RIGHT MONEY

‘They fifty-nine?’ I said incredulous pointing at the tic-tacs on the counter.
‘That’s what they are,’ he said. ‘Been that for three months.’
‘Well that’s as maybe,’ I said, ‘but I’m not paying that,’ picking them up, putting them back in the rack from whence they came. ‘They’re only thirty-five down the road.’
He sighed. Rang up the garlic pitta and oaty hobnobs (now ten pence more than the seductive eighty-nine of a few weeks ago).
‘I’ll come back if they’re not cheaper,’ I said.
‘That’s what they are here,’ he said.
‘You said,’ I said and left the shop thinking as I walked down Stokes Croft, ‘It’s not usually what I do,’ and wondered if the group had affected me so.
At Ashley News I paid forty-five for tic-tacs to a man didn’t look up from reading the paper as I gave him the right money.