The Market’s Breath - Richard McCloskey-Wall

The Market’s Breath.

A gunshot if rain on the van window and I’m awake again. It’s dark outside still but the streetlights illuminate the market. The rain gives her a soft sheen like the shells of the crabs the fishmongers will later coddle in ice. Her beautiful red brick carapace shows no more sign of life than those frozen crustaceans, she too is in torpor.

There is rattle like loose change being dropped and the chain is unwoven from the iron gate so that we traders can be admitted. Trolly wheels clatter on cobbles and there is the tick tock of boxes in motion.

Inside it’s “Baltic.” And clouds of breath fly free as morning greetings are given.

Finding my pitch I unload my many boxes to the ringing accompaniment of the green metal bars that make up the stalls as they are gathered and squabbled over. The hassled looking market manager walks past already beseeched at this early hour with requests and complaints.

A hush descends then as we set to work building and preening our stalls like bower birds, for they must catch the passing eye, they must excite.

A bright smile approaches with the offer of tea and we set to the equally important task of nonsense talk until the fanfare of spitting eggs and hiss of frying bacon announce the arrival of the punters.

I reposition my choicest items so that they are shown to best effect and then, a contented bower bird I position myself behind my wares.

A great dirty laugh resonates around the cavernous Victorian building, the first of many that day. Beside me one of the old time traders gives his patter, honed to perfection over many years it is now a poem of providence and prices.

The market announces she is fully awake as the band begins to play, soon the air is filled with singing and small talk in all the colourful accents of the world.

I am a maker, so I settle behind my stall to work on that days projects. The background noise fades as I slip into the depths of concentration.

I am pulled once more to the surface by a question, this soon becomes a conversation that ends with the sharp rip of Velcro as a wallet is opened and the crisp cackle of a paper bag being filled. punter and trader then part company both content.

The day wears on and the the sounds of commerce dwindle as the market becomes ever more lethargic.

Traders begin dismantling their stalls, boxes are piled high on trollies and we gossip and ask each other the good day,bad day? Question. Most answer with bad today.

As we are exhaled from St George’s and back into the world I am once more surrounded with the chit chat and laughter of my fellow traders. It is this. I think to my self that is the life of the market it is this, that is her breath.