man was pointing feverishly at some brand.
'Listen, don't give it to him, lady... I beg you.'
'Are you going to sell me this bottle of cider or are you not?'
Helen could be authoritative in short bursts.
Two pounds eighty,' the man said. Helen slapped the money, her money, down on the counter, and in an equally bad temper the bottle was shoved into a plastic bag for her.
' Helen said. 'Did I or did I not do what you asked me?'
'You did not, that's only rat's piss, that stuff, fancy bottles for the carriage trade. I'm not drinking that.'
'Well don't then.' There were tears starting in her eyes.
'And what's more I'm not spending my good money on it.'
'Have it as a present.' She was weary.
'Oh high and mighty, Lady Muck,' he said. He had a good quarter of it drunk from the neck by this stage. He was holding it still by its plastic carrier bag.
Helen didn't like the look of his face, the man was working himself up into some kind of temper, or even fit. She looked at him alarmed, and saw a huge amount of the despised cider vanishing down his throat.
'The urine of rodents,' he shouted. 'Bottled by these creeps of shopkeepers and dignified with the name of alcohol.'
He banged on the window again loudly. 'Come out, you cheat and rogue, come out here and justify this garbage.'
There were vegetable boxes piled neatly with apples and oranges, with potatoes loose and mushrooms in baskets. The man with the near-empty cider bottle began to turn them over on to the street systematically.
The staff ran from the shop; two of them held him, another went for the law.
'Thank you very much,' said the boy who had served Helen.
'That was a very nice day's work.'
'You wouldn't bloody listen to me,' shouted the man, who had foam flecks at the side of his mouth by now.
'Her sort don't listen to anyone, mate,' said the irate shopkeeper who was trying to immobilize him.
Helen moved from the scene awkwardly. She walked away almost sideways as if she were trying not to turn her back on the chaos and distress she had created. But then this happened so often.
It was always happening, Helen found, everywhere she went.
Back in the convent she wouldn't say anything to Sister Brigid about it. It would be so easily misunderstood. The sisters wouldn't grasp that it would all have happened anyway. The man might have got even more violent and upset if nobody had bought him the drink. He might have broken the window or hurt someone.
But Helen wouldn't tell the upsetting tale. Brigid would be bound to look at her sadly and wonder why trouble seemed to follow Helen Doyle wherever she went.
It might even put further away the day when they would allow Helen to take her vows and become a member of the Community rather than just a hanger-on. How much did she have to prove?
Why did Sister Brigid keep putting off the time when Helen should be considered seriously as one of their Community? She worked as hard as any of them, she had been with them for three years and still there was this feeling that it was somehow a passing whim.
Even the most minor and accidental events made them see Helen as unstable in some way. It was terribly unfair and she wouldn't add to the long list by telling them about the confusion she was walking away from. Somehow it would be seen as her fault.
Instead she would think about the silver wedding celebrations and what she could do best to help.
Well obviously she hadn't any money or anything so there could be nothing expected from her on that score. And as well as the vow of poverty that she had taken - or to be more honest was trying to take - she was a bit unworldly these days, she had left the mainstream of everyday life. And even if she did go out to work each day, as all the Sisters did, she didn't see the side of life that Mother and Anna would be concentrating on, the more material end of things. And she wouldn't be any good rounding up neighbours and friends. Perhaps she could see whether they might have a
Michael Cunningham
Janet Eckford
Jackie Ivie
Cynthia Hickey
Anne Perry
A. D. Elliott
Author's Note
Leslie Gilbert Elman
Becky Riker
Roxanne Rustand