What Goes Around...

And I do.

There are regular customers that ask for me - or rather, they ring customer service and ask if the lady they had this week can do them from now on, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.

I like the peek into other people's lives too.

I play a little game with myself with each list, I try to work the person out and then I check to see if I’m right at the end.

I never really got into the VAT on sanitary products debate, but I’m starting to now – this one I can’t work out, it must be for a school nurse, or someone who had female sextuplets 13 years ago and they all menstruate at the same time, but don’t like the same things.

There are tampons and pads with wings, thick ones, thin ones and pads without wings and night time pads (four packets). I wonder if I should add some iron vitamins as the free bonus. There’s half a trolley of chocolate, hot chocolate and chocolate biscuits – I choose her bonus present, because she’s spent (well) over a hundred pounds, as carefully as I would if I was choosing for myself.

School nurse, I’ve decided and I check to see if I’m right. But my shoulders sag when I see it’s Geraldine Field’s order (Brown Owl) and I realise she must be taking them camping.

Why didn’t I think of that?

But aren’t Brownies a bit young to be menstruating? Though I suppose Brown Owl, of all people, has to Be Prepared.

Maybe she’s taking the Guides camping?

Charlotte hasn’t got hers yet.

Maybe that’s it!

Maybe Charlotte’s hormonal.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong, I console myself and I get onto the next order.

Because something is wrong.

She’s not talking to me and last night she wet the bed and I just don’t know how best to deal with it.

I told her it wasn’t a problem, I told her it would sort and she told me she didn’t need any advice on bedwetting from a woman who shits herself.

Yes, she said that.

It was then that she told me to fuck off.

I’m at work now and I have to work, I can’t just fold up like I want to.

I just have to carry on.

This guy’s single – you can tell by what’s in the trolley.

Bread

Bacon

Coffee

Orange juice

Milk

Cornflakes

Frozen dinners x7

And so on, you can just tell.

Macadamia nuts

I know who this is.

I scroll through the list and there is the wine that he drinks and the deodorant he uses. I know, because I know his smell and I stand in the toiletry aisle and I squirt some into the air and I smell him again. I know that it’s Luke I’m shopping for; I don’t need to check his name.

But I do.

Jess was right.

He is out shagging for England.

Condoms X2. What the hell does he need two packets for? It’s a weekly shop!

I want to leave them off the list.

I want to ration them at least, so he only gets one packet.

I am not getting lube for him.

I AM NOT.

I look and he’s ticked the box, so I choose a suitable alternative.

Deep Heat!

If they pull me up about it, I’ll just act all innocent, I’ll tell them I thought lube was for massaging injuries.

It’s not just his favourite tipple either that he’s ordered. I put in his selection and I am savage as I add four bottles of chardonnay to his sex laden trolley– because I know he hates it.

Then it’s off to the home-wear section. I get to choose sheets for him, because he’s too lazy to wash them and probably wants nice clean sheets for his chardonnay drinking tart. I’ve just finished putting his order through when I hear my name.

‘Lucy…’ Yolanda comes over, we’ve become friends and try to get the same lunch breaks and we’re going to the pictures at the weekend. ‘You’ve got a phone call, love.’

I frown, because who’d be ringing me at work?

When I pick up the phone my frown deepens because it’s the school.

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

‘Luke?’ I close my eyes when I get home and the phone is ringing. I hear his voice, I’m tired, I’m upset, it’s been a shit of a morning. I’ve just sat in the headmaster’s office listening to the names Charlotte’s called Felicity and I don’t know how I’m going to face Simone. I don’t want to deal with Luke today; I don’t want to, because I might break down, I might just beg him to come over.

I might.

I can’t.

We haven’t spoken in weeks.

Make that months.

Not since I slammed down the phone that time.

‘What do you want?

‘To speak to you.’ He sounds brusque, annoyed. ‘Are you aware that Charlotte’s having trouble at school?’

‘I know.’ Bloody Facebook – Luke must have seen it. ‘I've just come back from the headmaster, apparently Charlotte’s been cyber bullying.’

