Losing It

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. I’m just finding it a bit hard to – to get down to it, that’s all.’

‘Anything I can do?’

‘No, thanks.’

I walked over to him at the desk, then bent forward to kiss him briefly on the cheek.

‘Supper about fifteen minutes, all right?’

But he wasn’t listening. He was tapping his pencil unthinkingly in time with the music as he stared at the books in front of him. I watched him for a second, then turned to go.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing. It’s OK.’

I nodded briefly, and left him alone. I started to walk towards the stairs but paused outside my bedroom. I didn’t feel good – the brittle exchanges with Charlie and the worry of seeing Ben so abstracted and isolated had unsettled me. If I went into the bedroom now, using the excuse of a quick brush of my hair, I knew it wouldn’t stop there, that I would give in to temptation and indulge myself. I took a deep breath, then turned away from the door and went back downstairs.

I peered round the sitting-room door on my way to the kitchen and was about to call out to Charlie when the sight of the back of his head bent over the small desk stopped me short. I could hear his quiet, steady breathing as he concentrated on the papers in front of him and I leant against the edge of the open door for a moment and watched him. He was concentrating so hard that I felt excluded, and I had a pang of some terrible, nostalgic need for the Charlie of old who had loved me so much and so irreplaceably. Why do I always find it so difficult now to tell him how much I need him? If I ever try, my words become twisted into something ironic and jokey, as if I’ve lost the ability to convey any genuine emotion without being embarrassed.

I stood there quietly a little longer, then spoke gently to the back of Charlie’s bent head.

‘Charlie. Supper’s almost there.’

He turned to me and smiled.

‘Good – I’m starving.’

Maybe the warmth of his smile stayed with me. In any case, I felt more at ease, I remember, as I walked back to the kitchen, and the feeling of contentment persisted as I opened the oven to check my pie.

So it wasn’t all bad before it happened. It would be tempting to think I saw it coming, that the signs were obvious, that our life as it was then was untenable. But it wasn’t – not at all – and it’s not as if I didn’t appreciate the good things we had. I did – I’m not imagining it. I used to think that people who have terrible tragedies or who lose everything must look back and wish they’d known just what they had at the time. But I did – I did know just what I’d got. And it still didn’t stop it going, did it?

Stacey (#ulink_7ff95d8e-0657-585c-8337-cb68d6d998eb)

He thought I didn’t know he was watching me. But I always know, don’t I? And it’s not as if I dunno why, is it? Like that time at school. Just bend your leg up on this bench, Kylie said. Just bend it up. What for? I said. Just do it, she says. Why? I says. I want to show you something, she says. So I bend it up and she calls the others over and they all start laughing. ‘It’s gross’ – that’s what Steph said. ‘Oh my God, it’s so gross!’ Just ’cos she’d heard that on TV. She never said gross before that. No, she never.

It did look gross. They was right. I had my gym shorts on and the way she’d made me put my foot up on the bench and then bend my knee it made all my leg go wide. It was gi-normous; even I could see that. Even then. That’s what I can’t stand. They think I don’t see it just as well as what they do. I’m not stupid. I may be fat, but I’m not stupid.

So this idiot guy today thought I didn’t see him looking at me while I was serving the customers in front of him. He was staring at my hands and all like anything and thought I didn’t know. Fuck me, he’s the one that’s stupid. I had to say everything over to him. Bleeding stupid – and trying to be clever. Like little Andy in the back stores: he’s so dim he don’t know a fishfinger from a packet of Persil.

I had another letter from Crystal today. I knew it was her straight I saw the pink envelope. And the writing. All loopy and sideways. I always know it’s her. Not just the stamps – there’s a few of them write to me from America. I had loads of replies when I put that ad in the slimming mag, and they come from all over. That was my mum’s idea. She saw it on Kilroy or something: a problem shared is a problem thingummied. It’s true, in fact – Crystal knows the way I am better than anyone and I don’t feel embarrassed at telling her stuff. Anyway, in today’s letter she’d put glitter in again: angel dust, she calls it. With little red shiny hearts mixed in. It went all over the table and bits went in the cornflakes. I hate that. She really does believe in them, though. The angels. Weird. Says she has her own angel watching her. Well, he couldn’t miss her really, could he? She says she’s even bigger than what I am now: not a bad job for an angel if you’ve got to watch someone, I suppose. At least Crystal makes it easy.

And she’d wrote LYLMS on the back of the envelope. God knows what that means. I like her letters but I can’t be arsed to work out all that stupid writing on the back. It was OK when she stuck to LOL for Lots of Love, but now they’ve got so long and complicated I can’t be fucked. And all those stickers with little hearts and teddies and ‘May the Lord be your whatever-it-is. Helper – no, Guide’. Something like that. They’re quite cute, in fact, the stickers, but she uses too many of them.

