I knew I hadn’t stirred it enough.
‘Where now?’
‘Aldi.’
‘I thought we’d been there.’
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘You sure? Where did we go first?’
‘That was Lidl.’
‘Ah.’
‘They share seventy-five per cent of the letters in their names.’
‘Yeah, that’ll be it. Why are we going to Aldi?’
‘For bread.’
‘We got bread in Sainsbury’s.’
‘That was brown wholemeal, for me. We still need plain white, for Guy.’
Hol nods behind me. ‘There’s some right there.’
I don’t even need to look. ‘Yes, but it’s not on special offer.’
Hol squints. ‘Doesn’t exactly look expensive.’ She has a pained expression on her face. I have come to recognise this look, over the years. Not just on Holly, either.
‘Yes,’ I tell her, ‘but it’s still not on special offer. It’s twenty pence cheaper in Aldi this week.’
‘Twenty pee? Is it even worth it? How far is it to Aldi?’
‘It’s one point four kilometres. Given that the car’s engine is already warmed up, our additional fuel consumption, even allowing for the extra eight hundred metres added to our journey from Aldi to home, compared to from here to home—’
‘No need to show your working, Kit,’ Holly says, holding one palm up to me.
‘It’s worth it,’ I confirm, cutting to the chase.
‘Okay.’ Hol sighs. She looks down the aisle. ‘Any particular checkout? Do you have a strategy for that too?’
‘One of the self-checkouts.’ I nod. ‘There’s a single queue; more efficient. Why we have a basket.’
The other reason I like to exit via the self-checkout lanes is that I don’t have my own proper bank card yet and so I have to use Guy’s debit card to pay for the groceries – I usually get some cashback from the first supermarket I visit, to pay for any subsequent smaller orders – and it’s less stressful using a machine to enter the PIN than looking into the eyes of a checkout staff member when technically it’s not actually your name on the card you’re using. That makes me sweat and sometimes fumble or even temporarily forget the PIN.
Sometimes machines can be more forgiving than people.
Today there’s even a queue for the different queues. That’s new. We join it.
‘Does it even make sense to shop on a Saturday?’ Hol asks, as we pull up behind a large family with a full trolley. I put our heavy, piled-up basket on the floor so I can nudge it along with my foot as we all shuffle forward. ‘I mean, you can shop any day of the week, can’t you?’ she says. ‘Isn’t Saturday the busiest day?’
‘Yes, but you get the best special offers at the weekend, and by Sunday usually some have sold out. I have no time constraints, so I can afford the extra minutes spent in queues.’
‘You do this every week?’
‘Yes. At least. Sometimes we need to top up, though I try to avoid that.’
‘That’s a lot of extra time in queues.’
‘It gets me out of the house.’
Hol looks at me. ‘God, you’re being serious.’
‘We could have groceries delivered, but I don’t like leaving the choice of fresh stuff to somebody else, their substitution choices aren’t to be relied on and, in theory, to maximise the savings we’d have to have up to six separate deliveries, most of which would be too small to qualify for free delivery anyway, so—’
‘You really have worked this all out, haven’t you?’
‘Of course. It’s fun.’
Holly smiles. ‘I bet it is.’
‘I started with a flow-chart and considered writing a small program but I just do it all in my head now. The main problem used to be convincing Mrs Gunn it was worthwhile, and obviously she did have other calls upon her time so the extra waiting wasn’t irrelevant to her. Sometimes she would cut out a store altogether if there was only one or two items to be bought there. Also, I don’t think she likes being seen shopping in Aldi or Lidl.’ I have a think, remembering. ‘Or Poundshop,’ I add.
‘Aha,’ Holly says. She is making faces at the young girl sitting crying loudly in the fold-out seat of the trolley in front. The child’s mother is ignoring her while she scolds another child.
‘She had particular problems with the results of me calculating the best order in which to visit the local supermarkets so as to balance the priority of securing those items most prone to selling-out quickly while minimising the time that fridge and especially freezer stuff might spend warming in the car.’
