Losing It

I leant forward to get a better view. That arm was more than chunky. It really did look extraordinarily big. And the fingers on its end were – sausages. The cliché description had leapt into my head and was the perfect word for them, suiting their shiny pink roundness to a T and seeming particularly apt in the surroundings. I felt as if I could stretch across, lean forward and gather them up in a full, squashy handful and pop them in my basket for Judy to use in one of her toad-in-the-holes.

I shuffled forward as the young man finished packing his goods into a carrier bag and reached into his pocket to pay, but the elderly woman two in front of me moved in the way just as I tried to take a look at the owner of the sausage fingers, and I could see no more than the arm and hand I’d already studied. I looked down again at the latest load of shopping to make its way along the belt. Dog food; packets of sauce mix; frozen peas. I pictured the grey-haired woman at a dining table sitting next to a large dog, the two of them tucking into huge piles of peas and Pal respectively. Meanwhile, the sausage fingers waved to and fro as the goods were picked up one by one and passed across the magic eye, the huge hand moving heavily and slowly, pausing every now and then when the beep took an extra repetition or two to encourage it to respond. Chips, loo paper, tomatoes. All glided silently along the belt until grasped by the chipolatas. No – not chipolatas: the big ones. Bangers. As the arm moved, relentlessly and rhythmically, and the shopper shifted to the side of the till to reach over for a carrier, I lifted my eyes and for a moment felt confused between what I saw and the images of the food still passing across the bottom of my field of vision. Why was the vast packet of pink marshmallows wearing glasses? And why was it moving: squidging and undulating in sticky, sweaty ripples? When the eyes behind the glasses looked up into mine it shocked me, breaking the moment and forcing me to recognise what I’d been staring at unthinkingly. I dropped my gaze quickly from the face but I was even more unnerved at the sight of the shiny pink folds of flesh continuing downwards in vast Michelin-like coils towards the open neck of a green-checked overall.

And that was just the beginning. I went on working my way down the overall in disbelieving fascination. From where the material began at the collar everything was tension: trussed, straining dollops of flesh, battling to burst free of the huge swathes of green-checked cotton encasing them, pulling at the poppers and oozing from the spaces in between in pale-pink polyester-covered bubbles. The entire human parcel was jammed into the space behind the counter, spilling over the edges in pleats of green-checked fat, as if the unfortunate girl had been crammed in there as forcefully as an ugly sister’s foot into the glass slipper.

As I shifted forward towards the end of the belt, with just one young woman remaining in front of me, I glanced back up at the girl’s face. She was still looking at me while she continued her relentless scanning, and I realised – with a sudden jolt of guilt – that she was aware of me studying her, had probably been aware of it the whole time. I looked away quickly and began to unpack my shopping onto the belt, stopping to reach over and grab the plastic divider with NEXT SHOPPER on it and placing it hastily between my sliding packs of depressed-looking mince and the large box of Persil belonging to the woman in front of me. I arranged and rearranged my five rather pathetic items as they were carried towards the giant fingers, placing the baguette diagonally across the other things, carefully avoiding glancing up, and assuming what I hoped was a look of casual introspection. I removed the plastic divider as the Persil woman got out her purse, and placed it neatly behind my little assortment of goodies, separating them from the rest of the as yet empty belt. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the pink bangers reaching towards my baguette.

‘Bog off!’

I was quite startled by the volume and confidence of her voice. There was such a ring of command in the tone of the incomprehensible words that I started guiltily, assuming I was being given some sort of large person’s reprimand, that she had seen me watching her and was giving me a justified insult in return.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Did you know it was a bogoff?’ she went on, looking straight at me through the slightly smeared lenses of her glasses

I didn’t know how to answer this. While being more than a little relieved to discover that she had not, after all, been retaliating with a mysterious term of abuse for my uncharitable thoughts on her size, I was still at a loss as to the main drift of her communication. I hadn’t, in other words, the faintest idea what she was talking about, and, before I could decide if I knew it was a bogoff, it was clear I would have to establish not only to which object the ‘it’ in question referred, but also what exactly was the meaning of the term ‘bogoff.

