Service

“Good morning.”

I say this to a man who has walked into the store. As men and women do walk in. Sometimes there are four or five people in the shop, other times there is no one. It’s a large space, and there are many things to see, especially if you have not been in before.

We sell natural fibres, mainly, although there are some misjudged items that have crept into the mix. But the story of alpaca and wool, and cashmere, and possum, in blankets, throws, scarves, shawls, socks and hats and knits will service the needs of a range of folk. This time of the year many are travelling to somewhere cold, or sending presents to loved ones where the temperature is low. Russia, Japan, New York—name anywhere in the northern hemisphere, and there’s your range.

He returns the greeting.

“Are you going somewhere cold?” I ask. He’s tall, and says he’s looking for a scarf for a present. Although he hesitates, as though he’s not sure that’s why he has come in. I leave him to look—when a customer does not ask for a specific item, then usually they like to look for themselves. Many thoughts can be gathered once the broad and attractive range of items we have in the store is taken in. We say it’s a mini department store. I haven’t mentioned the coats, and the slippers, and lambskin lined boots and children’s wear in wool, and mittens, hand-knitted in Peru.

There is folding to do, and tidying up, and two other customers to show some blankets. They are now standing in front of the blankets, staring in a lost fashion, but not looking back with any impatience or aggression, or even beginning to take some blankets from the shelves to help themselves. There are questions to be asked. Do you know these blankets? Are they for you, or for a present? What do you use now? All this to learn about what they like, what they have experienced, how much warmth they need, the size of the bed, the temperature changes in the room … all these questions must be asked in a way which is not personal—or invasive. There are sometimes humorous exchanges, and sometimes rude and demanding assumptions too. Mostly these are from the customer.

I go back to the tall guy and find that he’s pulled a jumper on, and it looks really good on him. He is very tall, and has wide shoulders. He’s wearing a 3XL—the largest size we stock, and says, “‘Alfredis’, I like this brand.” Then he says, “I like this jumper.” He is patting the front of it. It’s olive green.

“Do you want to have a look in the mirror?”

He holds both arms out, checking the length of the sleeves. He says, “No.”

It does look good. I say this, and don’t say that I think he needs to look for himself. Often men are content to have others decide for them. He tells me that it feels good, and that it fits and that’s all that he takes into account. He likes the colour, looking down at the sleeve, and then down his front.

“It’s a good colour.” He looks great. I say, “You’ve got broad shoulders.”

“It’s a 3XL,” he tells me. “I’m fat.” This is when he pulls the jumper over his head and I see all of his stomach—unintentionally. There is a lot of flesh—but I wouldn’t say he’s fat. Nothing a month of changed diet wouldn’t bring back to a good form. His age? Fifty. But boyish. For sure. The shorts help this assessment—and his strong legs, and wide clearly shaped feet, in sandals. He has thick curly hair, with strong grey streaks. Robust health is the general picture he paints.

“You have good things in this store.” He’s put the jumper back on the hanger, and hangs it up.

“Have you been here before?”

“I come about every six months. There have been massive changes since I was last here.”

The massive changes happened eighteen months ago. Life may well be racing for him too.

“You have lovely stuff,” he says, feeling the softness of some leather gloves. This is a typical response, as natural fibres are very hard to come by, and rarely seen in any store in this city of four million people, especially at this time of the year.

“If you like cashmere and lambswool,” I tell him, “you might be in luck because we only have large sizes left in this range.” He puts his hand on the argyle knit, and takes it up and pulls it over his T-shirt.

It looks fabulous.

“It looks good,” I tell him. I don’t ask if he wants to see it in the mirror. He is pulling his hand down across the front of the diamond patterns. The grey in his hair is highlighted by the grey in the knit. He stretches his arms out. He approves of the fit.

“I could wear this playing golf.”

I look at him. He looks back. Golf is a challenging game, his thoughts tell me.

“This could make some of those days more enjoyable,” I say.

He smiles, the smile saying not much can on some days.

