First in the Queue

I'm off down the hill to the Post Office to pick up change for the till.

We've a shortage of pennies.

It’s a hot afternoon, the Sun dripping down the back of my neck.

I'm in the queue.

Dawn and Doreen are enthroned on their stools behind the glass –  positions One and Three – and Rose, "Cashier Number Two, please," is a small, unnoticeable woman between the double D.

Dawn and Doreen mirror each other; a genuine 88, the real thing, two pneumatic ladies bantering over Rose’s quiet head.  And when they must move in the course of their work, they float like dodgems around the cluttered space.  Gently their midriffs collide in the tighter corners – softly rebounding from each other, pin-balling across the office floor, reversing and negotiating. 

Dawn, younger but senior, Doreen, older, on the edge of insubordinate.  She’s looking at retiring but has just a hint of the memory of a sexual encounter or two about her – a someone by Beryl Cook.  

Dawn’s busy with a young man sending football stickers.

- They'll squash no problem, he says and she forces the package through the Small Packet size guide.

Rose is busy putting five pounds worth of gas on somebody’s card.  

Doreen’s got the Position Closed sign up; she's been busy untangling rubber bands or something.

Rose finishes with her customer and it’s me next, but as I step forward Doreen takes down her sign and calls me over to her window.

- I'll do him, Rose, she says, with a slight tinge of innuendo, looking at me from under her mascara.

- Afternoon, Doreen.

I slide the change book, with the cash inside, under the glass to Doreen.

She takes it with a slight sigh.

- Thank you, lovey.

She does everything with a slight sigh.  She likes her job – the people – the public – it’s important, but she doesn’t like money or counting or having to do it.  Everything’s a sigh but ending in a smile.

She tots the column of figures and riffles the notes, moistening her fingers on an already dry sponge damper.  Her gold topped fingernails glisten like new pound coins, flashing over the fleshy pads of her counting digits.

I have to look away from the blurring movement.  I can’t count as fast she, and I get a bit queasy watching the whirring of her hands.

Postman Pete comes in from his van.  He’s here to collect parcels.  He flicks out his electronic pad. 

- Picked up the wrong one! he says, dabbing at the screen with a capped ballpoint pen.

- Oh! you idiot, wails Dawn.

- It were full of fish!

- Fish? No! What live fish? says Dawn.  No!

- No, y’ dope, tuna, tins o’ tuna.

- Oh, I were gonna say… shouldn’t be shipping fish, not live fish, not in’t mail.

- No, says Pete.  Mind you talking of wildlife…

- What?

- I were just lifting it up and this massive big spider crawls out of it.  Massive hairy thing.  Nearly dropped it!

- Eeuw!  Nooo! Dawn and Doreen chorus.

Another customer moves up to Rose’s window.

- Here, says Dawn, we had to stop that feller sending spiders through post.  D’you remember, Dor?  You weren’t here, Rose.  Pots with them in, he had, wrapped ready to go int’ post.  Can you believe it?

- Oh ay, says Dor.  Oh, and Dawn, do you remember that woman with the crisps. 

But Dawn’s gone to fetch a sheet of First Class from the back.

Doreen looks to me for audience.

- This woman comes in and puts this great big box on the scale.  What’s in it, says I, she says “It’s snacks” but I thought she said “snakes”.  Oooh!  I heard her say “snakes” not “snacks” but it were crisps!

- Haha! I offer.

She chuckles to herself casting me quiet glances as she starts to push the little cash bags under the partition.

- Snakes!  Honestly… so that’s forty in ones, twenty in fifties, ten in twenties, five in tens and ten in copper.  Is that right, lovey?

- That’s right, Doreen.

I want to tell Doreen about Penny Stamp who worked in the Post Office where I grew up.  Penny Stamp.  Working in a Post Office.  But I can't find the right moment, so I don't say anything.

She pokes the last of the bags of shiny two pence pieces under the glass.

- They look new, I say.

- Yeah, I just made ‘em, she says winking at me.  Have you got a bag, lovey?

Then I'm off back up the hill with the weight of change bouncing my bag against my back.