The Idea of Perfection Read Online Free PDF Page B

Smiling away hard, she thought of how she could jam her shopping bag up against the hatch. It would be right up against his face. It would be just the right size to block the face out completely.
    Oh, but I’m allergic, you see, she said wildly. To strawberries.
    She felt herself flood with heat. He was still just watching. It was as if he had unscrewed his head and wedged it in the hatch. The silence, with him watching, was unbearable.
    Only strawberries, she shouted. Lucky really, nothing else. Just strawberries.
    She went on piling words in front of his face.
    They bring me out in a rash. Well, a terrible rash, really. More like a ... disease.
    The word came out in a hiss.
    She was thinking, Leprosy.
    His face recoiled and disappeared from the hatch. She had not meant, of course, that Chinese people gave you leprosy.
    Sort of a rough rash, she amended. Like pustules.
    She had heard the word, but perhaps it was not quite what she meant. She had not exactly meant pus.
    And itchy, she hurried on. Terribly itchy. Oh, you wouldn’t believe.
    Behind the wire she could not see if he believed or not. The flap slapped down and she saw his large hands on the counter smoothing the white paper there, pressing down a dog-eared corner.
    Well, he said. I wouldn’t want to bring you out in a rash.
    She could not see if he was smiling.
    She heard herself giggle explosively.
    No, she said, and could not think of what to say next.
    Certainly not.
    I hope Mr Porcelline doesn’t come out in a rash too, he said. Or William. Do they, Mrs Porcelline?
    She rushed in.
    Oh no! Mr Porcelline just loves strawberries! So does William!
    She hated the way he went on just standing, watching as she laboured to find more words.
     
     
    She was still smiling hard when she left the shop, and she went on smiling until she was out of sight of his window. The strawberries were cool and damp through the paper of the bag. She went briskly along Parnassus Road holding them casually, smiling at old Mr Anderson standing in the doorway of the Mini-Mart across the road, calling Hello, how ARE you, very warmly, to the mother from the school whose name she could never remember, waving to Fiona who was just now, too late to be any use, heading over towards Chang’s. She smiled and waved, and held the bag of strawberries as if they were the least significant thing in the world.
    The thing was, Hugh would want to know where she had got them. It would seem a little odd to tell him the butcher had given them to her. Why should the butcher give her strawberries? Why strawberries? Why her?
    All things considered, it might be a bit awkward if he knew.
    Taken all round, it might be better for the strawberries simply to disappear.
    But in a little place like Karakarook, where nothing went unobserved, getting rid of a paper bag full of strawberries, the unwanted gift of a Chinese butcher, was not as simple as you might think. If she just put them in the bin at home, Hugh might notice. He was strict about the recycling, and had a way of glancing into the rubbish-bin. It would look odd to have thrown away perfectly good strawberries.
    It might even make her look guilty.
    She was at the end of the shops now, coming up to the park at the corner of Virgil Street. There was a bin in the park, outside the public toilet. She could just pop in through the gateway and drop the bag in the bin, and pop out again, and that would be that.
    She glanced around. Outside the Mini-Mart, old Mr Anderson was still standing on the footpath, although it was hard to know if he was watching her. She could not see in, but the Acropolis Cafe across from the park was open, and it would be just her luck that Ellen would be glancing out the window as she dropped the bag in the bin. Greeks were such busybodies. In a little place like this, someone was always watching you. It would look funny, to be throwing something in a public bin. Ellen might be curious enough to go over and look, and everyone in