Billy and Girl (8 page)

Drunk. Head bowed over the frozen sweetcorn. Aisle Three. Mom’s fate is girl’s fate. Mom is girl’s internal crucifix. There she is. Mom lives in FreezerWorld. Citizen Frozen. FreezerWorld is the only world that will have her. Concentrate on the potato snacks. Snax. Tomato and sweet pepper four cheeses treat prawn cracker salt ’n’ vinegar. That
is
Mom with her kind, bleary eyes and worst worst worst of all, Mom is holding the little pink shoe in her hand, the left little shoe, one of a pair, Girl having nailed the right shoe to a piece of wood to keep for ever. Move to the juice.

Move to juice quick. Where is Billy? Juice. Look at the cartons and give whole Girl self to them: Five Alive, five fruit burst, apricot and guava, mango and passion fruit, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaar, orange ’n’ passion fruit, cranberry with vit C, raspberry ’n’ apple, strawberry crush. Mom ’n’ Girl.

Five to four.

Louise looks cute in her overalls, her blond hair tied back, hands scrubbed. The Express till is the most popular queue in FreezerWorld. Customers are only supposed to have six items in their baskets. Basket people are rebels and refuseniks. Cheats. They load up as much stuff as they can and Louise doesn’t care. She just takes their cash and hardly ever looks up. Girl walks right up to the till.

‘Tea break.’

Louise nods, head still bent, but her blue eyes flicker for one second towards Girl’s hair. The roots are coming through the blond.

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘I’ll just finish this lot. Funny sort of Express this is.’

A basket person is packing five frozen ducks and twenty boxes of frozen garlic bread into FreezerWorld bags.

Louise says, ‘You press this button here to open the till, and this one to close it. Cash only.’

‘Right.’ Girl makes faraway eyes like the information is not important.

Louise is persistent. ‘Don’t take cheques or cards. They sometimes try to trick you –’ she points to the queue – ‘they pretend they haven’t seen the Cash Only sign. Some of them load up three baskets and still come to Express. They’re cunning. Do anything not to queue with the trolleys.’

‘Cash only,’ Girl says with feeling.

‘’Nother thing.’ Louise stands up and moves out of the way for Girl. ‘Sometimes the till’s stiff. Won’t open. You have to call Mr Tens.’

‘Right-o.’

Louise takes a lipstick out of her overall pocket, squints while she smears it on her lips, glances at her watch and walks off.

Girl reaches for whatever is nearest her hand. A packet of chocolate-chip cookies. Bleep. Seven more packets of chocolate-chip cookies. Five tins of meatballs in tomato and basil sauce. Jeeezuz. How do they cram them into the baskets? Girl wants them to shove the whole of FreezerWorld into their baskets. Two bags of nappies. One large tin of powdered milk formula. Three bleeps. One tiny weeny tin of spaghetti rings. Two jars of rollmop herrings. The
herrings won’t bleep. Nothing happening. No red light, no green light.

Complete fucking silence. It’s like there’s been a nuclear accident and there’s a horrible calm in FreezerWorld. A rustle in the undergrowth and then silence again. A big sad sky. A bottle of 4711 Cologne lying in perfect condition in the ash. A mangy teddy bear with one shattered glass eye sitting on a pile of corpses. The world has come to a standstill. The end of FreezerWorld, Girl can’t bear it when the silver herrings tremble as she floats the glass over the bleep border. Nothing. The fish hasn’t got what it takes to get through. Girl tries again.

The customer has an anxious expression on her face. Girl hates that look. She hates it particularly because her first customer is one of her Mom-check specimens. The one with gonk slippers and tissues. The Mom with the Polish husband. Herrings for her husband. Jeezus. What bad luck! Can’t get away from them. FreezerWorld is probably crowded with mother material. Didn’t she just see her real mom on Aisle Three? Girl punches numbers into the till like she went to supermarket school at five years old. She lets the herrings go. Get that woman out of her sight. Go. Back to Poland with your husband and die in a tram crash.

Girl tells herself: If something doesn’t bleep, let it go. Thing is, she wants the money. It’s like she’s management. If it doesn’t bleep, ring it up, punch numbers in, any numbers. Get cash. A basket person waits with basket fear in his heart. Two bags of frozen prawns. Two bags of steak chips. Two trays of pork rashers. Two tubs of peanut-cluster ice cream. Two pots of noodles. Two potatoes. Whaaat? Two potatoes? Why is everything in twos?

Aaaaaaaaaaar. It’s a soft sound. Aaaaaaar. The breath trickles out of her lips. Pain inside Girl. Crackling inside her Girl
form. The shoes. The little pink shoes. They come in pairs. Girl has one shoe and Mom has the other.

