Free England's Lane by Joseph Connolly Page A

he threatened to throw his plate against the wall. If Paul hadn’t been at table (and he ate it all up like a good little boy) then I’d have dared him to do it, I was, ooh—that angry with the man. And he would have, you know—yes and then who do you think would have been up till all hours clearing away all of the mess? Exactly. Anyway, I thought it was actually very tasty—a lot of cutting up involved, of course: you wonder why they make it quite so long. The recipe said to put cheese on the top, but that would have made it more like a rarebit sort of affair, to my mind. And anyway, all I had in the house were some portions of Dairylea. I get it for Paul—he likes it on his toast.
    And isn’t it funny? I’m looking now into the window of the United Dairies, and what’s the very first thing that catches my eye? A pyramid of tins of Smedley’s spinach …! Yes well you can keep them, thank you very much. But I do love this window—I sometimes think I could stand on the pavement and gaze at it for hours. And maybe in the past I have done—well, not for hours, obviously … but more than once somebody like that busybody Mrs. Goodrich or the lady from Amy’s the hairdresser—not Gwendoline, not the one who does me, but the other one—they’ve touched my arm and they’ve said tome something along the lines of Are you quite all right, my dear …? And I’ve come right back to earth and laughed at myself for ever having drifted away. Oh yes quite all right, thank you, I eagerly assured them. But that Mrs. Goodrich, she obviously thinks I’m touched. It’s just that I love to look at the displays, that’s all—why I don’t really care for these supermarkets, as they call them; even the new food hall they’ve got in John Barnes—I’ve never been in. Before I go into any of the shops in the Lane, though, I always pause to look at the windows. In the Dairies, it’s mostly these tapering piles of packets and tins—they look so very impressive, I always think, when they’re all massed together like that. Ranked like soldiers. The red of the Heinz Tomato Soups always makes for a cheery sight—reminds you of winters by the fire: I always add the top of the milk—gold top though, it’s got to be that. Stir it in—makes all the difference, I can tell you. And those great big boxes of Force, with Sunny Jim looking always so very posh and happy. Worlds away from my Jim, isn’t he …? My Jim, he never could be said to be sunny—perpetually overcast, rather more, with the threat of anything from showers to an out-and-out tornado. I don’t think they can be real though, those enormous packets—there’d be more than enough cereal in there to feed a family of six for a year. The manufacturers must just make them for show, I suppose. Well if that’s the case, their money isn’t wasted. If it wasn’t quite so nippy today, I’d linger longer—savor all these brand new Huntley & Palmers big square tins and the handsome jars of Marmite. But there’s always the devil of a wind just on this corner, so I think I’ll go in there now and get what I came for.
    I always smile at the sign on the door: “Yes! We are open for the sale of Lyons’ Cakes.” When they shut the shop in the evening—and even when it’s half-day closing on Thursdays—I’ve seen Edie, the manageress (and she’s always the last to leave) … I’ve seen her turnit around: she never forgets, she always turns it around before she locks up the shop. And then it says “Sorry! We are closed—even for the sale of Lyons’ Cakes.” I wonder if there’s anyone else who even so much as notices? I hope so—because I think all these windows, they’re really a bit of an art that we all just take for granted. And oh my goodness, the