Chapter 5
5
Drew hated supermarkets. Hated them. He hated the fact that things were never in the aisle you thought they should be in. He hated the fact that the chillers were so cold you felt like you needed to dress for winter. And he hated the fact that people happily rammed their trolleys this way and that with no regard for who was standing in front of them. If you tried that in a car, you’d get sent to prison, or at the very least, lose your licence. But try it at Tesco, and no one batted an eyelid. Fines for irresponsible trolley drivers. That’s what they needed.
Sarah had, as promised, sent through a shopping list. It was fairly standard: milk, cereal, beige freezer food – perhaps not the most useful instruction – a bag of salad – which he was certain would be left in the fridge until the leaves began decomposing at the bottom of the bag – fragrance-free wet wipes, and a few other sundries. At the entrance to the shop, he moved to grab a trolley, only to change his mind and pick up a basket instead. After all, the list wasn’t that long.
Two rows in, and he was regretting the decision. The thin, plastic handle dug into his fingers as he tried to fit everything into the tiny basket. It was the message’s fault. The comment about freezer food had stumped him. Did pizza count as beige freezer food? he asked himself. The bottom of it was beige. He picked one off the shelf and threw it in the basket. What about spring rolls? They were definitely beige. Inside and out. He scanned up and down the cabinet and picked up a few extras, such as spicy chicken Kievs and mixed vegetables. Satisfied with his haul, he moved on to the cereal.
When George had first started weaning, as conscientious parents, Drew and Sarah had been so picky about what he ate. No processed food. Organic where possible and always made from scratch. There was a full checklist to go through, including salt content and country of origin, before deciding whether or not a certain item was allowed to pass between their precious baby’s lips. Now there was only one criterion on that checklist: would the children eat it?
‘Why the hell do they need so many cereals?’ Drew wondered out loud as he looked at the rainbow display ten feet long. It seemed like every animal on the planet had been turned into an advertisement for sugary breakfast treats. Some, of course, he recognised; Tony the Tiger had probably been around longer than he had, and then there was that monkey on the chocolate cereal. But now there was everything else too. Mermaid cereal, unicorn cereal. Cereal with frogs on. How did frogs sell cereal? Were children really so fickle?
His eyes wandered up and down until they fell on a large, red label.
Two for one , it said.
‘Perfect.’ The boxes were already fairly cheap, but with the two for one deal, it was a bargain that even Sarah would be pleased with. Feeling smug with his accomplishment, Drew dropped two boxes onto the top of his already full basket and headed towards the checkout.
The evening air was cool and crisp on his walk back from the shop. Summer was giving way to autumn. He strolled easily now, with the shopping more evenly distributed across two hands and a couple of the tins in his backpack, taking in the aromas and enjoying the quiet. It wasn’t very often he got two minutes to himself like this. He had the commute, of course, although he often wished he could use the time more productively. People tapped away at their computers, firing off emails or else doing something equally productive; he could barely keep his eyes open. Occasionally, he would just grab one of the free magazines to flick through. That was about all he had the energy for.
He turned onto their road and gazed up at the street. Narrow, with minimal parking and a dubious calibre of neighbours, it wasn’t the ideal location to live in, but it wasn’t all bad. There were great transport links to start with. And it was easy. What would be the point in moving somewhere bigger? A bigger mortgage that he’d have to pay. More space to fill up with crap. No, they had it good where they were.
‘Why are you so late?’ Sarah was on him the moment he stepped through the front door, without him even having a chance to put the bags down.
‘I went to the shops, remember? You asked me to pick some things up.’
‘What shops did you go to? I thought you’d be quick. And how much did you buy?’
‘Just the things on the list. That’s all.’
Her hands were currently juggling a collection of dirty plates, cuddly toys, and washing.
‘Can you stop George chewing on the wrong end of that pencil?’ she asked, taking the bags and hauling them into the kitchen before he’d had a chance to object.
‘Is there a right end of a pencil to chew on?’ Drew called after her, removing the offending item from his son’s mouth.
‘The one that doesn’t give him lead poisoning.’
‘You know it’s not actually lead?’ he said, wiping the pencil dry and placing it out of George’s reach on the bookshelf. ‘And I’m pretty sure the other end would be worse if you got splinters.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Drew!’
‘It’s fine. I’ve done it.’ He looked at his daughter, who was currently taking very precise deep breaths in an attempt to stay calm. ‘What’s wrong with Eva?’
‘We’ve lost Mrs Cat.’
Drew’s eyes widened. A swell of panic surged through him. ‘What do you mean, lost her? Where did she have her last? Have you looked in her bedroom? She can’t go to sleep without Mrs Cat. She won’t go to bed without her.’
