Monday 18 June 2012

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. 

43 comments:

  1. I love your stories. But then we're both simple ;-)

    I must be, on first reading I thought Barbara had kept her mother alive merely by washing her curtains.
    x

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  2. I'm still baffled as to how Barbara kept her mother 'alive'.
    And the more I hear about Barbara's daughters, the stronger the image of them being androgynous power-dressing giants with cold, soulless eyes becomes.

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  3. Hello Lucy:
    Pontypridd really does provide, through your keen eyes and sharp pen, the material for endless novels. This chapter, in the Charity Shop,captures so exquisitely the loneliness, emptiness, black humour and alien encounters that are the very stuff of small towns during the week when others are gainfully employed, children are in school and new mothers and their offspring are closeted in 'mummy and baby' groups.

    Oh how we all know the Barbaras of the world. Salt of the Earth, never stops for breath and cheerful as dead flowers. No wonder you felt in need of a job when you arrived home. But then, could writing become your secret occupation on weekdays....?!!!!

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    1. Jane and Lance, my jaunts are a far cry from the scenic, fascinating and arty experiences you enjoy. However, you have to work with what you've got, and I have a world where the unemployable, retired and 'poorly' all collide in the most unremarkable way imaginable.
      Your comment made me laugh, you'll never be a Barbara!

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    2. "...cheerful as dead flowers..." love it!

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  4. I'm not a star. I'm a black HOOOOLLLLEEEE

    Sorry, was just nosing through your profile trying to find your email address so I could stalk you further when I noticed you like Sma5h TV!

    I think your real life written work is amazing, you just hear and see the best stuff you never need to write fiction... or add it into your your fiction writing. That whole scene is hilarious. Get writing some monologues or 2 person plays or something for God's sake so everyone can marvel at the new Alan Bennet/Mike Leigh but a lady, in Wales xx

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    1. I have always thought that truth is stranger than fiction. Strange is what I like, and I live in the right place for endless play material. In fact, playwriting would be top of the list of things I'd love to do.
      Hope you got my email. Lovely comment - thanks.

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  5. Jesus! I could die laughing! I love the darkness and weirdness behind ordinary life. What a tale. I want it to be true.
    Thanks for your comment on my blog. You pop in my head sometimes. Hope that doesn't sound extremely weird. I love your insights.
    I lived in the same place all my life before coming here and it ain't that different in a lot of ways. There just seem to be a lot more bigots and people who think women belong in the kitchen. I heard the other week that they all gossip about my weird fashion. This is the place where they like to wear a woollen sweat band around the forehead. It is a nice look.
    You often remind me of me, but a funnier and sharper version. I liked what you said about your family not fitting the typical working class stereotype. Mine didn't either.
    I recognise my own old town in yours. Sometimes it was a sorry sight, but I miss it. You don't get any eccentric behaviour here, unless someone is on the sauce.
    I felt a bit bad for reminding you of the jolting feeling. I hope we find ourselves where we should be one day. I always think you are so clever and your writing is so poignant and funny. It is bittersweet but uplifting. You would make a great scriptwriter. Or writer of books. I love your writing and your 'voice', which sounds pretentious so sorry about that.
    x

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  6. You express yourself so well, through your words, photographs, fashion and home. People are fascinated and envious, I'd imagine, and those feelings come out as gossip and a sort of fear.
    I hope to meet you one day, I think we'd have endless things to talk about.
    You don't sound pretentious either, just honest and open, and I really admire that.

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  7. wow. what a story. does it mean that smoking is good?

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    1. I think it means living with Barbara is good. I'd sooner be pulling my hair out than shedding a layer of skin though.

