Free The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing Page A

and her nine years were dissolving in tears. And then she was stuck there, in the bars. On the pavement people passed and passed, not seeing her, they were all hunched up under umbrellas; the playground behind was vast, dark and full of threat. Across the street, Mr Pat’s sweet and newspaper shop and café was all a soft shine of light. The street lights were making furry yellow splashes, and, just as Victoria decided to make another effort to wriggle free, Mr Patel came on to the pavement to take some oranges from the trays of fruit out there, and he saw her. She was in his shop, but usually with crowds of others, every school day, and she knew he was to be liked because her aunt, and her mother too, before she died, had said, ‘He’s okay, that Indian man.’

    VICTORIA AND THE STAVENEY’S

    Mr Patel held up his hands to stop the traffic, which was only a car and a bicycle, and hastened over to her. As he arrived her wrigglings freed her and she fell into his hands, large good hands, that held her safe. “Victoria, is that you I am seeing?’
    Saved, she abandoned herself to misery. He hoisted her up and was again holding up his hand - only one, the other held Victoria - to halt another car and a motorbike. Having arrived in the bright warmth of the café, Mr Patel set her on the high counter and said, ‘Now, dear, what are you doing here all by yourself?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ wept Victoria, and she did not. A message had come to her in class that she was to be picked up in the playground, with Thomas Staveney, whom she hardly knew: he was two classes down from her. There were customers waiting for Mr Patel’s attention. He looked around for help and saw a couple of girls sitting at a table. They were seniors from the school refreshing themselves before going home, and he said, ‘Here, keep an eye on this poor child for a minute.’ He set her down carefully on a chair by them. The big girls certainly did not want to be bothered with a snotty little kid, but gave Victoria bright smiles and said she should stop crying. Victoria sobbed on. Mr Patel did not know what to do. While he served sweets, buns, opening more soft drinks for the girls, as usual doing twenty things at once, he was thinking that he should call the police, when on the pavement opposite the tall boy who had dragged off his fighting little brother, suddenly appeared, like a ghost that has lost its memory. He stared wildly about, and then, holding on to the top bars of the gate with both hands, seemed about to haul himself up to its top. ‘Excuse me,’ shouted Mr Patel, as he ran to the door. ‘Come over here,’ he yelled, and Edward turned a woeful countenance to Mr Patel and the welcoming lights of the café and, without looking to see what traffic might be arriving, jumped across the street in a couple of bounds, just missed by a motorbike whose rider sent imprecations after him.

    ‘It’s a little girl,’ panted Edward. ‘I’m looking for a little girl,’
    ‘And here she is, safe and sound,’ and Mr Patel went in to stand by the counter where he kept an eye on the tall boy, who had sat himself by Victoria and was wiping her face with paper napkins that stood fanned in a holder. He seemed about to dissolve in tears himself. The two girls, much too old for this boy, nevertheless were making manifestations of femininity for his sake, pushing out their breasts and pouting. He didn’t notice. Victoria still wept and he was in an extreme of some emotion himself.
    Tin thirsty, ‘Victoria burst out, and Mr Patel handed across a glass of orange crush, with a gesture that indicated to Edward he shouldn’t dream of thinking of paying for it.
    Edward held the glass for Victoria, who was indignant - she, a big girl, being treated like a baby, but she was grateful, for she did badly want to be a baby, just then.
    Edward was saying, ‘I’m so sorry. I was supposed to pick you up, with my brother.’
    ‘Didn’t you see me?’ asked