Out of Reach

thecoffeeklatch

We stood at the Boots Haircare Counter
taking in pink hairnets and firm-hold lacquer,
my mother searching, picking, pausing, rejecting.
This went on for some minutes. My interest
in slides and gold-threaded bobbles waned,
and my feet began to kick the under-counter drawers
containing products in less popular colours and sizes,
probably things my mother would need to consider.

I whirled toward a pillar, thought I glimpsed
my second-best friend from school hanging
on her brother's pram, trailing an arm in the air,
'Come on, come here, take my hand and dance!'
Together we swung through the entrance doors
onto the street. Only then she was gone
and I was confused and stopped dead, without
the familiar swish-swish of my mother's plastic mac.

Just the swish-splash of passing cars. I ran,
ran to the market through dark green glazed doors,
to the butcher and the fishmonger and the stall 
that sold curtain hooks and I looked and I looked
but she wasn't there. I couldn't work out how 
to get back to the counter with the pink hair nets 
and the smell of lacquer. In my stomach a huge roar
was gathering. I breathed, shut my eyes and bellowed.

A lady with red gloves and a rain-hat bent down.
'Take my hand and keep calm,' she sounded like a teacher.
'Are you alone?' I wasn't sure I knew 'alone'. My mother
would have said 'Are you by yourself?' so I just shrugged
and walked past the enquiring eyes, my hand in hers,
her coat not swish-swishing at all until suddenly, my mother
was in front of us. Boots security guard holding her elbow,
scarf askew, hairnet in hand, she reached out for me.

©Janet Henderson 16th October 2018