‘Bullshit,’ Luke says.

‘No, I've seen some of the conversations, one of the mum’s printed it off…’

‘What about the way those girls have been to her?’ He demands. ‘What did they have to say about that?’

‘What girls?’ I say. ‘It’s Charlotte that’s doing the bullying.’

‘Hasn't she told you?’ I can hear his angry breath and it’s starting to dawn on me that he’s not ringing me to find out if she’s in trouble, he’s ringing to tell me that she is. ‘Do you not see what goes on on there Lucy?’

‘She won’t let me.’

‘Then don't let her on it.’

He doesn't get it, he doesn't have kids and it shows, but I know that he’s right too - I used to be so much more careful with it, I used to hover over her shoulder. She used to tell me what was happening, who she was talking to, what was going on.

‘What’s going on?’ I’m embarrassed that I have to ask Luke what's going on with my own daughter.

‘It’s Charlotte that’s being bullied.’

‘How would you know?’ I bristle.

‘Because I'm her friend on Facebook,’ Luke says. ‘I try not to interfere and to stay back because I know that if I say anything she's just going to unfriend me. I'd rather know and not like it, than not know at all. I know you’ve taken Jess’s side and I get that – I understand that you two are friends. Charlotte is my goddaughter though, and I'm not going to step back when I can see she's hurting.’

‘I’m trying to get on her page,’ I tell Luke – I’ve been sitting on the computer since I got home. ‘I've tried every password I could think she might use.’

‘There’s nothing up there,’ Luke says. ‘They take it down straight away, or Charlotte deletes it.’

‘So what things do they say?’

There’s the longest pause. ‘I’m on my way.’

It takes forty minutes for him to get here. I know then how much I've changed, because the old me would have rushed up to the bathroom to sort out my hair and make up, would've done a quick tidy of my already immaculate house. Instead I spend another frantic forty minutes trying to log onto Charlotte’s Facebook and going through her room, it's only when Luke arrives that I become conscious of how I look.

I know I look a mess, and I'm conscious too of the state of the house, all the breakfast things are still over the benches and there are coffee cups and magazines everywhere. Things aren’t sliding again I want to tell him, that was because I had another row with Charlotte, that’s why the house looks like a before shot.

Except it's after.

He's not looking so hot either – he hasn't shaved this morning and his shirt’s a bit crumpled. I guess living alone, or living the bachelor life is taking its toll, or perhaps just some getting used to.

‘Make a drink,’ Luke says and I remember that I haven't had one since breakfast. ‘Then we'll talk.’

He's actually very calming, in that he doesn't dash to the computer, or blurt out what's happening. I make a drink but when I walk in the living room I can see his face is serious, really serious.

I know this isn’t good.

‘There's a girl, Felicity,’ Luke starts. ‘She posted a couple of things on Charlotte’s wall - I can't even remember what they were, but they weren’t nice - they weren’t outright horrible but a few people liked them.’ He looks at me. ‘You do know what like is?’

‘Sort of,’ I lie.

So I'm given a brief lesson on social networking - it would seem that Felicity said something a little bit mean and a few of Charlotte's friends ticked that they liked it, or gave smiley face comments - and then it got nastier. ‘Charlotte’s ponyless.’ He sees me frown and he nods. ‘Felicity did a little sad face after, so I guess, you could say, she wasn't being nasty, but she was, Lucy – because a couple of weeks ago she wrote… ponyless, fatherless, pointless.’

The posts have been taken down he tells me, they only stay up for an hour so, normally after-school. I think of her in the house alone, dealing with whatever it is they’re saying.

‘Why hasn't she told me?’

‘She probably doesn't want to upset you, or maybe she’s embarrassed to tell you.’

‘Why would she be embarrassed?’

‘Because,’ Luke tells me, as only Luke can - utterly void of emotion, he tells me what’s been going on. ‘A lot of the posts are about you.’

I flinch with every line he delivers.