The Cost of Living

by Rachel Ward

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You, typing away there. You missed the whole of The One Show. They had that actor on – you know, the one with the hair. I’ve been talking to you and you haven’t heard a word.’

  ‘I’m working.’

  ‘Working?’

  ‘Well, sort of. Working at something.’

  ‘What?’

  Damn, thought Bea. Don’t get her involved. She won’t like it.

  ‘Working at . . . revamping my winter wardrobe. Online shopping.’

  ‘Oh, right. Don’t spend too much, love. Better to buy things you can afford outright, than get things on tick.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know.’ Quick, distract her. ‘You had your choccy yet? What’s on now? EastEnders?’

  ‘Ooh, yeah.’ Queenie settled back down and gave her full attention to the TV again, and Bea got on with her sleuthing. She mentally got to the end of her shift and then pictured her walk home. This was more difficult. She closed her eyes for a minute to try and bring things into focus.

  ‘That’s not Top Shop, Bea.’

  Bea jumped and slammed the laptop lid down. Queenie was standing by the side of her chair, looking down. Bea hadn’t even noticed her coming over.

  ‘That’s a list of names. What are you doing?’

  ‘It’s . . . I’m . . . ’

  ‘Don’t even try to lie to me. Just tell me the truth.’

  Bea hesitated, but it was no good. She’d just have to fess up. ‘I’m trying to find out who attacked Emma, who followed me.’

  Queenie put her hand on Bea’s shoulder.

  ‘That’s for the police to do, isn’t it?’

  ‘I know. I’m just . . . I want to do something. I don’t want to be scared. I want to fight back.’

  Queenie sat down on the arm of the chair and put her arms round Bea. ‘I don’t want you to be scared either,’ she said, kissing her hair. The air around them was stuffy from the electric fire and heavy with things unsaid, unsayable. Words tiptoed to the edge of Bea’s tongue and then retreated. How could she talk about fear with the woman who had let it disable her for years? Who found the outside so overwhelming she’d stayed inside.

  They drew apart a little.

  ‘The thing is,’ Queenie said, ‘if you try to track him down, love, you could put yourself in even more danger. I don’t want that.’

  ‘I’m not going to do anything silly, Mum. I’m going to find a name and then give it to the police. That’s all. It’s a small town. There are only so many people it could be. I want to prove he’s not beaten me. I want to prove I’m smart enough.’

  ‘You’re the smartest person I know.’

  ‘Hmph.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about exams and certificates, you’ve got it all up here.’ Queenie gently tapped the side of Bea’s head. ‘Not like me. Empty.’ She balled up her hand and knocked on her own head, like she was knocking on wood. They both laughed.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Bea.

  ‘Can’t help it. Put that laptop away now. You’ve not had your Wispa yet. Do you want an old Vicar of Dibley or Gardeners’ World?’

  ‘Neither, really.’ Her mum carried on looking at her – these were the only choices. ‘Okay, Dibley.’

  ‘Dibley it is.’

  Bea watched for a while, then went upstairs to have a bath and put on her onesie. When she went back down again, Queenie was asleep in her chair. Bea quietly opened her laptop again. She read through the list and replayed events in her head. She took the laptop up to bed with her, and kept looking at the screen, wondering about the people on her list. If Emma was sexually assaulted, the motive was obviously sexual. She tried to think who, out of her colleagues, would do that to anyone? They were an odd lot but she couldn’t imagine any of them hurting someone. Maybe it was one of the customers . . .

  By two in the morning, her head was spinning. The laptop was still open, the screen still bright, but by now she was so tired she couldn’t see the wood for the trees. She turned the machine off, snuggled down under her duvet and tried to sleep. But there were too many questions jostling for her attention. How come Emma was attacked after she herself had been followed, when she had left the store before her? Was David, the married man, just sleazy or was he more sinister? Did Bob-on-Meat scratch his arse inside or outside his trousers? There was something else too, something about Ant . . .

  She must have drifted off because she woke up the next morning with her head feeling like it was full of cotton wool. She dragged herself downstairs, wishing she’d left the laptop in the lounge last night and had three hours’ extra sleep.