“My experience of golf, listening to golfers talk, is that it’s a game where you play badly—well certainly not well—for long periods of time, and then, miraculously, you play beautifully, and then that doesn’t last long and you play remembering this time.”

He’s pulling the jumper over his head, and again, like an active and lively boy, he’s pulled his T-shirt with it, and again there is this dramatically large amount of body, and this time there are two nipples included in the display. It is a beautiful body. Rude good health for sure. This display is held for a long time, it seems. It’s maybe because I haven’t seen such a section of body for a long time. There is the tiniest idea that he is showing it to me, but that’s my idea, I think. There is nothing in his manner that suggests he is.

I go down the back and talk to a woman who is holding two baby blankets. She has been in the store before, and says she is happy to look, and to decide.

“Do you have these in size 13?” the tall man asks when I go back.

I find the lambskin slippers and give them to him. There’s no chance of them fitting him. His feet are huge. I tell him they are our largest size and ask does he have trouble finding shoes. He says he always has trouble and when he finds them he buys a couple of pairs. He goes back to the jumpers. I ask if he knows about the possum. He doesn’t. I tell him it’s very soft, that the possums come from New Zealand, where they are vermin, denuding tonnes of vegetation, and find a jumper near his size and he puts it on. I tell him we say you can get more pats when you wear this. He looks at me, then smiles. He’s rubbing the sleeve. “This feels great,” he says. He stretches out his arm, and says it’s too small.

“Now you have some idea of our range. There is more in the winter, of course. Do you work around here?”

“I see the signs, and come in,” he tells me.

I can’t tell if he’s intending to buy any of these jumpers. You can’t tell with some men. They sometimes take three jumpers, all the ones they’ve tried. One fellow bought five, and I was told later he hates buying jumpers. And we had fun. He did need to look in the mirror—and liked the styles I suggested he try. He had a beautiful wife. I remember she was amused. And that she kept quiet. “He liked your sense of humour,” she told me later when she came back to the shop.

I kept an eye on the other customers. Rachel had come back from lunch and had gone over to them. There was lots of deliberation. She was often in a sour mood, and it helped to keep my day from being spoilt if I stayed away from her.

I left the diamond jumper where he had placed it.

“You are lucky that so many fit, and suit you,” I told him. He had tried on two more. Customers like to hear that a garment looks good. Just as they like to have it confirmed that it is too small, is a questionable colour—although you must never offer this too soon—sometimes they like it—or it may not be for them, they are just trying it for size. Affirmation works much better than negation, and disinterest is the worst sin, certainly in a sales assistant. Experience and knowledge of the goods, and thoughtful response to questions matter. Well, we try.

I had come back to where the jumper trying and talk had gone on, and began to tidy.

“I know what I can have now,” he said. “I’ll come in later.” That sounded like it could be later in the week, or at the beginning of the next season.

I smiled and kept folding.

He moved towards me and put his hand on my back. And pressed ever so gently.

It was a surprise. No one had done that in the time I’d worked here—one man shook my hand, a woman had kissed me, many thanked me, another had made a carefully crafted speech about the value of good service—I learnt later his wife was a senior minister in federal parliament; but no one had done this. A shop owner in New Jersey—it was a men’s wear store, where I had gone to browse, had asked me to go to Paris with him, this after I had agreed to have a drink in an old pub after work. This was twenty years ago.

But his hand on my back was a delight. What a thank you. Or was it a thank you?

That gentle pressure was recalled several times during the day. It held more warmth than the cold “flesh” of the male model. Yet that pressing nonetheless brought the delights of the sexual encounters from a former experience. Not unlike the golf.

Later I thought of the male model we have in the store and how I would sometimes, especially earlier in the year, when I would go and stand by it and put my hand under the jumper and feel the taught, cold ceramic flesh, yet I could feel the fine, warm skin of his body. I could remember this experience clearly, and could even imagine the fine dark hair that heralded what was below. I had always found that so exciting. But that had all gone. It took some months to let it go, for it to go—it’s still not all gone, as I feel anxious and nervous writing this. But it’s all that time since anything physical happened. It is sad, and it is true. That is how life often is. After the great beauty and its truth.