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  8. I think Barbara thinks "simple" is a compliment. She probably goes back to her two bathroom bungalow and bores her power-dressing, Lady Di- haired daughters rigid about the pretty lady with the lovely children who comes in the shop and always makes an effort to ask after her, unlike some people....
    Obviously washing the curtains is the secret to longevity, that means my days are more than likely numbered.
    I wish you'd been with us on Saturday. Clare and I were subject to some of the most bizarre chairty shop conversations including a woman telling us that Wallace Simpson had "lady boy bits" and poor old Edward couldn't perform, that's why he married her.
    You are hilarious, your writing is such a treat. xxxx

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  9. I'd have loved a day with you and Clare Saturday. My mother has come out with that Wallace Simpson gem in the past, her take on the royal family would fill at least one book.
    There is something about charity shops, so many people happily and readily share the most personal details about their lives.
    I wonder if us lot will end up being those oddballs who talk nonsense in the charity shops?

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  10. I love all the Barbaras of the world!!
    They give us 'simple' persons lots of inspiration..I really adore to read this, I'm amused! Sometimes is better to be polite and listen to such incredible stories full of details: burgundy velvet curtains:brilliant! Two bathrooms: pure genius!!
    Please write a novel on her!
    xxx

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    1. I do like Barbara, and it's clear to see where her intelligent and ambitious daughters get their strength from.
      Her loneliness, boredom and frustration is constantly bubbling to the surface. Must be tough living alone in a large detached bungalow when you have no close family nearby. There probably is a books' worth of material in Barabara.

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  11. You should keep working with what you've got Lucy. Always your best scribblings x

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    1. I do find it much easier, and more fun to write about these bizarre and mundane daily occurrences. Trouble is, I wonder if I'm wasting my life being the in the middle of so many such encounters!

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  12. I know a few Barbara's at our charity shop. I hide behind the racks of clothes.
    How did she save her Mom's life again?
    Your stories are gold amor!
    Adorar how you can turn a simple charity shop trip into an amazing story.
    Besotes

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    1. Barbara refers to one of her daughters as 'the scientist'. Who knows what life-preserving skills Barbara and her daughter possess! The amazing story comes courtesy of our Babs, I'm sure there'll be another next time I see her.

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  13. I imagine Barbara has a little Hyacinth Bucket in her... the burgundy velvet curtain, two bathrooms and references to her successful but childless daughters... poor Barbara, she is living vicariously through the halcyon days of her girls and all she really wants is a grandchild or two to spoil and fatten up.

    I just love your writing, Luce, your beautiful, hilarious and dark observations make me happy. Write a book? I'd buy it.

    Sarah xxx

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    1. You summed Barbara up perfectly here Sarah. There's a lesson to be learned for all those parents who brag about how 'clever' their kids are. Mum's neighbour, Rita is the same. Her son went to Uni and never returned, he's left his past behind and has no love or respect for his home town, old friends and roots. Sad, really.

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  14. I've got really stuck (call me simple) in the impossibility of skin shedding in such a fashion and am therefore trying to work out the genesis and meaning of her story.
    And, I've decided her mother had mistook pva for body lotion that day.
    You bring the ordinary to notice beautifully Luce x

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    1. PVA - brilliant! It doesn't bear thinking about how, why or IF it happened. Sometimes a child, half way through a tale, will realise the ending is quite boring. Embellishments, exaggeration and fantasy take over in order to make the story more engaging. I wonder if that's what Barbara did? It was a convincing performance if so!

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  15. that's a priceless snippet of life you've told there.... she sounds a true gem. like the others are saying, get a book or a play out of these situations! xx

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    1. I think I owe Barbara a guest post! I'll pop into Barnado's next Monday and get as much information about her as I can.

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    2. She'd love that, I'm sure; we can all be her "much better than her own daughters" and she can become "virtual granny" to ALL our kids.... not sure I'd trust her with babysitting though, lol xx

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  16. I love the people you find, Barbara could be star of her own play. Set in a charity shop of course, perhaps writing a play could be an alternative to a job Lucy? Also Barbara sounds lonely to me, I meet so many elderly people around here, and many of them will latch onto anything to start a conversation, and you just have to humour them. Will they get to talk to anyone else?

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    1. Sounds like a great alternative to a job! Not sure how much longer I can daydream my way through life though.
      It's a lonely life, in many ways when you have no responsibility. I try to learn as much as I can from the elderly, pick up on their regrets and clues as to the source of their happiness/unhappiness.

