Bunny Goes To The Shops

Carl was trying to get out the door.

“Just the things you want,” said Bunny. She was changing her house shoes for her street shoes in the laundry. “Text them to me and I’ll look at them in the supermarket. I’m dropping into to see Father, oh, what’s his name? At St Benedict’s, so I’ll be a little longer.”

“You want me to do what?” said Carl.

“You said you looked in the pantry, just what you saw that we needed.”

There was silence.

“We need a whole car load full of stuff, from my reckoning, Bun,” said Carl. “You’d better go.”

Bunny enters the kitchen. “I’ll have you know that this isn’t my idea of pulling equal weight, Carlo.”

“I can’t talk to you when you get all Politically Correct on me,” said Carl, complete with parenthesis and a stupid face. “I’m going out to work.”

“What is it that you do out there in your shed, now we are both superannuated?”

Good thing Felix bought her an iPhone for Xmas, now Bunny always had an up to date shopping list.

Bunny reverse parked the Super Snipe in one fluid motion, on the causeway. It was a good spot. She’d had a bet with herself for years, about “getting her in” in one go, ever since that first year that she got the car and Carl called her out on her parking skills. How many years ago was that? She slid the gear stick into P and pulled on the hand brake. She collected her handbag and her cardigan in one hand. She patted the dashboard, my Swiss watch, she always thought. She let her finger brush across the bur walnut facia. She sniffed in the bouquet of leather, she had never tired of that smell for the entire time she’d had the car. Carl had called her, “stupid, or what?” when he heard her refer to the Super Snipe as Swiss more than once. 

“Swiss my arse,” he’d say. “Good Coventry stock, this!”

“It’s precision, Carl,” said Bunny. “That’s what I am referring to.”

“Well, why don’t you say that,” said Carl. “Instead of saying all this namby-pamby stuff that no one understands.”

“She’s like my Swiss watch, Carl,” said Bunny. “She never lets me down.”

Car rolls his eyes.

She walked the short distance to the shops, her high heals making a clack, clack, clack sound. She wouldn’t normally wear high heals shopping, but she’d just been to the church, the Catholic Church, about playing piano for a wedding. She didn’t know what she thought about these Catholics, (her mother always told Bunny that she was frightened of the Catholics because the nuns weren't allowed to speak) Bunny had heard plenty of catholic nuns speak, she shook her head. But she figured it was all still just piano playing. It was only the Catholics that went in for hell now a days, she was sure. She went over slightly on one heal. They wanted her to play something called, The Rose, apparently it is very big now a days. Bunny guessed the bride meant on the charts, but Bunny didn’t ask.

Bunny tripped on something she didn’t see. “Oops!” she said out loud. It took her breath away, the suddenness of it. She reached out to steady herself, pushing the palm of her hand against the shop window making a squeak.

She looked back at the raised, cracked concrete footpath, and thought about all those stories she’d ever heard about people suing for millions after falling down in the street. She looked down at her shoes. She looked at the cracked concrete again. She rubbed it with the toe of her shoe.

She shook her head. She just remembered she left her phone on the dashboard of the car. Carl had tried to call her, she didn’t really know why she bothered. She thinks he had the phone upside down. Felix’s buddy Tank has offered to wire the Super Snipe up hands free, but he hasn’t done that yet.

She turned back in the direction she’d just come, thinking about the phone, and her foot tripped on a cracked piece of footpath she’d just looked at. “Oh stupid…” She went straight over, she was already somewhat off balance. “Ah!” All she probably felt was a hard thud to the side of the head, as it hit the pavement. A coward’s punch from the universe, or perhaps from God, her Anglican God, displeased she’d agreed to play for the nuptials for the “mickeys,” as her mother would have said. Perhaps, she was wearing two different types of thread? Had she agreed to work on the Sabbath? It is doubtful she would have realised what happened, the world went black. Was this some kind of eternal joke about the afterlife?

Iris, Bunny’s life long friend, further up the shopping strip, heard a sound like somebody being punched in the stomach followed by a winded cry. She instinctively headed in the direct from which that sound came.

Bunny woke to a feeling of cold against her face, her skin was touching the concrete. Where was she? People were gathered around her, her friend, Iris, was looking down at her, like a “wet” spaniel. Everything was quiet, then the street noise kicked in again. Suddenly. It was a start. She sat up. Her knees and hands stung from the smallest minute particles of gravel stuck in her skin. She looked at her palms.

“You tripped over you own feet, Bun.” Bunny’s friend Iris’s voice boomed. “I saw you go down, luv.” Iris laughed. “Here.” Iris handed Bunny the missing shoe. 

Her bag was on the grass above her head. One foot was cold, as one shoe had come off one of her feet, she just kind of fell out of that it, she could still feel it.

 “I saw the first one, I,” said Bunny. “I turned back to the car to change my shoes, and the second one…” she shrugged

“Now give us one of your hands, I'll help you up,” said Iris.

