Dis –Grace -Fool

Dis –Grace -Fool

Gracie heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel outside. That was good, she thought. It was doing what it was supposed to do – giving her warning of someone approaching the house. There was a momentary lapse of sound then a brusque rapping began on the door. Her house slippers made slapping noises as she shuffled out into the hall. Her hand on the inside porch door she remembered the advice of the young police home security constable who had arrived after her last break-in. She had been so kind. Gracie was always to check before opening the front door day or night. She had been quite insistent on that point.
Retracing her steps Grace took up a position by the end of the sofa in the living room from where she could see a pair of feet on the new mat on the front doorstep. The old mat had said ‘welcome’ and the thieves who had ransacked her home had taken full advantage of its message. To be honest some of the stuff they had stolen she had been glad to get rid of: like old video recorders and cameras that looked good but didn’t work. The thieves had done her a good turn there. The insurance firm had classed the stolen items as antiques and had paid out handsomely. For the first time she had money in the bank.
She sighed. But what good was it to her? She didn’t get out much these days except to the local seniors group she went to on a Wednesday – the day the thieves had broken in.
The centre ran a beginners computer class. She‘d had no interest in computers until a few short weeks ago when a new shopping catalogue had dropped through her letter box and she discovered she could order items like a laptop through the post. After very careful consideration but limited knowledge she decided on the one she wanted. It made her eyes water just thinking about how much money it cost. But after all, the insurance money would pay for it.
Gracie drew her mind back to the knocking on the door. Her eyes focused on the two feet, encased in boots standing on the new mat.
She had got rid of the old mat. It had sent out the wrong message. The new one had a message blazed across it that screamed ‘Beware of the Dog” The words in bright orange were accompanied by a shocking image of the massive head of a fierce looking brute baring its teeth and showing its fangs right to the back to its tonsils. It had been the ugliest and most ferocious looking one she could find. She’d been sure the very look of it would scare off the hardiest of intruders. Now, whoever it was standing at the door had their feet right inside its mouth!
She squinted through the slats in the half closed venetian blinds. She wished she had on her glasses. Her sight wasn’t what it used to be. A woman stood there playing with her mobile phone, a box at her feet. Barely able to contain her excitement, Gracie cast all her fears of being burgled again aside and hurried to open the door. Her new laptop had arrived.
“Getting online?” the delivery woman smiled as Gracie.
The following Wednesday her new laptop tucked safely in her shopping bag Gracie was the first in line for the computer class at the day centre. No, she said firmly to the sweet faced if somewhat bemused youngster who was the computer teacher, she didn’t want to learn how to do budget her money. She wanted to learn how to get on to the dating web sites she saw advertised on her television.
At the end of the class too impatient to wait for the community bus home she took a taxi. That computer teacher is rubbish, Gracie fumed. She had learned nothing! But the child teacher had given her the number of the local computer shop. “Phone them and they’ll send somebody out who will help you to get safely started on the Internet,” the teacher advised.
As soon as she was indoors Gracie abandoned her walking frame in the hall and made a beeline for the cream telephone on the hall table. She got through after the second try, Gracie explain what she wanted.
“Not a problem, I will call on the way home,” a male voice on the other end said smoothly.
Gracie was about to hang up when she remembered the nice fresh-face police woman had said she should always ask for a caller’s ID. “Do you have ID?” she shouted down the phone. It was too late. He was already gone. “Never mind, I’ll ask him when he gets here,” she said hobbling out to the kitchen table and plugging the laptop into the wall socket.
“Don’t talk to me as if I’m an idiot,” Gracie snapped. The computer guy cursed under his breath and cast his eyes to heaven behind Gracie’s back. “Turn up your hearing aid,” he said resignedly beginning once again to laboriously show her how to find the sites she wanted.
“You sure you’ll be safe surfing the net,” he asked pocketing his fee.
“Of course I will! I might be deaf but I’m not senile yet,” she growled shoving him out the door in her excitement to get online.
The new laptop was worth every penny she had paid for it she thought a few days later. Her heart quickened thinking about the lovely men she had met while surfing the net into the wee hours of the morning.. One in particular had really taken her fancy. Poor thing, like her he was on his own, he said. And just like her was having lots of problems. He too had been robbed. Unfortunately, in his case the insurance company hadn’t paid out. He was now penniless and almost destitute, he told her. He needed a helping hand. Not to worry, Gracie assured him, she had insurance money. She would help him even if nobody else would.
The following Wednesday Gracie was back at the computer class again. This week she’d ask that child who was the teacher to show her how to set up an online bank account.
The teacher sucked in her breath and looked at Gracie in amazement.. “You have a bank card and an online banking account?” she said visibly impressed.
Gracie glared at her. “A policeman wouldn’t ask me that,” she snapped. The cheek of her, she fumed, wanting to know my business.
“You’ll need to set up online banking at the bank before you can do any banking,” the teacher pointed out.
On the way back from the class Gracie instructed the taxi driver to take her straight to the bank.
The bank attendant felt a frisson of concern when Gracie explained she needed to know how to send money out of her account by using her new computer.
He fidgeted with his pen for a minute before laying it down and clearing his throat. “You want to set up an account where you can transfer money from your account to another account over the Internet?”
Gracie nodded impatiently. Wasn’t that what she had just said? Was he deaf? Her hip started to ached. Why everything did takes so long nowadays. In the old days it was simple; the bank manager and his counter assistants knew everybody. Now it was a thousand and one questions and customers waiting in a long line.
The bank official gave her a nice smile. “Is the money being transferred to a relative…another family member,” he enquired quietly.
Gracie held fast to her temper. She leaned in closer so that the only thing between the young cashier and her was the thin piece of reinforced glass. “That is no concern of your young man,” she hissed. “It’s my money. I can give it to whomever I damm well please.”
The young clerk shrugged. He looked over her shoulder to the line of customers that snaked from the counter to the front door. She had a point. And wasn’t his manager always bawling at the counter staff to encourage online banking and reduce the footfall in the Branch?
“You’ll get all the information you need to set up an account online,” he explained. “Come back in if you need any further assistance.”
Gracie turned away her face red with temper. “I’ll have to go back to that nosy baby faced teacher and get her to show me how to set up the account,” Gracie muttered.
When she got home she found a bouquet of flowers from Interflora waiting for her inside the jaws of the dog’s head on the mat. She pulled the card from its little buff coloured envelope. Her breath quickened. It was from him, Garcia. “You are the woman I have been waiting for all my life. As soon as you can, send me money for flight. I will come to you, my darlimg…until then. This was followed by a long line of large kisses.
Gracie felt as if she was floating. She tried their names out on her tongue, Garcia and Gracie – Gracie and Garcia. She clasped her hands together in a fit of excitement. Their names sounded wonderful together, she thought. Soon he would be with her. She wouldn’t have to worry about burglars or intruders anymore…And with a man at home she could stop going to that stupid computer class.
GM HILL 2019 ©