Deaf Sentence by David Lodge Read Free Book Online Page B

trade that surprised Desmond. It was an opportune time to discover it. In the Nineties the northern city which had seemed so dour and drab to him and Maisie when they first came to it, and whose native citizens traditionally prided themselves on their frugality and thrift, was overtaken by the global craze for consumption. Shops with internationally famous names opened branches there, and new malls sprang up to accommodate them along with the national chain stores - rather too many malls all at once, in fact. Fred and Jakki were able to lease a spacious unit in the city centre at a very reasonable rent from developers desperately anxious to fill the space (nothing looks less inviting to punters than a row of vacant shops). It was on the ground floor, so that anybody who entered the Rialto mall from the street, enticed by gleaming vistas of stainless steel, ceramic tile and plate glass, or by the soothing murmur of muzak and tinkling water features, had to pass the frontage of Décor (as it was called - Jakki’s suggestion of ‘Swish Style’ fortunately having been discarded) on their way to the escalators which wafted them to the higher levels of the building. In spite of this location, however, Décor struggled to break even for two or three years, until a sought-after and very expensive hairdresser moved his operation into the mall on the first floor. His clientele - women from the affluent outer suburbs or green-belt villages, with time to spare and money to spend on beautifying themselves and their homes - were just the right kind of customers for Décor . Winifred and Jakki specialised in quality imported fabrics for curtains, blinds, cushions, bedspreads, etc., but they also displayed works of art by local artists - paintings, prints, ceramics, jewellery and small sculptures - which were available for purchase. If these sold the shop took forty per cent, and if they didn’t they contributed eye-catching decor to Décor for free. The posh suburban women would pause to glance with interest into the shop as they passed its front window on their way to have their hair done, and drop in on their way back to browse among the fabrics and objets d’art. Winifred and Jakki installed a small but perfectly formed Italian coffee machine to serve them with complimentary espressos and lattes, after which they invariably purchased something, if it was only a piece of chic costume jewellery or a unique handmade greetings card. The business prospered. Décor was featured in the local paper in a gushing article, illustrated with flattering colour photographs of its smiling proprietors. They were able to employ a young woman just out of art college to help look after the shop and came to an arrangement with a reliable self-employed handyman called Ron to provide a measuring and fitting service for their clients. The cutting and stitching of the soft furnishings was contracted out to a women’s cooperative of seamstresses made redundant by the decline of the city’s clothing industry. They did excellent work.
    While he was still employed himself Desmond was amused and pleased by his wife’s success in her late entrepreneurial career. If there was a slight decline in domestic comforts as a result of her busy life - more prepared food from the supermarket for dinner, an occasional shortage of clean socks and laundered shirts - that was a small price to pay for the satisfaction she obviously derived from it, and his own social life was enlivened by contact with new people and places through association with her. Winifred had presence and confidence, bred in the bone and polished by private education, which had been suppressed by her unhappy first marriage but now revived in her mature years. She became by tacit consent the senior partner in the business, although she and Jakki had invested equal amounts in it, by virtue of her maturer years and social poise: and in due course she became something of a figure in the local community,