The Shooting in the Shop Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jude’s brown eyes twinkled as
she waved her hand, wiggling Socrates, Spinoza,Descartes, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein in front of her
neighbour’s face. ‘Do you think these’d be suitable?’
    ‘Suitable for what?’
    ‘As presents.’
    ‘For whom?’
    ‘For Stephen or Gaby?’ Jude replied innocently,
precisely aware of the response her words would
attract.
    She was not disappointed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
    ‘Well,’ said Jude, full of mock-penitence, ‘you know
them so much better than I do. I was just thinking
something like this’ – another wiggle of philosophers
– ‘might appeal to their sense of humour.’
    Carole wondered momentarily whether her son
had a sense of humour. Gaby did, she felt sure, and
Stephen had relaxed so much since their marriage
that maybe by now he had developed one too. Maybe
a sense of humour was contagious, like chicken pox.
    ‘I think’, she said, ‘I’m going to do better sticking
to the M and S shirts for Stephen.’
    ‘Well, all right, but you still can’t give Gaby toilet
water.’
    Carole grudgingly conceded that there might be
some truth in that. She looked around at the display
of discounted knick-knacks with something approaching
despair. ‘But I still haven’t a clue what would be
right for her.’
    ‘It’s always struck me’, Jude began tentatively, not
wishing to be too pushy with her suggestions, ‘that
Gaby’s full of fun. She’s got a very bubbly personality.’Carole agreed that this was the case. ‘She’s also very
girly in some ways.’
    ‘Ye-es.’
    ‘So I think you should give her something to put
on.’
    ‘Clothes, you mean? But I don’t know her size.’
Carole anxiously surveyed the hanging garments in
Eastern silks, crumpled linen and PVC. ‘I wouldn’t
begin to know what Gaby would like to wear.’
    ‘Oh, come on, you’ve seen her enough times. You
know the kind of stuff she likes.’
    Carole tried to focus on what her daughter-in-law
did actually wear. Jeans and sweatshirts mostly these
days, as she spent most of her time at home looking
after the baby. While she was still working as a
theatrical agent, Gaby had had a couple of dauntingly
businesslike trouser suits, but those hadn’t seen the
light of day since Lily’s birth.
    ‘She likes sparkly things,’ Jude prompted.
    Yes, now Carole came to think of it, a lot of Gaby’s
tops did have glittery designs on them. And she wore
quite a bit of costume jewellery in what her mother-in-law would have described as diamanté. ‘So you’re
saying I should get her a brooch or something?’
    ‘No, I’m saying you should give her something
frivolous. Something like this perhaps?’ Jude’s hand,
by now denuded of Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes,
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, reached up to pull something
down from its hook. It was a six-foot long stole
formed by sprays of feathers alternately white and
silver.
    Carole scrutinized the object. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be
very warm, you know, as scarves go.’
    ‘It’s not a scarf, it’s a boa.’
    ‘Maybe, but what for?’
    ‘For fun!’ Jude replied with something approaching
exasperation. ‘For when Gaby wants to glam
herself up a bit. For when she wants to forget that
she’s a wife and mother and remind herself she’s a
girl.’
    Carole continued to look dubiously at the boa. ‘Do
you think she’ll like it, though?’
    ‘I’m sure she will. And I can guarantee that Lily
will like it too. In a few years’ time she’ll be using it
for dressing up.’
    The granddaughter argument swayed Carole, and
when she looked at the cost of the boa, she was won
over completely. Originally, it had been twenty-five
pounds, which would definitely have come under her
definition of overpriced. But that had been slashed to
ten pounds, and then a further reduction had been
made to four pounds fifty. Carole decided she had
found Gaby’s present.
    Emboldened by this success, she started