humbugs.” Because we both know. We’ve done this dance a thousand times.

I reach for the jar. Third shelf, between the pear drops and the aniseed twists. Tip them onto the brass scales. Paper bag. Four ounces. Quarter pound.

And then one more. Just one.

The extra humbug. I’ve been doing it for seven years now. Connie knows. I know she knows. But we’ve never spoken about it.

It started the morning after her George died. I was surprised to see her. I thought she might take a few days. But there she was, punctual as ever, headscarf on, basket over her arm. Only she looked smaller, somehow. Greyer. Like someone had rubbed out part of her.

I weighed the humbugs. And then, without thinking, I shook one more from the jar.

She looked at me. Just for a second. Then she looked away.

“Thank you,” she said.

That was the first time she’d ever said it. First time in all those years. She hasn’t since. We both know it’s there. The extra humbug. The unspoken kindness. The small thing that means something larger.

The bag goes into the basket, on top of the paper. She counts out her money. Tuppence ha’penny for the Express, fourpence for the humbugs. Same three coins, every morning. Two thrupenny bits and a ha’penny. Sets them down on top of the papers. Bell jangles. She’s gone. I pick them up and put them in the till.

~ ~ ~

This morning, after I’d set the bag in her basket, Connie didn’t leave straight away. She stepped over to the window. Left her basket on the counter.

“The telephone box is still there,” she said. Accusingly, almost. As if she’d hoped it might have vanished.

It’s not going anywhere, Mrs Barker.

She kept looking out. The morning light across her face.

“George’s sister lives in Macclesfield,” she said.

Quite suddenly. Out of nowhere.

I said I didn’t know George had a sister.

She said she’d never met Patricia. George and his younger sister weren’t close. “Christmas cards, that was all.”

“George always said he’d telephone her one day,” she said. “Always said one day we’d get a telephone and he’d call her. He never did, of course. And now he can’t.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“I suppose she’s still there,” she said. “In Macclesfield.”

Then she came back to the counter, picked up her basket, and left. The bell jangled. The door closed.

And I stood there, wondering why she’d told me. After fifteen years of saying nothing, why now? Why this morning?

Maybe because the telephone box was outside. The red reminder of a call George never made. To a sister Connie never met.

About ten o’clock, the Reverend came in.

I keep his Church Times behind the counter. He’s the only customer I order it in for.

Morning, Reverend. Your Church Times.

He took it from me and smiled. “Ah, wonderful,” he said. “God’s newspaper.”

I said I’d seen in the parish magazine we were getting a new curate.

“All being well,” he said. “A young man called Graham Fisher. Not related to the Archbishop. Very keen.”

I said that would be a help.

“That rather depends on God’s plan,” he said. “I’ve learned not to second-guess Him on staffing matters.”

He paid, and at the door he stopped.

“Still the only man in Hartley Green to have answered a telephone call, Arthur.”

I am, Reverend.

“A place in history, Arthur.”

And off he went.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the morning came and went. I closed at half twelve, ate my bread and cheese, and tried one of those Picnic bars. Not bad, actually. The church clock struck one, reliable as ever.

I pulled the blind up and turned the sign to Open, and there was young Mrs Hargreaves. Susan. She’s lived at the farm since the war. She’s in the family way.

Afternoon, Susan.

“Mr Jessop, I need pickled onions,” she said.

Need. That’s a funny word for pickled onions.

I reached up for a jar of Haywards. She said she’d taken a fancy to them, she didn’t know why. She’d only had two left at home and she’d already eaten those this morning.

I put the jar on the counter. She looked at it.

“Better make it two.”

I asked her when the happy day was.

“Dr Mortimer says a few months yet.”

Two jars of pickled onions. Susan paid and off she went, clutching them like they were precious.

~ ~ ~

Half past three, the door crashed open.

I didn’t even need to look. There’s only one person in Hartley Green who comes through a door like that.

“Mr Jessop! Mr Jessop! Look what I found!”

Tommy Pritchard. Ten years old, all knees and elbows, breathless. Straight out of school. He had a penny in his hand, holding it up like a trophy.

“A whole penny! I found it!”

Where did you find it, I asked.

“By the telephone box! Just sitting there on the grass! Probably someone dropped it!”

I looked at the penny. Then I looked at Tommy. Proud as anything.

I asked him was he going to put it in the bicycle fund?

His face fell, just a bit.

He said he was thinking he might spend it. On gobstoppers. Two whole gobstoppers. Because he found it, so it was like extra.

“The fund won’t miss it.”

I told him I had a better idea. A deal.

He could sweep the front step, properly, mind, not his usual whirlwind, and I’d give him a gobstopper for that. And the penny he found could go in the fund.

“Best of both worlds!” he said.

That’s exactly what I told him. Best of both worlds.

He took the broom. Attacked the step like it had personally offended him. More dust in the air than on the ground, but he meant well.

When he was done I gave him his gobstopper.

I keep his bicycle fund in an old tin under the counter.

I shook the tin gently for him. He listened. Then he held the penny over the open lid.

And dropped it in...

“How much have I got now, Mr Jessop?”

I keep his running total at the back of my journal. Every penny accounted for, in my own hand. Date, amount, total. Like a proper bank book.

I turned to the page. Read it out.

“Two shillings and fivepence.”

He repeated it. “Two shillings and fivepence.”

Out of three pounds six and tuppence, I said. For his bicycle.

You could see him doing the arithmetic.

I told him: a penny at a time. That’s how anyone gets anywhere.

“A penny at a time,” he repeated. As if he was testing the shape of it.

Then, as he was at the door, he turned back. Hand on the frame.

“Mr Jessop, do you think Mrs Barker likes me?”

What makes you ask that?

“She told me to stop making such a racket. I was only walking past.”

That’s just Mrs Barker, I said. She likes things quiet.

Then he said something I wasn’t expecting.

“She seems sad.”

Children notice things. They haven’t learned not to say it yet.

She is a bit sad, I said. She lost her husband.

Tommy thought about this. You could see him working it out.

“My dad’s away. Mum’s on her own a lot. She talks to the wireless.”

That’s not the same, I said.

“I know. Dad’s coming back. Mr Barker isn’t.”

He said it the way children do. Straight out.

Then he said, “I’m going to say hello to Mrs Barker. Every time I see her.”

And off he went. Bell jangling. The door swinging shut behind him.

End of the day. I turned the sign to Closed. Pulled down the blind on the door. Made a pot of tea.

I sat by the counter, in the quiet. The takings in the till. The brass scales gleaming. Tommy’s tin under the counter, one penny richer.

I thought about Connie.

Fifteen years. Half past eight. Express and humbugs.

Seven years since her George died. Seven years of the extra humbug. Seven years of “morning” and “humbugs” and never my name.

And today she’d told me about Patricia.

Why today? Because the telephone box was outside. Because George had said he’d telephone, and he hadn’t, and now he couldn’t. Because somewhere in Macclesfield was a sister Connie had never met, and the silence had grown longer than the years.

“I suppose she’s still there. In Macclesfield.”

I made a decision. When the time’s right, I’m going to ask Connie about George. About Patricia.

Not prying. Just... asking. The way you ask when you care.

The extra humbug isn’t enough.

Sometimes you have to use words as well.