Old Mr Agate

I was on the M4 the other day. The weather was good, the road was clear and as I whizzed along in my little blue car, my life flashed before me.

Not in a bad way. But I found myself, as I often do on motorways, thinking about things in great detail. My passenger’d had enough of my wittering and was feigning sleep, and so ensued the inevitable ponderings about the fact that my life is racing, my children are growing and I am, in fact, forty four.

How the f@ck did that happen?

Forty f@cking four.

44.

Quarante quatre.

I’ll be honest, this age has not suited me. A crazy episode and a total lack of confidence about my ability to be a good human has found me now, just when I thought I might have everything sussed. But life is crafty. It creeps up on you. It takes you by surprise… I reckon I’ve aged twelve years in the last twelve months. There is The Before and now there is The After. I went into a tunnel called COVID and came out old.

Anyhooo… There I was on the M4, accepting the fact that I am now quite ancient, when something from my childhood revisited my head. Not something so much as someone. And that someone was Old Mr Agate.

Mr Agate ran a shop in East Street, Horsham. It was a little bit like something out of Diagon Alley, thinking about it. East Street was quirky, narrow and busy. It had interesting architecture and a whole host of eclectic shops to visit. But there was one shop I found myself in regularly, and that shop was Agate’s.

Agate’s sold outdoorsy stuff. Creosote, paint, nails, brooms, trowels, I’m guessing. But in truth, I don’t really know what else it sold because I only went in there for one thing: bird seed.

It was usually a Friday morning when my mum left a small pile of coins on the worktop before school, perhaps with a brief accompanying note (in her exquisite handwriting) that told me a visit to Agate’s was due. I’d clutch the coins and put them somewhere safe, hoping I’d find them when the end of the day came and I’d need them for my purchase.

At 3pm, when school ended, I’d blow my fringe out of my eyes, pull up my bottle green socks and head bravely into town.

There is something wonderful about having one thing on your shopping list – just one job to do. And to do it, I’d saunter leisurely down the Brighton Road and eventually hit the edge of town and there it was, East Street, all bustling and productive. I’d get to Agate’s on my left and always have to steel myself to go in. I wasn’t scared – just a bit socially awkward. I’d be required to talk to someone – almost a STRANGER (a male one at that!) and it took guts. Although not unenjoyable, this was certainly quite a personal challenge. It was my mission.

In I’d go.

It was dark inside, gloomy really, but for a strange warm orange glow coming from a back room. There was stuff everywhere – the shop was organised but cluttered. Amply-stocked, I think you could say. The floor was of beautiful polished wooden boards, there were seed bins and groaning shelves and the smell was divine! One I don’t think I have ever smelt since. It was a heady mix of fertiliser, polish and leather, with a touch of hoof oil perhaps? It was intoxicating.

There was often a queue in Agate’s. People came from far and wide to sample the shop’s wares. And there, in the middle of the room, was Old Mr Agate himself.

He was very tall – BFG-esque, with lots of grey hair, and he moved deliberately. Not slowly – he was by no means decrepit. He was actually rather graceful. He served customers without any kind of rush or stress, and would pop out into the back room, ducking under the door frame, to find things that weren’t already on the shop floor. But the most curious thing about Mr Agate was his enigmatic smile. He looked permanently on the verge of  finding something amusing.

Now there is a distinct possibility that the something could have been me. Maybe the curious smile was down to the awkward fourteen year-old waiting in line to ask for her usual ” kilo of bird seed, please”. With an uneven fringe, one sock invariably up and one sock most likely down and probably food spilled down my jumper too, I was noticeable. I may even have been ticking slightly – I did go through a phase. It was an unusual place to find a teenager, and I am sure Old Mr Agate came to recognise me.

He would always serve me kindly, even though my meagre purchases would not have made much difference to his profits. I would hand over my coinage and in return, he would pass me a fat, folded brown paper bag full of corn for our doves. I’d clutch the bag all the way home, sniffing it from time to time, and deposit it on the kitchen worktop, in place of the small pile of money, and feel I’d achieved something.

As I thought of Mr Agate the other day, I wondered if the enigmatic smile was a fixture. Did he just have that mysterious, happy expression always? Or did it just appear when gawky, odd teens graced his premises?

Unfortunately I am not blessed with an enigmatic permasmile. Resting Bitch Face was a (horrid) phrase invented for people like me (“Cheer up, it might never happen!”), and so it’s hard to comprehend that some people are just smiley. But I like to think that in a way, my visits did amuse Mr Agate. We never chatted – I was too shy for that – but he can’t have realised how much he helped me to grow up into someone who can actually go into society and function, simply because he was polite, courteous and never made me feel like my £1.25 sack of seed was a waste of his time.

I expect Mr Agate is dead now. The shop is certainly no more. East Street is currently full of restaurants and swanky cafes. It is even pedestrianised – for goodness’ sake! But if I try really hard, I can still smell Mr Agate’s shop, and feel the bag of seed in my hands. I see his smile and I just hope – really hope – that I smiled back. There’s every chance I didn’t, and if that’s the case dear Mr Agate, I am sorry. Like I say, I was an awkward kid. x