Shelf Life

by Livia Franchini

  ‘Ruth,’ my mother says. She doesn’t like it when I speak like this. She waves at the chicken that sits in front of us, untouched.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘The insects must’ve crawled up the back of the wardrobe, because all my singlets on the lowest shelf had holes in them too.’

  At the signal – my mother’s palm outstretched – we join our hands over the handle of the carving knife.

  ‘So I had to go to Oxford Street in a hurry,’ I tell my mother. ‘Because of work the next day.’

  She knows that it’s freezing in the Bowl. She’s bought me singlets every Christmas since I started there. It’s her way of letting me know that she thinks of me as an adult – a sort of dowry, a motherly act she became attached to in my absence. I don’t remember wearing vests as a child. My mother seems sad to learn that the new singlets she gave me at Christmas have been ruined. I shouldn’t have told her. ‘I went and bought some more immediately,’ I try to reassure her. ‘Shops close at ten p.m. in central London. I know. Crazy.’ Together, we delve the knife into the chest of the chicken, just to the side of the breastbone. Like cutting a wedding cake, but clumsier, with the table between us. ‘I knew that the queues would be long and the cold dreadful, but the big Primark is cheap and so it still seemed worth the trip.’ A way to leave the house, something to do. I thought if I hurried perhaps I could still make it before rush hour.

  ‘Primark,’ says my mother – an admonition.

  I shrug and then we flip the knife, left to right, left to right, to separate the two breast pouches, feeling the resistance of cooked muscle in the handle.

  I had deluded myself. I’d had to miss the first tube because the carriage was packed and I was pushed to the back of the cluster of bodies by an aggressive man in a pinstripe suit. My mother wouldn’t understand this and so there is no point in telling her: she has never lived or wanted to live in a big city. I got on the next train and spent most of the trip lodged between the door and the broad back of a tall teenager, my head locked at an angle so as to avoid touching him, my face still only an inch from the soft fold of his puppy-fat nape. His prickly ponytail swished across my cheek every time the train hiccupped to a halt. I stared at the underside of his jaw. It really bothers me when people don’t squeeze spots that are ready for squeezing. Please squeeze those spots. In the tunnel at Camden Town we stopped for a long minute, the carriage lights flickering. People shuffled, then quietened. I could taste their impatience in the hot dark; the boy’s Doritos sweat.

  My mother and I dislodge the two sections of meat from the chicken’s breast.

  At Euston I got off the train to change to the Victoria line. I followed the light-blue line along the tunnel. Have you noticed that the Victoria line and the NHS are codified with the same shade of sanitary blue? But ask a professional in either field and they’ll tell you that the premises aren’t as clinically spotless as they’d have you believe. It’s a cover-up. At our care home we don’t do hospital colours or hospital furniture. All the furniture is real furniture, like in a real home.

  When the doors swooshed open I clutched the overhead bar with my hands and hurled my body inside. This carriage was also packed, thicker in the middle like an unpricked sausage. I rested my head on the pane next to the doors and stared into the empty space above the heads of the seated passengers. At the other end of the carriage an old lady with a shopping trolley had carved herself a rectangle of space inside the crowd. She was obviously a bus creature, who’d taken a chance and decided to enter this hostile world in which the elderly are considered a nuisance, an unacceptable presence. Why today?

  No one was offering the old woman their seat; they frowned at the space in front of her, pretending not to see that she was struggling. Two further bodies could fit in there, three at a squeeze; certainly, we were all willing to squeeze in. The woman kept leaning against her trolley and it kept rolling away from her: off she went with it and when I thought she would hit the ground she’d pull it back and lean on it again. Swaying back and forth as if travelling on water. A man in a grey suit stood with his back to her and did a little skip every time the trolley hit his heels. The woman stared at me through the glass with her watery eyes. She pulled up her trolley and leant against it. I blew on to the pane to make her disappear.

  ‘People don’t like being around old people in London,’ I say to my mother. My mother frowns. ‘I guess that’s good because it’s how I make a living.’

  ‘Ruth,’ my mother says.

