The Glass Cage

Story contd.

There wasn’t time to mope; lots of laundry to do and all the household tasks that had been left for a week. It was lovely to see the boys and hug them. A week apart made us so much more appreciative of each other and they were quite angelic for about 24 hours.

Mary, my partner, rang – very excited; this was the first summer the shop had been open and we were very busy – we needed more part-time staff so that there would be at least two of us on duty. She had been so busy with sales that she hadn’t had time to enter them up on the client’s cards. I said I would go in to do it once the boys were in bed. We were both excited and pleased with the way the shop’s fame was spreading.

There was a letter for me the next day, but I was rushing to drive the boys to school, and then to open the shop before half past nine, so put it in my bag for later. As soon as we opened there was a stream of customers. When we first started Mary’s father had rigged a buzzer on one of the stairs to warn us when any one was coming. Now there was a constant buzz, buzz, buzz, and what with that and the old fashioned till -bell it was like an inspiration for Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells.

Mary came in briefly and I was glad of the help but soon she had to go to the bank and I was alone again. Just before lunch a Persian man (he told me he was from Persia) arrived with his two daughters who were going to be boarders at one of the local prep schools. He handed me a long list of uniform which he wanted for both girls. We always closed for lunch but I decided that, although I would lock the shop as usual, I would devote my lunch hour to trying to find everything they needed.

It wasn’t easy; he was very demanding and the girls were very shy hiding behind; the changing room curtain we had fixed in the corner – even to try on hockey boots. By the time I had found everything they needed, including lacrosse sticks, I was panting with exhaustion

I sank into the office chair to remove all the price tickets and add up the amounts. When I told him the price he made me an offer. I couldn’t believe it. I felt smoke must be coming out of my ears. I had worked my butt off during my lunch hour, persuading the girls to try everything on, grovelling on my knees amongst the hockey boots, and he had the effrontery to make me an offer…

I drew myself up to my full five feet four and a half inches and said.

‘I’m sorry sir but we do NOT barter. That is the price you must pay if you wish to take the goods.’

The thought of having to try to match the garments with the tickets if he decided to leave, gave me palpitations. Selling was only part of the job - everything sold had to be entered on the customers file so she could collect her money the next time she was in. All the articles would have come from maybe twenty different customers so you can see the problem.

Both he and the girls looked rather startled at my obvious outrage and he slowly brought out a roll of notes and paid me in full. That taught me never to remove the tickets until I was certain the customer was serious.

Whilst waiting for the boys to come out of school I remembered the letter. It was from Gary- a poem and a note with a telephone number and the message ‘Please phone.’

When I read the poem I was moved and felt my resolve weakening. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to phone – it was only polite.

His voice sounded just like him – relaxed and friendly.

‘Gary it’s Pat. Thank you for the poem – it’s lovely. How long did it take to write it?’

There was a pause and I thought we had been cut off.

‘Well it more or less wrote itself. It’s great to hear your voice Pat.’

He said he had found one of the books he had told me about – a play he thought I should do as my first; he had even designed a set for me.

When I met him it was different. He seemed to have lost the golden glow he had in the college and I felt awkward and uncomfortable. A woman I knew – she was northern like me and was used to saying what she thought – had told me I seemed to have a glass cage around me. Somehow I knew what she meant and thought that one day I should break out of it. But I knew this was not the time. I had been swept off my feet once before and it was not going to happen again. When I told Gary it couldn’t go any further he said everyone would assume it had anyway. This riled me and I said the important thing was that I knew it hadn’t.

It must have been almost a year later when I was browsing through one of my quotation books looking for something apt for a friend’s birthday and a familiar line caught my eye. It was the poem Gary had written for me but my book said it was by William Blake.

The Garden of love

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut

And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tombstones where flowers should be;

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – so I did both. What an ignorant fool he must have thought me. I blessed the guardian angel that had stopped me from straying. This time anyway.

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