She’s going over to the other side soon, Crystal. That’s what they call it over there. Anyone who’s done it is ‘on the other side’. ‘The Lord will welcome you, too, Stacey, when you come over to the other side.’ That’s what she said at the end of today’s letter. Some chance. It’s all very well for her: it’s easy to get it over there. No one will listen to me here. So I’m stuck. On this side.

That old guy today wouldn’t have looked at me like that if I was on the other side, would he?

Charlie (#ulink_04dfb9df-6da7-5295-80d0-0065eb22a332)

I knew I’d go back to SavaMart, of course. Judy’s attitude to the giant girl behind the checkout had inspired me to take another look at the poor creature, and I still felt an odd shadow of the impulse to help her. Catch my wife unawares on her home ground and some of the old reactionary background seeps out – not that she’s the only one, of course. I know I can be just as guilty of it. And it makes me as patronising as if I were being outright prejudiced, I suppose, even if the effect on both of us is to make us more tolerant than we would otherwise be. Positive discrimination taken to such lengths that we end up bending over so far backwards that we topple over. Wrecking the entire attempt at whatever it was and making an idiot of oneself into the bargain. Class, race, size, whatever – you name it – and there’s a little store of bias hiding in our every gene. Hers and mine. I should have said more to defend the checkout girl really; I despair sometimes at how undynamic I’m becoming, but it just never seems worth it at the time. I know Judy doesn’t mean any harm – she’s the most generous and compassionate of women when you reach her from the right angle, so to speak, and she’d be horrified if it were ever suggested to her that she has an in-built snobbism that can come out as patronising in the extreme. But she can be maddening at times. Particularly about anything domestic, of course. She really does believe that she’s the only one who ever shops or cooks or tidies up or makes the beds; those little glances that she gives when anyone else tries to help – as if no one can ever know the vast amounts of hardship she endures to look after us all. She works too hard, that’s half the problem; since she’s been doing this Ofsted stuff I can see how tired she gets. She’s always nipping up to her room to lie down with one of her headaches. I must get her out for the odd meal again.

So, in any case, on to my trip back to the supermarket and to the banned checkout – no, not banned: the checkout that no one who’s in the know ever uses. A sort of perversity on my part, a challenge to prove Judy wrong. Maybe we should have a bet on it? That the huge creature might just prove herself to be the zippiest, snappiest checkout girl of the lot. Untried for so long; not given a chance; growing ever more bored and less practised without the stimulus of chatty, interesting customers such as myself. What hidden depths of wit, charm and skill might not be buried under those mounds of cushioning flesh. Judy’s always chastising me for not doing my bit for all those good works she promotes: is my charitable role perhaps to be Higgins to this generously endowed Eliza?

The day hadn’t gone too badly. Most of the time I wonder what the hell I’m doing in my work – God knows what happened to all my early ideals and ambitions: I look in despair at this run-of-the-mill, middlingly successful person I’ve become. But my questioning of the father today did just what I wanted: showed him up to be the loving kind of bloke he obviously is. An entirely good influence in my opinion: the two kids will be far better off with some time with him than disappearing to Malaga or wherever. If I can get the judge to agree to his educating them over here as he wants to then it might just be possible to keep everyone happy. Pity the mother’s so good in the box. More than a touch of the ‘all women together’ angle going on, if you ask me. The judge is clearly a bit partial to having her femininity appealed to, specially by someone pretty. Probably because she’s such an old boot herself she’s cheered to find that another female can still identify her as the same gender, let alone treat her as one of the girls. Still, it didn’t go badly at all. And I was in the mood to brave SavaMart again, do my bit for mankind by bringing a little joy into the fat girl’s day and then make a little magic in the kitchen. In any case, I wanted to give Jude a break: the tension in the house when she writes her reports is left strung around like trip wire – the kids and I creep about for fear of falling over it. So I could kill two birds with one stone: give myself the fun of the checkout challenge and set up a peaceful, relaxed evening at home.

I phoned Judy on her mobile and caught her in the car, sounding distinctly weary and defensive – in exactly the right mood to be seduced by the thought of not having to cook. If I’m honest, I have to admit that when she sounds like that there’s a bit of me wishes I didn’t have to go home and face her: I sometimes indulge the fantasy that I could disappear and live quietly round the corner without her ever knowing. Still, it never lasts long. I’ve no doubt she entertains the same kinds of thoughts about me from time to time.