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  17. I can see er now...and hear her! Fact is always stranger and more complelling than fiction. What I love, and miss about Wales, is the way people speak...the rhythmn of it all and the stuff they come out with. People are a bit more guarded 'dine sithe' You should write radio plays, love...xxxx

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    1. There's definitely a unique lyricism to most Welsh accents. Add that to a fondness for discussing details about home furnishings and status symbols, and you get quite rich imagery to support the words. It's like the hard work has been done for me, all I have to do is record it.

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  18. This is so funny. The mental picture of the human chrysallis was actually quite alarming! We get the occasional odd character manning the stalls here too, and they’re terribly nosy. My daughter was nabbing a few bargains before she returned this week and was given the third degree. On top of that she was told she looked like Princess Eugenie - I won’t say what her answer was (and she doesn’t anyway).

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    1. Princess Eugenie! She gets some bad press, bless her, but I can see why your daughter would be unimpressed, especially if she doesn't look anything like her.
      I'm still trying to put all images of the human chrysalis to the back of my mind.

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  19. I always think I've had the best day no matter what I've done if I bump into interesting people. Our thrift shops don't have many Barbara's, kinda sad if you ask me, she sounds pretty entertaining. I do think I find my share of nut job shoppers though. Just last week a lady followed me all around a shop wouldn't stop talking about when she tried dying her hair with Henna...what a mess that turned out to be, swore she'd never do that again!

    As much as my job has kicked my ass this year I love working so I get you wanting too. I love being in sales because it's really the business of people.

    I loved chatting with you Lucy just as much as I love your stories!
    XXOO
    Krista

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    1. I think I'd follow you all around the shop Krista, just to talk to you!
      I love working too, I'm just not very good at getting along with large groups of people. I'm a bit of an anarchist at heart.

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  20. I wish my skin had shed when I quit smoking 4 years ago, and left me looking like a young girl. Instead, I gained a whole pile of weight and look like a fat old cow. :)

    That was the funniest thing I've read for days, Lucy. Ta for the smile, it's hard going at the moment, with my nasty ex-husband causing vile hassles and totally getting me down.

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    1. Just think of the improvement to your health! Smoking wouldn't be a bad thing if nicotine wasn't so bloody addictive.
      I don't think I ever got the hang of inhaling properly (like Bill Clinton). I could smoke 40on a weekend and not touch another cigarette for weeks.

      Ex-husband hassles, poor you. Hope things improve for you soon. x

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  21. What a great story! I'm quitting smoking now but if I look any younger people will start id-ing me sgain!

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    1. Nothing wrong with looking younger! Do let us know if you shed a layer of skin though, I can exonerate Babs then.

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  22. Lucy, your writing never lets me down, it's always acutely observed and honest, dark and bemused, sharp yet humane. I think script writing could really be your forte, you have a great ear for dialogue, and for what goes unspoken too. Barbara seems slightly grotesque yet also rather sad and unfulfilled. (I know a bit about the latter, I'm hoping I'm not also heading for grotesque... Give it time!)
    Write, Luce, write more, often, much, and well. xxxxxxx

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    1. Aw, thanks Curtise - that meant a lot.
      Babs can teach us all a lesson in how not to grow old. We're living similar lives (you and I) and it can be worrying when you have no career or all-encompassing hobbies. What kind of future awaits,eh? Charity shop volunteering, for sure!

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  23. A fantastic vignette. Barbara is a character in a short story; now there's an occupation for you! Care to try it?

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    1. Dare I try do something I enjoy? Dare any of us?
      Writing feels like partially justified time-wasting. I'm sure I need to spend more time wiping dirty things, organising life, making money and getting thinner. Then, I'll be VALID!

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    2. cleaned things get dirty again, organised things become disorganised again, money gets spent... thinner - who cares about THAT? - whereas writing remains forever, helps you develop, keeps you sharp, earns you money perhaps...... and validates you as a person. DO IT!!!!

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Sorry I am having to filter comments at the moment