The Human Chrysalis

The novelty of being able to traipse the charity shops alone is starting to wear off. Weekday meanders through Pontypridd are rarely uplifting experiences.
Today, I felt out of place owing to  the absence of a walking stick, buggy, carer or bag of cans.

I entered Barnrdo's charity shop.  Upon noticing the volunteer on duty, I steeled myself. 
In her early seventies; tall, slender and immaculately groomed, Barbara cuts a rather elegant figure. Long fingernails coated in thick pearlised pink polish set off her heavily accessorised fingers. Beige hair and custard-cream toned clothing lead you down to three-tone metallic leather shoes.
Barbara loves to chat,  I have lost count of the number of times she's told me about her successful. childless daughters. "I wish one of them was simple, I'd have had grandchildren then!"


The conversation starts,


"Hiya love, how's the boy doing?"


"Sonny loves school Barbara, how are you?"


Why do I ask? Why?


"Well, I'm still alive love!!"


A young man enters the shop with an unlit rolled-up cigarette perched between his dry lips. His demeanour is       
nervous, impatient, like a criminal waiting for an accomplice to finish the 'job'.


Barbara often attempts to engage the whole shop in a conversation, even on very busy days, gesturing at his roll-up, she says:


"Never smoked, me. Never tried it. Don't know what it tastes like"


Still rifling through a rail of faded mid-nineties t-shirts, the nervy smoker pipes up:


"Wish I'd never bloody tried it" 


Barbara then treated us to a rather fantastical story (though who I am to doubt the truth in it?)

My mother smoked all her life, loved her fags, she did.  I had to take my burgundy velvet curtains to the dry cleaners after her visits.
When she was dying, I had her living with me, I kept her alive for a year, I did, the doctor told me that. Anyway, she gave up smoking. 
One day, she was in the bathroom [I've got TWO bathrooms in my detached bungalow] and she called me, screaming, she was.
I walked in, and had the shock of my life! All of her skin had shed, in one layer. Like a sheet, it was.
The doctor said it's from giving up smoking. She looked like a young girl.


Bemused, I left the shop and headed home.

Why the detail about two bathrooms?

At home, I thought about looking for a job.