‘I’m going to pick up some bits of chicken and do one of my specials. I know this report’s taking it out of you and you must be exhausted. Go straight home and make yourself a cup of tea.’

‘Charlie, that sounds great. But how was your day? What sort of –’

‘Not bad at all. Not a bad day. I managed to –’

‘Pick up a decent bottle of red, will you, darling? We’ve only got disgusting plonk left and I need something a bit more cheering.’

She was there. Squeezed into the space behind her cash register as tightly as before; as large as I’d remembered. It was a bit disappointing to see she had a small queue at her checkout; not as long as the others, but still a respectable number of people. I had rather hoped to be her only customer: a lone experimenter braving the empty wastes of her conveyor belt and discovering the gem of sensitivity and wit buried under the muffling pounds of surplus fat. Kilos of fat, I should say.

I did my shopping quickly and joined the queue, uncomfortably aware that it appeared to be unchanged since I had entered the store. The same five people were lined up with their trolleys and baskets, although the shopper at the till was even now tidying her change and receipt away in her purse. The line shifted forward a little and I watched my marshmallow girl intently. She sat impassively with her hands neatly folded on the rubber surface of the belt, watching the customer slowly pick up her shopping and turn to go, then reaching forward for a plastic-wrapped loaf of bread and mechanically passing it in front of the scanner. The elderly woman she now served lifted a worn shopping bag off her arm and laid it at the end of the belt, not glancing at the girl in front of her, who appeared equally uninterested. Each seemed totally unaware of the other’s presence, as if a mutual pact had been made to get through the next few minutes with the least possible amount of human contact. Only when the small selection of goods was packed into the bag did the girl mutter a barely decipherable couple of words vaguely in the direction of her customer and money changed hands and some sort of minimal communication took place.

My original idea of trying a joke was looking more and more risky as my turn approached and I began to feel slightly nervous. My sense of humour is not altogether unappreciated in the courtroom, albeit a bit too old-fashioned and well rehearsed to be as funny as I imagine when I’m lying in bed planning it. But it generally lightens things up a little, if nothing more. It does require, though, that the recipient takes enough interest to be able to listen to several words at a time. Or, at the very least, allows a little eye contact so that the principle of one party attempting to amuse the other can be established, even if the words themselves are not appreciated or understood. It’s tricky to be even faintly funny if the audience is looking in the opposite direction wearing an expression of utter indifference and boredom. I was horribly shy as a child, and the memory of that excruciating feeling of something being expected of me that I just couldn’t produce still surfaces from time to time. Judy’s always telling me I’m like a different person in company, and she’s right: I clam up. I’m far happier in the circle I know, unless I’m dressed up in my armour of gown and wig and well prepared for what appear to be off-the-cuff remarks in court.

So, as I approached the checkout, I trimmed my sails somewhat. I abandoned any attempt at an anecdote or at telling one of the children’s cleaner jokes and decided to join her on her own ground, so to speak, and to be amusing about an aspect of her world. At the same time I thought it a good opportunity to offer a small reminder of our first meeting, perhaps to reassure her that I was up for a little unthreatening conversation, and that here was a chap who didn’t mind laughing at himself. If all that could be achieved I might just open the tiniest chink of the gate to communication, and begin the process of revealing the hidden glories behind it.

As the last customer in front of me moved away I began to unload my shopping and glanced up at her. It’s fascinating how quickly one’s parameters adjust to the unusual: although she was clearly enormously overweight, on this second viewing it no longer seemed to be her dominating characteristic. I was more aware of those pretty eyes, and the fleshiness of the girl was this time less grotesque, more – pleasantly Rubenesque.

Her gaze was still unfocused, but the head was at least facing the right direction. I picked up a packet of butter from my basket and waved it about in front of her, forcing her to pay it attention.

‘Is it a bogof?’ I smiled.

A faint frown rippled the heavy folds between her eyebrows. She stopped moving my shopping and looked directly at the yellow pack of Anchor that I was holding directly in front of her nose.

‘Only you may remember I missed a bogof when I was here the other day. You kindly pointed it out to me. And I didn’t know what you meant – do you remember? I even thought you were using some sort of offensive term, or something!’

The frown remained.

‘When you said “bogof”, I mean,’ I floundered on. ‘I thought you were – oh never mind.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Right.’

‘And I do remember,’ she went on, taking the butter from my hand and scanning it. ‘I’m not stupid, you know. I remember all the customers.’

‘Do you really?’ I asked, genuinely interested in whether this were true. It seemed unlikely that she could really recall this very ordinary man in whose direction she had hardly glanced for more than a couple of seconds at most, let alone the hundreds of others who must pass in front of her till each week. ‘How extremely clever of you.’