In the Queue, too

Dawn was rather overcast and gloomy when I walked in this morning, but she cheered up a little when she got her rosy-tipped fingers on the bundle of notes I brought for her to count.  She flicked the corners up with deft digits and bundled them into hundreds before filing them away in her money drawer.

No Rose today, Ron was sat in the middle at “Cashier No2, please.”  Judging by the clouds that hovered around Dawn, Ron was not having a good day.  By the doubtful sideways glances that Dawn was giving him I could tell he didn’t really know what he was doing.

            -  You’ll have to start that again, she said, nodding at the job in hand.  No, you’ll have to recount.

She sighed quietly while he started again.

Dawn entered the amounts on her keyboard and I handed her the cheques as Ron finally sold his customer a second class and sent her on her way.  She was not best pleased either, judging by the way she swung her bag for life off the counter.  The automatic door was definitely not quick enough for her this morning.

Just then Ahmed walked in from the Medina Stores next door clutching a piece of paper.  He saw Ron behind the glass and hesitated a moment, but he approached the counter.  A bit warily, though, I thought.

Doreen had evidently been out the back making tea because in she comes now with three mugs – two in one hand, one in the other – and a packet of Abernethy under her arm.  She delivered the mugs along the counter, reversed her large behind up onto her stool and deftly whipped the easy-open strip from around the biscuits.

            -  Hello, Ahmed, she called across, snapping a biscuit and dunking a piece in her tea.

            -  Hello, Doreen.

            -  Do you fancy a nibble, ducky?  She winked at me as her lipsticked mouth engulfed the soggy, crumbling fragment.

Ahmed grunted as he passed his paper under the glass to Ron, who studied it, front and back, as if he wasn’t sure what he should be doing with it.

            -  What’s this?  he said

            -  It’s me gas bill, said Ahmed, I need to pay it.

            -  Well I know that!  I can see that!  But what’s this… this mark here… what’s that.  Looks like a big “C”. 

He flapped the bill at Ahmed

            -  Oh that, said Ahmed, it’s coffee.  I put me cup down on it yesterday.  That’s what reminded me to pay it.

Ron huffed.

            - I can hardly make out the numbers.  You should be more careful.

He acted out holding it up close to his face and studying hard.

            -  You don’t want to get yourself cut off, eh, Ahmed, said Doreen.

            -  No, certainly not.

Dawn was just starting to sort my change out, sixty eight pounds’ worth, when something caught my eye behind her on the floor.  A sudden blurry, furry movement.  A rat? – no surely not.  It couldn’t be – not in a post office.

I said nothing.

Dawn tipped herself off her stool and bowled over to the change drawer.  She stood there rifling through the various packets of pennies and two pence pieces.  I’d been looking at the Health Lotto cards wondering what the odds were when suddenly there was a sharp yelping noise and a small brown pointed face jumped up in front of me and immediately disappeared again.  Another yelp and the face appeared again, jumping even higher, before falling back down.

            -  Timothy! get down, snapped Dawn.

Once more the yelp and a small brown dog appeared, jumping up behind the counter in a desperate attempt to get onto it!  He looked as if he’d take my fingers off if he could get at them.

            - That’s some jump he’s got on him, I said, glad of the glass between us.

            -  He’ll get his muzzle on him in a minute, said Dawn.

Once again the little dog jumped .  Again, and again.

            -  Timothy! growled Dawn.  How many times have I told you?  Right.

She dropped the bags of change she was counting out, went to her handbag on the floor by the back wall and pulled out a length of black cloth.  She marched over towards my window and the bouncing dog, and flipped the cloth strap onto the counter.  The buckle clicked loudly against the glass.  

She held out a finger of admonition.

            -  I’m not joking! she said.

I could tell she wasn’t.  We could all tell she wasn’t.  Even Timothy could tell she wasn’t.  I couldn’t see him now, down on the floor, but I could imagine his little face, his cowed eyes, his lively tail starting to droop as the thought of the muzzle filled his tiny, bouncing head.

Dawn turned to look at me from hooded lids.  She still wasn’t joking.

In The Queue