Chloe Rayban - Watching You, Watching Me

The guy with the dreadlocks took one look at what I was carrying, raised an eyebrow and made an ‘isn’t it cute’ face. The guy with the square-topped hairdo raised his can of lager like a salute and he just said ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I said. And then they moved on.

Dad stood there staring after them. ‘Do you know those people?’

‘Yes, no … Umm, one of them lives in our street … I think.’

‘Not that squatter that’s moved into number twenty five?’

Dad didn’t need an answer, my face said it all.

‘Nice friends he’s got. Your mother’s right. You don’t want to have anything to do with them.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

Dad continued positively fuming. We joined a checkout queue and I dutifully started to load the conveyor.

‘And what about that?’ asked the girl, indicating the bubble bath I was holding. ‘Do you want it or don’t you?’

‘Want it? How could anyone want anything as repulsive as that?’ demanded Dad.

The check-out lady looked affronted. She obviously wasn’t used to having people criticising her merchandise. Well, if you don’t want it, just leave it on one side.’

‘I don’t want it. I want to take it through and complain about it.’

‘You’ll have to pay for it first then and get a refund.’

Dad looked as if he was about to explode.

‘You are asking me to pay for this … This … excrescence?’

‘If you want to take it through, yes.’

A little queue was building up behind us. A lady one back, wearing designer sunglasses with gilt bits on them, stopped devouring the ‘Mediterranean Recipe’ card she’d pinched from the rack and gave us a withering glance.

‘I say. Why don’t you just jolly well pay and be done with it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ agreed a guy three or so people back. We haven’t got all morning.’ He was wearing a tight T-shirt that read ‘Expansion Tank’ across his stomach and didn’t look like the kind of person you’d want to have an argument with. A baby strapped into a plastic seat set up a mournful howl in agreement.

‘I’d like to speak to the Manager.’ Dad was standing his ground.

The check-out lady put her on her little flashing light with a sigh and we all stood and waited.

‘Look mate, why don’t you just pay for what you’ve got and ‘op-it,’ said the bloke in the expandable T-shirt.

I don’t really want to go into the details. Let’s just say we came very close indeed to causing a riot and ended up at the Complaints Desk with an angry crowd gathered round Dad listening to his standard speech on the evils of packaging and the imminent destruction of rainforests and polar icecaps and the inundation of most of the Netherlands. I stood a few yards away, guarding our trolley, praying for an earthquake to cause a gaping hole to appear in Sainsbury’s floor and swallow me up.

And yes, the boys had reached the check-out. They weren’t going to be allowed to miss out on a scene like this. Oh no. They were finding the whole situation most fun. I could see the flat-top haircut guy practically peeing himself. Dreadlocks was doing a pretty good imitation of Dad by the look of it.

Naturally, they took forever going through — one of their crates of lager wasn’t bar-coded and they had to send an assistant back to check the shelves. I’d moved away, hoping to disassociate myself from Dad’s agonisingly embarrassing performance. But my eyes kept gliding back to check if the boys were still watching him.

That’s when our eyes actually met. You read all those corny things about ‘eyes meeting’. I mean, I’d always thought the whole eye-contact thing was a vast overclaim. But even from this distance, I could see that his were greeny-hazel and kind of — intense. They went right through me. To add the ultimate touch to my humiliation, I felt myself blushing. I had to turn round and study a poster for Spicy Thai Prawn Paella to get over it.

When I felt composed enough to turn back, I found they were making for the exit. They’d practically bought up the whole store’s supply of beers. By the look of it they were going to have some party.

Just so you get the picture of the full extent of my family’s madness, I’ve got to tell you about Dad’s pet project.

Dad’s pet project is up in the loft. He’s taken over the whole loft area and he’s pinned out all the pages of the A-Z road atlas side by side, each page butting to the next so that we’ve got an incredibly detailed plan of London, street by street. He’s working on his own alternative traffic plan. He seems to think that the future of the planet lies in pedal power. So he’s tracing all these little cycle-ways through the city. Most weekends you’ll see us setting out as reluctant researchers on one of his reccies. First Dad on his mountain bike. Then Mum on her old upright. Followed by Jamie and Gemma and lastly me on my cringe-making pink Raleigh. To complete the picture, we all have to wear these really nerdy cycle helmets and pollution masks. Give us ears and we’d look like a group outing of koala bears.

Anyway, the Saturday after Matt had moved in, I happened to be up in the loft with Dad spending an ecological evening. I was helping him by sticking on rows of little green sponge trees and creating parks and open spaces. I’ve got rather fond of Dad’s project over the years. We used to get into long arguments over traffic control. I’m all for a couple of east-west one way systems which take you past all the cool shopping streets, but Dad’s plan is to filter all the traffic south of the river and ban everything from central London apart from public transport, taxis and of course, bikes. On this particular evening we’d designed a ring over-pass right round London that was like a cycle superhighway.

‘What’s that din?’ asked Dad, looking up from the calculations he was feeding into his lap-top.

It was a deep throaty boom-boom-boom that was reverberating through the loft.

‘Umm … sounds like music.’

‘But where’s it coming from?’ He was already making his way down the loft ladder.

I followed, realising only too well what was up. By the time I reached my room he was leaning out of the window staring at number twenty-five.

People were milling round outside trying to get in through the crush round the front door.

‘It’s only a party,’ I said.

‘But listen to the noise!’

‘Oh well, I don’t expect it’ll go on for long.’

‘Hmm,’ said Dad.

It was about 2.00 am when he totally flipped. I hadn’t got much sleep. In fact, I hadn’t got any. I’d wrapped myself in my duvet and sat in the window with the lights off and the curtains closed behind me — watching. I wouldn’t have believed so many people could have crammed themselves into one house. In fact, they couldn’t. There was a constant overflow of people into the garden. They were the kind of people who were a bit of a novelty in Frensham Avenue. It looked like the whole of Camden Market and Portobello Road had decided to migrate south-west. Through number twenty-fives shadowy windows you could see the waving forms of people dancing. I strained into the gloom for a sighting of Matt but it was pretty well impossible to make out anyone in the flickering candlelight.

And then, just as I was giving up and deciding to crawl into bed, I saw her — the girl who had been with him at the cinema. She’d come into the garden and she was sitting on the low wall smoking a cigarette. A few minutes later, he came out. He was standing in front of her saying something. Then he waited for some minutes with his hands on his hips while she obviously said something back. It was impossible to hear any of the discussion against the music. They appeared to be having some sort of argument. He looked as if he was about to make off when she suddenly stood up and slipped her arms around his waist. For a moment he seemed to be pulling away. But then they went into a clinch. You couldn’t really see but I could tell by the way his back was hunched they were snogging. I came away from the window and slumped miserably down on the bed.