ROBERT CORBET lives, works and shops in
Brunswick, Melbourne. His other books are
The Passenger Seat and Fifteen Love.
ROBERT CORBET
First published in 2004
Copyright © Robert Corbet, 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Corbet, Rob, 1959–.
Shelf life.
ISBN 1 74114 269 5.
eISBN 1 74115 318 7
I. Title.
A823.4
Designed by Kate Mitchell Design
Cover photos by Julia Spencer
Typeset in 12/16 pt Bembo by Midland Typesetters
For Elly and Jules,
with thanks to the store detectives,
Kate, Sarah and Ros
CONTENTS
AISLE ONE: STATIONERY/ELECTRICAL/TOILET ROLLS/TISSUES
AISLE TWO: LAUNDRY NEEDS/CLEANING/HARDWARE
AISLE THREE: MEDICAL/ BABY CARE/HEALTH & BEAUTY
CUSTOMER SERVICE
AISLE FOUR: SOFT DRINKS/CHOCOLATE/CONFECTIONERY
TEAROOM
AISLE FIVE: TEA & COFFEE/CEREALS/HEALTH FOOD
DELICATESSEN
AISLE SIX: BISCUITS/ SNACK FOODS/JUICES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
AISLE SEVEN: DAIRY FOODS
CUSTOMER SERVICE
AISLE EIGHT: FRESH MEAT
ACCOUNTS
AISLE NINE: FROZEN FOOD
DELIVERY BAY
AISLE TEN: SOUP/RICE/NOODLES
ACCOUNTS
AISLE TEN: CAKES/ BREAD/HONEY/SPREADS
TEAROOM
AISLE TWELVE: FLOUR/SUGAR/EGGS
TRAINING ROOM
AISLE THIRTEEN: PASTA/PLASTICWARE/UTENSILS
STOREROOM
CUSTOMER SERVICE
AISLE FOUR TEEN: FRUIT & VEGETABLES
AISLE FIFTEEN: PETS
AISLE
one
STATIONERY/ELECTRICAL/TOILET ROLLS/TISSUES
‘Price check on Register Three. Price check on Register Three.’
Louisa looked up and down the aisle to make sure no one was watching. With her new Employee of the Month badge pinned to the front of her shirt like a bull’s-eye drawn on her heart, she was an easy target. If anyone anywhere at any time wanted anything for any reason anyhow, she was the first person they would ask.
She’d been working out the back when they made the announcement. ‘Could all available staff come to the tearoom, please.’When the manager hauled her up in front of everyone, Louisa thought she must be in trouble for leaving her coffee cup on the table. Louisa was already worn out from her night shift at the hospital, so when the manager told her she was Employee of the Month, she nearly cried. They gave her a plaque with a picture of someone standing on top of a mountain. Outstanding effort, it said. Some people dream of worthy accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them. Stay awake? Was that all you had to do to be Employee of the Month? The manager presented Louisa with the bronze badge and pinned it to her shirt. He gave her two movie tickets and said ‘Well done, Louisa!’ Then he told the other workers what a good example she was. Louisa didn’t know where to look. Her hair was a mess and she hadn’t cleaned her teeth properly. She stood there smiling like botched plastic surgery while they took a polaroid photo and everyone clapped because they had to. I’m gone, she thought. I’m a sitting duck.
‘Price check on Register Three. Price check on Register Three, please!’
According to the store manager, price checks were to be done by the nearest available staff member. Louisa was in Aisle One, at the far end, so someone else would have to do it. Badge or no badge. In the whole of the supermarket, there had to be another staff member who was closer to the registers.
Louisa re-positioned the safety steps in front of the stationery and went on facing the shelves. Facing the shelves meant bringing the stock to the front, filling the empty spaces and making sure that the brand names were facing out. It also meant pulling out the rubbish that customers had shoved back there: balls of chewing gum, bits of meat and melted icecreams. You never knew what you would find.
She arranged the ballpoint pens according to their colours—blue, black, green and red. She hung the paper clips back on their hooks. She brought forward the peel-and-seal envelopes. Good facing was more than just tidying the shelves. It required patience and an eye for symmetry. It was important to put the right products at eye level—the specials, the best-sellers and the promos— so that customers did not have to bend down too low or reach up too high. Louisa reached in and pulled out an empty soft-drink can. She finished stacking the packets of drawing pins and the mini glue-sticks. Out of habit, she put her hand in her pocket to check that her watch was still there. On the ward, a nurse’s watch was used to measure the patient’s pulse rate. A midwife used her watch to time the contractions of a pregnant woman and determine what stage of labour she was at. In the supermarket, Louisa didn’t need a watch. In a supermarket it was all go, until someone told you to stop.
‘Can I please have a grocery staff member to Register Three for a price check, PLEASE!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Louisa murmured. ‘I’m on my way.’
