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‘She didn’t seem to make any mistakes, though. In fact she quite clearly pointed out my rights as a customer. Two baguettes for the price of one.’
‘Is that why you got two? I did wonder. We’ll never get through all that before it starts to dry out.’
‘Well, as it cost us nothing I don’t think that’s anything to worry about, do you?’
I didn’t answer, and he came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. ‘I should think three of you would fit into that giant overall of hers. There’s nothing of you. I remember the days when you were all rounded and – soft. There’s something to be said for a bit of flesh to get hold of, you know.’
‘Out of my way, Charlie, come on. I haven’t got time for all that nonsense. I want to get supper over and cleared up so I can finish my report.’
‘I don’t know why we bother to have meals, really. You’d be happier just taking the plates out of the cupboard and stacking them straight into the dishwasher. It’d make life much simpler. Or not even bother with that: just open the cupboard door, have a good look at them, imagine you’ve used them and shut it again.’
‘Brilliant idea. I’ve far more important things to do than cook and eat this revolting-looking mince. Let alone clear it up afterwards.’
‘We should have gone out.’
‘Nonsense. Ridiculous waste of money. And I haven’t got time, anyway.’
‘No, nor have I really. I’ve got to write up my notes.’
‘What are you on?’
Charlie leant back against the worktop and crossed his arms in front of his chest as he looked down and frowned. ‘Particularly unpleasant one. Two children involved, and the mother’s remarried a bloody difficult Spanish chap. Lot of machismo involved. And the physical distance, of course. Seems perfectly plain that the father’s not a bad sort of customer – bit short-tempered and quick to take offence but basically a good egg. But the mother’s tricky: quite prepared to whisk the kids off to the Costa del Sol or whatever and keep the father out of their lives for ever. Unfortunately she’s good-looking and speaks well. So it’s not cut and dried, by any means. Even the simplest access could be complicated – if you see what I mean. Makes me feel quite depressed, I have to say. I never used to let these things get to me, but – well, the thought of those wretched children being bartered over like goods, and whisked to and fro so that the parents can get their quota – I don’t know, I just sometimes wonder what the hell I’m doing. Whether it’s really for the good.’
‘Well, someone’s got to sort it out, after all. And you’re very good at it, you know. I’m sure you’ll do the best for them that you can.’
‘Of course I will, or at least I’ll do the best I can for my client – but whether that’s best for the family as a whole is an entirely different matter. I just –’
‘Oh, Charlie, do we have to get into all this now? Sorry, sweetheart, but I’ve had a pretty foul day myself and I’m bloody exhausted. Shall we just have supper and watch a quick bit of rubbish on telly and talk about this tomorrow? We’ve both got work to do, after all, and it’d do us good to have a break from it for a while. Don’t you think?’
I walked over to the sink with the frying pan, tipped it sideways and drained off the fatty greyish liquid from round the pale-grey worm casts left in the pan. ‘This meat looks awful: I’m really not sure it’s worth using SavaMart for this sort of thing. We should have gone for pasta or something.’
‘You did ask about the case, Judy,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘I’ve no desire to bore you with my work, I can assure you. And no doubt you’ll remember that going round the corner to shop was your idea. I don’t particularly like shepherd’s pie anyway.’
‘Yes, you do! Why on earth didn’t you say you didn’t feel like it? It’s not as if I wanted it. I’m not doing it for me, you know. I’d be just as happy with a sandwich or a salad – happier. I just can’t bear it when Ben puts on that deprived expression when there’s no meat for supper. And you do too, you know you do.’
‘Don’t make such a thing of it. Now, do you want me to peel some potatoes or –’
‘No, I don’t. I’m fine. But you choose what we eat tomorrow, OK?’
Charlie sighed and walked out of the kitchen, picking up his briefcase from the hall as he called back to me, ‘Give me a shout if you need me – I’m going to do a bit of work till it’s ready.’