‘What was a – I’m sorry,’ I ventured, ‘I still don’t quite –’

‘It’s a Buy One Get One Free – did you know? The baguette. We have to ask.’

The resignation in her voice told me that I was probably not alone in my ignorance, and that she had had to translate the simple acronym many times before. I was glad to find myself alone at the checkout, unembarrassed by any smirking housewives behind me (the elderly woman I had supposedly pushed in front of having given up the wait and moved to another till).

‘Oh, I see!’ I smiled at her. ‘Sorry, I’m with you. Buy One Get One – yes, yes I see. Bogof! I had no idea. I mean I had no idea that bogof meant two for the price of thingummy and I had no idea that baguettes were – um – bogofs.’

‘Well?’

She looked bored, but not impatient, I thought, and her eyes – a startlingly cat-like shade of yellowy brown – seemed surprisingly young behind the up-tilted spectacles amid the puffy cushioning of the cheeks around them.

‘Oh, I see. Well, yes, of course, I’d be a fool not to have the free one, wouldn’t I? Thanks for telling me – I’ll just pop over and get one.’

I walked quickly back to the large cardboard stand that held the baguettes, grabbed one and brought it back to the till. As the girl grasped it in a large, sweaty hand, I was pleased to see that the fingers touched only the Cellophane.

‘Six pounds thirty.’

As I handed over a twenty-pound note, I couldn’t help having another good look at this dumpling of a girl in front of me. Her hair was shoulder length, mousey and lank except for the ends, where it frizzed out into curls that seemed to have a life of their own and bear little relationship to the rest of the head. On her forehead, in particular, the tightly curled fringe looked completely out of place, as if it had been separately attached to her somewhere near the dead-straight, white parting that crossed her head in a scurfy furrow. I can never quite make out how women’s hairdos go, in any case. Judy winds hers up and clasps it back in one of those bulldog clip things with teeth – a croc, I think she calls it – in the most extraordinary, gravity-defying ways. But it does at least always look as if it belongs to her. This girl just didn’t come together physically in any rational sort of way: even the bright-pink lipstick that she wore, instead of emphasising her mouth – presumably the intention – just seemed to accentuate its lack of size against the huge background of her face. Her nose, too, was delicate and small, looking almost comically out of proportion to the rest of her. I guessed her to be in her early twenties – perhaps even younger. While she opened her till I quickly scanned the four checkouts behind her: the other assistants were of normal proportions. This mammoth young girl was one of a kind.

The open drawer of the till was pressed into her abdomen and I wondered if it hurt. She took out my change with one hand and with the other burrowed into the soft folds of her body to find the edge of the drawer so she could push it shut, then passed the money into my hand. As she did so, she glanced up at me, and for a split second I found myself looking straight into those oddly mesmeric amber eyes. I think I must have been frowning slightly: I know I was wondering just how this poor creature coped with the physical difficulties she must surely face at every stage of her day.

‘Is there a problem?’ she asked half-heartedly, in the same tone of dreary boredom that her voice had had all along. It would be hard to imagine anyone sounding less as if they had the tiniest speck of interest in knowing if I had a problem. In an attempt to elicit some sort of response I briefly considered telling her that my leg had fallen off or that a man with a bloody axe was standing immediately behind her, but decided not to bother.

‘Is there a problem with your change?’

‘Oh, I see. No, no, not at all. It’s fine. Thank you. Good night.’ If I’d had a hat on, I think I’d have tipped it. That’s just the way it felt, somehow. The benevolent old gentleman being charming to the young unattractive pleb. How did I come to cast myself in that role? Why did I sound to my own ears so patronisingly middle-class?

But she’d already turned away and was sitting with her hands now resting on the top of the till drawer. There was still no one waiting at her checkout and she slumped back a little in her chair and began to scratch her nose with one fingertip.

When I reached the exit with my plastic carrier I turned and watched her for a moment. She sat unmoving, not scratching now, looking like a huge, unwanted soft toy stuffed into an open drawer. She seemed to have caved in on herself since I’d left the checkout, and her head was barely visible above the magazine rack. I wondered if she needed help to get out at the end of her shift, and for a second I was reluctant to leave. Now that the thought had occurred to me that the poor creature might need a hand to extract her from her packed-in position behind the till, I felt oddly responsible: she didn’t look the type to find help easily.