Bunny refused Iris' hand and tried to get up herself. Bunny’s arm hurt, as she pushed herself up off the ground, she must have used it to break her fall. The arm gave way. She suddenly realised, as she was on all fours, that her glasses were sitting diagonally across her face.

“Giddy up, luv!” said Iris. She whooped with laughter. “You’re not at home with Ray now, darl.”

"Hush, Iris," said Bunny. "You and your dirty mouth"

Bunny took Iris' hand, begrudgingly. She felt giddy as she stood, again. Her hands and knees stung from gravel rash. She pushed the hair out of her eyes. She hated herself for correcting Iris on this point, but it had to be done. “Carl,” said Bunny.

“I’m Iris. Did you hit your head?” Iris chuckled.

Bunny straightened herself. “You said Ray.” Bunny spoke through gritted teeth. “If I was on the floor with anybody… playing horse and jockey,” she rolled her eyes at the absurdity of what she was saying. The absurdity that she had to come out and say it. “It would be Carl.” Even Bunny could hear herself hissing. “I would be on the floor with Carl.” She looked around to see if anybody was in earshot.

Iris ushered Bunny to a nearby outdoor street seat.

“I’m alright.”

“Just sit for a minute.”

Bunny sat on the seat begrudgingly. Iris flopped next to her. The morning shoppers drove backwards and forewords, up and down the street hunting for carparks. The sun shone, the birds cheeped.

“How long has he been dead now?” said Iris

“Who, I… Ray?”

“Yes, I forget now sometimes, just some days, it seems like forever. How long it has been, Bun?” said Iris.

“Oh…” said Bunny.

“I don’t forget, exactly, but sometimes it is easier for somebody else to say it.”

“Five years,” said Bunny.

“Five… long… years,” said Iris. She sounded like she had no more energy for the question. “Five long years. I miss him as much now as at any time…”

“Oh, I?” Bunny put her arms around her friend. She felt so sorry for Iris, at the same time fearing she may well be in that situation sooner than later.

“I thought time was supposed to heal,” said Iris. “I thought time healed grief…”

The two women hugged.

“It is just something we say,” said Bunny. “Nothing really helps, but who is going to want to hear that?”

The two women laughed, nervously, consoling one another, in the gentle morning light.

“I feel like I have been cheated my final years, Bun.” Iris fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief.

“He was taken too soon for sure, your Ray.” Bunny kissed the side of Iris’ head. “Ah, hon, what can I say?”

Iris dabbed at her eyes with a cream handkerchief. “It’s just…” said Iris. Her voice trailed off. She shrugged. “How life goes, nothing to be done.”

“No,” said Bunny. “Nothing to be done.”

Bunny got to her feet, she couldn’t suggest it and fail to act one more time. “Ay oop,” said Bunny.

Iris stood up. “Oh Bun, it’s good to be alive.”

“Wouldn’t be dead for quid’s.”

The two old friends hooked arms. “This way luv,” said Iris. “We should get those knees looked at.”

“Don’t fuss,” said Bunny. She had to get to the butcher. Her right knee hurt, everything else felt fine. But her right knee, was giving her Larry Do, as her father would have said. Bunny limped noticeably. As she put weight on her right foot, testing it, her right knee buzzed with a painful ache.

“Does it hurt, luv?” Iris pointed to the recalcitrant knee.

Bunny had tried very hard to step normally, she tried very hard to conceal the damage from her friend. And that was the best she could do, it was hopeless. If she just got back to the car, she could sit for a moment and gather herself, give it a rub away from prying eyes. She could take her stockings off and use the first aid kit she kept in the glove box. She didn’t want to have to call Carl, she wasn’t going to admit to falling down.

“Just a knock, it will be right as rain,” said Bunny. “I just have to go back to the car.”

“I’ll come with you.”

No, you won’t. “Oh no… Iris, that won’t be necessary.”

“Just so you are all right.”

“I’m all right. Look.” Bunny did four star-jumps, they nearly killed her, far too ambitious. She didn’t let that show either. But at this point, childbirth could be endured, she didn’t have time to listen to Iris talk about Ray… Neil was coming home for tea and Bunny was already behind schedule. “Iris…” she wanted to say, get a hobby. Cooking. Sewing. Knitting. Patchwork. Leadlight. What do you think everybody else does? Get therapy. Go on a cruise. Have an affair with a younger man. That grounds man at the bowels club would fit the bill. Bunny laughed to herself. The laugh gave way to wondering what she would do… then she shuddered again when she realised it could be approaching. Not that Carl was sick, or anything like it. He was in good shape, actually, for a man of his age. But neither of them were getting any younger, that was an immutable fact.

“See.” Bunny made jazz-hands. Everything hurt. She lent in and kissed Iris. “See you soon, hon.” She told herself to turn on her left leg, which she remembered to do, and she made a clean get away. Bunny was quite chuffed with her own accomplishment. She told herself that that was smooth. She put all of her weight on her right knee and she didn’t limp, it hurt like hell.