Glynis Reed's inspiration for her writing comes from The people of the North East, colourful; 
hard working; and often darkly humorous. Glynis has been published in Sand Press, 
have read at the Blue Room, and Lit and Phil, also have work coming out in next issue of Newcastle Stories.

 

Sixteen, not Six

Fliss stands outside Waitrose, a link in a chain, passing bags of icing sugar from the 
van to the back shop. She’s wearing a thin nylon overall and a green mini skirt and her 
back is hurting between her shoulder blades. The wind makes it worse and so does the snow 
because it’s turning her hair curly, and Fliss wants it poker straight when she goes to 
The Black Cat Club with Joe, who’s been mending the meat freezer.
She stacks the sugar in the warehouse, then walks to the storeroom to help Sally 
flatten empty cardboard boxes on the press. Sally wants to know about Joe.
	‘Does he live round here? What did he say – what did you say?’
Fliss pulls the rivets out of a large Heinz Tomato Soup box and places it on the 
press. She selects another and does the same.
	‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’
Sally chooses a Satsuma box.
	‘Suit yourself. He’s got a big nose though. And you know what they say about 
men with big noses.’
	‘Yeah! The same as they say about girls with big noses. They shouldn’t poke 
them in other people’s business.’
Sally starts messing about with a red fire extinguisher but jumps away as the 
tearoom door opens. She tuts when she sees it’s only Tom, the lanky blue-nosed 
butcher. 
	‘Aye.’ He folds his arms and looks Sally up and down. ‘And what you up to?’ 
Sally imitates him by folding her long arms and rocking back on her heels. She 
bats her eyelashes, sticks her chin out, and purrs.
	‘Ooh! It’s Tom-cat looking for a rat. Have you got a tail, Tom-cat?’
Tom smirks and takes a couple of steps forward, his blue eyes brilliant against 
the heightened red of his face.
	‘Course I’ve got a tail, d’y want to see it?’
	‘I haven’t got a microscope with me,’ Fliss says, ‘but if you put the tiny thing 
on the press, I’ll see if I can make it a bit bigger.’
The door opens and the manager comes in. Tom steps around him. 
	‘Just finished me break, Mr. Wyle.’.
Mr. Wyle holds onto the door and watches Tom lope off to the meat counter. He 
sweeps his searchlight eyes round the dingy room, then turns his attention to the girls.
	‘How long you going to be with those boxes? You do know there’s customers 
out there?’
Fliss has her back to him. She makes a face at Sally and pulls the handle on the 
press. It comes together, squashing the boxes and making a loud hissing sound. Sally 
sniggers and puts her head down, collapses a Jacob’s Cream Cracker box.
	‘We’re coming, Mr Wyle,’ she eventually manages.
	‘So is bloody Christmas.’
Mr Wyle shakes his head, and moves in the direction of the tearoom.
	‘I’m having me break. You two had better be finished with those boxes and in 
the shop before I come back out.’
Sally waits until he’s gone before picking the fire extinguisher up and aiming it 
at the door. She pretends to shoot with it, but it’s heavy, and she loses her grip. It 
clatters to the concrete floor and starts fizzing, and a furious jet of foam shoots over 
the mountain of empty boxes. Both girls stand rigid with shock, then crease up laughing.
	‘Turn it off!’ Fliss shouts. But the thing doesn’t stop until it’s exhausted. The 
boxes are soaking, so are their shoes, and the foam is turning runny, oozing over the 
dirty floor and seeping through to the shop. 
Carol, the assistant manager, comes in. She plonks her small square body 
between the press and the door, stares at the mess and the two girls, starts shaking like 
a prawn cracker in a gale.
	‘Wait till Mr Wyle sees this.’
She picks her way over to the tearoom. 
Mr Wyle’s neck is bulging over his shirt collar, his purple cheeks working like 
the gills on Fliss’s goldfish.
	‘You two buggers have gone too far this time.’ 
He jams a fat finger into his collar, and tries to pull it away from his neck. ‘You’re 
bloody lucky it’s half-day.’He nods his sandy head and takes his finger out of his collar, 
stabs it at the sopping floor and the wet boxes.‘Now get this bloody mess cleaned up.’
They should have finished at one, but it’s three o’clock before they get their 
coats on, and Fliss’s back is killing her. They walk to Sally’s house and eat Fig Rolls on 
her bed. Sally has her own room, her own records, and beige Dansette. She puts ‘The 
Stones’ on, and pulls the arm back, so the music repeats and repeats. 
	‘This one’s for you, Mr Wyle,’ she says.
	They sing along.
	“Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown.”
	Sally shows Fliss her new clothes: black velvet trousers and a red silk shirt.
	‘Dad bought them.’ She stuffs a biscuit sideways into her mouth, splutters: ‘He’s 
back for a month this time.’
Fliss looks round the bedroom, admires the matching curtains and bedspread, 
wonders why her friend is in the same dead-end job as her. She watches Sally take an 
iron from the wardrobe and plug it into the double socket; smiles, as Sally irons the silk 
shirt on the purple shag pile. Her large hands resemble cauliflowers on the ends of her 
thin arms. Her short, mouse-hair is sticking straight up. Fliss laughs, in spite of the 
pain in her back, and makes an effort to move.
	‘I’d better go. Got to have a bath. I’m meeting Joe at seven.’
She walks to the corner and waits until the bus comes, tries to straighten her 
back, but she can’t, and it’s hard to breathe.Mam’s in the sitting room, seeing to 
the baby. Baby Beatty has a curl in the middle of her forehead, and she’s wearing a 
white nylon dress bunched up into her trews. Mam glances over at Fliss.
	‘I need a large sliced loaf, and five pounds of potatoes.’
She pulls Beatty’s trews up, and Beatty goes with them and squeals.
Fliss twists her face. 
	‘Why can’t you get them?’
Mam puts Beatty down and starts folding nappies, sets them in squares on the 
big iron fireguard.
‘I’ve got the baby, and I’m trying to cook dinner.’
She looks at Fliss’s brother, Mack, pulling newspapers out from under the sofa.
	‘And Mack’s not well.’
Fliss fastens her coat back up and snatches the money out of Mam’s hand. Mam’s voice 
pursues her up the passage.
	‘If ever there was a miserable sod . . . ’
Fliss slams the door but Mam comes after her, stands on the step shouting.
	‘You’re sixteen, not bloody six.’
Fliss looks through the scratched glass counter while Big Joan smiles with slug 
lips and shovels potatoes into a metal scoop. She waits for the loaf and her change.
When she gets back, Mam’s chopping carrots.
	‘What’s the matter with you?’ 
	‘Nothing.’
	‘Well if that’s what nothing looks like, heaven help us when there’s something.’
	Fliss goes into the bathroom and tries to run a bath, but she can’t lock the door, 
lift, or move her arms. Mam comes in after her.
	‘What the bloody-hell’s wrong now?’
Fliss fights back tears.
	‘My back,’ she says.
Mam pushes her frizzy hair back, stands with one hand on her hip.
	‘If it’s not one thing, it’s a-bloody-nother.’
She helps Fliss to bed, waits for Fliss’s brother, Barry, to come home, sends him 
down to the payphone to call the doctor. Fliss lies in the warm bed while Mam carries a 
shovel of burning coals from the sitting room fire to the bedroom grate.
The doctor puts Fliss on the sick, writes pleurisy on her sick-note.  
Wind blares down the chimney and the flames turn yellow and blue. Fliss sees 
herself in the dressing table mirror, her hair’s gone curly, its Christmas Eve, and Joe’s 
waiting outside The Black Cat Club.