A woman pushed briskly past me as she made her way into the store, and her busy purposefulness brought me back to thoughts of Judy, home and the waiting frying pan. I turned and headed out into a chilly Victoria Street.

Judy

Charlie was longer than I expected doing the shopping. I even began to feel a tiny hint of unease – he’s usually the fastest shopper of us all, and if he says he’ll be less than twenty minutes he always is. Ben tends to get waylaid by the magazines and the sweets, and Sally’s just like me – she gets diverted and remembers a hundred other things we need – or spots something we didn’t know we needed but now that she sees it she knows that we patently do, if you see what I mean. I may be the one to handle all the finances in this family, but I have to admit that Charlie is by far the most economical of us when it comes to shopping: he sticks to a list and is seldom tempted by special offers and new products. I go for the magnetic school of purchasing: things just seem to be drawn to me as I move about the shop, even in a down-market little shop like SavaMart. Charlie says I come back encrusted, like a barnacled ship. More than a hint of truth in that.

So, after twenty-five minutes or so had passed I started glancing at the clock. I couldn’t identify my hovering worry: I didn’t picture road accidents or muggings, and I knew it was ridiculous that I should be disturbed by his marginally extended absence. I can only describe it as an irritating shadow in the background. When he reappeared, I felt not relief but annoyance that I should have taken the time to be concerned, and his perfectly reasonable explanation of having to queue at a slow till underlined to me my own stupidity.

I took out my mild irritation on him, irrationally blaming him for having caused me to feel uneasy. It makes me quite melancholy sometimes when I think about our conversations: most of them have become a matter of scoring invisible points, and I sometimes wonder when and how we reached the stage where simple pleasure in each other’s company was no longer enough. I couldn’t leave it alone, even once he’d explained what he’d been doing.

‘Why on earth did you go for a long queue? They must have had them all open at this time of the evening, surely?’

‘I obviously wouldn’t have done so intentionally, would I, Judy? In fact it looked shorter than the others – it was just that the girl herself was unbelievably slow. She’s huge – I mean really extraordinarily fat – have you seen her? Do you know the one I mean? I felt quite sorry for the poor kid – there must be something wrong – she’s vast. And so young.’

‘Oh, her – yes, I know exactly the one you mean. She’s hopeless. Very young: not much more than Sally’s age, I should think. I do feel a bit sorry for her sometimes, although I’m sure she could make more of an effort if she really minded. And she always seems perfectly happy, even if a bit abstracted. Very unfriendly, though. Lucky to have the job, if you ask me. I can’t believe she was that size when she first went or she’d never have got it.’

‘She didn’t seem to make any mistakes, though. In fact she quite clearly pointed out my rights as a customer. Two baguettes for the price of one.’

‘Is that why you got two? I did wonder. We’ll never get through all that before it starts to dry out.’

‘Well, as it cost us nothing I don’t think that’s anything to worry about, do you?’

I didn’t answer, and he came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. ‘I should think three of you would fit into that giant overall of hers. There’s nothing of you. I remember the days when you were all rounded and – soft. There’s something to be said for a bit of flesh to get hold of, you know.’

‘Out of my way, Charlie, come on. I haven’t got time for all that nonsense. I want to get supper over and cleared up so I can finish my report.’

‘I don’t know why we bother to have meals, really. You’d be happier just taking the plates out of the cupboard and stacking them straight into the dishwasher. It’d make life much simpler. Or not even bother with that: just open the cupboard door, have a good look at them, imagine you’ve used them and shut it again.’

‘Brilliant idea. I’ve far more important things to do than cook and eat this revolting-looking mince. Let alone clear it up afterwards.’

‘We should have gone out.’

‘Nonsense. Ridiculous waste of money. And I haven’t got time, anyway.’

‘No, nor have I really. I’ve got to write up my notes.’

‘What are you on?’

