It’s also very busy. Packed. Now this is a hectic branch at the best of times, given that it’s near the Omni Park shopping centre and also fairly close to the airport, but it’s one o’clock now, peak lunchtime and the queues are long. Six of us are working flat out on the tills, including Larry the Louse who’s supervising on this shift and who’s right beside me, taking let’s just say more than a keen interest in everything I’m doing.
Anyway, my head is down and I’m slaving away, taking orders, accepting cash, handing out food the second it’s come from the sweatshop of a kitchen that’s steaming away at full throttle behind us. I glance up, checking to see how many customers are left in my queue…and that’s when I spot them. Eva and Nathaniel standing in my queue, while their two little twin boys run riot around the place.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
‘Josh? Luke? Come back here this instant or else there’ll be no TV when you get back home!’ I can hear Eva shrieking.
It is happening.OK, the main thing is to stay cool and calm. They haven’t seen me. I can still get out of here. There’s still time. Think, think, think…
‘Emm, Larry? Can I go on my break now?’
An irritated, rodent-y glare from him. ‘What are you talking about? You’ve just had your break.’
Shit. Eva and Nathaniel are getting closer now, as the queue moves on, so close that now I can hear them rowing.
‘Nathaniel?’ she’s griping at him. ‘I don’t see why we couldn’t have gone to the Four Seasons to feed the kids. You know I hate them eating this rubbish. It’s utter junk, full of nothing but wheat and E numbers.’
‘For the thousandth time,’ I can clearly hear Nathaniel replying, ‘because I am NOT driving all the way home with the kids wailing at me that they’re starving. You’re the one who wanted them to sleep on the flight instead of letting them eat the airline food. I’m tired, I’m jet-lagged, I’m stressed and as far as I’m concerned, they can eat whatever crap they like if it’ll just shut them up so I can drive home in peace.’
I chance a lightning-quick upwards glance at them and notice that they’re all suntanned, wearing ‘just stepped off a long haul flight’-type gear. Eva’s in chinos and a T-shirt, with a very new-looking set of highlights glimmering through her long, swishy hair.
‘Well, the boys will just have to eat in the car,’ she moans, sulkily. ‘Because if you think I’m sitting down in this kip, you’ve another think coming. Someone might see us.’
‘Small chance of anyone we know being in a dump like this.’
‘Well you needn’t bother ordering anything for me. I wouldn’t eat the food here, not if you dragged it through a pool of disinfectant.’
‘Larry,’ I say, getting panicky now, as they’re only two places in the queue away from me. ‘Emm…I need to…use the bathroom. Now. Dire emergency.’
‘Well you should have gone when you were on your break, shouldn’t you?’
Bugger him anyway. If Sharon was supervising today, I’d have no problem, but, as bad luck would have it, it’s her day off today.
‘ PleaseLarry,’ I beg, the hysteria in my voice rising up another notch. ‘It’s—’ Then I have the brainwave of seeing whether embarrassment will get me further with him than pleading. ‘The thing is, you see, I have, well it’s…women’s problems. Time of the month, you know…’
He sighs deeply, like it’s not the first time this one’s been pulled on him. ‘Right then. When you finish dealing with these customers, you can take five minutes and no more.’
A glimmer of hope. I might, just might, get out of this and live to tell the tale. I serve the customer in front of me as fast as I can and am just about to make a run for the sanctuary of the staff loos downstairs…when hope dissolves like a Smiley Muffin in the rain.
‘Two Smiley Meals with Smiley Juices and a Smiley Latte,’ Nathaniel says, with his head in his wallet, counting cash and not looking at me.
‘Ehh…sorry sir, this till is closed,’ I mumble, head down. Then I think, disguise my voice. Now.‘If you wouldn’t mind using the till just here,’ I add, in a crappy attempt to pull off a Cork accent.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. How can you be closed when you just served the family in front of me? Now get me two Smiley Meals…’
Shit. He’s looking directly at me now, really staring.
‘Dear God, I don’t believe it! Jessie? Jessie Woods? Can that really be you?’
I blush like a forest fire as clammy, cold flop sweat breaks out all over me. Down my spine, everywhere.
‘Jesus Christ, it isyou! What’s with the funny accent?’
‘Emmm…sore throat,’ I cough weakly.
‘Eva? Come here, wait till you see who it is!’
No, no, no, no, no, please let there be an earthquake or some global catastrophe right now, just so I can get out of here…But Eva, who’d disappeared down to the back of the queue to chase after one of the kids, is straight back up to us.
‘Jessie? I don’t believe it! What are youdoing here?’
‘Emm…well, long story, you know…’
‘And you’re a redhead!’
‘Ehh…’
‘Are you doing this, like, for charity or something?’
The loudest scream is slowly starting to build up inside me, gathering strength like a tidal wave. ‘No you fecking dopehead, I am not standing here, in a revolting brown stripy uniform with a matching, equally vomit-inducing hat, waiting on you for charity.I’m doing it because I need the money. I got fired from my job, remember? Now piss off and let me get back to work.’
I don’t say that aloud of course. Mainly because Larry the Louse is right beside me and if I do, I’ll be flung straight back on the dole for insulting customers faster than you could say P45. Now the thing is, if Eva had looked me in the eye and been straight with me; if she’d said something along the lines of, ‘I’m so sorry, this is awful, this is rubbish, that your once fabulous life has come to this…’ I might just have been able to handle it. Because honesty goes a long way with me. But she didn’t. Instead she went down the Marie Antoinette route of patronising me so much, that only the threat of losing a job I was lucky to get in the first place prevented me from flinging a scalding hot Smiley Tea into her immaculately spray-tanned face. She actually pats my hand and says, ‘Well, it’s sowonderful to see you back working again! This is terrific for you and…hey! Congratulations! Right then…we’d better get going now. Must dash! Lovely seeing you!’
They don’t even wait for their order, just bolt out the door, the whole family and I swear to God, as soon as she’s safely outside, I see her through the glass doors whip out her diamante-encrusted mobile to call, oooh, probably everyone she’s ever met in her entire life to tell them. Including, it goes without saying, He Whose Name Shall Forever Remain Unspoken.
No time to brood though. Or get angry. Or even call Sharon to tell her that I’ve pretty much had a shovel just taken to my insides. Because Larry the Louse, who’s famous for inflicting petty torments if you dare annoy him (he’s not unlike a prison warder that way) takes me off till duty and puts me onto mopping the floors. Fine. In the mood I’m in. Because frankly, I feel like a Viking village right after being pillaged. Five minutes later and I’m furiously bashing the mop off table legs and chairs, white hot with rage and full of smart-alec indigestion of all the things I should have said to Eva and Nathaniel when next thing, someone grabs my arm. A man’s hand. Connected to ridiculously long legs that are in my way.
‘So do you charge extra for wiping my shoes or what?’
‘Sorry sir,’ I mutter, not meaning it. Actually thinking, move your fecking feet, moron, can’t you see I’m trying to clean up?
‘Jessie, it’s me.’
For the first time I look up and…it’s Steve. Hannah’s big brother. Oh shit. Oh bugger. Steve Hayes that I abandoned to Joan that horrible night, when he called to the house with flowers and…OK, gotta get out of here.