When I was just a little girl my mother would bring me to this very department store. Always on a Saturday, hair scraped back from her face, eyes shadowed, the previous night on her breath and me in my finest, hair pigtailed, green wool socks pulled up to the knee, we’d walk the mile or so into town and ascend the two flights of marble stair, turn left at homeware, left once more at children’s clothing and into a glistening, treasure-filled grotto.
This was where the sweets, chocolates and candies lived - presented in a cornucopia of colour, so finely considered one would shy away from disturbing the perfect presentation, the kaleidoscope so finely balanced. Among these bulging shelves lived peanut brittle, boxed and bowed, home-made fudge, fancily packaged in vibrantly coloured paper and translucent plastic, honeycomb pulled together with ribbon, homed in soft golden cloth.
Among these treats lived my favourite - my mother’s too - the Turkish delight. Soft, pliable, pistachio-peppered on its pink skin surface and inside, oh inside, the powdered sugar teasing one’s lips as the teeth tear into the pink, giving flesh. The rush of sweetness, the intensity of the rose scent flowing through the throat and nostrils. At least, that’s how mother explained it. As a child I never did get to relish that texture. By the time I tasted Delight my palette had soured - that of an adult woman, tastebuds shaded with a thousand cigarettes, a waterfall of gin. Yet still, it was a pleasure to see the stuff, trace a finger across the seams of its fine packaging.
Reynolds’ is a different kind of store these days, filled with incomprehensible gadgets, robotic doohickies, sluttish clothing and the like. Yet the corner of the second floor remains a place of solace. Though many of the brands have changed, our Turkish Delight remains - as glorious, as exotic, as promising as ever.
When mother was in the hospice we knew there would not be long - not much chance for a proper farewell. I gathered all the money I had from our various hider-holes in the house. I took the bus into town from our home and came here to Reynolds. I carefully picked the package that seemed fullest, the most pregnant with promise and I bought it and I took the bus over to the hospice. Mother was gone by the time I arrived. I began my night shift there just hours after her passing.
Today I stand on the second floor, eyeing the grotto, pacing, careful not to attract attention. My hair in pigtails, my green woollen socks pulled up to the knee, the previous night on my breath.
I watch the children gaze at the candies, then are yanked away by impatient parents.
I take in the whole floor, I pull the needle from my housecoat pocket and I ever-so-carefully inject the package of Turkish Delight until the syringe is emptied.
A little girl, no older than I was when I first visited this magical place, rushes up to the sweets, hot-faced, her mother not far behind.
“Just one packet” warns her mother.
I indicate the Turkish delicacy.
“Try these, dear, they’re a delight” I smile, pressing them into her damp, horrible little hand.
Michael James Hall, January 5th, 2019.