Greta grew up in Auckland, New Zealand and now lives in London. She mainly writes short fiction and poetry and is fascinated by ordinary people and strange encounters.
Email: gretajudd@outlook.com
The Shopkeeper
The woman worked alone. A brass bell above the door announced the arrival and departure of her customers. She spent most of her days behind the counter, her gaze following the flow of people coming in and out, wrapping their purchases in brown paper, waiting for the click of the till before rifling for change.
In the centre of the shopfloor, a wooden table displayed antique jewellery – shining strings of pearls, ornate brooches and rings – as well as hand mirrors and hairbrushes with delicate silver handles. A handsome bookcase on the wall opposite the counter housed paperbacks on the upper shelves, and hardbacks on the lower, their cloth covers faded and worn from decades of existence. On quiet afternoons, the woman liked to read from behind the counter. Until she replaced her book on the shelf, the shadowy gap that was left in between two spines, the space where it belonged, was known only by her.
It was a dull, rainy Saturday when the old man entered the shop. The woman was wearing a linen shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, and the breeze that followed him inside raised the hairs on her forearms. The man wore a grey flat cap and a tweed jacket; his face was thin and lined, and the gaze behind his light blue eyes had a faintly detached quality. The woman folded the corner of her page and slid her book onto a shelf below the counter as he approached.
‘Excuse me,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’ He removed his cap, revealing white, wispy hair that barely concealed his scalp.
‘Oh no, you’re fine,’ said the woman gently. ‘How can I help?’
‘What are you reading?’ he asked.
‘Emma.’
‘Emma,’ he repeated, considering. ‘Pretty.’
The woman said nothing.
‘Actually, I was looking for a book myself,’ he said.
‘We have books there,’ she nodded to the case.
‘I need something… gripping,’ he said, and named an author who wrote about disappearances. A smile played on his lips. ‘She’s a master of the twist. I think I should be taking notes from her.’
The woman did not wish to engage in further conversation. She had an idea that might speed up his visit.
‘We can see if there are any books of hers you haven’t read,’ she offered, clicking the mouse to wake her computer.
He shook his head. ‘I prefer to buy my books off the shelf.’
‘I’d only need an email address, and then I can order something for you.’
‘I’m no good at any of that business. Maybe I need psychiatric help,’ he said, his smile slipping a fraction, ‘but then I would have needed that a long time ago.’
His eyes were so light they appeared almost translucent.
The woman glanced at her bookcase. ‘I might have something.’
The man’s eyebrows lifted, etching the lines deeper in his forehead. She sidled out from behind the counter and over to the case, extracting a thriller from an upper shelf. All the while she sensed his gaze behind her.
‘You might like this,’ she said, handing him the book.
‘Ah, that looks perfect,’ he enthused, flipping the book and scanning its back cover. His eyes moved to her face. ‘That’s just the kind of recommendation I was looking for.’
The woman returned to the counter. As the man pulled a fiver from his wallet, she observed the papery skin around his bony fingers. She handed him a pound in change.
As the man turned to leave, he furrowed his brow and said, ‘You don’t work on your own, do you?’
‘No,” the woman lied. “My colleague is on their break.’
‘Lucky,’ he replied.
Tucking the book into a damp-looking cloth bag, his mouth curled back into a smile, before at last he replaced his cap. The bell rang behind him as the door snapped closed. The woman watched his blurred, stooped form through the rain-spattered glass as he retreated down the street.
That evening, the woman was down in the basement, straightening stems of pampas grass in a vase. The basement housed rows of vintage clothing, leather dress shoes and other curiosities that had an air of having lived a past life. She was proud of the restored oil lamps, wooden rocking horse, the antique glassware and spinning wheel. Anyone who was looking for a story would find one here. Picnic baskets hung from the ceiling; an assortment of clocks ticked steadily on the wall. Among the woman’s favourite objects were a pristine pair of white ice skates (once owned by a star, she liked to imagine) and a gold-framed mirror crafted to look like a porthole, with hinges allowing you to open and close the mirror face. As the woman tied a price tag around the vase’s neck, she heard a creak on the wooden staircase.
‘Hello,’ she called. ‘We close in five minutes.’
There was no reply. She glanced at the narrow passage leading to the stairs and saw only dust particles floating in a shaft of dim light. She thought she heard a rustling noise, as though whoever it was on the stairs had changed their mind.
The woman’s throat was dry. She hadn’t had anything to drink since her tea break. She hesitated, thinking that whoever it was might be waiting upstairs. Was it that tiresome window cleaner, coming in again to ask for work? The woman wished she had her keys on her, so that she could jangle them and the window cleaner, or whoever it was, would get the message. The woman tried to relax her stiffened shoulders as she climbed the stairs, ready to politely ask if he needed any help, but when she reached the shop floor, she saw there was nobody there.
