The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(21)
It’s cold and a bit blustery, and I almost wish I’d stayed indoors, asked Julie to put the gas fire on. She links her arm through mine and it feels a bit familiar, but when I look down at our arms she pulls me in a bit closer.
‘I can’t have you falling on me,’ she says. ‘There’d be so much paperwork to fill out.’
And that strikes me as funny, and I’m laughing and that sets her off, and for a minute or two we have to stop, just on the corner of my street, both laughing like we’ll never stop, like Dot and I used to on an almost daily basis back when I didn’t know how lucky I was to have a friend like that. A man walks past with a hoity toity little dog that growls at Olly, and Olly silences it with one sharp bark. The man gives us a funny look, like it’s unthinkable for two women to be out walking and laughing in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, and I don’t care. How much time have I wasted, over the years, caring about the thoughts of people I don’t know and never will?
‘Do you need anything from the shop?’ she asks, once we’ve gathered ourselves. ‘We could head that way if you do?’
I was planning to do a piece of fish for my tea, it was down on the list for this evening, but when I actually stop to think about what I want, it isn’t that. Arthur used to say he couldn’t be doing with choosing on a Sunday what he wanted to eat the following Wednesday, but I liked planning the meals for the week and doing one shop. It was all right for him to say that; he wasn’t the one organising it all and making sure nothing went to waste. But now, it’s just me, and I see that I don’t have to eat that piece of fish that’s in the fridge, that I could have it tomorrow, if I wanted. That I could buy one of those ready meals, a pasta dish or even a curry.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the shop and I’ll choose something for my tea.’
‘Righty-ho.’
It’s a little thing, but it feels big.
11
We’re at the tills when it happens. I chose Erin’s queue on purpose. I’m not sure why but I’m somehow drawn to her. It’s as if I sense she’s in danger, or something, and I want to be nearby. Silly, I know. What would I do, if she really was? What help would I be? She looks grumpy and I remember Arthur saying something to her once. One of those things that men say to women. ‘Give us a smile,’ or ‘Cheer up, love,’ or something like that. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But now I think, why should she smile to suit other people? When we get to the front of the queue – with Julie in the middle of a story about Martin and a fancy-dress party and being mistaken for a pizza delivery man – Erin looks up and recognises me and her face breaks into a smile, and it’s like the sun coming out.
‘Hello, Erin,’ I say.
Julie stops talking and looks from Erin to me. ‘Friend of yours?’
I say, ‘Something like that,’ and Julie shrugs and goes to the bagging end to sort out my chicken tikka masala and naan bread.
Erin’s just told me what I owe when her manager sidles up behind her and says he’d like a word when she’s finished with her customer. He looks up at me when he says the word ‘customer’ and his expression is the exact one you’d have if you’d just found dog mess on your shoe after walking it all around your house. Kevin Chieveley, his name is, and he doesn’t know it but I used to work with his mother, Alice. I remember her leaving to have him, her stomach hard and round as a basketball, and how we gathered around with cake and a big card we’d all signed, and a bag of cardigans Sheila had knitted. She swore she’d be back in a few months but she never returned, had three boys in quick succession and then got a job washing hair and sweeping up at Hair Boutique. We got together every now and again, some of the typing pool girls and Alice, and she always had one or more of those boys hanging around her neck or off the hem of her dress. And now here he is, all shifty, wearing his meagre authority like it’s a fine suit.
‘Hold on,’ I say to Julie, who’s got my bag and is heading for the door.
‘What is it? Is there a problem with your card?’
‘No,’ I say, handing Erin a ten-pound note. ‘I just want to see what Mr Chieveley here has to say to Erin.’
‘That’s none of your concern,’ he says, clearly a bit wrong-footed by the fact that I know his name.
‘I’d like to hear, all the same,’ I say.
Erin looks from me to him, a wry smile on her face. She knows as well as I do that he’s not about to be openly rude to me or try to eject me from the supermarket. There’s a queue building up and all eyes are on him.
He clears his throat. ‘Well, you were five minutes late for your shift this morning, Erin,’ he says.
Erin nods. He seems to want a response from her even though he hasn’t asked her a question.
‘And it’s not acceptable,’ he goes on. ‘I can’t run this place with people starting at about nine or sometime around midday. If anything, you should be here a good five minutes before your start time so you can put your things in your locker and be at your post in plenty of time to get going.’
‘It won’t happen again,’ Erin says.
‘Well, make sure it doesn’t.’
‘Is that all?’ I ask.