Lee Kerr - Welcome to the Apocalypse

Saturday 13 thAugust – London

‘Why are we here again?’ she asks, as they walk towards Big Blue.

‘I don’t wanna go and Jade don’t wanna go, neither. There’s nowt we need,’ Cortnee says, her arms flapping by her side.

‘And nowt we can afford, anyways,’ Jade says.

Mum quickly clips Cortnee around the ear, although it’s less of a slap and more of a tickle, on account of the child being considerably taller, and by Mum’s own admission, her big, fat chicken wings are not able to lift up much these days.

‘Your Ashley needs a new mattress. He’s pissed enough in the last one.’

His two sisters point at him, making it clear where their laughter is directed. Ashley says nothing. He walks forward, his head bowed down and his shoulders hunched forward as he tries to block out his horrible siblings’ howls, which echo around the empty car park.

‘Meatballs,’ Dad says.

Mum looks at him, her fists clenched, her head shaking. She knew it was coming and yet she can still feel the anger stirring deep within her. She takes a deep breath, which must never be mistaken as a sign of forgiveness, or even any level of understanding, but rather a chance to ever-so-slightly calm her frayed nerves. ‘Yeah, we’ll get you some bloody meatballs.’

‘We have to get ’em here because yours are so shit!’ Ashley shouts and starts running, ever so slowly, knowing she will give chase but entirely confident she won’t ever catch him.

And sure enough, Mum breaks into a small run and pursues him for a second a two, just until her back starts to hurt or her knees start to ache, or her boobs begin chafing against that cheap, ill-fitting bra. The reason barely matters in the shadow of her obvious lack of willingness to continue. She puts her hands on her knees, her back bent over, not sure where the pain is coming from, as she looks around at the two girls who are still laughing. She looks at Dad who, in her opinion, ain’t doing nothing worth doing. ‘Mine not good enough for you, eh?’ she asks.

He doesn’t say anything, just shrugs his shoulders and walks through the entrance. The girls run in and Mum takes up the rear, counting up how much is in her purse, knowing they will just about be able to afford the meatballs, but it will be just one refillable juice to share between the kids and one coffee for the adults. Anything else they want will have to be swiped, and the only thing that will go through the tills will be Ashley’s new mattress.

If Ashley pisses on this one too she has said he will go back to nappies, because it’s getting stupid now, she thinks. After all, whoever has heard of a fifteen year old lad having to wear nappies? But then again, who ain’t thinking it’s gross that he’s still pissing in his bed when he’s so close to being a proper man.

Hypnotherapy could cure it, the consultant had said. Hypnowhat? My ass, she had thought. We can’t be affording that, and besides ain’t nothing a wipe down mattress protector can’t fix, at a fraction of the price of some posh doctor, she reckoned.

And so, as Mum closes her purse and pushes her husband onto the escalator, telling him it ain’t nothing to be worrying him, it is only Ashley who stops to think. He stands at the entrance and looks around the car park, all the time thinking that he has never seen this place so empty. Sure, it’s early in the morning but there should still be people in the outdoor car park. He knows the multi-storey don’t be filling up unless the rain comes or there is a queue for the surface one. But there are always the keen people who want to do all them home improvements at the weekend. Ashley thinks that one fine day he might come here as one of them, and not as part of this family outing. They always come here early, before there is too many staff on shift, meaning that their swearing and swiping is likely to be spotted.

As he moves up the escalator he can’t help but think that this place is not like it normally is, and there aren’t many other customers or staff members inside, either. He runs to catch up with his family, his mum is still shouting at his sisters.

‘Mum,’ he says, hoping she’ll listen to him, just this once. ‘The telly was saying we should stay indoors today. Don’t you think we should maybe listen to what they is saying?’

She stops and looks up at him, and for a second he thinks he might have actually got her attention. She holds his gaze as he watches her eyes for any hint of understanding. She stares back at him, as if she is actually thinking about this as a genuine problem. But she says nothing and eventually pushes out her backside, releasing a loud, prolonged fart – one of those very satisfying sorts that gets both ass cheeks flapping together. ‘That’s what I think of that bollocks virus shit they’re talking about.’

The girls start laughing, and then, once they get wind of the deathly rat smell, start running. Ashley looks at his dad but he don’t have nothing to say other than the usual: ‘meatballs.’

Mum smacks dad hard around the face but he doesn’t move, so she smacks him again. ‘You’ll get your fucking meatballs when we’ve got this little pisser’s mattress sorted and not a minute before.’

His dad still doesn’t move, not even to tense his arms. Ashley still remembers the days when his dad would come home and hear about whatever shit him or his sisters had caused their overworked mother that day. He would calmly listen to her for barely a minute, nodding all the time, before he would throw whatever child was most guilty over his knee. Ashley was often the easy target, being the only boy, so whenever he took his punishment he would watch his old man’s muscles flex and his tattoos grow, like they were swelling with such purpose, wanting his kids to be better than he had ever been. Ashley wanted muscles like that, but he always wanted to do something better with them.

‘Can’t we go straight to the good stuff?’ Cortnee says.

‘Yeah, the stuff that’s ripe for the picking,’ Jade says, licking her lips. ‘Look, there’s like hardly any staff on duty.’

Mum makes a swing for one of them, either of them, but misses both. ‘Yeah and there’s no fucking customers about neither, so we bloody wait until this place fills up. You know I can’t afford to get caught again.’ She pushes forward, forcing the family to follow. They didn’t dare to be separated in public. ‘I wanna look around, anyway. If we get that pay out from your dad’s accident then we’re gonna do the whole house up.’

‘And what about them council vouchers?’ Jade says.

‘You can piss right off if you think we is using them in ’ere. If we ever get them I’m getting the bathroom done but it ain’t gonna be this posh.’

‘Why are we looking around in this bit then?’ Ashley asks, rubbing his eyes, trying to wake himself up, knowing the answer but not wanting to hear it come from his mother. ‘This stuff won’t be here next year, anyway.’

‘Bollocks,’ Mum says. ‘It’s all the same shit, so we’re looking around the whole place and I don’t wanna hear any more moans. I’ve been standing up all week in the chippie, so today I’m gonna chill and you bastard kids are gonna behave! Are you getting me?’

And so each of them nod in turn, as the family start their journey, snaking their away around living rooms and then towards bedrooms. The girls sit on every sofa and lie on every bed, making sure that they rip anything they really like, always hopeful they’ll see it in the reduced section next week. As they do so, their mum reminds them that if they get caught they should say the security guard touched them. As Ashley blocks out this usual chatter he looks around, seeing that he can count the number of staff in here on one hand, all of them wearing worried expressions, and this time he doesn’t think it’s his family visit that’s got them all flustered.