I could feel martyrdom welling up inside and let myself wallow in it as I began to peel a large, lumpy potato. A bit of a mutter into the sink always helps when I’m feeling sorry for myself, even when I know I’m being totally unreasonable. ‘Oh, fine – that’s absolutely fine,’ I grumbled quietly, ‘you just carry on with your important work – never mind about my report, that can wait till I’ve served up your meal. Just because I’m exhausted, that’s no reason to eat something cold for once. No, of course not – that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? Barristers come far higher in the pecking order than tired old Ofsted inspectors. You have a good relax in that chair again, like you were when I came in. Haven’t seen me relaxing in a chair since I came in from work, have you? Just time to put down my case and make myself a quick cup of tea and then it’s straight out to the shops and –’ But then I remembered, rather spoiling my flow: ‘Oh, Charlie went tonight, didn’t he? I’d forgotten. Oh well, he doesn’t usually.’
The door slammed, interrupting my enjoyable self-pity, and Ben’s voice, which still surprises me, every time, with its depth, called out a loud ‘Hi!’ from the hall. I plopped the peeled potato into a saucepan of water, and picked up a tea towel.
‘Hi, darling!’ I called back, drying my hands as I walked to the kitchen doorway and leant against it. I watched Ben’s tall figure struggling to close the front door. His brown hair flopped over one eye and his long neck was bent forward like an inquisitive bird’s. He looked too long for his clothes, awkward and gangly in the tangle of coat, bag and arms that flailed around in a vague attempt to shut the door.
‘Take your coat off first, darling,’ I laughed. ‘And drop the bag off your shoulder. It’s swinging all over the place. You can’t hope to close the door with all that in the way. Here – let me take it.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘My God, that’s heavy!’ I said, as I lifted the enormous black canvas bag off his shoulder. ‘You’ll get some dreadful malformation if you weigh yourself down with all that. I keep saying, I just don’t believe you have to cart all those books to school and back again every day – it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mum, don’t start all that as soon as I walk in –’
‘No, really, it’s just not feasible that you could need all these – it’s crazy. You do all of twenty minutes’ work in the evenings, if that, and most of these just go straight back again. Why don’t you clear it out, for heaven’s sake? It’s such a waste of energy. If I lugged everything around all day without going through it before I left in the mornings I’d be taking the whole of my desk with me.’
Ben said nothing, but looked straight at me for a moment. I noticed how sharply his brown eyes stood out against his pale, mottled skin with its sprinkling of crimson teenage spots, and I saw something else, which made me want to look quickly away. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it, either – that quick flash of dislike that passed across his face whenever we argued, or when I said something he considered stupid or embarrassing. Ben shook his coat free of his arms, swept it up in one hand and grabbed the bag off me with the other. He pulled the strap back onto one shoulder and sighed as he headed for the stairs.
‘I’ve had a long day, I’m exhausted and fed up and you have a go at me as soon as I walk in the door. Just lay off, Ma.’
‘I didn’t have a go, Ben, don’t be so touchy and childish. Supper’s about twenty minutes, by the way.’
I turned and walked back towards the kitchen.
‘What is it?’ Ben asked, without any apparent interest, as he made his way up the stairs.
‘Mince.’
‘Great.’
‘Are you being sarcastic, Ben? Because just don’t, that’s all. If you want something else, you cook it. And buy it, for that matter. I’ve had a long day, too, you know.’
‘For Christ’s sake, what is the matter with you? No, I’m not being sarcastic. Mince is fine – what do you expect? Applause?’
‘Don’t be so bloody cheeky, Ben.’
I walked back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind me. For a moment I stood still, frowning, then I moved over to the sink and picked up another potato. Why do I always do that? Why do I always lay into him? He’s only sixteen; he’s only a child. He’s going to hate me if I go on like this. I reached forward and switched on the small portable radio that stood next to the sink, but the sweet, swooping sound of Delius only made me feel worse, and I quickly changed to Radio 4, hoping that the crisp tones of a newsreader or the laughter of a studio audience would distract me. The Archers was on, and I listened with one ear as I tried to dismiss the picture of Ben’s resentful gaze from my mind.