‘No kidding?’ The child in the fold-out seat of the trolley in front has stopped crying. Instead she is staring at Hol, who is making her ears waggle and crossing her eyes.
‘It’s a seasonal thing. I think that’s what really used to mess with Mrs G’s head. She seemed annoyed at the time, but I think she was secretly pleased when I told her that now I could drive I’d be able to do it all myself.’
‘We used to employ sacrificial peas,’ Hol says, turning away from the little girl as her mother picks her out of the trolley and puts her to her shoulder, cuddling her.
‘Did you say, sacrificial peas?’
‘Yes I did.’
I shake my head. ‘Not familiar with that term.’ Even as I say this, I realise I’ve left the personal pronoun off the beginning of that sentence. This is probably because I’m excited; I find all shopping expeditions a little stressful, but a successful one is positively invigorating.
‘If you were going out on a picnic,’ Hol says, frowning at the queue ahead of us, ‘or taking some bubbly to somebody’s room in the summer or something, you’d buy a packet of frozen peas to pack round the bottle to keep it cool. Then you threw the peas away.’
‘Without even opening them to see if they were still viable?’
‘They were only there as a cooling device, Kit. The priority was the drink.’
‘Still; very wasteful.’
‘It was drink, Kit. Often drink linked to the possibility of copping off with somebody who’d helped consume said alcohol. Dumping a cheap packet of peas invariably seemed like a small price to pay.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Anyway. How is Mrs G? I tried to talk to her yesterday but she was in full-on Ted mode.’
‘Ted mode?’
‘Ted and Ralph? The Fast Show? Paul Whitehouse? “I don’t know about that, sor.”’ Hol lowers and deepens her voice and assumes what I think might be an Irish accent for the bit that sounds like she’s quoting.
‘I thought you meant Ted, the film with the teddy bear that comes to life.’
‘Ah, yes, our Seth, the nipple man.’ Hol sighs. ‘No. Anyway, sorry; dated reference for an eighteen-year-old, I guess.’ Hol shakes her head. ‘Point is, Mrs G was being taciturn last night. I just wondered how things are with her.’
‘She is well,’ I tell her. I think. ‘I think.’
‘What other help are you getting?’
‘I still see Mrs Willoughby. Only once a month now.’
‘I meant with Guy,’ Hol says. ‘His illness.’ She touches me lightly on the forearm. I find this less intrusive than the same gesture performed by anybody else.
‘Things have gone quiet now he’s back home and off the treatments,’ I tell her.
The queue edges forward and I push the basket along the floor. Another reason for using a heavily loaded basket rather than a lightly loaded trolley is that whenever I choose a trolley it always seems to develop a squeaky wheel, which is annoying. I’ve been known to bring a small oil can with me on these expeditions, to obviate this very problem.
‘It’s been a relief,’ I tell Hol. ‘So Guy says, although I thought it was quite nice having so many people to the house, and driving him to the hospitals and the units when there was no ambulance available. Doctor Chakrabarti comes out to see Guy once a week. A Tuesday or a Wednesday, usually.’
&n
bsp; ‘Hey, Kitface,’ one of the shelf-fillers says to me, pushing through the queue one trolley behind us with a shrink-wrapped pallet. ‘You all right?’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I say. ‘You?’
‘Cool, yeah,’ he nods.
I nod at the queue. ‘This a new queuing system or something?’
He rolls his eyes, then shakes his head. ‘Yeah.’ He pushes the pallet on through.
‘Say hi to—’ I begin, but Clodge – his real name is Colin – is already out of earshot. He is taller but much thinner than me, with ginger hair and poor skin.
‘Friend?’ Hol asks.
‘I suppose. Ex-colleague.’
‘You worked here?’
‘On a placement. Sort of work experience.’
‘That where you work for nothing and get your dole docked if you don’t? And this place gets a free worker?’
‘I was told it would be valuable experience.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘It taught me not to suggest and then unilaterally enact too many innovations within the retail environment, as this would inevitably impact adversely on my employment prospects.’
