Columns from The Weekend West

Ros Thomas 25/07/2015 Ros Thomas 25/07/2015

Mind your Busyness

I stood at the toy shop counter and waited.

If the stripling in charge sensed my presence, he didn’t acknowledge it. He was engrossed in his phone, thumbs strumming the screen. A pair of tiny headphones gummed his ears.

My outside wore an expression of polite resignation. On the inside, I was chafing with annoyance.

Finally, he glanced up. “Sorry,” he said. “Was updating our Facebook page.”

“Just the Lego please,” I replied. He bagged the box, swivelled the credit card machine towards me and calmly returned to swiping his phone.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to catch his downcast eye. But he was too busy multitasking to cope with another distraction.

Ros Thomas 18/07/2015 Ros Thomas 18/07/2015

Making a Stand

You rarely see a shopkeeper in a top hat these days. Or a roadside lemonade stand on a glacial Sunday afternoon.

Had the top hat been made of felted beaver fur, it might have lent its owner an entrepreneurial air. But this topper was made of pink plastic and glitter and made its owner look like a circus performer. It was rammed onto the head of my five-year-old, who had set up shop under a naked plane tree. Her cardboard sign read: Leminhade $10.

“Shall we move the dot and make it $1.0?” I suggested. “The mining boom’s over, you know.”

Ros Thomas 11/07/2015 Ros Thomas 11/07/2015

Show Business

It was raining cats and dogs. My windscreen wipers whined a irksome tune. As I passed the Showgrounds, I spotted a sandwich board. Feline Fanciers Show, it read. Today. 9-4pm

“Come on,” I said to my 5-year-old as we drove through the gates. “We’ve got an hour to kill.”

The cat pavilion was a vast tin shed that smelled strongly of toast and vaguely of tuna. The entrance was fortified with sacks of cat litter, stacked like sandbags along one wall, in case of dog invasion. A small table offered an array of cat show essentials: three knitted berets, four pairs of fingerless gloves and a half a dozen jars of pickled onions.

Ros Thomas 04/07/2015 Ros Thomas 04/07/2015

Suit Yourself

Most of us are occasionally troubled by the prospect of looking passé. Except my husband. Not quite fifty, his latest fashion fancy is dressing like a squire en route to a clay pigeon shoot.

Last week he sauntered in the door after work, tummy first, proudly sporting a new woollen puffer vest.

From the high ground beside my kitchen bench, I watched him bimble down the hallway, shuffling through the day’s mail. His puffer vest was constructed from some variety of battledress serge, gunmetal grey, with the delicate weave of an army blanket. A 360-degree matrix of padded panels hugged his torso like a mattress. He wore his new vest zipped to his throat, emphasising a dewlap of chin. Here, I thought, is a man who likes to be protected from the elements while still remaining camouflaged in the field.

Ros Thomas 27/06/2015 Ros Thomas 27/06/2015

Walking Tall

“The last time I saw you, you were about four,” says a voice over my shoulder.

I twist in my cafe seat.

“Your mum and I were best friends at school. Your grandad had a marvellous shoe shop,” the speaker continues, pointing to a trousered left leg attached to a callipered foot.

“He once split a pair of shoes for me so I could wear something prettier than a big black lace-up. This foot’s three sizes smaller.”

The owner of the Eartha Kitt voice is boxed in behind a walking frame. She’s a handsome woman with a shock of blonde hair, a vivid scarf and an apple-green jumper. I remember Mum talking about a childhood friend with polio.

Ros Thomas 20/06/2015 Ros Thomas 20/06/2015

Stuff and Nonsense

I rang the shiny doorbell and waited. The doormat said ‘hello.’ I studied the flowery cursive etched into the coir matting. Cute idea, I mused.

Despite the blustery day, the porch was pristine. I cast around for a mound of discarded school shoes. Where were my young son’s feculent socks, peeled from sweaty feet and flung to the ground in the rush to play?

The door swung open and a glamorous school-mum ushered me inside.

“The boys are having a ball,” she said. Half a dozen small, excited voices echoed from somewhere upstairs.

Ros Thomas 13/06/2015 Ros Thomas 13/06/2015

Mother Love

I joined the tail of the takeaway coffee queue as two women settled themselves at an empty table beside me. The older woman signalled the waitress by gesticulating above her head. The younger one looked away, abashed.

The older woman ordered a latte.

“Can we keep that door open?” she asked the waitress politely, pointing at the cafe’s front door.

“It’s a bit stuffy.”

Her companion appeared mortified. “Mum!” she whispered urgently. “It’s fine.”

The waitress obligingly edged the door ajar. The mother smiled her thanks and leaned across the table, eager to chat. She looked sweet, sensible, middle-aged.

Ros Thomas 06/06/2015 Ros Thomas 06/06/2015

Hanging on the Line

A dozen of us are waiting testily in the phone shop. We’re each clutching a malfunctioning device or a disputed phone bill. The atmosphere reeks of discontent.

Grudgingly, we split into three queues and align ourselves in front of the three young Ubermenschen standing behind the counter. I choose the line leading to a tall hipster-dude who looks technologically supreme behind his workstation.

With nothing to do but wait, I study the shop assistants. Hipster-dude’s black bushranger beard sits incongruously below the pale shiny dome of his head. But I admire his Lemtosh specs, which give him an air of a teenaged Woody Allen – before the neuroses embedded.

Ros Thomas 30/05/2015 Ros Thomas 30/05/2015

Fish out of Water

Hope is two goldfish pootling in a plastic bag of water.

Small daughter and I stood transfixed in the pet shop. A wall of fish tanks glowed in iridescent greens and blues. A dozen filters hummed a soporific tune. Everywhere we looked, fish were darting hither and yon, their coruscating skins a riot of colours.

In the nearest tank, an orange pipsqueak swayed his translucent tail and lazily glided towards his watery window. Squishing his little fishy lips against the glass, he ogled us with globular eyes.

“That’s the one!” shouted five-year-old daughter, jabbing her finger against the tank. The goldfish didn’t flinch. I took that as a sign of emotional resilience.

Ros Thomas 23/05/2015 Ros Thomas 23/05/2015

Tangled Web

His chair scraped mine. He acknowledged the intrusion with a polite smile and settled at a table for two. We sat at adjacent tables and observed the Saturday pageantry of the Fremantle cappuccino strip.

My neighbour ordered a beer. He shuffled his chair counter-clockwise to capture the last shaft of afternoon sun. His closely-clipped beard shone auburn but was greying around his sideburns.

He seemed fidgety, drumming the footpath with one scuffed boot. He undid the buttons on his polo shirt. Then he quickly fastened them again. A moment later, his hand flew up to his neck to check his collar was sitting obediently flat.