I knew that to let myself sink too deeply into the thoughts that were bound to come next was far too dangerous. Ben and Sally growing up, Ben starting to loathe me. Sally off with her friends all the time and Charlie and I skittering about on the surface of our lives, tired and irritable. What does it leave me to look forward to, I thought sadly: my work?
Hardly. I’d known for some time that there was no realistic hope of actually changing anything, in spite of all the good intentions I’d had originally. I soon abandoned the simplistic ideals I started out with on those first few inspections once I was faced with the reality of just how far wrong the system had gone. I suppose hard grind took over and wore me out. How could I possibly hope to improve even the basic standards of literacy, when I could see that the majority of the teachers’ time was spent in keeping the peace and preventing outright physical damage to children, staff and property? If I closed my eyes I could still picture my latest inspection, and I shuddered as I recalled the scenes in the playground: the huge figures of teenage girls, made more menacing by their giant Puffa jackets and stacked shoes, towering over and threatening any teacher brave enough to interfere in the constant fighting and bullying.
I decided to put my mind firmly onto the problems of The Archers while I finished off the pie, and, once it was in the oven, I went upstairs, intending to give myself a quick tidy in the bedroom, but stopped on the landing outside Ben’s room. I knocked loudly, hoping the sharpness of the sound would work its way into his consciousness through the relentless, rhythmic tones of the rap music, but after a couple of seconds I opened the door without waiting to find out. He turned to look at me from where he sat at the desk, and I felt a little stab of remorse as I took in the school books laid out in front of him.
‘Hi!’ I said, trying to sound interested but not too concerned.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing, darling, Just wanted to say I’m sorry I got ratty again. Didn’t mean to.’
‘That’s all right. What do you want?’
There was something in his tone that didn’t sound right, and I noticed he avoided looking at me and instead turned quickly away again and studied the notepad in front of him intently. He picked up a pencil and began to doodle on it as he waited for me to answer.
‘No – nothing. I told you. Just to say sorry, that’s all. How’s it going?’
‘OK, thanks.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. I’m just finding it a bit hard to – to get down to it, that’s all.’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘No, thanks.’
I walked over to him at the desk, then bent forward to kiss him briefly on the cheek.
‘Supper about fifteen minutes, all right?’
But he wasn’t listening. He was tapping his pencil unthinkingly in time with the music as he stared at the books in front of him. I watched him for a second, then turned to go.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing. It’s OK.’
I nodded briefly, and left him alone. I started to walk towards the stairs but paused outside my bedroom. I didn’t feel good – the brittle exchanges with Charlie and the worry of seeing Ben so abstracted and isolated had unsettled me. If I went into the bedroom now, using the excuse of a quick brush of my hair, I knew it wouldn’t stop there, that I would give in to temptation and indulge myself. I took a deep breath, then turned away from the door and went back downstairs.
I peered round the sitting-room door on my way to the kitchen and was about to call out to Charlie when the sight of the back of his head bent over the small desk stopped me short. I could hear his quiet, steady breathing as he concentrated on the papers in front of him and I leant against the edge of the open door for a moment and watched him. He was concentrating so hard that I felt excluded, and I had a pang of some terrible, nostalgic need for the Charlie of old who had loved me so much and so irreplaceably. Why do I always find it so difficult now to tell him how much I need him? If I ever try, my words become twisted into something ironic and jokey, as if I’ve lost the ability to convey any genuine emotion without being embarrassed.
I stood there quietly a little longer, then spoke gently to the back of Charlie’s bent head.
‘Charlie. Supper’s almost there.’
He turned to me and smiled.
‘Good – I’m starving.’
Maybe the warmth of his smile stayed with me. In any case, I felt more at ease, I remember, as I walked back to the kitchen, and the feeling of contentment persisted as I opened the oven to check my pie.