‘I am aware of that.’
‘Where have you looked?’ Memories of the last time Mrs Cat had gone AWOL flashed through Drew’s mind. Punching and biting and wailing until sunrise.
‘I’ve looked everywhere that I had a chance to look.’ Sarah said as she came out of the kitchen, arms overflowing with a mass of toys and clutter. ‘Please, can you just take her upstairs for a minute? Read her a story or something. Just give me a minute to sort myself out, and I’ll find it.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to look instead?’
‘No. Can you just take them both upstairs and get them into their pyjamas? I’ll be up in a bit.’
‘What about putting the shopping away?’
‘I’ll deal with that when I’ve found Mrs Cat.’
After hesitating just a fraction longer, Drew bent down and picked up Eva.
‘Come on, you two.’ He reached his spare hand down to George. ‘Time for Daddy to pick a book.’
With Drew having taken the children upstairs, Sarah retraced Eva’s steps since they had got back from picking George up from school. After a snack on the sofa, they got the LEGO out. That play had lasted nicely for twenty minutes, before Eva decided she had to have every red and blue brick, which George also desperately needed to complete his ice castle. After a close call with an irate Eva and the mantelpiece, Sarah sent George upstairs with his own selection of LEGO bricks and kept Eva down with her while she tried to sort out the washing. That, she realised, was the last time she had seen Mrs Cat.
Sarah walked through the kitchen and clicked open the washing-machine door. There, dripping wet and twisted between a tangle of bedsheets, was Mrs Cat.
‘That’s the first part of the problem solved,’ she said to the sodden, stuffed feline. ‘Now to get you dry.’
She probably spent longer using the hairdryer on Mrs Cat than she needed to, but there was something relaxing about the white noise and its ability to drown out whatever bangs and wails were going on next door in the children’s room. It wasn’t a productive use of time, and she contemplated that fact several times. However, after each brief consideration, she kept on going. She should dry her hair more often, she thought. Twice a day, at least. After all, Drew had his commute in which to simply sit and be. An exquisite hour on either side of the workday that was entirely his own, where he didn’t have to worry about what was going on at work or at home or anywhere else in the world. Maybe she would make hair drying her commute equivalent. God only knew she needed something.
When Mrs Cat was nearly dry, Sarah moved her over to the radiator and headed down to the kitchen to unpack the shopping.
‘How’s the soggy moggy doing?’ Drew asked, appearing in the doorway. ‘Any chance Eva will be able to take her to bed tonight?’
‘Probably. It just needs another half hour on the radiator.’
‘Thank God. You know, I really think we should get a spare one of those, you know, in case we lose it for real?’
‘We did that with the penguins for George, remember? They cost us a fortune, and now he doesn’t even look at either of them.’
‘True, but that was George. Eva’s really attached…’
Sarah had stopped listening. Bent double over the shopping bag, she scrunched her face at the contents. She reached in and pulled out a cardboard box of cereal.
‘Fyberflakes?’ she questioned. ‘Why did you get Fyberflakes?’
‘You told me to get cereal.’
‘Yes. Cereal. Cereal our children will eat.’
‘They’ll eat this, won’t they?’
‘No.’ Sarah crinkled up her nose and scratched her eyebrows. How was it possible to miss the mark by such a large degree? ‘They will not eat Fyberflakes.’
‘Have they ever had them?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So, they might enjoy them?’
Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose.
‘They won’t eat the edge on crustless bread because they think it’s too dry.’
‘Well, there’ll be milk on it, so it won’t be that dry, will it? They’re not going to eat them without milk on.’
‘Did you get milk?’
Drew’s lips disappeared into a flat line from which his tongue protruded ever so slightly.
‘Great,’ Sarah huffed. ‘So not only have we now got a box of cereal that nobody will eat?—’
‘But it was two for one,’ implored Drew, desperately trying to defend his choice.
‘Oh, I see. Well, that makes all the difference. So not only do we have two boxes of cereal that nobody will eat, I’ve still not got any milk for Eva in the morning.’
She pulled on her coat and grabbed her keys from the bowl by the door.
‘Are you heading out? Where are you going?’
Sarah rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand. ‘I’m going to get milk, where else would I be going? And cereal.’
‘Do you want me to go?’
Sarah moved her eyes from the Fyberflakes to her husband and back again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
As she moved to pass him, her eyes fell on the second shopping bag. She stopped and inhaled deeply. ‘You bought spring rolls?’
‘You said to get beige freezer food?’
There were no words.