  The chicken skin hangs loose from the carcass like an unbuttoned shirt. We lay each half of the breast on to one half of the napkins in front of us, then fold the other half over to rub off the grease.

  ‘I got off at Oxford Circus. It was so busy that I just couldn’t bear changing trains again,’ I say. It occurred to me that it was the station that Neil used (although he wouldn’t be in work – would he? He wasn’t even in London), perhaps that was why I wanted to get off there. As the train pulled into the station and I heard the announcement, I began to feel quite queasy. Still, I pushed my way out, elbows first through the crowd, weaselling in silence towards the mouth of the station. The descending crowd pushed down on me as I made my way up; halfway up the stairs I began to hear drums: some kind of demonstration outside. Someone repeatedly striking a bell. The noise irritated me; I gritted my teeth. It sounded like hail, or broken glass. I waded upstairs, my hand on the blue metal rail, white at the knuckles, identical ads ascending: CHUNKIER! CHUNKIER! CHUNKIER! McDonald’s new CHUNKY dessert.

  My hand missed the railing and then I was outside, frozen at the top of the stairs. There was a small mob ahead of me. They had signs: one said Free Hugs. I didn’t see the others because stood in front of the sign was Neil. He had his back to me but there he was, his stubbly skull, his bald spot visible, the mandarin collar of his cheesecloth shirt. Was this the commune he’d been talking about? A suit jacket was slung across his shoulders, and he had a briefcase, as if he’d just come out of work. I picked out a woman, standing quite near him, striking a rhythm on a bottle with a wooden stick, bells around her wrists. Large and shabby and blonde, braless breasts hanging low. I wondered what her face looked like when she and Neil fucked. I imagined she’d have a very serene expression. I know what his looks like. Something rose in my chest and I pulled together the creases of my coat, knitted my fingers in my scarf as the cold pierced my throat. I couldn’t stop looking at him.

  ‘What are his new friends like, then?’ says my mother.

  ‘They don’t believe in private property,’ I say. We begin to shred the chicken breast into strips, distinct sections of fewer and fewer meat fibres.

  ‘They never eat meat,’ I say. I nod at the chicken. Technically, neither do we.

  ‘Not even chicken?’ my mother asks.

  ‘Not even chicken,’ I say.

  We each take a new piece of kitchen roll from the pre-torn pile on the table. We set the used one to the side, the clean one in front. We arrange the chicken bunches on the new napkin in parallel lines. A tally.

  ‘You’re holding up the queue,’ a woman said behind me. I stepped to the side and into the paperman. He shouted in my ear, ‘Evening Standard,’ and my mouth tasted sour. The football kit formation in the window of Nike Town stood like a firing squad. I took another step on to the foot of a different woman. There was a small commotion.

  ‘I think he saw me,’ I say.

  Fingerpicking through our fish-shaped bowls, we pair the coleslaw with the chicken: one piece of cabbage, one piece of chicken, one piece of carrot, one piece of chicken, one piece of cabbage.

  When Neil turned to face me, my breath collected in a pool at the bottom of my throat. He stared in my direction. Next to him, the blonde woman produced the unnerving noise. She didn’t acknowledge him. Nor he her. They didn’t know each other. So what was he doing there? He was staring right in my direction, towards where I stood at the mouth of the station. Why wasn’t he doing anything? There were no hippie frie
nds, no commune. He had lied about that too.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I put my arm up and waved. Neil did the same. I stood, unblinking, with my arm up, as a child stumbled out of the exit, pushing past me, the back of his shiny bob charging through the crowd. Neil opened his arms to embrace the boy and as he swept him up into a hug I saw that the boy was a teenage girl, her short skirt riding up to expose the elasticated hem of her silver polka-dot hot pants, a flash of tanned leg flesh. Neil kissed her neck. Did he? He did. He kissed her neck. A black cab pulled up next to me. The driver yelled, ‘Where can I take ya, love?’ And everything came unstuck.

  ‘Did you say hello?’ my mother asks, pulling the last thin strip of chicken apart into two perfect halves.

  She pairs it with a piece of cabbage, a piece of carrot.

  ‘Too busy,’ I say. ‘Too many people.’