The girl on register three smiled at Louisa as if to say Where the hell were you? Her name was Chloe and she was always smiling. Cramped face muscles were an occupational hazard for the checkout girls. Even if your appendix had just burst, you were expected to smile politely at the customer. Even if the customer was a toothless bearded hag holding a blood-stained axe, you were expected to smile and ask them how they were.
Chloe handed Louisa a 60-watt light bulb.
‘It’s broken,’ she said, glancing at Louisa’s new badge.
‘Can you get another one?’
‘I thought you said it was a price check.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘But I was just there,’ Louisa protested.
Louisa was more senior than Chloe. She was the same age, but she had been working at the store for longer and had more responsibilities. In this situation, though, it made little difference. Louisa had to do what Chloe asked, and Chloe knew it.
‘There are customers waiting,’ said Chloe, with the sweetest smile.
‘I can see that,’ said Louisa.
The man at the end of the queue shook his head and walked away. The remaining customers looked on impatiently.
‘Don’t worry,’ Chloe reassured them. ‘Louisa is our Employee of the Month!’
Louisa returned to Aisle One. She hadn’t done the light bulbs yet and the shelves were in a bad way. There were pearl globes and clear globes, screw-in and bayonet types, all mixed together. She couldn’t find the one she wanted. Standing beside her, an older lady was looking at batteries. When she saw Louisa’s new badge, she smiled.
‘You must be a good worker,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me,
please, what is the difference between AA and AAA?’
‘They’re different sizes,’ said Louisa politely, continuing to search the shelves.
The lady nodded. ‘The trouble is,’ she said, ‘I don’t remember which ones I’m supposed to get. They’re for my grandson.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help you,’ said Louisa.
‘I suggested he try those rechargeable batteries, but he said they weren’t good enough.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m helping another customer at the moment.’
The lady frowned. ‘But it’s your job to help all of us, isn’t it?’
This is a supermarket, thought Louisa, not a nursing home.
She found the globe she was looking for, excused herself, and left.
At the end of the aisle, Jared and Dylan from the storeroom were wheeling a trolley stacked high with boxes. They were tall boys wearing white shirts that were too tight and black ties that were too short. When they saw Louisa coming, they stood to attention and saluted like soldiers.
‘Stand back!’
‘Look sharp!’
‘Here comes the Employee of the Month!’
Louisa put her hands on her hips. ‘You guys aren’t planning anything, are you?’
Jared and Dylan looked at each other. ‘Who? Us?’
‘If anything happens to me,’ she warned them. ‘Anything at all . . .’
By the time she got back to the register, other customers had deserted the queue and the one remaining woman looked furious. Before Louisa could give Chloe the light bulb to scan, the customer grabbed it from her and shook it until it rattled.
‘This one’s broken, too!’ she complained.
Louisa and Chloe looked at each other: Because you just broke it!
‘They put a man on the moon,’ the woman scowled.
‘Surely someone could invent a better light bulb.’
I wish they’d put you on the moon, thought Louisa.
‘There are other light bulbs,’ she suggested. ‘But they’re more expensive.’
‘Get me one, please,’ the woman demanded.
‘Certainly, madam.’
The trolley boys grinned as Louisa hurried past them again.
‘Here she comes!’
‘She never stops!’
‘Get out of her way!’
‘There goes the Employee of the Month!’
Back in Aisle One, a man had torn open a six-pack of toilet rolls and was feeling the texture of the paper inside. When he saw Louisa coming, he quickly withdrew his hand and tried to close the packet.
‘Just checking,’ he mumbled.
Louisa walked past him, trying to ignore the ripped packet. She began searching through the light bulbs, but they all looked exactly the same. She rubbed her eyes and tried to focus. Hundred watt, seventy-five, sixty, forty . . . Before Louisa could find the one she was looking for, the toilet-roll man called out to her.
‘Excuse me, miss! Can you help me?’
He glanced around to make sure that no one was listening.
‘It’s for my wife . . . She has . . .’
Louisa waited for him to finish.
‘She’s just had a baby.’
‘She has haemorrhoids?’
‘Yes.’
The man was blushing slightly, but Louisa wasn’t embarrassed. She’d seen haemorrhoids. She had put on rubber gloves and asked patients to bend over while she examined them. It was all part of her nurse’s training.
Louisa approached the shelf and picked out a roll of extra-soft toilet tissue.
‘Try this one,’ she told him.
The man took the toilet roll gratefully and disappeared into the next aisle.
‘Excuse me,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Which last longer, the AAs or the AAAs?’
Louisa knew it was no use trying to explain why it didn’t matter which battery lasted longer.
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged.
Louisa listened wearily while the lady told her it wasn’t good enough just to say I don’t know and that she would have expected more from someone like her. In her day, the lady said, shop assistants were there to assist the customers, not to be rude to them. In her day, people weren’t in so much of a hurry.
In your day, thought Louisa, people were dead by seventy.
When the lady had finished talking, Louisa found a 60-watt, long-life, light globe and returned with it to the register. The woman in the queue shook the bulb ferociously until she was satisfied, then gave it to Chloe to scan: $1.59
The woman shook her head.
