Toni Le Busque's stories.

Story for my Cousin- Part VIIII
This morning, un-breakfasted, I cross the street from my studio and enter the 99p Store on the look out for Del Monte peaches in syrup.
The 99p Store is thick with stalled pushchairs so it takes a while to get from the front door to the food section in the back right hand corner of the shop.
Finally, having found my Del Monte peaches in syrup, I queue.
‘You like a bag?’ says the checkout operator when I get to her.
‘No,’ I say.
‘99p, please,’ she says.
‘Okay,’ I say and I put my hand in my pocket to get my 99p.
However, when I take my hand out of my pocket, I see there isn’t enough money in my palm.
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘Um, I don’t have enough,’
The checkout girl doesn’t say anything.
She’s tilting to the right on her stool, looking at me, head dropping to the right, a wincing expression on her face and I can’t help think as I look at her that she has the same pose and expression my mother used to have just before she farted.

‘I don’t have enough,’ I say finally.
‘Go back there,’ says the checkout operator, ‘there is it there one fruits for 59p. I know this’
‘Really?’ I say.
She doesn’t say anything but her head dips forward slightly and her eyes open and close.
Taking this as affirmative, I run back through the store and find the only other plastic container of fruit with a different label to the one I was too cash-poor to buy.
Famished, I go straight to the front of the line and hand her the fruit.
She scans it.
‘99p,’ she says, ‘this it’s 99p also. How much you have?’
Looking down into my palm I see have 60p.
‘60p,’ I say.
The checkout girl looks at me, pauses, then says tsk.
I look around me and think about buying 5 other items; some mints, chewing gum, a pair of headphones, a DVD of Postman Pat, and a silicone iPad 2 cover, which will boost my total to £5.94so I can use my card.
But, finally, I accept a kind of defeat, and say thank you anyway, to the checkout girl, who dips her head in acknowledgement.

Then I cross the road to the Co op where I buy 2 tins of peaches for 58p and the vegetables my step-daughter has asked me to buy to go with tonight’s meal of duck.
2 large sweet potato, which I will roast with nutmeg grated upon, and green beans.
———-
This morning before I put it in my coffee, I checked the date on the milk.
17th of March, it read.
So I took a photo of it.