Saturday Market Day

         In the early hours of Saturday morning two rows of canvas covered stalls are placed along the middle of the widest high street in the North of England. It’s market day in Stockton. The air is icy and the black clouds are fat and heavy looking. It doesn’t seem to matter that snow is falling or that feet are cold and wet, people still go about their business in their own way. Stall holders shout over the heads of those being served. “Come and get your ripe tomatoes here! Only the best oranges; spuds fifty pence a pound! Get the baby’s bottom off the strawberries love, would you?”

In the crowd ahead walks a stout woman dressed in a home-made woollen hat, a thick, long overcoat and knee length gum boots. It’s not the woman that draws my attention but the duck her shopping bag; it’s bright yellow beak quacking protests of its confinement. The woman doesn’t seem to notice as she wanders from stall to stall browsing, thinking, moving on.

I move on. People stand and ponder or push past as they go on their way. The smell of hot donuts wafts across me; it fills the icy air which in turn fills my nostrils and I linger. I decide not to buy. There’s frustration on faces as some people jostle for better positions at a crowded stall or fight their way through the throng to their next destination.

I’m attracted to the joke stall. It’s engulfed by children who make the pilgrimage to this hallowed spot every Saturday, just to watch the Jokeman in action. Hanging from the roof of his stall is an array of funny and scary masks and cluttered around him is an assortment of tricks, toys and jokes that he continually demonstrates. Wide eyes watch as he shows, with sleight of hand, how one small pink ball becomes two. Then he opens his mouth to reveal a big, black, plastic fly perched on the end of his tongue.

A small boy grabs an object and holds it up to his mother. “Mum, can I have some of this plastic poo!” She drags him off in embarrassment as the Joke-man winds up a fluffy dog and lets it loose on a small, flat work surface in front of him. The fluffy dog hops and squeaks until its spring runs down. I decide to buy the pink balls. With a wry smile and a long, green dangly thing hanging from his nose, the Jokeman swaps his trick for my money.

I move on. The sky grows darker. Stall holders hang yellow, glowing lanterns; snowflakes become larger and settle on the canvas, and heads and shoulders of the shoppers; and the buying and selling goes on. There’s that duck again; still quacking.

I stop at a stall that seems to have everything and I mingle with the big crowd listening to the super salesman as he stands on his pedestal and sings his selling song. “Not one – not even two – but three! That’s right three for the price of one!  And the price? Not ten pounds, not eight, not even six; no! Ladies and Gentlemen going out today at only…” he claps his hands, “…a fiver! Now, I can’t be fairer than that!”

Hands rise in the crowd, and he throws packages of three to people as his assistant mingles, collecting the money from those who buy. “Now ladies just look at this.” He holds up a shiny silver tray. “The only thing that shines brighter is you!” Someone shouts, “And you!” Giggles echo around the stall and the super salesman widens his smile.

The duck appears in the crowd again, with the woman. In unison they strain their long white necks to see the super salesman with the bright smile demonstrate his latest gadget. A tin opener that cuts the top off the tin then folds the rim so as not to cut fingers. The woman and the duck buy one and move on.

I move on too. Then I see it and my insides churn. It’s the tripe stall. Cow stomach for sale. As I walk quickly past, memories of my grandfather slurping on big lumps of it fill my mind and I’m glad I haven’t eaten. Needless to say, I move on.

Just as the joke stall is a hallowed spot for some, so for others is the scene up ahead. Standing alongside a set of green scales with shiny brass counterweights is a loveable old man who has been ready to take your penny for as long as anyone can remember. Hand him your penny and he will juggle the weights of his scales until they balance, then write a friendly assessment of your weight on a small square of paper. When he places the paper in your hand he will bid you goodbye with a toothless grin from a prune-like face and then tip his threadbare cap as you leave. This is Old Scales. He has only ever been old and has always taken pride of place in the centre of the market. If you’re lucky, when he places the square of paper in your hand, he will stroke your palm with his Bonney fingers and offer you a look into the future.

I take the step onto his scales, just as many others do, for no other reason than the pleasure of his attention. I get his gummy smile, and he slides the brass counter weights one by one along the bar until his scales balance. He concentrates. His bushy eyebrows move up and down on his countenance as if they have a mind of their own and I stand in anticipation. Finally, he scribbles something onto a small square of paper. I step down from the scales; he places the paper in my hand. Without looking I say, “Oh, lovely, just what I wanted to weigh.” But he hangs onto my hand, and I feel a silly excitement well inside me.  He turns my palm upwards. His sagging eyes dart about my person as his bonny fingers lightly trace the lines in my palm. “I see you are going on a long journey.” His sagging eyes twitch. “Far away.” 

         I find myself saying “Oh?” as if I didn’t know.

         “It’s going to be very hot and you will be happy.”

         “Thank you.” I say automatically.

Old Scales offers me his toothless grin again, bids me safe journey, tips his threadbare cap and I move on.

I wander past stalls selling, incense, exotic rugs, hot dogs, more tripe, women’s underwear, men’s underwear, bags, baskets, pets and pots and pans. I buy a travel bag and as I pay I notice my Australian tour brochure sticking out of my breast pocket and I smile.

Up ahead, the duck and the woman stand at a stall selling crockery. I stop there too and browse. A young girl comes and stands between me and the duck. She looks at the duck and then at the woman. “Are you taking him to the vet?”

         “No luv,” replies the woman as she looks closely at a brown casserole dish, removing its lid, assessing its size, and putting it down again. “He’s for the pot.”

         “Oh,” says the girl with dismay and she moves on.

I’ve come to the end and there’s nowhere else for me to move on. I look at the paper Old Scales gave me and I smile again. It says, ‘You’re too fat!’ I turn and look back at the two rows of lantern lit stalls; and the snow falling; and the people with cold, wet feet; and I know that this scene will happen again next week just as it did last week and has done every other week for the last three hundred years. It’s Saturday, it’s market day. How could it be anything else?