They had their basket completely full with clothes. This was the shopping trip they had been waiting for. I had the luck to end up just behind them in the cue. I needed some golf socks so had popped in one of the large shops that sell sporting goods, but also do cheap sporting clothes. They both looked like most of their lives had been spent outside. In their mid-fifties, dressed as if they were going to Sunday mass, in clothes that would have suited octogenarians very well. She was carrying the basked, holding it as prized possession. She has the severe look of a woman who just escaped spinsterhood, while he looks pleased as peas in pot that he had the courage to ask her out so many years ago. At times she touches some of the garments in the basket, checking whether they still are there. They did not speak much, or to be more precise not at all. I could imagine how it would go on the farm. On Monday she would say: ‘You need some new clothes and I could do with some too’. Wednesday evening he responds: ‘Do you really think so, we have just been shopping’. Friday is the day of her response: ‘That was last year’. He really pushes himself and agrees on Saturday: ‘OK’. Agreeing on a day takes another two weeks, not because they can’t agree, but the flow of communication flows with the speed of frozen lava.
She is beaming with her prized possession. I can now see that they also have two pairs of shoes in the basket, one for her and one for him. Sturdy shoes, made to last. The clothes all have a utilitarian quality, no frivolous colours, serious working clothes.
I can see trouble when he steps back to oversee the spectacle of his wife unloading the shopping basket and handing over their prized to be possessions to the boy at the check out counter. With a gesture that betrays the man of the world that lurks deep down under this farmer’s exterior he fishes a big, flat wallet from his jacket. With more flourish then is really needed for this he opens the wallet and carefully takes out one cheque from what looks like a new chequebook. I have the image of the pair leaving before dawn. The farm is left in the trusted hands of the ‘boy’, a middle aged man who arrived after closing time in the shop where brains were handed out. Not a genius but for one day it will do. Instructions given, they set off. Will they have stopped for lunch? Probably, somewhere next to the road, they must have eaten a hearty farmers lunch. Fist stop is the bank. And in this palace of marble and chrome they obtain a new chequebook. Yes, they know the modern ways of the world. Cash is no longer needed; you can pay with a bit of paper and sign! Disaster is now about to strike. He is standing under a big sign saying in Portuguese that the shop does not take cheques…..All is added up, the clothes are packed in plastic bags. She has walked to the other side of the check-out and is holding the plastic bags, while he asks for a pen. The check-out assistant then tells them that they don’t take cheques. Shock horror on their faces, he can barely speak, shows the cheque and the chequebook but the boy is unrelenting, no cheques. All the pride gone now, no more man of the world. She is seriously considering the advantages of spinsterhood. She puts the bags with clothes back behind the counter and it is as if she is losing a limb. Deflated and defeated they walk away, she looks back to her now lost possessions, longing in her eyes, but today her prince does not rise to the occasion. Perhaps they’ll talk about it at home.