you thinking about work, do you mean?’
‘No. Just life. You know.’ He smiled as he said it, but I felt the tiniest hint of something chilly and – sinister settling into the silence that followed. Neither of us acknowledged it. ‘I’ll go, if you like,’ Charlie went on. ‘You look far more tired than I feel. What shall I get?’
‘No, it’s all right. I don’t know what I was going to get, I hadn’t decided. I’ll go. I can’t be bothered to go all the way to Sainsbury’s – I’ll pop round to SavaMart and get a bit of mince and do a shepherd’s pie, OK? Even the ghastly SavaMart doesn’t get mince too wrong.’
(There. I’ve said it. Named it. Not exactly out loud, but at least in my thoughts. SavaMart: what a drearily unattractive word to be the cause of such pain as I form its ugly syllables in my head.)
‘No, I insist. I’ll go. How much do I get? Is it just us?’
‘Oh, darling, are you sure? I really don’t mind, you know.’
Charlie put the newspaper down on the corner of the kitchen dresser and felt in his trouser pocket.
‘No, it’s all settled. Just tell me how much mince and – that’s fine, look, I’ve got twenty pounds; that should cover it, shouldn’t it?’
‘Good God, I should hope so. It’s us and Ben – Sally’s out. Get about a pound and a half of mince and – oh, damn, it won’t say that any more. Just get a couple of those ready packs and a large bag of potatoes. I’ve got onions. Oh, and some bread and a small milk.’
‘Right. Put your feet up and drink your tea and I’ll be back in a flash. I’m far quicker at shopping than you are.’
And I did. I’m sure of it. As he went out into the evening and made his way towards that place where it all began, towards the start of the nightmare – I made myself a cup of tea.
My feet hurt and I’m shattered. He ain’t looked at me today – not even one fucking glance. It really pisses me off. I ain’t never rung my bell once – not like Sheila, who rings it every five minutes. She takes the bar codes off – I swear she does – just so’s she can ring her bell. Then if Mrs Peters comes over, suddenly she don’t need nothing. Mrs Peters is stood there, waiting, and suddenly Sheila don’t have a problem. But if he comes over it’s all, ‘Oh, I’m sorry to ring again, Mr Chipstead, but there’s no price on this.’ She leans forward and lets him look down her overall at her little pushed-up tits. They don’t exist, her tits. They’re just little bumps pushed up on all that Wonderbra padding. If you had X-ray eyes you’d see there’s half a tit there, sitting on a shelf of wadding.
My bum hurts too. There’s a new sore patch on it. I’ll have to rub it later and it’ll hurt more: it’s just like when Auntie Madge spent all that time in bed with her leg and got them awful raw bits on her hip ’cos she couldn’t turn enough. Disgusting.
There’s a picture in Hello! this week of Dawn French and she looks really pretty. If I could just get my hair like hers I could – no, it’s her eyes. She’s got beautiful eyes. My mum says I have too, and even Sheila once said she wished she had eyes like mine – topaz or some crap, she called them – but I don’t think mine are all smiley like Dawn’s. And why do her clothes always look good? My top always seems to catch and get stuck in those folds round my waist – then it sticks right out at the back until someone tells me. Hers never do that.
Because you’re three times her size, you stupid fucker, that’s why. She’s normal – she’s big, but she ain’t gross like you. You’re disgusting. Of course Mr C don’t look at you – why should he? You’re revolting.
My mum gave me that new diet sheet that came with the paper yesterday. Try it yourself, I said. If you’re so clever at telling me how to do it, try it your fucking self. She had a laugh when I said that – she’s got a good sense of humour, my mum, I’ll give her that. But I’ve had a look at it, anyway: it don’t sound so bad. All protein again. No skin. No carbohydrates. It ain’t that different from the one Crystal told me about in her letter last week that all the stars are doing over there. She says Oprah lost half her body weight in three days. Or was it six weeks? Anyway, it must be good if people like her are doing it. They can afford all them personal trainers and that, so if they choose the diet instead it must be really easy. All lean protein, that’s the idea. I told Ma to get a pack of them chicken breasts when she’s down at Iceland tomorrow. No skin – a pack of them skinless ones. ‘You got to be joking, Stacey,’ she says. ‘I’ll get a pack of sausages – that’s half the price. That’s meat,’ she says. I says, ‘Don’t be daft, Mum, that’s not lean protein; that’s bread and stuff. That’s no good. Get the chicken breasts and we’ll do without the biscuits. And no bread, all right? Don’t get no bread and no biscuits.’
So I’ll start the lean protein tomorrow. We’re having pie and chips for tea tonight so I’ll just eat the meat and the chips and leave off the pastry. That’ll ease me in.
I loathe SavaMart but I couldn’t face telling Judy I’d rather walk to the car and drive to Sainsbury’s. I knew it would start the whole boring discussion all over again and it just wasn’t worth it: there’s only so much time I’m prepared to donate to questions of mince and potatoes and the quota had been well and truly fulfilled already. A brisk outing in the crisp November air would do me good, in any case, and, once out of the house and round the corner, it would only take me a couple of minutes to walk down Palace Street and into Victoria Street itself. With luck I could be back within fifteen minutes or so and thus gain a bit of kudos for doing the shopping quickly into the bargain. Always helps the atmosphere at home. Especially on days like today when she has her ‘it’s all very well for you to lounge about in that chair’ look when she comes in. I also thought it might help to shake off the unpleasant feeling of ennui that had been stalking me again since lunch time. However much I try to talk myself down from these moods – mentally listing all the pros in my life like in some puerile magazine self-help quiz – nothing but brisk physical action has much effect. There seems to be something immensely helpful in the mere act of walking away from the house, or from Judy or from whatever has triggered the mood: as if I can persuade my mind to distance itself as easily as I can my body.
The shop was unpleasantly full, and I picked up a basket instead of trying to negotiate the packed aisles with a trolley. I’m extremely organised in my shopping, and, unlike Judy, I would leave the supermarket with only the items I intended to buy, so the basket would be fine. A quick plan of strategy – I’d been often enough to know pretty much where to find the five items I needed – and I launched into the heart of the store, confident that I could make my way round the various sections without too much retracing of steps.
There was a delicious and strangely comforting smell of warm bread wafting about, contrasting oddly with the packaged, mass-produced look of the food on the shelves on either side. I knew it simply meant, of course, that the ready-made loaves had just come out of being finished off in the oven, but for a second or two I imagined I was somewhere in France, strolling to a small café in the early morning to drink a café au lait and pick up a couple of recently baked croissants and a baguette. It reminded me of the last holiday Judy, the children and I took together a couple of years
