splodge

I linger by a shop window filled with fluorescent Smartie-coloured shoes, sandals, flip-flop things with satin roses on. Sometimes I'm brought by a standstill by visions of plenty here. The memory of --well, nothing -- is still fresh.

The woman leans against me conspiratorially."You've got a mark on the back of your skirt."

I whip round. It's true, some sort of a damp-looking splodge. "Thanks for telling me," I say but I'm mortified: how many other passers-by have seen it? I grasp my basket and -- with my free hand -- try to manoevre a box of Cornflakes round my behind. It's a fair walk back to the car (past the parked black Mercedes with the Zimbabwe flag flying and the armed riot policeman in the back and the two businessmen in black suits who may or may not be visiting white businesses today as the indigenisation drive hots up: that's what they've been doing for the past week in this town) and the Cornflakes box is bulky and yellow and I'm not sure if I'm actually drawing attention to myself but what else am I supposed to do? How do other people manage or do they never get splodges? Will I be known forever more as the white-woman-with-the-splodge-on-the-back-of-her-dress?

Back in the car, I examine my skirt. The splodge I trace to the inside of my dress. And yes, it is my son's glow putty - the remnants of -- that didn't come off in the wash. You buy eggs of the plasticine-like stuff in OK supermarkets. It looks worse than it actually is.

But I'm glad that she stretched across the gap and told me.