Agnes saw the tin of shortbread, a lonely presence on the supermarket shelf, and thought it would be the perfect present for Mrs Connelly. It was a silver tin with a picture of Santa Claus on the lid feeding a piece of shortbread to one of his reindeer; Agnes presumed it was Rudolph. She smiled. Her next-door neighbour would love that picture. She stretched up to take the tin. Another hand appeared over her left shoulder and picked it up; Agnes quickly grasped it too.
“Sorry,” a woman’s voice said behind her. “I just wanted to get some shortbread.”
“Well, so did I,” said Agnes, tugging on the tin. The woman tugged back.
Agnes turned round to face a grey-haired woman – she looked in her sixties, the same as Agnes. The woman smiled but it was a pained rather than pleasant expression.
“I’m sure they’ll have more in their stockroom if you want to ask,” she said.
“But I’ve already got this one,” said Agnes, making a sudden pull and snatching the tin out of the woman’s hands. “Why don’t you ask?”
She turned away with a satisfied smile; she’d seen the tin first, she told herself as she placed it in the trolley. Straightening up, she started to walk away and something hit her on the back of the head. She spun back round. The other woman stood with an opened box of eggs in one hand, her other hand placed on her hip. Defiant.
The egg yolk was in Agnes’ hair and she knew she’d have to wash it when she got home. Glancing at the shelf beside her, she spotted packets of pasta and snatched one – it was fusilli – and threw it. The packet struck the woman’s shoulder, breaking open and sending curly pieces of hard pasta scattering all over the floor.
The woman threw an egg and Agnes ducked. She straightened up and another egg hit her in the chest.
“What’s going on here?” A voice halted Agnes as she was about to throw another packet of pasta.
The supermarket manager strode up the aisle towards them as Agnes wiped the egg yolk off her coat with a handkerchief.
“Does someone want to explain what’s going on?”
Agnes looked at the woman and she looked back, and then both of them glanced guiltily at the trolley.
“I wanted it for Mrs Connelly,” Agnes said after they had explained about the shortbread.
“Who’s Mrs Connelly?” the manager asked.
“She lives next door and she loves shortbread.”
The other woman snorted, and Agnes and the manager both looked at her.
“I wanted it for my mum,” the woman said. “She’s ninety-four and she’s got dementia, but when she eats shortbread, it helps her remember things.”
“Aww, that’s a shame,” the manager said, her head tilting sympathetically to the side.
“What a lot of rubbish,” Agnes said.
The woman began sniffling as Agnes sighed angrily, but the manager handed the shortbread over to her.
“For your mum,” she said, and the woman took it with a grateful nod, though Agnes was sure there was a sneer forming at the edges of her mouth.
“We’ll be getting more in later this week,” the manager said to Agnes, who was still glaring at the woman.
The woman winked at Agnes as she put the shortbread tin in her trolley and glided past her. She winked. Agnes couldn’t believe it. She glanced at the manager to see if she’d spotted it, but evidently she hadn’t. Agnes could feel the anger beginning to boil. She snatched up a long, thin baguette from the shelf opposite.
“Give me back my shortbread,” she shouted, wielding the bread like a sword as the woman turned round, her startled expression one that Agnes would never forget as she swung the baguette into the woman’s face.
You can email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or tweet me @PaulTheHunted