‘You got sacked?’
‘Yes. I had my Unemployment Benefit stopped for six weeks, too.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Did you know supermarkets deliberately change their layouts so people who’ve become familiar with the previous layout will subsequently be forced to wander around more, looking for the things they want, and so seeing and potentially purchasing products they stumble upon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s so inefficient!’
‘No, it’s very efficient at increasing profits. You’re just looking at it wrong.’
‘I sort of know that, but I still find it offensive.’
‘We’ll make a socialist of you yet.’
‘I doubt it; I’m not sure that’s that efficient either.’
The queue processes forward again. We’re almost at the split point where an elderly employee I don’t recognise is directing those queuing to the first available aisle or the self-checkout area.
We are close enough to the latter to hear the soft chorus of phrases, delivered by a female voice stored on a chip: ‘Next item, please’, ‘Unidentified item in bagging area’, ‘Please insert card or cash now’, ‘Please wait for help, an attendant is on the way’, ‘Would you like cashback?’, ‘Please enter your PIN number’ (though of course that one really ought to be, ‘Please enter your PI Number’ – not that anyone takes any notice when you point this out – not even management), ‘Please enter your voucher number’, ‘Please take your change’, ‘Notes are dispensed from beneath the scanner’, ‘Have a nice day’.
As well as this subtle, lilting choir, there are many mellifluous little chiming noises issuing from the till units, pinging out over the controlled chaos of the queues with each programmed action.
It is, I contend, music, and beautiful. I used to like hanging around here during busy periods just to listen to it. I think that might have impacted adversely on my employment prospects too.
‘Do you know what you’re going to do, once Guy’s gone?’ Hol asks. I think she’s keeping her voice low. ‘And once you have to leave the house?’
‘I think it depends on too many things for me to be sure,’ I tell her. ‘Guy might stage a recovery if the cancer goes into remission again. And there’s a final appeal by a local action group against the quarry extension with the result still pending, so that might not happen either. Even if both do happen, I don’t know how much I stand to inherit. Guy won’t say. He says it’s complicated, and there are debts to be settled first. Plus there’s the whole Power of Attorney thing, of course.’
Guy started a Power of Attorney action in the courts years ago, to protect my interests once I was no longer a child. I was suspected of being unlikely ever to be able to look after myself properly, and to be psychologically unfit for the full range of adult responsibilities. Both Mrs Willoughby and Holly swore statements testifying to the contrary. Given her professional status, I think Mrs Willoughby’s carried the greatest weight, but I thought it was good of Hol to support me as well.
‘What?’ Hol says. ‘I thought that had been dropped!’
‘It was adjourned, but technically the issue is still open. It’s up to the local authority now. Mrs Willoughby says not to worry and they’re probably too snowed under with other stuff to think it worth proceeding with, and it’d probably go in my favour anyway, but you never know.’
‘Good old Mrs Willoughby.’
‘She said to say hello.’
‘Say hello back. Wish her well from me.’
‘She’s retiring in June but she says she’ll continue to take an interest and she’d willingly swear another statement and appear in court if required.’
‘This is bollocks, Kit. What was Guy thinking?’
‘He was thinking of my best interests. Everybody is, apparently.’
‘Yeah, so they all say.’
‘Also? I think the whole issue with my mother complicates matters.’
‘Shit. I bet it does,’ Hol says. We move forward again.
I feel slightly incompetent, not knowing who my mother is.
Not knowing who your father is is not so unusual; not knowing who your mother is is just plain weird. Guy always maintained he was my father and I’ve always looked like him about the face, especially when I was younger, plus we finally did a DNA test two years ago and he definitely is – but he has variously claimed that my mother is an emigrated-to-Australia ex-barmaid from a long-closed pub in Bewford; a married, middle-aged member of the aristocracy somewhere between one-hundred-and-fiftieth and two-hundredth in line to the throne; a disgraced Traveller girl now settled quietly in County Carlow (which is in Ireland); an American exchange student from the Midwest with hyper-strict parents, belonging to some bizarre religious cult; or possibly just some random girl/conquest he promptly forgot about even at the time, who literally abandoned me on his doorstep one evening. (He tells people he came back drunk from the pub that night and assumed the warm bundle inside the front porch was a takeaway meal delivery he’d forgotten ordering. He claims to have been quite peeved when he discovered it was actually a newborn baby.)