The woman inched past the furniture she had earlier pulled in from outside. The jewellery table glinted in the dim light. She peered at her mannequins, the rocking horse, the hatstand. A bowler hat rested on its hook at a downward angle; in the shadow of the bookcase, the stand resembled a man bowing his head. Nothing moved or made a sound.
The woman wondered if she was overtired. She opened the shop door and leaned into the evening. Her breath misted around her as she looked up and down Church Street. Only the manager of Electric Coffee, the shop opposite, was around, dragging in the heavy sign that read ‘Allpress coffee beans sold here’. The pavement was splashed with reflections of light from the cafe. The manager caught her eye and waved; she waved back, and it dawned on her how foolish she was being. Of course, no one had entered the shop at all. The creak she’d heard on the stairs must have been the draught that swept through the old building, yet she felt compelled to lock up before the lights of the cafe were extinguished.
She hurried inside, grabbed her keys, coat and bag from the kitchenette, which she called the staffroom out of habit. The woman couldn’t afford to hire another assistant in the years since she’d let the last one go. After a final glance at the mannequins in her window, who were motionless, she set the alarm and stepped into the damp street. The door shuddered as she pulled it closed. She heard the bell tinkling faintly on the other side as she locked it.
The woman strode down Church Street, veered left and followed the main road towards home. Cars flashed by, shining their headlights out of the darkness. She did not notice Tesco Metro as she passed it; she’d normally buy a ready meal at the end of a long shift. The breeze clawed at her neck; she had left her scarf in the shop. As she passed Wetherspoons, someone opened the pub door and a rush of warmth and noise blasted out, before the door swung shut behind them.
The woman rounded the corner and pulled her keys out of her bag. She lived on the top floor of the estate, and only met the other residents if they happened to be heading in or out. The woman climbed the concrete steps, passed along the balcony and at last slotted her key in the door to number 34. She lowered her bag to the hallway floor, still carrying a trace of the tension that had knotted in between her shoulders when she had been in the shop. It was not until after she’d clicked the kettle on in the kitchen, and heard its familiar gurgle, that she removed her coat and shoes.
The woman stirred early on Sunday morning; her sleep had been fragmented. She felt a chill reaching through the Venetian blinds, and tried to recall the strange dreams she’d had, but they slipped out of reach.
The woman slid out of bed, pulled a thick jumper over the T-shirt she wore as pyjamas, and padded to the kitchen, wincing slightly as her bare feet made contact with the cold floor. She had a small table beneath the kitchen window, lending a view of the residential building opposite. After a breakfast of buttered toast and tea, she dressed and took a cotton bag off its hook in the hallway. She had a couple hours to spare before Old Spitalfields Market opened and decided to stop at the greengrocer on her way to the station.
The sky hung low as the woman headed for The Creaky Shed; the clouds were pregnant with rain. A brown spaniel was nosing a stack of wicker baskets in the entrance; his owner pulled him away as the woman approached. The greengrocer was not huge, but it sold the freshest produce. A small crowd of shoppers jostled around the crates full of impossibly yellow lemons, crisp apples and fat bunches of grapes. Buckets of flowers stood in rows by the window. The woman selected a handful of shining tomatoes, two aubergines, and a bulb of garlic that felt hard and solid in her hand. As she added the garlic to her basket, she felt something brush against her coat and started.
‘Sorry,’ said the spaniel’s owner.
‘Oh no, that’s alright!’
The woman bent down awkwardly, lowering her free hand for the dog to sniff. As she patted his velvety head, she thought of the flat-coated retriever she’d owned as a girl. Lottie’s black coat had shone white in sunlight. The wind had been brutal as they’d walked along the Cornish coast, whipping the girl’s hair so that it had roped behind her, and her legs would go numb beneath her walking trousers. Each time they’d peered over the cliff’s edge, it had seemed that they were even higher above the sea. When the stretch of beach would finally come into view, her family would descend the hill and lay a blanket down. Lottie would dig her claws into the sand and leap around the blanket excitedly, then sprint down the beach to chase the other dogs. The salted breeze that stirred the dunes and bristled her dog’s fur continued to sweep through the woman’s memories of her childhood.
She watched as the dog owner walked away. The dog whimpered quietly, as if he was being separated from something he wanted. The woman’s focus returned to the greengrocer, and she chose a small block of parmesan before joining the queue. Once she had paid and stowed the groceries in her bag, the young man at the till wished her a good day.
‘I hope you have a great day, too,’ she replied.
He blushed faintly as their eyes met.
