‘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.
He squints at me, as if trying to work out who I am.
‘Can I ask what your connection to Erin is, madam?’
‘You can. She’s a…’ What is she?
‘We’re friends,’ Erin says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s right. We’re friends.’
‘Well,’ he says, brushing his hands against one another and turning to walk away. ‘Perhaps you could conduct your personal relationships outside of work in the future.’
When he’s gone, Erin thanks me.
‘Was that really about the lateness?’ I ask.
‘No. He saw me and Hannah.’ She gestures to a girl of a similar age on the next checkout over. ‘He saw us kissing, in the car park. We’re seeing each other. He doesn’t like it.’
‘Whatever has it got to do with him?’
She shrugs. ‘Nothing. It’s just, men like him, they think we’re all here for their entertainment, don’t they? And they don’t like it if we’re not interested in them. In men, I mean. They feel like it’s some kind of personal attack.’
I shake my head. ‘He couldn’t get the hang of potty training.’
‘What?’ Erin shakes her head slightly as if she’s not sure she’s heard me correctly.
‘I knew his mother. And he used to shit in his pants until he was almost five.’
She laughs and covers her mouth, and her eyes are sparkling. I lift my hand in a wave and turn to go.
‘What was all that about?’ Julie asks.
‘I don’t like bullies,’ I say.
And then we’re outside and she’s untying Olly from the post where we left him, and we’re heading home.
‘I’ve got half an hour before my next client,’ Julie calls from the kitchen, where she’s making tea.
I look up at the cuckoo clock on the wall. Her two hours with me ended half an hour ago. Just as I’m looking at it, the cuckoo pops out and makes me jump. I remember Arthur coming home with that monstrosity after a solo shopping trip some thirty years ago. How has it lasted this long? We argued about it for weeks, him saying he’d always wanted one since he was a boy and me saying I found them ridiculous, and then one morning I came down for breakfast and it was on the wall. I could take it down now, I realise. There’s nothing and no one to stop me.
‘Here,’ Julie says, putting a mug of tea down on the windowsill next to my armchair.
She’s made one for herself, too, and she settles on the sofa.
‘You were due to finish at four,’ I say.
‘I know, but my next lady lives nearer here than my house so it didn’t really make sense to go home in between. I mean, as long as you don’t mind.’
I watch her carefully, but if she’s lying, I can’t tell. I don’t know her well enough yet. I want to say that I don’t want her to give me special treatment, that I don’t want her pity. But I can’t think of a way to put it.
‘I don’t need you,’ I say.
She looks a bit affronted. ‘Who said you needed me, Mabel?’
‘No one. But I don’t. I don’t want you to think you have to look after me just because I’ve got no one else.’
‘The thought never crossed my mind,’ she says.
That time I can tell she’s lying. She looks off to the left. I saw something about that on a documentary about lie detector tests. Gotcha, I think. So that means she wasn’t lying before, then, about her reason for staying on.
‘Do you mind me asking why you didn’t have any children, Mabel?’
‘Do you mind me asking why you didn’t?’
She takes a sharp breath. Is it too late for her? You hear all kinds of stories these days, don’t you? Twins at fifty, all sorts. Once I hit my mid-thirties, people assumed I was past it, but it’s not so simple now. Maybe she still holds out some hope. Although with her husband gone, it’s not looking good.