Page 11 of A Face in the Crowd
No group can ever make a decision as to a venue
I’m too old for morning-after hangovers
I make small talk with Daff and give a non-committal ‘maybe’ when she asks if I fancy coming out with ‘the girls’ later. If I was honest, I’d tell her, ‘Not a chance’.
As the clock ticks around to the start of our shift, Daff puts her bag in her locker – as-per company policy – but I know I can’t do the same. Not with the envelope of money inside. I need to feel it close. I stuff mine under my arm and head to the tills, before burying it in the space underneath the conveyor belt.
A person can learn a lot about others when working on a supermarket checkout. It’s a bit like sharing a bus, I suppose: there’s a bit of everything – of everyone. Everybody needs to eat and so everyone uses a supermarket sooner or later. Most go about their business as quickly as they can – a swift in and out and they’re done until the next time. There’s always a minority, of course. Those who drop something like milk on the floor, watch it splat and spread, and then walk off as if nothing has happened. It happens almost every day. Then there are people who scatter trolleys here, there and everywhere in the car park because a short walk from their car to the front of the store is seemingly too much.
Some ignore the ‘10 items or fewer’ and wheel through full trolleys but then act incredulously when told they need to check out in a different place. A surprising amount try to use coupons meant for one product to try to get money off another – and then there is the thing that makes it clear to absolutely everyone that the person involved is a horrendous human being. It’s not as if I want a lengthy conversation with the people who pass by my till. A nod and a ‘hello’ is usually enough. Sometimes people ask about my day (how doyouthink it’s going, seeing as I’m working at a checkout?) – or I’ll ask about theirs. It’s all fine. What is really hard to stomach, though, are those people who spend the entire process talking into their phone, ignoring me as if I’m some sort of robot at their beck and call. I want to slap their phones away, to stare into their eyes and remind them that I’m an actual,realhuman being. To let them know that I have feelings and that it’s really not that much to ask that they acknowledge me in the merest way imaginable. A good start is actually looking at me, or muttering ‘hi’ – even if they don’t mean it.
I don’t do any of that, of course. I scan their shopping, take the money, and let it simmer.
Time always seems like it passes quicker on Saturdays, mainly because there are more people trying to get their shopping done. At times, it is a stream of one person after another. Through it all, I think of the seven pounds and fifty pence I’m making every hour. With my lunch break, it is £52.50 a day and it’s hard not to calculate how many days of work there are sitting in my bag at my feet. How I could remove three twenty-pound notes right now and be better off than I am spending seven-and-a-half hours in this job.
I’m lost in those thoughts as a young woman arrives at the till cradling a baby in one arm and pushing a trolley with the other. Her dark hair is dirty and there are some murky-looking stains on her top. She has to be twenty at the most and struggles to make eye contact as she places her items on the conveyor belt. Her child has no such worries, gazing at me with deep blue eyes that haunt and charm in equal measure. The mother is so gaunt, so small.
There is a packet of formula, a box of rusks, a bottle of lotion and a bag of nappies. Everything is the cheap, own-brand items that we sell. Other than that, there are four packets of ten-pence noodles and a large bag of porridge oats.
We share a look that lasts barely a second, but, in that moment, it’s as if we are sisters. Out of everything, we’ve bonded over porridge oats.
She pulls out a tattered shopping bag and waits at the end of the conveyor belt, still balancing her child with one arm.
‘I’ll pack,’ I tell her and she nods. There is acne around her mouth and unfilled piercings in her ears. I wonder when she last ate.
I pass the rusks over the scanner, waiting for the beep and the price: £2. The girl stares at the amount and then her eyes give her away as she glances back to the trolley. It’s impossible to miss now: there are two further packets of nappies sitting on the rail underneath the main trolley. I look at them and then at her. She holds my eyes and we’re still sisters.
I scan the lotion, the noodles and the porridge oats; then hold my hand over the barcode of the formula as I pass it directly into the shopping bag. There’s no beep.
The total is a little under £15 and we both know it’s not right.
Another customer slots in behind the girl, talking on his phone, and neither of us pay him any attention. She’s shaking as she counts the notes and coins out of her tatty purse into my hand. The amount is correct to the final penny – and I suspect much of her budgeting is done like this. Pennies count and pounds certainly do.
I lean in, so the man on the phone can’t hear, even if he was listening. ‘Use the small door by the magazines,’ I say, ‘You can squeeze around the scanner no problem.’
Her eyes widen a little, but she nods to say she’s heard. I don’t know about her, but my own heart is racing.
She shuffles away, switching the nappies from the trolley to her bag and then heading in the direction of the smaller door without risking a backwards look. I watch her go before turning to the man who is still on his phone.
Sometimes life isn’t black and white and, as I nudge the bag at my feet, I figure not everyone can be given envelopes full of money.
Chapter Six
It’s only as I’m getting off the bus close to home that I get a message from Harry asking if I’m still on for tonight. With spotting Melanie and spending a day at work, it had fallen from my mind. I can’t stop thinking about the girl at the checkout, wondering if she’ll eat today; or how the baby is getting on.
I wait until I get home and have given Billy a quick walk before replying to Harry. I’d rather have an evening in with my dog – but that describes almost every other night of my recent existence. Instead, I send back ‘of course!’, spending almost ten minutes agonising over whether to include the exclamation point. I go for it in the end, figuring it can be part of the new me. Old me would go without; new me is way more fun.
That done, I try to figure out how I’m going to make myself somewhat presentable given my lack of options. I don’t have many choices, especially considering one of my two pairs of shoes are taped together. I go with my ancient school shoes and my job interview clothes of a dark skirt and white blouse. Not that I’ve had an interview in years. In an attempt to lessen the office worker appearance, I dig a floaty blue scarf thing from the bottom of my drawer and tie it around my neck. It’s still a bit low-rent airline attendant but it will have to do. Beggars and choosers and all that. It’s almost a relief that I have so little. In the old teenagery days, I’d have spent hours figuring out what to wear and changing my mind dozens of times. Sometimes, it was like that when I was with Ben. Now, it’s as if that worry has been taken from me. If these clothes, if my appearance, isn’t good enough, there’s not a lot I can do about it. I should be nervous and yet this realisation gives me a strange calmness.
I get to The Garden Café fifteen minutes before the time Harry and I agreed. After asking the waiter for some tap water – being very specific about the word ‘tap’ – I spend time looking through the menu again. There are a few differences to what was online and, because of the prices, I rule out almost eighty per cent of everything listed. It’s automatic now, not only with food, I check the prices first and the actual item afterwards.
‘Lucy?’
I turn at the sound of my name and then stand to meet Harry. I’m not sure what I expected. We’ve swapped photos, but there’s still something of a shock that he looks like his pictures. He doesn’t have three additional chins that he’s been hiding with flattering lighting, or a bald spot that is far more than simply a patch. I don’t necessarily mind any of those things, it’s more the deception of using old pictures or selective lighting. It’s been years since I was on anything close to a date and the world has moved on. I’ve read stories of sexting, ghosting and all sorts of other ‘ings’ that weren’t around a decade ago.
Harry and I shake hands and it feels fine and normal. We’re not into the hug territory yet; even the bums-out, lean-in kind of hug.
He’s refreshingly ordinary. Shortish dark hair, jeans and a jacket – which is forgivable in this instance, especially given my own clothes. He’s average height, weight, and whatever else.