Out on the pavement, the woman checked her wristwatch (small and silver, with a brown leather strap). It was almost ten; the market would be opening soon. She hurried on towards the station so that she could ride the DLR across the river.
On the woman’s list of items to source were winter hats, scarves and leather gloves. She passed through the entrance to Old Spitalfields Market and found the rows of wooden stalls selling second-hand clothing, handmade pottery, paintings and jewellery. Only a thin crowd had gathered so far, picking like birds at the offerings on display.
The woman stood before the mirror at the hat stall and took in her reflection. She acknowledged the pale complexion, the dark rings that had formed beneath her eyes. Her mother would say that she needed rest. The stallholder passed the woman different hats to try on, commenting every now and then: ‘Purple suits you’; ‘I wish I had curls like yours’; ‘I’m not sure if the silver feather is quite right.’ With each hat the woman put on, she felt as if she was experimenting with a different personality, and the tension she had been feeling since the evening before began to ease.
‘Very nice,’ said the stallholder, as the woman adjusted a red beret so that it sat on her head at an angle.
The woman refrained from mentioning that she was not buying for herself. After politely rejecting the stallholder’s invitation to try on a cowboy hat (‘It’s real suede,’ the stallholder said), the woman purchased the red beret and a black one, knowing they would be an easy sale. The stallholder rang them up on the till before bundling them in a paper bag for the woman, adding a handwritten receipt.
As she moved away from the hat stall, the woman thought she glimpsed a stooped frame ahead of her, the top of a grey flat cap barely visible as the man merged with the crowd. She stumbled towards the stall selling imitation Impressionist paintings where she thought she had seen him lingering, but he had already vanished. The woman took in the surface of one of the paintings: smudges of green and blue, dabbles of white, the reflections of light cast on rippling water. As she looked closer, everything in the painting blurred, as though she was peering at it through misted glass.
The market was filling up. A cacophony of voices reverberated against the canopy-like ceiling as crowds of shoppers teemed towards the coffee vans and stands selling baked goods. The woman’s attention was caught by a pair of mid-century dining chairs with floral seat covers. Since her parents’ last visit to London, the woman was beginning to see her sparsely decorated flat through her mother’s eyes. The price tag on one of the chairs read £75. The woman’s heart sank; maybe the market was more expensive than she’d remembered.
As a familiar ache formed in her temples, the woman became anxious to leave. The crowds were thickening, and she had no energy for them. She thought of her quiet, curiosity-filled shop with a kind of longing. It was strange to think she missed the place after the evening before. Then again, her tired mind had been to blame for her imagining the presence of something that wasn’t there. The woman reminded herself of this as she weaved her way out of the market, her legs directing her automatically back towards the station. The clouds had finally burst; rain was issuing down, as if with the intent of wiping the streets, the cars, the people of the city clean.
Back in her narrow kitchen, the woman sliced aubergines on a board. The tomatoes simmered in a saucepan with garlic, sending a sheet of steam up to the ceiling that clouded the windowpanes. The clock above the sink showed that it was 3:20, but this was the time that it always told. The second hand ticked almost imperceptibly back and forth on the spot, unable to progress around the clock face. The woman’s flat had no opening or closing hours; there were no customers to greet or serve or help. The space was all her own, empty.
Around five or six in the evening, after her parents had finished their Sunday roast, her mother usually liked to call. The woman planned to have dinner in the oven by the time her phone rang. She arranged the slices of aubergine in alternate layers with the tomato sauce, sprinkled over cheddar and parmesan and slid the tray into the oven. She took her phone into the living room and sank into the sofa as it began to vibrate.
‘Hi Mum.’
‘How are you, love?’
‘I’m alright,’ the woman replied, unable to hide the weariness from her voice.
‘What’s wrong?’ her mother asked sharply.
‘Nothing, Mum, just having a slow day.’
‘Oh, not much going on in the shop then?’
‘I don’t work on Sundays,’ she said, suppressing a sigh.
‘Oh no, of course you don’t,’ her mother replied smoothly. The sound of a china cup clinking against a saucer reached the woman down the line. ‘Well, what have you been up to?’
‘I went to Spitalfields market this morning,’ the woman said, ‘but I didn’t find anything there.’ She had been tempted to tell her mother about the long shift and the funny customer, how she thought she’d seen him again in the market.
‘Was there really nothing there? You’re so good at finding things.’
‘I guess I wanted to get home and rest,’ the woman said truthfully. ‘I was tired.’
‘Of course you’re tired,’ said her mother. ‘You’re working a lot, love. Maybe you should hire an assistant again?’
‘I’m managing fine,’ said the woman.
