Losing It. Jane Asher

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СКАЧАТЬ not impatient, I thought, and her eyes – a startlingly cat-like shade of yellowy brown – seemed surprisingly young behind the up-tilted spectacles amid the puffy cushioning of the cheeks around them.

      ‘Oh, I see. Well, yes, of course, I’d be a fool not to have the free one, wouldn’t I? Thanks for telling me – I’ll just pop over and get one.’

      I walked quickly back to the large cardboard stand that held the baguettes, grabbed one and brought it back to the till. As the girl grasped it in a large, sweaty hand, I was pleased to see that the fingers touched only the Cellophane.

      ‘Six pounds thirty.’

      As I handed over a twenty-pound note, I couldn’t help having another good look at this dumpling of a girl in front of me. Her hair was shoulder length, mousey and lank except for the ends, where it frizzed out into curls that seemed to have a life of their own and bear little relationship to the rest of the head. On her forehead, in particular, the tightly curled fringe looked completely out of place, as if it had been separately attached to her somewhere near the dead-straight, white parting that crossed her head in a scurfy furrow. I can never quite make out how women’s hairdos go, in any case. Judy winds hers up and clasps it back in one of those bulldog clip things with teeth – a croc, I think she calls it – in the most extraordinary, gravity-defying ways. But it does at least always look as if it belongs to her. This girl just didn’t come together physically in any rational sort of way: even the bright-pink lipstick that she wore, instead of emphasising her mouth – presumably the intention – just seemed to accentuate its lack of size against the huge background of her face. Her nose, too, was delicate and small, looking almost comically out of proportion to the rest of her. I guessed her to be in her early twenties – perhaps even younger. While she opened her till I quickly scanned the four checkouts behind her: the other assistants were of normal proportions. This mammoth young girl was one of a kind.

      The open drawer of the till was pressed into her abdomen and I wondered if it hurt. She took out my change with one hand and with the other burrowed into the soft folds of her body to find the edge of the drawer so she could push it shut, then passed the money into my hand. As she did so, she glanced up at me, and for a split second I found myself looking straight into those oddly mesmeric amber eyes. I think I must have been frowning slightly: I know I was wondering just how this poor creature coped with the physical difficulties she must surely face at every stage of her day.

      ‘Is there a problem?’ she asked half-heartedly, in the same tone of dreary boredom that her voice had had all along. It would be hard to imagine anyone sounding less as if they had the tiniest speck of interest in knowing if I had a problem. In an attempt to elicit some sort of response I briefly considered telling her that my leg had fallen off or that a man with a bloody axe was standing immediately behind her, but decided not to bother.

      ‘Is there a problem with your change?’

      ‘Oh, I see. No, no, not at all. It’s fine. Thank you. Good night.’ If I’d had a hat on, I think I’d have tipped it. That’s just the way it felt, somehow. The benevolent old gentleman being charming to the young unattractive pleb. How did I come to cast myself in that role? Why did I sound to my own ears so patronisingly middle-class?

      But she’d already turned away and was sitting with her hands now resting on the top of the till drawer. There was still no one waiting at her checkout and she slumped back a little in her chair and began to scratch her nose with one fingertip.

      When I reached the exit with my plastic carrier I turned and watched her for a moment. She sat unmoving, not scratching now, looking like a huge, unwanted soft toy stuffed into an open drawer. She seemed to have caved in on herself since I’d left the checkout, and her head was barely visible above the magazine rack. I wondered if she needed help to get out at the end of her shift, and for a second I was reluctant to leave. Now that the thought had occurred to me that the poor creature might need a hand to extract her from her packed-in position behind the till, I felt oddly responsible: she didn’t look the type to find help easily.

      A woman pushed briskly past me as she made her way into the store, and her busy purposefulness brought me back to thoughts of Judy, home and the waiting frying pan. I turned and headed out into a chilly Victoria Street.

       Judy

      Charlie was longer than I expected doing the shopping. I even began to feel a tiny hint of unease – he’s usually the fastest shopper of us all, and if he says he’ll be less than twenty minutes he always is. Ben tends to get waylaid by the magazines and the sweets, and Sally’s just like me – she gets diverted and remembers a hundred other things we need – or spots something we didn’t know we needed but now that she sees it she knows that we patently do, if you see what I mean. I may be the one to handle all the finances in this family, but I have to admit that Charlie is by far the most economical of us when it comes to shopping: he sticks to a list and is seldom tempted by special offers and new products. I go for the magnetic school of purchasing: things just seem to be drawn to me as I move about the shop, even in a down-market little shop like SavaMart. Charlie says I come back encrusted, like a barnacled ship. More than a hint of truth in that.

      So, after twenty-five minutes or so had passed I started glancing at the clock. I couldn’t identify my hovering worry: I didn’t picture road accidents or muggings, and I knew it was ridiculous that I should be disturbed by his marginally extended absence. I can only describe it as an irritating shadow in the background. When he reappeared, I felt not relief but annoyance that I should have taken the time to be concerned, and his perfectly reasonable explanation of having to queue at a slow till underlined to me my own stupidity.

      I took out my mild irritation on him, irrationally blaming him for having caused me to feel uneasy. It makes me quite melancholy sometimes when I think about our conversations: most of them have become a matter of scoring invisible points, and I sometimes wonder when and how we reached the stage where simple pleasure in each other’s company was no longer enough. I couldn’t leave it alone, even once he’d explained what he’d been doing.

      ‘Why on earth did you go for a long queue? They must have had them all open at this time of the evening, surely?’

      ‘I obviously wouldn’t have done so intentionally, would I, Judy? In fact it looked shorter than the others – it was just that the girl herself was unbelievably slow. She’s huge – I mean really extraordinarily fat – have you seen her? Do you know the one I mean? I felt quite sorry for the poor kid – there must be something wrong – she’s vast. And so young.’

      ‘Oh, her – yes, I know exactly the one you mean. She’s hopeless. Very young: not much more than Sally’s age, I should think. I do feel a bit sorry for her sometimes, although I’m sure she could make more of an effort if she really minded. And she always seems perfectly happy, even if a bit abstracted. Very unfriendly, though. Lucky to have the job, if you ask me. I can’t believe she was that size when she first went or she’d never have got it.’

      ‘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 СКАЧАТЬ