  What I did was I stepped back and shook my head and put my hand away. The cabbie made a face, rolled up the window, drove off. I crossed the road diagonally: the traffic lights counted down, thirteen to zero, PEDESTRIANS CROSS NOW, the beeping, hammering at my temples. My feet moved quicker than the numbers, twice as quick, three times as quick. I dived into a United Colours of Benetton. The humidity struck me and the artificial light made my legs buckle. I pressed myself against the racks of monochrome coats. Two low rows of hangers parted to welcome me inside and I slipped between them, slid down until I reached the floor, sank into that hot place and sat there still, for a long time, as long as it took for me to stop crying.

  We take a fresh napkin and fold it into a thick swab. We dab at the mayonnaise on the coleslaw until it’s dry.

  ‘Some things just take time, Ruth,’ my mother says, as she unfolds a fresh napkin. She presses it on top of the food, and then she rolls both napkins into a ball. I do the same. I fold my hands over the kitchen paper and squeeze, feel the lukewarm heat of meat and cold vegetables crushing up inside.

  ‘You know this,’ she says.

  ‘I sure do,’ I say.

  My mother rises from her chair. She stuffs her ball into the chest hole of the chicken. I stand up too. I push my napkins full of the chicken, the carrot, the cabbage in behind hers, push them deep inside the carcass. We’re done. Neither of us has eaten a thing. My mother carries the serving plate to the kitchen bin, steps on the pedal and lowers it carefully inside, like she’s transporting a small child down a slide. She keeps her foot on the pedal to hold the lid open, so I can pour in the rest of the coleslaw.

  ‘I got this jumper in Benetton,’ I say.

  She pinches at the fluffy red mohair.

  ‘Looks nice,’ she says.

  ‘It was in the sales,’ I say. ‘I’ve been invited to a party.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ my mother says.

  The lid slams back.

  SPAGHETTI

  Three Months Earlier

  cumulonimbus

  Sent: 13/11/2015 – 01:06

  Dear Lili,

  This message will come to you, no doubt, as a surprise. You don’t know who I am, and I should say now that, unfortunately, this shall remain so for a little while longer. I know, I know, I don’t even have a profile picture, yet this is anything but one of those pathetic copy-and-paste jobs, that much I can promise you. The reason I ask you to wait before I reveal myself is simple: should I do it now there is still the possibility that you would take my efforts the wrong way, thinking me some kind of common man who only wishes to attract a pretty girl’s attention. Which I guess I am, in a way. (There is no denying that you are a very beautiful woman.) But also … I like you. I do. I worry you might think I’m nothing special. So I guess I’m just trying to make sure you like me enough before I reveal my identity. I feel no shame in telling you this. I’m only being honest. Isn’t that what all human beings want? To be liked. We know that the lasting impression of a person leaves its imprint on others within thirty seconds of first meeting. Life is ruthless, isn’t it? Online dating allows us to entertain a little shyness, thank God, so I thought given the chance I would buy myself a little time. I ask you, please, will you allow me a little mystery before that first fatal handshake? Before we establish that first eye contact that I hope will be sustained between us for a very long time? In time, Lili, I promise I’ll reveal all. For now, just trust me enough to read on.

  So: I like you. You might be wondering, how do I know? Well you have a delightful profile picture, for starters. You look like a little pixie. So tiny, so perfectly chiselled, like a precious little bird. You have wonderful eyes, so deep and dark. Sorry I just had to tell you that. There’s more. In saying this I am painfully aware that you might think I am already overstepping the mark. I have different friends with different opinions, but most of them agree that online dating is a way to meet new people – the etiquette says you should ignore the people you do know. You must get so much attention on this website, and God knows there are too many creeps in the world, so what are my chances, really? I wonder. But Lili, the button to click to write to you is right there, flashing, top right on the page. I only need to click on it to have a chance to talk to you – really talk to you, not on opposite sides of a counter. I may as well come clean now. I am a Fasta regular. Oh yeah, baby, can’t get enough of that fresh spaghetti!

  Sorry, you must hear that all day long from your customers. Why would you waste your precious time on a lengthy online conversation with someone you regularly ignore in real life? This is what I hope to demonstrate. Let me state my case.