  Queenie was up and about as usual. She poured Bea a cup of tea.

  ‘Saturday today,’ she said brightly. ‘Sausage sandwiches. You won’t forget to pick them up, will you?’

  Bea sighed.

  ‘Course not. I won’t forget.’ And then something from yesterday drifted to the front of her mind and she shuddered. ‘Must remember I’m getting the pre-packed ones, though, Queenie.’

  ‘Pre-packed?’

  ‘I’m never going near Bob-on-Meat’s sausages again.’

  Later, as she walked through town, Bea caught sight of a familiar figure crossing the road ahead of her. He had his hood pulled up round his ears and his head down. She trotted a few yards to catch up with him.

  ‘Hey! Ant! Wait up.’

  Ant stopped but didn’t turn around. She drew level with him.

  ‘You going in to work, after all?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nah, heading home.’

  She ostentatiously checked her watch.

  ‘Wow, you lead an exciting life. All right for some. You are coming back, though, aren’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘No. Dunno. Maybe. Not due in until Monday. Gonna think about it.’

  They walked along together.

  ‘Don’t let Eileen and Neville put you off.’

  ‘I don’t care about them.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t help you.’

  ‘Not your problem.’

  Bea hesitated. Along with Bob’s unsettling personal habits another thought had emerged from the fog of her brain. It was only a hunch, but . . . ‘Shelving isn’t easy, especially if—’ in for a penny ‘especially if you can’t read.’

  Ant laughed. ‘Shut up. What are you talking about? I can read.’

  She peered round the edge of his hood. His face was colouring up.

  ‘There’s no shame in it, Ant. Maybe I could help you.’

  He stopped walking and turned to face her. ‘I don’t need your help. I just got flustered yesterday, that’s all. I don’t need you on my case, all right?’

  ‘I’m not . . . Ant—’

  He stepped out into the road, desperate to get away from her, and then there was the sickening sound of tyres skidding on tarmac and the blare of a car horn.

  ‘Ant!’ she screamed. ‘Ant, are you—?’

  But he was away, darting round the front of the car, slapping its bonnet as he started running to the other side of the road. Bea watched the driver mouth obscenities, saw Ant disappear down the path to the park.

  ‘God, that boy’s got nine lives.’ Dot had seen it all too. ‘Was he hurt?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Quick on his feet, thank God. It was my fault.’

  ‘You two fallen out?’

  ‘Not really. I just said something I shouldn’t. Or maybe I said it the wrong way. I was trying to help.’

  ‘He’ll get over it. He’s very resilient.’

  Bea looked at Dot. She was as bright as a button this morning. Was that extra blusher on her cheeks or just a healthy glow?

  ‘Anyway, we’re going to be late,’ Dot said.

  Bea checked her watch again. ‘No, we’re not.’

  ‘Big Gav’s called a staff meeting before work. Didn’t you get the text?’

  ‘Haven’t looked. What time’s the meeting?’

  ‘Five minutes. We’d better get a wriggle on.’


  As they set off along the High Street, Dot linked arms with Bea. Soon they were walking so fast Bea was almost forced to break into a run.

  ‘Slow down, lady. I’m tired today. Didn’t get much sleep.’

  ‘Me neither. Come on,’ she said, ‘last one there makes the tea.’

  4

  ‘We all know by now that one of our customers was attacked on her way home from the store on Thursday evening. I hear that she is out of hospital now. Obviously, apart from sending our best wishes for a swift recovery, here at Costsave our first concern is staff and customer safety. I’ve contacted Head Office and spoken with the local police. The advice – and I’m talking about the female members of staff here – is not to walk home alone. Stick to well-lit paths, near housing, even if it takes a little longer to get home. Better safe than sorry.’

  ‘Will the store pay for a taxi, if we’ve got no one to walk with?’ This from Kirsty. Gavin looked a little flustered and pretended to check his notes among the bundle of paperwork he was carrying.

  ‘Um, no. At least, it hasn’t been discussed.’

  ‘Maybe we should do a car share, like on the telly,’ said Bob-on-Meat, who didn’t look unlike Peter Kay if you took off ten years and added some hair.

