Free She's Leaving Home by Edwina Currie Page B

enjoyed it, along with the flicker of hope it brought.
    He weighed out six ounces until she began to protest. With a heavy sigh of regret he wrapped the delicacy carefully in greaseproof paper and wrote the price on a corner. He should count the bagels she had dropped into her bag, but she was a good customer. If she intended to eat the lot herself, nevertheless, it was no wonder she was so tubby. His Rosetta had been tiny. He should have guessed she was not robust, but her slimness had established his predilections from there on.
    ‘How’s Jerry – how’s your boy?’ Sylvia had not finished yet, though the protests behind her rose to an indignant crescendo.
    ‘Fine – still in bed, I think.’ Feinstein jerked his head in the direction of upstairs.
    ‘So idle, the younger generation,’ Sylvia commiserated loudly, ignoring Helen who counted her change into a beringed hand. ‘He should have a mother, poor boy –’ But her words were lost as the fat man succeeded in elbowing his way to the counter.
    Helen worked hard and steadily until about eleven when there was a lull. As she stood brushing hair from her eyes the door opened. Her face broke into a smile: her favourite ‘uncle’, Simon Rotblatt, had entered the shop.
    He was not a relative but her father’s oldest friend. The squat, solidly built figure in the camel-hair overcoat came towards her, a rolled-up newspaper in one hand, car keys in the other. Despite living barely a quarter of a mile away he would usually drive, though he handled the big car with difficulty and could not park straight. He did it, as everyone knew, to show off: but so good-natured and beguiling a character was he that none but the most spiteful would criticise.
    ‘And how’s my gorgeous girl this morning?’ He came to the corner of the counter and gave her a hug, then held her back to examine her. ‘So tall. And beautiful, like your mother.’
    Only Simon Rotblatt had ever called Annie ‘beautiful’ and it had more than once made Helen ponder; she took it that there was no adverse intention in the remark, only an oblique compliment to herself.
    ‘I’m fine, Uncle Simon. You look well. What would you like?’
    Simon considered. ‘You got a new delivery of schmaltz herring? Yes? I’ll have two small ones, there’s a good girl.’
    He turned to a neighbour and began to swap comments on the previous day’s football game. Although nobody in the shop would admit it had a rabbi challenged them, several had witnessed Everton’s defeat of Manchester City at Goodison Park and revelled in the fact.
    Helen retreated into the chilly yard. Fetching herring from the barrel was the one task she loathed, for the fish were pickled deep in brine with oil which in this cold weather became a horrible caustic mush. Yet intelligent people like Simon Rotblatt adored the result. She pulled on rubber gloves turned brown and brittle by contact with the liquid and manfully wielded the wooden tongues, but still it was an effort to entrap the slippery silver bodies and remove them into the plastic bowl at her side.
    ‘Need a hand, Helen?’
    She ignored him. Jerry had not arrived to assist her; he must have seen her struggles through their kitchen window. In an ideal world it would be he balancing a dead fish between barrel andbucket and not herself. Instead he stood in the way with an amused smirk on his pimply face, hands on his hips.
    The youth had other ideas, as his flushed cheeks indicated. Casually he sloped closer as Helen was forced to bend over the barrel for the second herring. Standing behind her, he moved to put his hands around her waist. She glanced over her shoulder in annoyance and with her free elbow gave him a dig in the ribs but he was only momentarily dislodged. He was dressed warmly in jeans and sweater but had moccasins on bare feet. Without meaning to she slopped a little brine on his foot.
    ‘Damn!’ Jerry rubbed ineffectually at the stain, then yelped as the salt found