  I am, like many men, a man suffering from loneliness, lost in the stomach of this blind city. Most of us feel this way, but very few are willing to admit it. Let me begin with a broad statement: I’ll say, then, that loneliness in London is the organic by-product of ambition. 95 per cent of men who come to the city to pursue a high-flying career are going to experience the acute symptoms of solitude within three years of their arrival. Of that 95 per cent, 50 per cent will settle for an OK job, a shit flatshare and a boring string of dates. They will begin to believe that the loneliness and frustration they experience every day is a given in life and never ask any questions. Fine: the human being is endlessly adaptable. 45 per cent will push themselves to their very limits in order to overcome loneliness. A third will go crazy, a third will succeed, a third will move away. The remaining 5 per cent are the kind of sociopaths who manage London’s biggest firms. Mind you, I say all this with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek: I know full well it’s a bad idea not to crosscheck one’s data, and I haven’t been able to verify these percentages through a series of rigorous interviews, but trust me, had I attempted to, I would’ve had trouble squeezing the slightest hint of insecurity out of most men. I would’ve likely drawn a blank. Insecurity: that’s really the problem for most of us. Whether us men like it, or not. I guess it doesn’t rate so highly in compatibility charts on websites like this one. As a desirable trait, confidence is up there with height (a piece of crucial information I can give you is this: I am over six foot tall). I’m sure the proportion is more or less exact: what draws men like us to the city is what eventually undoes us, rots us to the core, transforms most of us into those tie-wearing, briefcase-wielding, dick-swinging twats you see filling up Farringdon pubs.

  Apologies for my language. It’s hard not to get carried away when I think about this stuff. You see what I’m getting at hopefully: I am a passionate man. Passion is historically connected with suffering, most of all in Christianity, but in many other religions less known in the West, too. Passion as well as ambition propels me, and this is why I have prospered, relatively speaking, surviving that critical three-year window. I have remained relatively sane. But rabies will eventually hit among the pick of the pack too, when your breed is rammed in a small enough cage, dog on top of dog. I worry that after ten years in the city it’s begun to chip away at me too. I’m getting weary, Lili, which is why I write to you. I have known I wanted to meet you since the first time I saw you. I look at you every day, when I come in
for lunch, but I have never had the guts to do anything about it. Asking the pretty waitress for her number is one of those things we, alienated new humans, seem to have forgotten how to do. This incapability (this condition of stillness) this is what I mean when I say my current life has begun to frighten me. When your lovely photograph appeared at the top of my screen I was frozen still. I felt in an instant I had a duty not to let my life slip by. It was the first time I’d had the courage to think those words so clearly. From the computer screen, I felt like you were looking right at me. So I wrote to you.

  Your Cloud

  SOUP

  Ruth

  Now

  Life trundles on and I am keeping at it. March still feels a long way away, but I know better: spring will be here when we least expect it. Time to get started on a big clean. Like my mother, I keep the flat tidy in its well-worn corners. My flat, all mine. I cheer myself up: at least it is done, at least he’s seeing someone else. This is final. I cannot contact him. I don’t know where he’s living and, after I saw him with that girl, I deleted his mobile number in horror. I don’t regret it.

  Where is he living? Certainly not in Cornwall. And certainly not with her, who looks young enough to be living at home. Probably in some bachelor bedsit with fittings chosen by others, where the bathroom mirror hangs so high that he can see his bald patch in full. I can picture the black mould growing in the cracks of his shower tiles. I, on the other hand, have a grown-up flat to tend to – a grown-up life. I lack none of the necessary skills for survival. I can do minor repairs, cure a variety of ailments. I have plenty of fresh water. I can cook soup.

  Soup, I’ve decided, is safe. You don’t have to bite into it and if you keep your eyes on the bowl you won’t notice the level go down. I keep at it. This is the amended plan and I follow it religiously – I have come to believe that if I follow some arbitrary rules then salvation will follow. Though I am not sure what salvation entails, and I make up my own rules: I wake up each morning at 6:30 a.m., eat five spoonfuls of sugar and go to work.