So it wasn’t all bad before it happened. It would be tempting to think I saw it coming, that the signs were obvious, that our life as it was then was untenable. But it wasn’t – not at all – and it’s not as if I didn’t appreciate the good things we had. I did – I’m not imagining it. I used to think that people who have terrible tragedies or who lose everything must look back and wish they’d known just what they had at the time. But I did – I did know just what I’d got. And it still didn’t stop it going, did it?
Stacey (#ulink_7ff95d8e-0657-585c-8337-cb68d6d998eb)
He thought I didn’t know he was watching me. But I always know, don’t I? And it’s not as if I dunno why, is it? Like that time at school. Just bend your leg up on this bench, Kylie said. Just bend it up. What for? I said. Just do it, she says. Why? I says. I want to show you something, she says. So I bend it up and she calls the others over and they all start laughing. ‘It’s gross’ – that’s what Steph said. ‘Oh my God, it’s so gross!’ Just ’cos she’d heard that on TV. She never said gross before that. No, she never.
It did look gross. They was right. I had my gym shorts on and the way she’d made me put my foot up on the bench and then bend my knee it made all my leg go wide. It was gi-normous; even I could see that. Even then. That’s what I can’t stand. They think I don’t see it just as well as what they do. I’m not stupid. I may be fat, but I’m not stupid.
So this idiot guy today thought I didn’t see him looking at me while I was serving the customers in front of him. He was staring at my hands and all like anything and thought I didn’t know. Fuck me, he’s the one that’s stupid. I had to say everything over to him. Bleeding stupid – and trying to be clever. Like little Andy in the back stores: he’s so dim he don’t know a fishfinger from a packet of Persil.
I had another letter from Crystal today. I knew it was her straight I saw the pink envelope. And the writing. All loopy and sideways. I always know it’s her. Not just the stamps – there’s a few of them write to me from America. I had loads of replies when I put that ad in the slimming mag, and they come from all over. That was my mum’s idea. She saw it on Kilroy or something: a problem shared is a problem thingummied. It’s true, in fact – Crystal knows the way I am better than anyone and I don’t feel embarrassed at telling her stuff. Anyway, in today’s letter she’d put glitter in again: angel dust, she calls it. With little red shiny hearts mixed in. It went all over the table and bits went in the cornflakes. I hate that. She really does believe in them, though. The angels. Weird. Says she has her own angel watching her. Well, he couldn’t miss her really, could he? She says she’s even bigger than what I am now: not a bad job for an angel if you’ve got to watch someone, I suppose. At least Crystal makes it easy.
And she’d wrote LYLMS on the back of the envelope. God knows what that means. I like her letters but I can’t be arsed to work out all that stupid writing on the back. It was OK when she stuck to LOL for Lots of Love, but now they’ve got so long and complicated I can’t be fucked. And all those stickers with little hearts and teddies and ‘May the Lord be your whatever-it-is. Helper – no, Guide’. Something like that. They’re quite cute, in fact, the stickers, but she uses too many of them.
She’s going over to the other side soon, Crystal. That’s what they call it over there. Anyone who’s done it is ‘on the other side’. ‘The Lord will welcome you, too, Stacey, when you come over to the other side.’ That’s what she said at the end of today’s letter. Some chance. It’s all very well for her: it’s easy to get it over there. No one will listen to me here. So I’m stuck. On this side.
That old guy today wouldn’t have looked at me like that if I was on the other side, would he?