Charlie leant back against the worktop and crossed his arms in front of his chest as he looked down and frowned. ‘Particularly unpleasant one. Two children involved, and the mother’s remarried a bloody difficult Spanish chap. Lot of machismo involved. And the physical distance, of course. Seems perfectly plain that the father’s not a bad sort of customer – bit short-tempered and quick to take offence but basically a good egg. But the mother’s tricky: quite prepared to whisk the kids off to the Costa del Sol or whatever and keep the father out of their lives for ever. Unfortunately she’s good-looking and speaks well. So it’s not cut and dried, by any means. Even the simplest access could be complicated – if you see what I mean. Makes me feel quite depressed, I have to say. I never used to let these things get to me, but – well, the thought of those wretched children being bartered over like goods, and whisked to and fro so that the parents can get their quota – I don’t know, I just sometimes wonder what the hell I’m doing. Whether it’s really for the good.’

‘Well, someone’s got to sort it out, after all. And you’re very good at it, you know. I’m sure you’ll do the best for them that you can.’

‘Of course I will, or at least I’ll do the best I can for my client – but whether that’s best for the family as a whole is an entirely different matter. I just –’

‘Oh, Charlie, do we have to get into all this now? Sorry, sweetheart, but I’ve had a pretty foul day myself and I’m bloody exhausted. Shall we just have supper and watch a quick bit of rubbish on telly and talk about this tomorrow? We’ve both got work to do, after all, and it’d do us good to have a break from it for a while. Don’t you think?’

I walked over to the sink with the frying pan, tipped it sideways and drained off the fatty greyish liquid from round the pale-grey worm casts left in the pan. ‘This meat looks awful: I’m really not sure it’s worth using SavaMart for this sort of thing. We should have gone for pasta or something.’

‘You did ask about the case, Judy,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘I’ve no desire to bore you with my work, I can assure you. And no doubt you’ll remember that going round the corner to shop was your idea. I don’t particularly like shepherd’s pie anyway.’

‘Yes, you do! Why on earth didn’t you say you didn’t feel like it? It’s not as if I wanted it. I’m not doing it for me, you know. I’d be just as happy with a sandwich or a salad – happier. I just can’t bear it when Ben puts on that deprived expression when there’s no meat for supper. And you do too, you know you do.’

‘Don’t make such a thing of it. Now, do you want me to peel some potatoes or –’

‘No, I don’t. I’m fine. But you choose what we eat tomorrow, OK?’

Charlie sighed and walked out of the kitchen, picking up his briefcase from the hall as he called back to me, ‘Give me a shout if you need me – I’m going to do a bit of work till it’s ready.’

I could feel martyrdom welling up inside and let myself wallow in it as I began to peel a large, lumpy potato. A bit of a mutter into the sink always helps when I’m feeling sorry for myself, even when I know I’m being totally unreasonable. ‘Oh, fine – that’s absolutely fine,’ I grumbled quietly, ‘you just carry on with your important work – never mind about my report, that can wait till I’ve served up your meal. Just because I’m exhausted, that’s no reason to eat something cold for once. No, of course not – that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? Barristers come far higher in the pecking order than tired old Ofsted inspectors. You have a good relax in that chair again, like you were when I came in. Haven’t seen me relaxing in a chair since I came in from work, have you? Just time to put down my case and make myself a quick cup of tea and then it’s straight out to the shops and –’ But then I remembered, rather spoiling my flow: ‘Oh, Charlie went tonight, didn’t he? I’d forgotten. Oh well, he doesn’t usually.’

The door slammed, interrupting my enjoyable self-pity, and Ben’s voice, which still surprises me, every time, with its depth, called out a loud ‘Hi!’ from the hall. I plopped the peeled potato into a saucepan of water, and picked up a tea towel.

‘Hi, darling!’ I called back, drying my hands as I walked to the kitchen doorway and leant against it. I watched Ben’s tall figure struggling to close the front door. His brown hair flopped over one eye and his long neck was bent forward like an inquisitive bird’s. He looked too long for his clothes, awkward and gangly in the tangle of coat, bag and arms that flailed around in a vague attempt to shut the door.

