Diary of a Shopkeeper, 26th June

As so often at this time of year, yesterday’s glorious sun was followed by a thick haar today.

This was a bad one. So dense that, when I came to open the shop in the morning, I struggled to see the keyhole in the door. I tried using the torch on my phone, but that just made it worse, like driving through fog with full beams on.

Eventually I realised that if I could find the handle – which surely shouldn’t be hard – then I could just feel my way to the keyhole from there. (The keyhole was below the handle, wasn’t it? Suddenly I was full of doubt...)

I got down on my knees and started running my fingers along the edge of the door. Ah ha! A metal plate! Surely the surround of the keyhole…

At that point I heard muffled footsteps coming down the path behind me.

‘Goodness gracious…dear oh dear…’

Even through the blanketing fog I could recognise the dulcet tones of Mrs Stentorian.

‘Good morning Henrietta,’ I said.

She screeched. ‘Who said that? Who’s there?’

‘It’s me, the shopkeeper,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to get the door open.’

‘About time too,’ she said. ‘Surely it’s well past ten.’

‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t see the clock on the cathedral as I... Ow!!!’

Mrs Stentorian had kicked me in the shin with her heavy-duty brogues.

‘Goodness gracious, man! What are you doing down there? I could’ve tripped over you and done myself a mischief.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, getting to my feet with a wince, then leaning against the door to take the pressure off my splintered shin. ‘I’m just trying to open up.’

‘I have no interest in you divulging the secrets of your heart, shopkeeper. Give me sone Stilton and nothing more.’

‘I think, Henrietta,’ came a croam voice from across the courtyard, ‘He’s trying to open his shop, not his heart.’

I recognised the gruff but pleepy tone immediately. It was Willie Pickle. This fog was doing weird things to my senses…as if my hearing was heightened because I couldn’t see a thing.

‘Do my ears deceive me?’ said Mrs Stentorian, or is that…Guilhem le Cornichon?’ And she giggled like someone 50 years younger and half as tweedy.

‘Oui oui, certainement. And do I have the pleasure of addressing Madame de Stentor?’

Maybe the fog was doing weird things to my mind too. I’d never heard Willie say a word in French except maybe Stella Artois, but here he was joking fluently in the language of love.

I put out a hand to steady myself from the shock and – ah ha! – it landed on the door handle. I brought my other hand round to meet it, moved it down an inch…and slotted the key straight into the lock.

‘We’re in!’ I cried, and swung the door open so they could enter the shop at last.

‘So what are you looking for, Henrietta?’ said Willie Pickle.

‘It wouldn’t matter what I was looking for,’ she replied. ‘I couldn’t see it anyway.’ Her voice was getting fainter now. ‘What are you after, Monsieur le Cornichon?’

‘You know me,’ he replied, his voice even more muffled than before. ‘A man of simple pleasures.’

I reached in and switched the lights on. ‘I’ve a shop full of simple pleasures,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you both come in?’

They didn’t reply. All I could hear was a mumbling and rustling, interspersed with stifled giggles, from somewhere underneath the oak tree.

I shook my head. Sometimes the needs of customers are hard to understand. I flipped the door sign to OPEN and stepped inside. At the far end of the room, the cheese fridge glowed mysteriously as waves of haar rolled down the length of the shop.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 29th June. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.