Charlie (#ulink_04dfb9df-6da7-5295-80d0-0065eb22a332)
I knew I’d go back to SavaMart, of course. Judy’s attitude to the giant girl behind the checkout had inspired me to take another look at the poor creature, and I still felt an odd shadow of the impulse to help her. Catch my wife unawares on her home ground and some of the old reactionary background seeps out – not that she’s the only one, of course. I know I can be just as guilty of it. And it makes me as patronising as if I were being outright prejudiced, I suppose, even if the effect on both of us is to make us more tolerant than we would otherwise be. Positive discrimination taken to such lengths that we end up bending over so far backwards that we topple over. Wrecking the entire attempt at whatever it was and making an idiot of oneself into the bargain. Class, race, size, whatever – you name it – and there’s a little store of bias hiding in our every gene. Hers and mine. I should have said more to defend the checkout girl really; I despair sometimes at how undynamic I’m becoming, but it just never seems worth it at the time. I know Judy doesn’t mean any harm – she’s the most generous and compassionate of women when you reach her from the right angle, so to speak, and she’d be horrified if it were ever suggested to her that she has an in-built snobbism that can come out as patronising in the extreme. But she can be maddening at times. Particularly about anything domestic, of course. She really does believe that she’s the only one who ever shops or cooks or tidies up or makes the beds; those little glances that she gives when anyone else tries to help – as if no one can ever know the vast amounts of hardship she endures to look after us all. She works too hard, that’s half the problem; since she’s been doing this Ofsted stuff I can see how tired she gets. She’s always nipping up to her room to lie down with one of her headaches. I must get her out for the odd meal again.
So, in any case, on to my trip back to the supermarket and to the banned checkout – no, not banned: the checkout that no one who’s in the know ever uses. A sort of perversity on my part, a challenge to prove Judy wrong. Maybe we should have a bet on it? That the huge creature might just prove herself to be the zippiest, snappiest checkout girl of the lot. Untried for so long; not given a chance; growing ever more bored and less practised without the stimulus of chatty, interesting customers such as myself. What hidden depths of wit, charm and skill might not be buried under those mounds of cushioning flesh. Judy’s always chastising me for not doing my bit for all those good works she promotes: is my charitable role perhaps to be Higgins to this generously endowed Eliza?
The day hadn’t gone too badly. Most of the time I wonder what the hell I’m doing in my work – God knows what happened to all my early ideals and ambitions: I look in despair at this run-of-the-mill, middlingly successful person I’ve become. But my questioning of the father today did just what I wanted: showed him up to be the loving kind of bloke he obviously is. An entirely good influence in my opinion: the two kids will be far better off with some time with him than disappearing to Malaga or wherever. If I can get the judge to agree to his educating them over here as he wants to then it might just be possible to keep everyone happy. Pity the mother’s so good in the box. More than a touch of the ‘all women together’ angle going on, if you ask me. The judge is clearly a bit partial to having her femininity appealed to, specially by someone pretty. Probably because she’s such an old boot herself she’s cheered to find that another female can still identify her as the same gender, let alone treat her as one of the girls. Still, it didn’t go badly at all. And I was in the mood to brave SavaMart again, do my bit for mankind by bringing a little joy into the fat girl’s day and then make a little magic in the kitchen. In any case, I wanted to give Jude a break: the tension in the house when she writes her reports is left strung around like trip wire – the kids and I creep about for fear of falling over it. So I could kill two birds with one stone: give myself the fun of the checkout challenge and set up a peaceful, relaxed evening at home.
I phoned Judy on her mobile and caught her in the car, sounding distinctly weary and defensive – in exactly the right mood to be seduced by the thought of not having to cook. If I’m honest, I have to admit that when she sounds like that there’s a bit of me wishes I didn’t have to go home and face her: I sometimes indulge the fantasy that I could disappear and live quietly round the corner without her ever knowing. Still, it never lasts long. I’ve no doubt she entertains the same kinds of thoughts about me from time to time.
‘I’m going to pick up some bits of chicken and do one of my specials. I know this report’s taking it out of you and you must be exhausted. Go straight home and make yourself a cup of tea.’
‘Charlie, that sounds great. But how was your day? What sort of –’
‘Not bad at all. Not a bad day. I managed to –’
‘Pick up a decent bottle of red, will you, darling? We’ve only got disgusting plonk left and I need something a bit more cheering.’
She was there. Squeezed into the space behind her cash register as tightly as before; as large as I’d remembered. It was a bit disappointing to see she had a small queue at her checkout; not as long as the others, but still a respectable number of people. I had rather hoped to be her only customer: a lone experimenter braving the empty wastes of her conveyor belt and discovering the gem of sensitivity and wit buried under the muffling pounds of surplus fat. Kilos of fat, I should say.