‘I’m not paying that much for a light bulb. Do you think I’m stupid?’
Louisa and Chloe exchanged looks:Yes. We do. We think you are very stupid, and we also think you are mean.
When the customer had finally gone, Chloe turned off her light and put up a sign that said register closed.
‘I’m on a break now,’ she said. ‘How about you?’
Louisa shook her head.
‘Did you have a late night?’ asked Chloe.
Louisa yawned and nodded.
‘You bad girl,’ said Chloe.
Louisa had come home from her night shift at the hospital to find a stranger sitting on the couch with her mother. Blue suit. Orange moustache. Louisa’s mum, Jacquie, went to the Tabaret a lot. She knew how to dress to attract a certain type of man—the desperate type. Jacquie had introduced the man and he’d looked at Louisa in that odd way they all did. Louisa never listened when her mum said their names. What was the point in her knowing their names?
Louisa said nothing while Jacquie told the man how proud she was that her daughter was going to be a midwife. She was thinking of going back to school herself, she said, although she hadn’t decided what she wanted to study.
Yes, Mum, thought Louisa, that’s really going to happen.
The man said something about how you’re never too old to learn, which made her mum giggle, for some reason. Louisa went into her room and lay on her bed. Through the wall she could hear more giggling. Then the doorbell rang and a pizza delivery boy arrived. Her mum came into the bedroom looking for money. Louisa pulled out a twenty and Jacquie said she would definitely pay her back this time.
‘When you get the money,’ said Louisa.
The pizza boy left and Jacquie put on some music. It was the soundtrack of the movie Chicago and it made Louisa cringe to imagine her mother singing and dancing for the stranger. The lumps in his blue suit. The smile under his orange moustache.
Louisa was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. At the hospital, a sixteen-year-old girl had overdosed in the toilets, an hour after giving birth to her baby. Her newborn child was suffering from heroin withdrawal and would not stop screaming. As the young mother was leaving the room, she spat at the humidicrib, ‘That’s not my damn baby!’
The soundtrack finished and for a while there was no sound from the lounge room. Louisa lay on her bed, waiting to see what would happen. The front door slammed and she heard the man swear as he got in his car. The toilet flushed, then Jacquie came in and sat on the bed.
‘You must think I’m awful,’ she sighed.
Louisa took her mother’s hand. ‘It’s OK, Mum. Go to sleep.’
‘Should I take a tablet, do you think?’
‘If you need to.’
Jacquie wiped a tear from her eye, leaving a smudge of black eyeliner on her cheek. ‘It was just a misunderstanding. I never meant to . . .’
‘I know, Mum.’
‘It’s just that . . . he seemed like such a nice man.’
‘It’s what men do, Mum. They act nice.’
Louisa waited until her mum was asleep, then she got up and did the dishes before the ants came. She turned off the stereo and put the Chicago soundtrack away. She took out the empty pizza box and put salt on the carpet where someone had spilt red wine. On the mantelpiece, there was a photograph of her and her mother. Louisa hated it when people said how similar they looked.
‘Beho
ld! She walks amongst us!’
‘Once again, she has returned!’
‘She, who fears nothing.’
‘She, to whom we all aspire.’
‘The Employee . . .’
‘. . . of the Month!’
‘Give me a break,’ Louisa pleaded.
She returned to her aisle to continue facing the shelves. She climbed the safety steps and stood there motionless. There was something wrong, but it took her a while to work out what it was. The muzak had stopped playing. Above the silent hum of the airconditioning, she heard the constant whispering of shoppers and trolleys in motion. Should I go and change the tape, she wondered, or will someone else look after it? Louisa stood on the stepladder, trying to make up her mind. On the one hand, it was no big deal. The customers would survive without canned music. It was not a life-threatening situation. On the other hand, no one was doing anything about it. Was it possible that no one else noticed when the music stopped?
‘Price check on Register Nine. Price check on Register Nine.’
Louisa took out her watch to check the time. It took her a moment to realise it was upside-down. As she reached up to restack the boxes of tissues, a piece of paper floated to the floor. A hand-written sign had been stuck to her back with stickytape.
It said, SLAVE.
She stood looking down at the sign, deciding whether or not to pick it up. It’s not fair, she told herself. Don’t be such a baby, she answered back. But it was too late. Weariness rose up and swamped Louisa like a wave. It washed away her sensible thoughts and flooded through her body. What’s the use? she thought, as she slumped down on the top step of the ladder, and softly began to cry.
AISLE
two
LAUNDRY NEEDS/CLEANING/HARDWARE
‘Adam. Are you in there?’
Adam was drifting off when his father knocked on his bedroom door. Adam had a TV in his bedroom, which he left on out of habit. It was on in the morning when he woke up and still on in the afternoon when he came home from school. Adam’s TV was like a faithful pet. It watched over him while he slept. It guarded his bedroom while he was out. And it kept his parents guessing: when it was on, which was always, they didn’t know if he was at home or not.
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