‘Take your coat off first, darling,’ I laughed. ‘And drop the bag off your shoulder. It’s swinging all over the place. You can’t hope to close the door with all that in the way. Here – let me take it.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘My God, that’s heavy!’ I said, as I lifted the enormous black canvas bag off his shoulder. ‘You’ll get some dreadful malformation if you weigh yourself down with all that. I keep saying, I just don’t believe you have to cart all those books to school and back again every day – it doesn’t make sense.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mum, don’t start all that as soon as I walk in –’

‘No, really, it’s just not feasible that you could need all these – it’s crazy. You do all of twenty minutes’ work in the evenings, if that, and most of these just go straight back again. Why don’t you clear it out, for heaven’s sake? It’s such a waste of energy. If I lugged everything around all day without going through it before I left in the mornings I’d be taking the whole of my desk with me.’

Ben said nothing, but looked straight at me for a moment. I noticed how sharply his brown eyes stood out against his pale, mottled skin with its sprinkling of crimson teenage spots, and I saw something else, which made me want to look quickly away. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it, either – that quick flash of dislike that passed across his face whenever we argued, or when I said something he considered stupid or embarrassing. Ben shook his coat free of his arms, swept it up in one hand and grabbed the bag off me with the other. He pulled the strap back onto one shoulder and sighed as he headed for the stairs.

‘I’ve had a long day, I’m exhausted and fed up and you have a go at me as soon as I walk in the door. Just lay off, Ma.’

‘I didn’t have a go, Ben, don’t be so touchy and childish. Supper’s about twenty minutes, by the way.’

I turned and walked back towards the kitchen.

‘What is it?’ Ben asked, without any apparent interest, as he made his way up the stairs.

‘Mince.’

‘Great.’

‘Are you being sarcastic, Ben? Because just don’t, that’s all. If you want something else, you cook it. And buy it, for that matter. I’ve had a long day, too, you know.’

‘For Christ’s sake, what is the matter with you? No, I’m not being sarcastic. Mince is fine – what do you expect? Applause?’

‘Don’t be so bloody cheeky, Ben.’

I walked back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind me. For a moment I stood still, frowning, then I moved over to the sink and picked up another potato. Why do I always do that? Why do I always lay into him? He’s only sixteen; he’s only a child. He’s going to hate me if I go on like this. I reached forward and switched on the small portable radio that stood next to the sink, but the sweet, swooping sound of Delius only made me feel worse, and I quickly changed to Radio 4, hoping that the crisp tones of a newsreader or the laughter of a studio audience would distract me. The Archers was on, and I listened with one ear as I tried to dismiss the picture of Ben’s resentful gaze from my mind.

I knew that to let myself sink too deeply into the thoughts that were bound to come next was far too dangerous. Ben and Sally growing up, Ben starting to loathe me. Sally off with her friends all the time and Charlie and I skittering about on the surface of our lives, tired and irritable. What does it leave me to look forward to, I thought sadly: my work?

Hardly. I’d known for some time that there was no realistic hope of actually changing anything, in spite of all the good intentions I’d had originally. I soon abandoned the simplistic ideals I started out with on those first few inspections once I was faced with the reality of just how far wrong the system had gone. I suppose hard grind took over and wore me out. How could I possibly hope to improve even the basic standards of literacy, when I could see that the majority of the teachers’ time was spent in keeping the peace and preventing outright physical damage to children, staff and property? If I closed my eyes I could still picture my latest inspection, and I shuddered as I recalled the scenes in the playground: the huge figures of teenage girls, made more menacing by their giant Puffa jackets and stacked shoes, towering over and threatening any teacher brave enough to interfere in the constant fighting and bullying.

I decided to put my mind firmly onto the problems of The Archers while I finished off the pie, and, once it was in the oven, I went upstairs, intending to give myself a quick tidy in the bedroom, but stopped on the landing outside Ben’s room. I knocked loudly, hoping the sharpness of the sound would work its way into his consciousness through the relentless, rhythmic tones of the rap music, but after a couple of seconds I opened the door without waiting to find out. He turned to look at me from where he sat at the desk, and I felt a little stab of remorse as I took in the school books laid out in front of him.