  ‘I’m not getting in a car with you, thank you very much,’ someone piped up. A titter ran around the room and Bea thought, or at least I’d wipe the seats first.

  ‘Okay, I’ll look into that,’ said Gavin. ‘The next concern is the store itself. You may have seen us on the local news. They say any publicity is good publicity. That’s just not true. Takings were down 8 per cent yesterday on the previous Friday. I’m going to be keeping a close eye on things, but we need ideas on how to reassure people, keep them coming back, make them feel part of the family. Any ideas off the top of your heads?’

  Silence. Bea fancied she saw a small ball of tumbleweed roll across the stained carpet and out of the door. She looked around the assembled staff and couldn’t help running through the names on her list of suspects and noting the ones that were there. One of you, she thought. It could be one of you.

  ‘Anyone? Come on, this is important.’ Big Gav was flapping his arms now, trying to manually generate some sort of spark in his audience.

  ‘We’ve got the Halloween promotion of course,’ Neville said. ‘Which personally I don’t agree with, as you know.’

  ‘What don’t you agree with? Little kids dressing up and eating sweets?’ said Bea.

  ‘Trick or treat,’ Neville said with a sneer. ‘It’s American. It’s nothing to do with us. It’s an excuse for kids to run riot and intimidate people.’

  ‘I suppose you draw the curtains and turn the lights out and pretend you’re not in, don’t you?’ said Dot.

  ‘If you must know, my church runs an alternative evening – an evening of light. Maureen and I help at that.’

  ‘Oh, well. Good for you,’ said Bea, ‘but the rest of us like dressing up. The kids round our way go mad for it.’

  ‘Anyway, Halloween isn’t for a week yet,’ said Gavin. ‘We need something sooner. I want you all to think about it and feed me your ideas by the end of the day. Write them down and put them in my in tray or pop in and see me. My door’s always open, as you know.’

  ‘Not always,’ Bea muttered under her breath, as she and Dot walked down to the shop floor. Dot smiled. ‘Not after lunch when he’s got his head down on that little pillow he keeps in his desk drawer. Have you seen it?’

  ‘Yeah. Cute, isn’t it? Crocheted, like something his granny made for him.’

  ‘He thinks no one knows, but everyone does. Everyone. Bless.’

  They chuckled to themselves as they took their places.

  ‘Do you think people will stop shopping here?’ said Bea.

  ‘No. They still need bread and milk and bog roll. Where else are they going to go?’

  ‘Out of town?’

  ‘Yeah, if they’ve got a car. But they’re probably going there already if they have, aren’t they? I don’t reckon we’ll lose out. Anyway, people aren’t daft. They know it’s not Costsave’s fault if someone got followed.’

  ‘Not unless it was one of the staff.’ The list was there again, at the front of her mind. All morning she kept a close eye on the milling customers, trying to spot any that were on her list. Halfway through the morning, she hit gold. A man in a tracksuit pushed one of the shallow trolleys around the end of the adjacent aisle and up the next one. The white double stripe on his jogger bottoms caught Bea’s eye. One of Thursday evening’s customers had been wearing the same, she was sure of it. She tried to remember any other outstanding features, while she processed the shopping in front of her.

  ‘They’re really juicy.’

  The woman in front of her was saying something. Bea smiled. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Have you tried these minneolas? They’re really good. Sharp and sweet at the same time,’ the woman said, brandishing a bag of oranges in Bea’s direction.

  ‘Oh, no. I don’t eat much fruit.’

  ‘Gotta have your five a day,’ she said with a cheery smile and a mock-serious waggle of her index finger. ‘Or is it seven now?’

  ‘Do chocolate oranges count?’

  The woman laughed. ‘I wish.’

  Bea had almost forgotten about striped jogger man, when she looked up and saw him approaching the checkouts.

  Come to me, this way, that’s right, she thought, trying to guide him in with the sheer power of her mind. He looked along the row and seemed to decide to head for a checkout further along, then looked again at Bea’s conveyor belt. She made it jump forward, so that the gap at the back was bigger. That settled it, he steered his trolley into place beside it.