I did my shopping quickly and joined the queue, uncomfortably aware that it appeared to be unchanged since I had entered the store. The same five people were lined up with their trolleys and baskets, although the shopper at the till was even now tidying her change and receipt away in her purse. The line shifted forward a little and I watched my marshmallow girl intently. She sat impassively with her hands neatly folded on the rubber surface of the belt, watching the customer slowly pick up her shopping and turn to go, then reaching forward for a plastic-wrapped loaf of bread and mechanically passing it in front of the scanner. The elderly woman she now served lifted a worn shopping bag off her arm and laid it at the end of the belt, not glancing at the girl in front of her, who appeared equally uninterested. Each seemed totally unaware of the other’s presence, as if a mutual pact had been made to get through the next few minutes with the least possible amount of human contact. Only when the small selection of goods was packed into the bag did the girl mutter a barely decipherable couple of words vaguely in the direction of her customer and money changed hands and some sort of minimal communication took place.
My original idea of trying a joke was looking more and more risky as my turn approached and I began to feel slightly nervous. My sense of humour is not altogether unappreciated in the courtroom, albeit a bit too old-fashioned and well rehearsed to be as funny as I imagine when I’m lying in bed planning it. But it generally lightens things up a little, if nothing more. It does require, though, that the recipient takes enough interest to be able to listen to several words at a time. Or, at the very least, allows a little eye contact so that the principle of one party attempting to amuse the other can be established, even if the words themselves are not appreciated or understood. It’s tricky to be even faintly funny if the audience is looking in the opposite direction wearing an expression of utter indifference and boredom. I was horribly shy as a child, and the memory of that excruciating feeling of something being expected of me that I just couldn’t produce still surfaces from time to time. Judy’s always telling me I’m like a different person in company, and she’s right: I clam up. I’m far happier in the circle I know, unless I’m dressed up in my armour of gown and wig and well prepared for what appear to be off-the-cuff remarks in court.
So, as I approached the checkout, I trimmed my sails somewhat. I abandoned any attempt at an anecdote or at telling one of the children’s cleaner jokes and decided to join her on her own ground, so to speak, and to be amusing about an aspect of her world. At the same time I thought it a good opportunity to offer a small reminder of our first meeting, perhaps to reassure her that I was up for a little unthreatening conversation, and that here was a chap who didn’t mind laughing at himself. If all that could be achieved I might just open the tiniest chink of the gate to communication, and begin the process of revealing the hidden glories behind it.
As the last customer in front of me moved away I began to unload my shopping and glanced up at her. It’s fascinating how quickly one’s parameters adjust to the unusual: although she was clearly enormously overweight, on this second viewing it no longer seemed to be her dominating characteristic. I was more aware of those pretty eyes, and the fleshiness of the girl was this time less grotesque, more – pleasantly Rubenesque.
Her gaze was still unfocused, but the head was at least facing the right direction. I picked up a packet of butter from my basket and waved it about in front of her, forcing her to pay it attention.
‘Is it a bogof?’ I smiled.
A faint frown rippled the heavy folds between her eyebrows. She stopped moving my shopping and looked directly at the yellow pack of Anchor that I was holding directly in front of her nose.
‘Only you may remember I missed a bogof when I was here the other day. You kindly pointed it out to me. And I didn’t know what you meant – do you remember? I even thought you were using some sort of offensive term, or something!’
The frown remained.
‘When you said “bogof”, I mean,’ I floundered on. ‘I thought you were – oh never mind.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Right.’
‘And I do remember,’ she went on, taking the butter from my hand and scanning it. ‘I’m not stupid, you know. I remember all the customers.’
‘Do you really?’ I asked, genuinely interested in whether this were true. It seemed unlikely that she could really recall this very ordinary man in whose direction she had hardly glanced for more than a couple of seconds at most, let alone the hundreds of others who must pass in front of her till each week. ‘How extremely clever of you.’