Also, this is why my first name is Kit; it’s short for Kitchener, as the kitchen was where Guy first clapped eyes on me.
He has also hinted that it’s possible Hol or Pris or Alison might be my mother. I know they each spent the year or so abroad immediately following graduation, which would sort of fit. He’s since claimed he was just kidding about this and sworn me to secrecy regarding ever even mentioning this to any of them, but the idea has been planted.
However, it’s not a topic I like to dwell on. I’m going to change the subject.
‘Haze asked to borrow money from me,’ I tell Hol, ‘just before we came out.’
‘Oh, good grief. Did you give him any?’
‘No. I lied. I told him I didn’t have any. Actually I didn’t quite lie outright, but it was as good as.’
‘He done this before?’
‘Once before. Last time he was here, a couple of years ago. Just a tenner, but it was all my pocket money.’
‘Twat. Did he pay you back?’
‘No.’
‘Yeah, well, you did the right thing. He’ll probably ask me next.’ She smiles at me. ‘Don’t give him any money.’
‘I wasn’t intending to.’
‘Also … I wouldn’t mention that you have opiates in the house, either. Just to be on the safe side.’
‘Okay.’ Guy has already said as much.
‘Haze has always been like this, Kit,’ Hol says. ‘He’s surely had his problems, especially after Pris left him, but they’re pretty much all of his own making.’
‘Till number five, good people, please!’ The elderly-looking gent directing customers calls out to the family in front of us with the trolley. ‘Basket; this way, this way!’ he say
s to us, gesturing extravagantly.
‘Haze was a big part of my life, and he’ll always be a friend,’ Hol says as we start passing the groceries across the laser scanner, to the accompaniment of beeps and ‘Next item, please’. ‘But he taught me an important life lesson a long time ago.’
‘A life lesson?’ I say, because this is an unusual turn of phrase for Hol.
She nods. ‘Just because you’d trust somebody with your life doesn’t mean you can trust them with your money.’ She looks at me and arches her eyebrows.
‘I’ll remember that,’ I tell her.
Beep.
3
We’re all supposed to meet up for an early lunch in The Miller’s Boy pub. Hol and I are going to have to be late because I’ve seen the temperature display on the side of the Corn Exchange shopping centre and it’s a degree too high to leave the shopping in the car so we have to go home and drop it off and put the things in the fridge and freezer that need to go in those. I’ve offered to do this myself and let Hol go to the pub to meet the others but she insists on helping. She phones Paul to let people know.
Guy, who had said last night he reckoned he’d be able to go along to the pub, is still in the house, sitting in the kitchen feeling sorry for himself. He looks even more gaunt and haggard than usual and hasn’t put his woollen hat on, so his head looks still more like a skull.
‘Come on,’ Hol tells him. ‘Come to the pub, if you’re up to it; won’t be the same without you.’
‘I’m up to it, Rupert isn’t,’ he says, though he is now pulling on his knitted hat, which might be a positive sign. Guy calls his cancer ‘Rupert’, an idea he says he got from the dead playwright Dennis Potter.
I smooth and tidy what’s left of his hair and he flaps a hand at my fussing, though there is a quality to his tutting and sighing that I think indicates he’s persuadable. ‘Yeah, please come, Dad. You’ll perk up once you’re somewhere different, with lots of people; you know you will.’ (This is true.)
‘Yeah, you only call me “Dad” when you’re trying to get me to do something, don’t you?’ he says to me. (This is not true.)
‘Or stay here and I’ll stay with you,’ Hol says. ‘Won’t see you sitting here alone.’