Iris

Iris fumbles with the clasp of her handbag and rummages inside. She pauses, adjusting her bifocals to inspect the contents – coral-pink lipstick, embroidered handkerchief, keys for the Corolla and the house, bankbook and purse. Her fingers land on a shopping list, neat cursive script outlining the week's errands. There’s a quickening of her heartbeat in anticipation. 

Picture by Drobot Dean

She always makes her way through the store in the same direction; familiarity is a comfort. She takes her time in the fresh fruit and vegetable department, wondering at the array of produce from all over the world. This is now her only opportunity to travel, to imagine distant lands. She picks up a halved dragon fruit on display – its skin is the same colour as her lipstick, the inner flesh a dazzling white and dotted with black seeds. The sticker indicates it was grown in Australia, but Iris likes to imagine it has travelled from an exotic place, perhaps Costa Rica or Thailand, places she has never been. 

Iris has travelled. She and Clark went to the UK ten years ago. In retrospect, her husband was already starting to lose his mind then. Many arguments had ensued while driving along country lanes searching for B & Bs, Clark insisting he had taken the correct turn in the little Fiat rental. 

She pauses in front of the apricots. Perfect little sunrise-coloured fruits with a blush of pink. She gently presses the top of one near the stalk and feels a slight give: perfectly ripe. She brings it to her nose to savour the sweet fragrance, and runs her wrinkled fingers over the soft fuzz. Clark grew an apricot tree in the back garden when the children were young. In the summer months the family brought a bag down to the beach at Mentone. The little ones sat on the sand with sweet nectar running down their chins. They giggled as they ran into the sea, washing off in the surf. She had felt wealthy then. Forty cents each. She takes two, a treat to be enjoyed over the week, perhaps with a little of the vanilla ice cream she bought last month. 

Wealth is a subjective concept, after all. She can feel the judgement of her children when they come to visit. They know what is in her share portfolio – her son David is her accountant. He and Jenny, her daughter, can’t understand Iris’s frugality. They can’t understand that a teabag is perfectly fine to be used over two cups. ‘Oh Mum, for goodness sake!’ Iris can picture Jenny rolling her eyes and sighing during her weekly visit, as Iris brings the cups and a plate of shortbreads to the kitchen table. Iris purses her lips. She could say, ‘You don’t know you’re alive, you kids! A cup of tea was a luxury during the 30s, especially with a spoon of sugar! We knew how to appreciate small comforts.’ But she knows it’s pointless. How could her children understand what it was really like for her growing up during the Great Depression? One of six hungry children. Her mother perpetually exhausted, and her father perpetually drunk. 

She notices a young man observing her from across the aisle. Neatly slicked-back hair, clean apron, a little fuzz above his upper lip. Like the apricots, she thinks, bringing a twitch to the corner of her mouth. The boy looks strangely familiar. He smiles, and asks her if she needs any help. ‘No thank you, young man.’  

She is reminded of her brother James poking his head into their room when he came home from the butcher shop at night. ‘You alright Iris? Are you hungry? I brought home some dripping, and there’s still a crust of bread.’ And then a few years later the war came. Off he went in his smart uniform, full of hope and expectation about the places he’d see. The stories he’d tell her when he returned. But he never did.  

She lowers her eyes and moves on. Three desiree potatoes, a handful of string beans, a head of lettuce, four carrots, a hand of bananas and two Johnathon apples. Mincemeat is on special this week – she takes 500 grams. A loaf of Tip Top high-fibre bread, a tub of the good olive oil margarine and full cream milk. Six caged hen’s eggs – she always feels a little guilty about this but quickly pushes that out of her mind. And another packet of shortbreads for when the children come to visit, or perhaps the grandchildren this week. 

She hoicks her handbag over her arthritic shoulder, a small grunt of discomfort escaping her lips, and gives the trolley a push. It lurches at right angles into the shelves of aisle seven. ‘Bugger!’ She looks down and sees the wobbling wheel, pulls the trolley back, and sets it on a straight path.  

Glancing up before she sets off to the checkout she notices, as always, the jars, all the colours of the spectrum. Marmalades from England, gourmet jams from Tasmania. But it’s the Bonne Maman that always catches her eye with its little red and white lid, like a piece of gingham stretched over the top. Bonne Maman. Good mother. She can smell the raspberries as if she’s already opened the jar. She can picture her brother’s smile as he plunges a spoon in, then passes it to her. Can taste the tartness of the sticky preserve. Hear the roar of their father as he discovers James’s secret – that he had stolen the jam from the corner store to give his little sister a moment of pleasure. Can hear the whack of her father’s belt on James’s buttocks as he silently, bravely takes his punishment.  

She glances around and waits for the young woman with the screaming toddler to leave the aisle; then takes a breath, grasps the jar and nestles it in her bag. She covers it with the handkerchief, her pulse quickening all the while. A welcome surge of adrenaline flows through her veins. Fixing her eyes straight ahead, she arrives at the checkout. The boy she had seen in fresh produce is behind the register, a benevolent smile on his lips. She looks down, her eyes landing on his name tag – ‘James’. 

She concentrates on her breathing, just like Dr Liu had instructed. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.  

James finishes packing her bags, making sure to cushion the eggs on top of the bread. ‘That’s sixty-five dollars forty cents.’  

She hands over the exact money and starts to push the trolley towards the exit.  

‘Hold on a minute madam. I’ll need to check your bag.’  

Iris turns and sees the burly security guard approaching.  

‘Nah, Michael. She’s right. I already checked.’ James’s dark eyes land on hers and he gives her a subtle wink.  

Her vision blurs. She adjusts her glasses. Looks again at the boy’s name tag. ‘Jason – Customer Service’.