‘It would be good for you to have a bit of help. You could even pick up your studies again. There’s all sorts of online courses these days. I’m sure there’s lots to choose from,’ her mother continued, as if she was talking about a magazine subscription that could be paused and resumed at any time. ‘Of course, there’s nothing wrong with retail if you’re still enjoying it. Your grandfather was adamant that I study first, and then figure out what I wanted to do. Nowadays there’s too much choice. Anyone can do anything they want, and your parents can’t say anything about it!’ Her mother tittered.
Nettled, the woman replied, ‘It was different for your generation. You and Dad studied for free.’
Her mother sailed on, ‘I’m not saying I’m not proud of you. I’m just worried that you’re working alone all the time. It might be nice for you to have some company in the shop, and you’d be able to take some time off. You could even come home for a bit. It’s been ages since you stayed…’
‘I know, Mum. I’ll come and stay as soon as I can. And I’ll put up a sign for an assistant,’ the woman lied. ‘How’s Dad?’
‘Oh, you know your father. Tinkering on the boat, leaving me to do all the housework. He’s just fine…’
The woman had become accustomed to her mother’s small digs at her father. She knew that beneath the arguing and passive aggression, a steady current of warmth, even love, still ran between her parents.
The woman’s thoughts returned to her childhood dog. When the bickering had started on family walks, she and Lottie would stride ahead, following the barely visible path that threaded the coast. Sometimes they’d run, and her parents’ voices would recede as the wind rushed around them, raking the dog’s coal-black fur. In those moments it had been easy to forget that she was a child, that she had parents. She only had Lottie and the freezing wind.
‘Listen, Mum, I should go,’ said the woman. ‘My dinner’s almost ready, and I need an early night.’
Several minutes passed as the conversation turned to her parents’ next visit (‘Do let me know if you’d like us to bring any food down…’). After they had bade each other goodnight, the woman tossed her phone onto the sofa and rested her head in her hands. Having lived in Cornwall for most of their lives, her parents understood little about her life in London. The woman had managed fine for years on her own, and yet her mother’s concern made her feel exposed. She lifted her head, regarding the blank walls that seemed to stare back at her.
The woman returned to her kitchen and lifted the tray from the oven. The cheesy top rose and sank in the middle, as it breathed in its own heat. She ate in front of the TV, and the loud colours of Planet Earth seemed almost indecent against the white living room. She made a mental note to return to the market next Sunday and buy one of those paintings. The rest of the parmigiana cooled in the kitchen; she’d cut it into portions later, and the leftovers would do for dinner over the next few nights.
The woman rose early and walked to the shop, dressed in a bright purple coat. The phone call with her mother echoed in her mind; she wondered broodily whether her mother was right, and that she needed to take some time off, or even think about studying again. A fine mist hung across Church Street, and the pavements were slick with Sunday’s rain. The woman heard her name being called from across the street, diverting her from her thoughts.
‘Hiya,’ she replied, slightly out of breath.
‘Good day off?’ the I manager asked, pausing with his key in the glass door of Electric Coffee.
‘Yeah, it was alright, thanks,’ said the woman. ‘Yours?’
The I manager smiled. ‘I was here working yesterday so…’ he shrugged. ‘I’ll bring you a coffee. What’ll you have?’
The woman asked for a flat white, then unlocked her shop. She was greeted by the tinkling bell, and that faintly musty smell as she stepped inside. Any remaining thoughts of the crowded market where she’d found little to buy, the promises to her mother that she was in no position to keep, and the empty flat where she ate alone left her at once. The shop was like a home; it was one of the few places where she did not feel ashamed to be who she was.
The woman flicked on the main lights, before depositing her bag, coat and keys in the staffroom, fingering the scarf that she’d left on the hook two nights before, in her haste to leave. She washed her hands before heading back into the shop. A takeaway cup of coffee stood on the counter. The cafe manager was almost out the door.
‘Have a good one,’ he said with a nod.
‘Thanks so much,’ she replied, returning a small smile. She was grateful to have started the day in his company, however brief it had been. She lifted the new berets from her bag and added them to the hatstand, shifting the bowler hat to a lower hook to make room.
As the woman headed down to the basement, she thought she heard a faint scattering of claws across wood. She could almost feel a brush of fur against her calf as she descended the stairs. For a moment Lottie was with her, bounding down the stairs and flicking her black tail in the woman’s imagination.
She reached the far corner of the basement. A chill climbed down her spine. The only sound she could hear was the clocks’ ticking. When she switched the lights on, nothing moved apart from the rows of dresses, the jackets made of cracked leather and suede, the silk robes she had purchased from various markets over the years. They swayed on the metal racks creaking in the draught that reached every corner of the building, fingering every coat sleeve and shirt collar.