Watching You, Watching Me

‘Maybe they read the labels.’

‘Well, they’re getting Own Brand. I’ve never heard of brand-conscious cats.’

‘That is so unfair; Dad. They don’t do Own Brand Salmon & Shrimp — and that’s their favourite.’

‘One tin, Natasha — for a treat. And that’s their lot.’

So all we had left to do now was detergents. We rounded the top of the Shampoo and Soaps aisle and as luck would have it, there they were. The alkie guy with the flat-top haircut was throwing his weight around, having some sort of argument with one of the shelf-stackers. He had him by the lapels.

Dad stopped in his tracks.

‘Just look at that,’ he said. ‘Disgusting.’

‘Mmmm,’ I said.

But Dad hadn’t homed in on the aggressive little scene in Wines and Spirits. His interest was closer to home. He’d picked up a box containing a hideous plastic crinoline lady full of strawberry-scented bubble bath.

‘It’s criminal! An outer pack — an inner pack — about ten grams of high grade coloured plastic — and all to package a teaspoonful of artificial strawberry-scented detergent. Do you know what stuff like this is doing to the ozone layer?’

‘Making a hole in it, Dad,’ I replied dutifully.

‘Too right it is,’ he said, passing the pack to me. He took charge of the trolley and steamed off towards the check-out. ‘Come on, we’re going to take a stand on this one.’ I was left to trail behind carrying the gross crinoline lady.

I’d had scenes like this before. Incredibly mortifying scenes with everyone staring at us as if we’d gone totally insane. Scenes with poor harrassed staff trying to keep their cool and churn out all that ‘the customer’s always right’ stuff they learn in supermarket school, while Dad ranted on making a total prat of himself.

Dad had rounded the bend at the end of Shampoos and Conditioners when we were caught in a knot of people. A traffic jam of trolleys and mums and kids had built up. That’s when we came face to face with them.

The guy with the dreadlocks took one look at what I was carrying, raised an eyebrow and made an ‘isn’t it cute’ face. The guy with the square-topped hairdo raised his can of lager like a salute and he just said ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I said. And then they moved on.

Dad stood there staring after them. ‘Do you know those people?’

‘Yes, no … Umm, one of them lives in our street … I think.’

‘Not that squatter that’s moved into number twenty five?’

Dad didn’t need an answer, my face said it all.

‘Nice friends he’s got. Your mother’s right. You don’t want to have anything to do with them.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

Dad continued positively fuming. We joined a checkout queue and I dutifully started to load the conveyor.

‘And what about that?’ asked the girl, indicating the bubble bath I was holding. ‘Do you want it or don’t you?’

‘Want it? How could anyone want anything as repulsive as that?’ demanded Dad.

The check-out lady looked affronted. She obviously wasn’t used to having people criticising her merchandise. Well, if you don’t want it, just leave it on one side.’

‘I don’t want it. I want to take it through and complain about it.’

‘You’ll have to pay for it first then and get a refund.’

Dad looked as if he was about to explode.

‘You are asking me to pay for this … This … excrescence?’

‘If you want to take it through, yes.’

A little queue was building up behind us. A lady one back, wearing designer sunglasses with gilt bits on them, stopped devouring the ‘Mediterranean Recipe’ card she’d pinched from the rack and gave us a withering glance.

‘I say. Why don’t you just jolly well pay and be done with it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ agreed a guy three or so people back. We haven’t got all morning.’ He was wearing a tight T-shirt that read ‘Expansion Tank’ across his stomach and didn’t look like the kind of person you’d want to have an argument with. A baby strapped into a plastic seat set up a mournful howl in agreement.

‘I’d like to speak to the Manager.’ Dad was standing his ground.

The check-out lady put her on her little flashing light with a sigh and we all stood and waited.

‘Look mate, why don’t you just pay for what you’ve got and ‘op-it,’ said the bloke in the expandable T-shirt.

I don’t really want to go into the details. Let’s just say we came very close indeed to causing a riot and ended up at the Complaints Desk with an angry crowd gathered round Dad listening to his standard speech on the evils of packaging and the imminent destruction of rainforests and polar icecaps and the inundation of most of the Netherlands. I stood a few yards away, guarding our trolley, praying for an earthquake to cause a gaping hole to appear in Sainsbury’s floor and swallow me up.

And yes, the boys had reached the check-out. They weren’t going to be allowed to miss out on a scene like this. Oh no. They were finding the whole situation most fun. I could see the flat-top haircut guy practically peeing himself. Dreadlocks was doing a pretty good imitation of Dad by the look of it.

Naturally, they took forever going through — one of their crates of lager wasn’t bar-coded and they had to send an assistant back to check the shelves. I’d moved away, hoping to disassociate myself from Dad’s agonisingly embarrassing performance. But my eyes kept gliding back to check if the boys were still watching him.

That’s when our eyes actually met. You read all those corny things about ‘eyes meeting’. I mean, I’d always thought the whole eye-contact thing was a vast overclaim. But even from this distance, I could see that his were greeny-hazel and kind of — intense. They went right through me. To add the ultimate touch to my humiliation, I felt myself blushing. I had to turn round and study a poster for Spicy Thai Prawn Paella to get over it.

When I felt composed enough to turn back, I found they were making for the exit. They’d practically bought up the whole store’s supply of beers. By the look of it they were going to have some party.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_d7aa88ef-bb42-54a4-9474-05205d29be21)

Just so you get the picture of the full extent of my family’s madness, I’ve got to tell you about Dad’s pet project.

Dad’s pet project is up in the loft. He’s taken over the whole loft area and he’s pinned out all the pages of the A-Z road atlas side by side, each page butting to the next so that we’ve got an incredibly detailed plan of London, street by street. He’s working on his own alternative traffic plan. He seems to think that the future of the planet lies in pedal power. So he’s tracing all these little cycle-ways through the city. Most weekends you’ll see us setting out as reluctant researchers on one of his reccies. First Dad on his mountain bike. Then Mum on her old upright. Followed by Jamie and Gemma and lastly me on my cringe-making pink Raleigh. To complete the picture, we all have to wear these really nerdy cycle helmets and pollution masks. Give us ears and we’d look like a group outing of koala bears.

Anyway, the Saturday after Matt had moved in, I happened to be up in the loft with Dad spending an ecological evening. I was helping him by sticking on rows of little green sponge trees and creating parks and open spaces. I’ve got rather fond of Dad’s project over the years. We used to get into long arguments over traffic control. I’m all for a couple of east-west one way systems which take you past all the cool shopping streets, but Dad’s plan is to filter all the traffic south of the river and ban everything from central London apart from public transport, taxis and of course, bikes. On this particular evening we’d designed a ring over-pass right round London that was like a cycle superhighway.

‘What’s that din?’ asked Dad, looking up from the calculations he was feeding into his lap-top.

It was a deep throaty boom-boom-boom that was reverberating through the loft.

‘Umm … sounds like music.’

‘But where’s it coming from?’ He was already making his way down the loft ladder.