For seven years I counted on seeing friends at shows. When I sopped going to shows, I stopped seeing friends. When those friends would text me, an Agonal breath would open from the text-box to reply, climb up my phone and envelope me. I’d close the empty gasp by archiving the message. As my anxiety avalanched, my world shrunk. When shows started again I felt a sense of shame for disappearing and for being unable to advance my career during lockdown. I couldn’t figure this out at the time, I couldn’t articulate the denial, I could only listen to my heart rattling against my rib cage as I’d stare at the theatres’ from the other side of the road with a ticket in my hand. My coping mechanism was food, and my lifeline was my dog. I was quite fat, and very lonely.
The hundreds of brief interactions with customers allow me to dip my toes back into the world again, each purchase inching me towards coming to terms with size of the world again, safe in the role of trader, not Link on his adventure, but the shopkeeper that only lives in that specific place, ceasing to exist the moment he turns his back.
In Walthamstow however, customers learn my name and ask how my week has been. I’m stumped, assuming my vocation granted me some sort of anonymity. Pulled unwillingly into being a person again. With each customer I serve I feel myself grow a bit more out of the shell I retreated to.
Walthamstow’s Sunday Farmers’ Market is an extension of what is already the longest open air market in Europe. This neat fact invariably leads to a peppering of confused, disappointed tourists with heavy cameras hanging round their necks, wondering if a market that’s ninety percent knock-off toys, cheap hoodies, and phone cases should be preserved to film.
I’m at the tail end of it, where the wind hits hardest. When setting up once, a gust of wind blew twenty croissants into the air (“they’re still alright” “don’t you dare chuck ‘em”)
On my left is a cheese stall (Almond Croissaint), which is more a table and a breadboard he puts samples on. His real job is building metal frames that hang above our heads in supermarkets. He used supermarkets as an example but I’m sure there everywhere. He tells me it’s a great job that pays well and he’s basically working markets as a favour. He spends most of his shift curled up, sat on a small stool, legs crossed, hood on, staring at his phone. Occasionally he uncurls from his Armadillo impression and asks if I can keep an eye on his table while he goes to the loo in the nearby library.
On my right is an organic/non-pasteurised milk stall (white sliced and cheese straws). The man on that stall is affectionally referred to as “Milky” by both customer and trader. Milky has a late-reign Alex Ferguson red nose, with cheeks to match. He arrives roughly half an hour before the market kicks off (about an hour after every other stall is set up) in a white, dented van with Magic FM booming out the speakers. It’s a jolt to the whole street and an intro to another episode of the market sitcom. The only thing louder than the radio is Milky himself, who’ll half-sing half-shout a few words from the chorus. At any moment of the day he’ll utter a “cheeky monkey” or a “little git” Every regular of his has a nickname (“where’s Trolley Dolly!” Is shouted out loud about every ten minutes) Despite being told my name almost every weeks, Milky calls me ‘Treacle’ which is the name he gives to anyone he doesn’t know.
Further up is an organic veg stall managed by a father and son (two croissants) who let me take whatever is left at the end of the day. The son gets to play Loyle Carner before the market is set up, then the dad puts on Steely Dan. A few weeks ago the son went to uni, and despite him not being there, Loyle Carner still plays. I think back to the first time I saw him live, with Dean, and Loyle was so absurdly positive and earnest it made my stomach turn. Half because it felt like even more of a fantasy than the more problematic music he was building off, and also I had spent years of my career being just as pitifully earnest to zero fanfare.
“Sean!”
While drifting I almost completely miss her.
It’s Nicola. She’s post-workout; sweaty, flush red cheeks, hair tied back. A cheesy Drake lyric immediately comes to mind. She tells me her and her boyfriend have moved in nearby. Nicola and I used to spiral, up and down. Someone I thought if I could just get my shit together, wave off the imaginary vulture’s spiralling above me, we could straighten out. We could make it work. I’m not sure if she ever knew the hopes I had, but I know she’s someone who checked in only to fall into the archive. She asks me how the writing’s going. I say it’s alright, knowing I haven’t written anything in half a year. She’s in a rush now but if I’m here next week we could get a coffee. “It’s good to see you” her hand grips my arm tight enough to add a non-verbal “you dickhead” at the end.
After she leaves I see Milky give me a look. He smiles at me and says “you little git” and starts laughing. Later that day he christened me with my market nickname. Sean… The Sheep.
Sean Mahoney