Twelve giant economy bags of lo-calorie crisps. Girl looks up from bleep. The customer is a woman, that’s the important thing. Fat white arms. Lo Calorie. Kwik Bake. Rol and Bake. Every single woman in FreezerWorld could be Mom. Girl wants to interview every one of them. She presses the Open button and the till drawer slides out effortlessly. It’s crammed with cash. Girl handles it like she owns it, counting the notes possessively. A bit resentful about giving change. Like she’s giving away something that is hers. Keeping an eye on Billy who has just appeared out of nowhere and whisked the
NEXT CUSTOMER PLEASE
ruler onto the sliding belt. Girl sneaks a look at the mountain of goods heaped in his trolley. A senior FreezerWorld citizen stares at him in dismay. She could be Mom. Kind but firm. She shakes her head at him and says something about Till Five. Billy looks puzzled and hurt. She points to one of the other tills. Mimes him wheeling his trolley over there, far far away from Express. ‘Express is baskets only,’ she explains slowly, dragging out the o-n-l-y. He gasps like she’s explained the meaning of his presence in a universe where everything is energy and nothing is certain. Baskets only. Thank you so damn much for that information. It’s changed Brother Billy’s life. Like when he’s cycling at night and he hasn’t got lights and he’s wearing black everything, and a kind motorist takes time off to point out that he, Billy, has not got lights. If only he had known. Thank you for that insight. He’ll walk his bike the twelve miles home now and ruminate on the information; so dense and perplexing is it, he won’t even notice the blisters on his feet, the muggers, the drunks, the runaway kids in their sleeping bags, the night rats chewing winglets and suet and Valium, the kerb-crawler blokes with their lack of hair and toilet-chain bracelets, or
even the rain so cosy with its pitter-patter. So much to think about and so much time to think it in. Billy plunges his arms deep into his trolley. Yep, here it is. A giant-sized Frozen Family pizza:
JUST LIKE MAMA USED TO MAKE
. He flings it onto the sliding belt and walks his trolley to the other side of the store.

Girl glances at her watch. Give him thirty seconds.

Bleep. Bleeeep. Bleeep. Music to Girl’s ears. Where is FreezerWorld Louise? She’s due back any minute.

Three uniformed FreezerWorld staff (little black bow ties) are running through the gleaming aisles. They are like paramedics, moving in unison, running and talking at the same time, revving up to crash through the emergency swing doors of superstore surgery. Bruising past soporific shoppers wheeling their trolleys in a trolley ballet, reaching for bread and biscuits and cereals and teabags. Someone shouts ‘He’s bleeding, call Mr Tens!’

Bleep.

Girl thinks, Billy is okay. But not that okay. The till is working like a dream. A crowd of customers are gathering near the Toiletries section. Billy’s weedy voice gabbles something about the razor blades not being properly wrapped. Girl turns to the queue by her till. ‘Move to Till Five, please,’ she insists in a Don’t Fuck with Me voice. Customers look at her in numb disbelief. It is as if she has just told them a relative has died. Girl fixes them with her most malevolent stare.

‘This till is out of order.’

No one moves. Girl points vaguely to Till Five.

‘Over
there
. This one is
not
working.’ Jeezus. If she had a gun she’d mow them down. Haven’t they got homes to go back to? Children and lovers and pets waiting for them? Appointments to keep? Customers. Dazed and confused. Jeeeeezus. Get on
with it. Get a life. But this is the Life. FreezerWorld life. Is there life after FreezerWorld life?

At last. At
last
the queue begins to disperse, but not without mutterings and complaints about how they deliberately chose a basket and not a trolley even though a trolley was easier for them and how they would have shopped differently if they had known they were going to have to queue in the trolley section. Some of them, Girl is informed, might as well shop all over again because if they are going to have to queue with trolleys they might as well do a week’s shop instead of just a weekend shop. What’s the point of just popping into FreezerWorld to get one item on special offer if they have to wait behind those customers doing a family shop, an extended family shop by the look of that trolley over there, and anyway, just take a look at where Till Five is – right over the other side of the store. Management should provide a courtesy shuttle.

Girl is pressing the Open button and the till is stuck. It won’t budge. And it’s making a strange bleeping noise, a new kind of bleep with a different tone. A red light is flashing. Not only that but some grotty customer with ginger eyes, God, how do you get to have
ginger
eyes, is asking if Girl knows which aisle does green washing-up liquid? Girl, preoccupied but still playing sweet, says, ‘They’re all green,’ but the customer has turned into a citizen and he’s muttering on about ecological washing-up liquid. Girl sends him to the diabetic jam section. One last punch of the fucking Open button. Nothing happening. She’s going to have to do a runner, empty-handed. She might as well kill herself there and then. What the hell did Billy do to ooze out all that damn blood? Cut himself with the lickle knife he saves for cinema seats or what?

