The customer was not to know, of course, that she had chosen the wrong girl to shout at, at the wrong time of the month, on the wrong day of the year, and with the worst kind of cut on her arm. Luckily, the manager himself then came drawling over the checkout desk. ‘Can I be of assistance, madam?’ he slurred.
‘Are you the manager of this establishment?’
‘The very same. Is there a problem?’
‘Most certainly there is! This book… this pathetic tome!’ The woman nudged the book into the manager’s pink and startled face.
‘It is the policy of the company…’
‘Company policy! Don’t talk to me about company policy! I demand my consumer rights.’
‘…never to give refunds, except for faulty goods. Is the book faulty in any way? Are the pages printed backwards, for instance?’
‘Oh, they’re printed forwards, all right! It’s the advice that’s backwards. I was guaranteed a winning by this book. I staked a whole twelve punies on this book’s advice. Lost every single specimen! Every single one! Is there no recompense for that kind of loss? Well, is there?’
‘What is the book in question, madam?’ asked the manager. ‘Oh yes, In for a Puny, In for a Lovely. I see it now. As written down by the noble Sir Godfrey Arrow. I do seem to recall that this particular writer did, once upon a few months ago, win the first prize in the domino game. Surely that entitles him to write a gambling manual?’
‘He ought to be locked up for fraud. Now then, are you going to give me a refund, or am I going to complain to the Standards Committee?’
A gaggle of consumers was gathered around the checkout, so the manager decided it was time to cut his losses. ‘Very well, under the circumstances, madam… would twelve punies be a suitable recompense?’
‘Plus the cost of the book, of course,’ said the lady.
‘Very well… let’s call it sixteen punies. No, let’s say a round and comfortable twenty. Daisy… would you please make this refund?’
‘You’re not really going to do this, boss?’ asked Daisy Love.
‘Certainly I am.’
‘But the woman’s a fucking nightmare!’
‘Well I never!’ said the woman.
‘Daisy… language, please,’ said the boss, ‘on the shop floor.’
‘She’s a con-artist! Too posh even to care a jot about money.’
‘Daisy!’
‘Just because she lost yesterday, she’s blaming us. I lost yesterday, you lost yesterday, the whole of Manchester lost yesterday! What makes this bitch so different that she has to claim back her purchasing price? Domino shit! Maybe I should start some reclaiming?’
‘Daisy! Will you please make this refund!’
‘No! She can go fuck herself to death in Poshtown!’
Like it was said: the wrong girl, the wrong time.
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ cried the customer.
‘Because you deserve it.’
‘Outrageous! I shall be calling my lawyers!’
The other customers had now reached riot point and it was the manager himself who jumped into the till, scooped out the cash and presented it to the woman. ‘My apologies are fulsome,’ he spluttered. ‘I can only hope that the kind madam will revisit our establishment at another date? Yes?’ And how his tongue lolled, outwards and upwards, to lick his greasy forelock.
‘May your books rot in hell!’ The woman turned to leave, only to be suddenly sent flying by a small explosion of wild hair and screaming oaths. It was a young kid, a girl, running into the bookshop, out of breath and luck, in equal measures. The kid pushed the posh woman aside, bounded up to the counter, grabbed at Daisy’s jacket. ‘Please! Please save me!’
And with her came her companions: filthy, evil-smelling tramps, like a nightmare in germs and tatters and matted hair. A whole troop of beggars, hustlers, whores and vagabonds; they pushed aside the consumers, to form a furry circle around the checkout desk.
Daisy recognized the feather in the hair, the young beggar girl from the Deansgate pit. ‘What’s wrong, girl?’ she asked the child.
‘They want to kill me!’
‘Is this true?’ asked Daisy of the tramps.
‘Nonsense,’ one of them replied. ‘It’s only a game. We just want a little bone she’s carrying.’
‘Daisy,’ asked the manager, ‘are these people friends of yours?’ He had already pressed the discreet cop-button.
‘We’re friends with everybody,’ the tramp said.
‘Save me from them!’ shouted Little Celia. ‘Please, save me!’ She had now clutched herself tightly around Daisy’s waist.