At least that was how it felt to Dulcie. The streets were crammed with frenzied spenders, the queues to even get inside some of the shops were diabolical. Worst of all, there was no point in giving up and going home, because from now until Christmas Day itself, it was only going to get worse.
Dulcie, stuck in the middle of this mayhem, wasn’t sure what she was experiencing but it was some kind of rage.
Not road rage, because this area of the city was pedestrianised.
Not trolley rage, because she didn’t have a trolley. Although one would have come in incredibly useful.
Maybe Yule rage, thought Dulcie, battling her way through BabyGap and cracking her ankle on a pushchair being steered by a hopeless learner.
Grimly, she elbowed a stockbroker type out of the way and bagged a brilliant Santa scarf for her three-year-old goddaughter. The last pair of matching mittens had just been snatched up by the scowling stockbroker. Dulcie watched him fling them into his wire basket, on top of a pile of other clothes. Her fingers itched. Polly would love a pair of mittens to match the scarf .. .
Oh no, that’s sick, thought Dulcie, horrified by the thoughts flashing through her mind. What kind of pond life was she to even think of doing something so-
‘Are you going to stand there all day?’ hissed the stockbroker, ramming the basket against Dulcie’s hip as he barged past.
She whisked the mittens out of the basket and out of sight. The irritable stockbroker headed for the queue at the till and Dulcie melted away in the opposite direction. Two minutes later, while she was investigating denim dungarees, she heard a bellow of fury over by the till.
‘Who the buggering hell has made off with my sodding gloves?’
He didn’t sound so much like a stockbroker now.
Dulcie kept her face averted. She didn’t want to get embroiled in a nasty attack of mitten rage.
By seven thirty Dulcie was carrying fifteen bags, her arms were practically out of their sockets and the soles of her feet hurt so much they burned.
Queueing in a newsagent’s for a can of Coke, she overheard a woman say there had been a pile-up outside the Blenheim Street car park. Apparently the place was gridlocked, no one was getting in or out.
With a sigh Dulcie paid for two cans of Coke, carried them outside and looked around for somewhere to sit down. She may as well rest her feet and wait for the car park to unblock itself before heading back to the car.
A Salvation Army band was playing ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ in the centre of the precinct, and all but one of the benches around them were full. Limping, Dulcie lugged her bags over to the only bench that wasn’t, and realised her mistake two seconds too late.
‘Here, let me give you a hand with those,’ said the boy who was the only other occupant. From a distance he’d looked okay, but now she was close up, Dulcie saw the mousy matted dreadlocks, the filthy clothes and the bottle of Tennant’s Export sticking out of his coat pocket. He smelled awful and — oh help — something furtive was going on in the vicinity of his lap.
Dulcie tried to hang on to her bags but they were out of control, slithering in all directions.
Leaning over, the boy helped her to pick them up. She wondered if he was about to do a runner, make off with her Christmas shopping, and if he did would he be pleased with the Penhaligon’s bluebell soap and foaming bath oil?
‘Been buying presents?’ His tone was conversational. Dulcie nodded, flipped the ring pull of the first Coke, and determinedly didn’t look at his trousers.
‘Wish I had money to buy presents.’ His tone was sorrowful. ‘Some Christmas we’ll be having this year.’
‘Mm,’ said Dulcie.
‘Couldn’t spare a few coppers, could you? Not for me,’ the boy assured her earnestly, ‘for my dog.’
Daring to look at last, Dulcie saw that the movement in his grubby lap was in fact a squirming beige puppy. Relieved that he hadn’t been exposing himself to her, she fished around in her pocket for change.
‘Sixty-five pence?’ The boy gazed at the coins in the palm of his hand. He looked disappointed.
‘I mean thanks, but I’m not going to be able to buy little Squatter much of a Christmas present with that, am I?’
Dulcie was beginning to feel like a plague victim. She appeared to be sitting in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle; everyone was giving her bench an extraordinarily wide berth. Some were shooting her sympathetic glances. Others, observing her predicament, were clearly thinking: sucker.
She took her purse out of her handbag and opened it while the boy looked on, his eyes bright with interest. She had, of course, used up the last of her change buying the cans of Coke.
Hating herself, knowing she was being half conned, half intimidated, Dulcie gave him a fiver and prayed he’d go away.
The boy grinned, revealing surprisingly white teeth, and tucked the rolled-up note into his sock.
‘The thing is,’ he said chattily, ‘if you can afford a fiver, you can afford a tenner.’
‘What?’
‘That wouldn’t be too much to ask, would it?’
‘This is called pushing your luck,’ said Dulcie.
‘It’s called trying to get by. Come on, look at you,’ the boy drawled, indicating the fifteen glossy carrier bags with a grubby thumb. ‘Look at the places you shop. How can it be fair, eh? You’ve got everything and I’ve got nothing. So tell me, how can that be fair?’
The Salvation Army band, having stopped for a breather, now picked up their instruments and launched into a