How does she kill this new damn bleep siren? Press everything. Press every button in every combination. More staff
are running over to where Billy is. Someone has turned the Muzak up. Is Billy alive? Did he slit his throat? A young black man saunters over to the Toiletries aisle carrying a bucket and mop. Jeezus. Hope he doesn’t get Billy blood on his trainers. That would really be a lousy way to end the day. Yes Yes Yes Yes. The till is open. Girl takes a FreezerWorld carrier bag and begins to pack wads of notes into it, fast but calm, looking around but no one’s looking at her. The basket people haven’t even reached Till Five yet.

Till Five is Terminal South compared to Terminal North. It’s colder in that part of the store. They speak another language there, Trolleyspeak. It’ll take a bit of time adapting to the new culture. Never mind, Basket People. Learn the ways of the Trolley People. Join in their feast days. Get used to their humour. Enjoy their music. Understand their superstitions. Watch out for diarrhoea and dysentery. Comply with Trolley bureaucracy, red tape and visas. Become familiar with tipping procedures, toilets, time zones, opening hours and water. Finally, Basket People, avoid blood transfusions unless absolutely necessary and always wear a condom.

Saturday Girl is working fast. Go for the fifty-pound notes first, then the twenties, forget the fives, might have time for the tens.

The PA makes an announcement: ‘Mr Tens. Mr Tens, please come to Till Five. Mr Tens. Mr Tens, please come to Till Five.’ Might have time for the tens. A nice wad of fifties. Thicker than Girl’s thighs. ‘Mr Tens, Mr Tens, please come to Till Five.’ Billy’s voice is drowning under the PA. He’s shouting about how he’s going to sue the store for damaging his hand and he wants to see the manager. He wants to see Mr Tens. Mr Tens is the most wanted man in FreezerWorld. Everyone wants Mr Tens except Girl. She wants the tenners,
small potatoes but she wants them after all and she is just about ready to go. Mr Tens is making his way through Aisle Three. Mr Tens.

FreezerWorld superstar. So much gas in Mr Tens, he’s got a bigger bow tie than the rest of the male staff and he’ got a different pace. Girl presses the Close button. It slides like a perfect cremation.

Mr Tens looks a bit anxious. What’s wrong, Mr Tens? Will your children inherit a better FreezerWorld than this one?

Girl slips off the chair and moves over to pick up the pizza. She puts it in her FreezerWorld bag with the cash, walks out of the store into the car park and takes off her overalls.

Time to smoke a gold band menthol. Smoke and walk. Walk fast, smoke like there’s all the time in the world. Smoke like she’s on vacation wondering which beach taverna to drag herself to next.

FreezerWorld really is a good world because Girl has just caught sight of a Freephone to order a cab. What perfection. Girl is truly grateful. A cab will arrive in five mins, enough time for another menthol and to comb her hair, which is stuck to her scalp with warm salty nerve sweat.

Jeeezus!

Girl doesn’t know what to do. She has just seen Louise.

On the other side of the car park. The dark side. Louise is not on her own. She’s saying something. Her lips are moving. She’s not fully dressed, or rather, her dress is hitched up to her armpits. ‘I gotta go, Danny, I gotta go.’ Danny’s got his hands everywhere on anything to do with Louise. His jeans are undone, his face buried in Louise, lifting her up, putting her down, lifting her up, her arms wrapped tight round his neck, laughing and fighting at the same time. And then something
terrible happens. Louise looks Girl straight in the eye. Her lips are moving. Her eyes poking into Girl’s eyes. Louise says, ‘I’ll be seeing you later.’ Girl knows the words are for her. When the cab splutters into the car park, she dives inside quick. Sweating.

Louise with Danny the prince. Denim round his ankles. Danny the dog prince. Doing it in the car park with Louise. Girl can feel a great girlhowl coming on, making its way west through her body.

Weather warning. Stay in your homes. Board up your windows. Switch off all electrical appliances. Call in the cats and dogs. Bring your pet rabbits and tortoises inside. Stop your washing machine mid-programme. Those of you unfortunate enough to be out walking, find a church and lock the door. Even the cab driver well used to motoring barely human life forms to their destinations – even he who is suprised not to be abused by his passengers – jumps in his seat when Girl asks him to stop outside Oddbins and wait.