Once upon a time, two sisters travelled
many miles to buy food. Gretel and Beatrice Gooseberry often went to Rosewait,
the market with the green stripes, to buy things like apples, French cheeses
and cakes.
The day was fine, and the sisters were in
a good mood. Along the journey, Gretel turned to Beatrice and asked, ‘sister,
what happened to that pretty blouse you used to have?’
‘Of which blouse do you speak, Gretel?’
asked Beatrice, for Beatrice had many blouses.
‘’Twas a silky blouse, a purpley colour,
and it has a big bow on the neck line,’ said Gretel.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a blouse
like that,’ said Beatrice. She may have had many blouses, but she fondly
remembered most of them.
‘Yes, yes you did,’ insisted Gretel. ‘It
was your favourite. You used to wear it all the time,’
They had reached Rosewait, and they
parked their carriage and hurried to find a small cart in which to put the good
while they walked around, seeking organic extra virgin olive oil and luxury
Swiss chocolates.
‘I am sure I didn’t, Gretel,’ said
Beatrice, inspecting a punnet of strawberries.
‘You did! You bought it in that manky
charity shop that smelled of wet dog,’
‘They all smell of wet dog,’ said
Beatrice.
‘You paid 50p for it, and said it was a
bargain! How can you not remember that?’
‘Because I have never bought a 50p purple
blouse from a charity shop,’ said Beatrice.
‘It was a Biba blouse, from the '70s, and
you said, ‘they don’t know what this is!’ and you snatched it up and ran to the
till because you were afraid someone would take it from your hands!’
‘No, no,’ said Beatrice. ‘I have never
done such a thing, not for a purple blouse!’
‘You used to wear it all the time! You
wore it every time we went to the ale house!’
Gretel was now getting annoyed that her
sister could not remember the beautiful purple blouse she had once loved so
much. They finished their shopping, and returned to the carriage.
As they queueing to leave carriage park, Gretel
tried one more time to nudge Beatrice’s memory.
‘You used to call it your ‘Maggie
Thatcher’ blouse,’ she said.
‘I did not, Gretel,’ said Beatrice.
‘You did! You did!’ shouted Gretel. ‘what
happened to the purple pussy bow blouse?’ she then went very quiet, lost in
thought. Eventually she said…
‘Oh, yeah. It wasn’t you that had that
blouse. It was my friend Katie.’
‘