  Result!

  Once Minneola Woman had paid, Bea greeted the man in the striped joggers.

  ‘Good morning, do you need any help packing?’

  ‘Oh, um, no, thanks. I can manage.’

  He was somewhere in his thirties, starting to go bald on top, with the remaining hair cut so short as to almost disappear. He had two piercings in his left ear and three in his right, and a bar through one of his eyebrows and underneath his tracksuit you could tell he was ripped. He moved down to Bea’s end of the checkout and started putting the scanned goods into one of the bags he’d brought himself.

  Bea wanted to talk to him, but, unusually for her, found herself lost for words. Then she noticed the logo embroidered in yellow thread into the tracksuit top. ‘Local Leisure.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you’re at the Leisure Centre.’

  The man looked up from his packing.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. He looked a little more closely. ‘Don’t think I’ve seen you down there, have I?’

  ‘Ha, not since school swimming lessons. I never did get my twenty-five metres badge.’

  ‘You’ll have to come back, then. We do adult lessons.’

  ‘Hmm, dunno. Maybe.’ Not in a million years. ‘Do all the staff there wear that?’

  He looked down at his polyester top and bottom. ‘Yeah. Why?’

  Why? Good question. Why on earth would any normal person ask a question like that?

  ‘Um, it just looks comfortable. Better than this anyway.’ She pulled at her Costsave tabard, dismissively.

  He smiled. ‘Yeah. See what you mean.’

  He thinks I look like a hippo, thought Bea. And then instantly, Urgh, God, haven’t I got past thinking what people think of me yet?

  ‘It doesn’t have to be swimming. You could try the gym, or one of the classes. It’s really friendly there.’

  ‘Mmn, I’m not really . . . ’

  ‘The spinning class is good. I take that one, Sunday mornings and Thursday evenings. You should try it.’

  Thursday evenings, thought Bea.

  ‘Spinning? What, twiddling thread? Like weaving or something?’

  He started to laugh and then looked at her pityingly. ‘No. Spinning as in static cycling. Cycling indoors, with reall
y loud music. It’s intense, but fun.’

  ‘Oh, that sort of spinning. What sort of music?’

  ‘Nice fast poppy stuff. Something with a bit of beat. You’d like it.’

  She pictured herself pedalling away intensely to a sound system turned up to eleven and felt clammy and uncomfortable.

  ‘That’ll be £24.34, please,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Have you got a Bonus Card?’

  He handed over his card, which she swiped. Then he pushed his debit card into the reader.

  Bea cancelled the transaction, then pulled a face.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s not coming up on my machine. Can you try again?’ she said.

  He frowned and repeated the manoeuvre.

  Bea shook her head.

  ‘No good, I’m afraid. It does play up sometimes or the strips on the cards do. Here, let me.’

  Bea took his card out of the machine and made a show of rubbing it clean on the hem of her tabard. She held it closer to her face, making a mental note of his name, Lee Jepson.

  ‘That looks better,’ she said, putting the card back in the reader and letting the transaction go through this time. ‘That’s got it. Sorry about that.’

  ‘No worries,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you down the Leisure Centre, shall I?’

  ‘I’m not promising,’ she said.

  ‘Ask for me. I’ll do your induction.’

  He gathered up his bags and started walking away.

  Induction, thought Bea. Sounds nasty. Nice guy, though. She used a biro from her pocket and wrote his name on the back of a money-off voucher.

  ‘Your machine on the blink?’ asked Dot.

  ‘No,’ said Bea, without thinking. ‘I mean, yes. Yes, it is, piggin’ thing.’

  She tried not to catch Dot’s eye, but too late, Dot was on to her.

  ‘You’re a sly one. You’ve got his name now, haven’t you? And you know where he works. What a minx. Don’t really blame you, though, he was a bit hot, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Shut up, Dot. It’s not like that.’

  ‘What did you just write down then?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Dot leaned over and tried to snatch the bit of paper. Bea had hold of it and there was a brief tussle until Dot saw Neville watching them and let go. Bea stuffed the paper down her bra.