Special

I won’t say it is my favourite place on a late Saturday afternoon – a huge supermarket in one of the Johannesburg suburbs. Earlier in the day I attended The Jesuit Institute’s development day for spiritual directors and prayer guides in Auckland Park. While being there Matilda sent me a text and asked that I get a few things for the family gathering on Sunday. Now, who am I to resist the love of my life?

As is often the case buying groceries, you somehow get temporary companions walking with you up and down the aisles. Total strangers in sync loading their trolleys or baskets.

He did not exactly fall into the category of one of my grocery travel companions, although we were in the same store at the same time. His route was too haphazard to qualify. Using his grocery trolley as a walker, he shuffled bent over from shelf to shelf, putting everything on his list - nowhere to be seen - on the little seat of the trolley. He would cross your path at the bread stands, disappear for three aisles and then pop up, coming from the opposite direction at the teas and coffees. The manner in which people made way and stepped aside as he approached, was as if he had the headlamps of his trolley on and he was leaning on its horn.

With my items in the basket I headed for the cash registers. Only to find myself at the end of a very long queue. I could not believe how busy the store was. Did I miss the speed counters where customers with less than 10 items are helped? Leaving my place in the line I walked a little distance ahead to see whether there was such a facility in this supermarket I was not familiar with, but soon realised there was none. Returning to my previous spot, I found our elderly lone ranger of the grocery aisle standing there, leaning on his shopping cart.

Falling in behind him I had a clear view of his cap’s inability to keep his thin grey hair at bay. They were growing in all directions. The track suit he was wearing had known better days and his shoes were more slipper than tekkie or trainers. His overall appearance was that of an unmade bed.

Suddenly he turned to me, asked that I keep his space in the line and off he went again, this time in the direction of the frozen goods. With the line moving at a steady pace and nearing a long narrow corridor of low shelves closer to the counters, I was of the opinion that the limitations in space in that passageway would not be a deterrent preventing him from coming from behind to his – according to him - rightful place in front of me. He had a certain chutzpah about him.

I had a sense of relief when he arrived back about two metres from the shelf corridor. Taking his place that I had to keep, he turned to me and showed me the plastic container with coleslaw. “Some of them have no prices attached to them and then you have a world of problems at the tills. I usually check. That’s why I had to go back. I also found this cheese on special.” He had a way of looking you full in the face while talking, his blue eyes alive and full of interest and something more – a certain joy.

“These beans are on special as well. Look at the price. There they are on the shelf. Go and get you some. I’ll keep your place.”

“No thanks. I bought me some just last week at another supermarket.”

“Are you living in the area?”

“No, I live near Delmas.”

“Delmas?!”

And so started the conversation with Delmas and the well-known doctor family of the town that he used to visit. Just to move seamlessly to the Rembrandt group and the shares that he still has – “Dr Rupert used to live here in Auckland Park. I think their house is still standing” – the house he is living in that belonged to his grandfather, his ability to speak German, Namibia – “Have you ever been to Etosha? Not? Then you must go. Now. It is the best time of year. Try to stay over at Fort Namutoni” – his family and relatives now spread across the globe. We were doing about two topics a metre, all in his joyous, interesting style without a hint of being boastful. He was merely sharing with me the wonderful facts of life. I felt disappointed that we were nearing the end of the line.

“My granddaughter is a medical doctor working in London. Very well qualified. Specialised in gynaecology among other things.” It was obvious that he was very proud of her. “She caught the royal baby a few weeks ago. All along she knew it was going to be a boy. ‘Look at the way the woman walks’ she told the other members of the team. ‘It is obvious it is going to be a boy.’ She was right.”

Too soon we reached the cash registers.

“It’s our turn. Let’s go.” Without a moment’s hesitation or waiting for one of the checkout points to open up he started walking in the passageway running along the upper end of the registers, all the while looking for an opening. Bent over, headlights on, leaning on the horn. Finally, on reaching the farthest end of the passageway and being obviously not successful in finding an open spot, I saw him negotiating with the staff there in his vicinity. He had a way of being noticed.

I, on the other hand, was still standing timidly at the end of the line, waiting for my turn. When it came, I lost sight of him in the hustle and bustle of the crowd.

Was it possible that his granddaughter indeed acted as midwife to Prince George of Cambridge? I didn’t get her name, so it made the Google search difficult. No obvious South African connections came up in the names listed of doctors I thought involved. But somehow I have the feeling that there is a very competent young lady walking the royal corridors in London with a grandfather who has a way of handling a grocery trolley.

Even if she was a figment of an old imagination, or an over exaggeration, I had the privilege of one of the most wonderful conversations I had in a very long time. In the most unlikely setting with someone who didn’t look the part in the least. I felt honoured, spoilt even. A Prince George in my own right.

Silly of me actually, not to be more open to all forms of synchronicity and simple abundance, or even to expect it. After all, only that morning at the Jesuit Institute’s development day very close by, didn’t I buy Gerard Hughes’ book God of Surprises?

George