Chloe Rayban - Watching You, Watching Me

‘It’s raining,’ I pointed out. ‘It’ll only get soggy. Wait till we’re inside.’

The queue was moving really slowly and there were at least forty people ahead of us. My hair had started sticking to my head in a most unflattering fashion. That’s when Gemma nudged me hard.

‘Look,’ she said.

It was him. He was walking down the road with this incredible girl. She had really high-heeled boots on and a minimal skirt topped by a black leather jacket. And she was walking with him as if she owned him.

They joined the queue opposite ours — the one for White Knuckle, a really tough suspense movie just released. The one I’d been planning to see with Rosie until tonight’s alternative entertainment cropped up.

Gemma looked at me balefully. I ignored her. The last thing I needed was her sympathy. ‘She could be his sister,’ she whispered.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the girl had started practically rubbing her body against his. Some sister. Get any closer and she’d be inside his jacket. She kept pulling at his sleeve to get eye contact.

‘Huh,’ I said. All I was interested in at that point was getting into the cinema without being noticed.

But as luck would have it, their queue and our queue coincided at the MGM doors at precisely the same moment.

‘Hi …’ I heard him say.

‘Hello …’ said Gemma.

I vaguely murmured a cross between the two that came out like a painful hybrid ‘Hi-lo”. Hoping that if I didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t look at me, I gazed at the pavement which was dotted with blobs of discarded chewing-gum — riveting.

‘Are you going to see Babe?’ I heard Jamie ask. (Thanks Jamie.)

‘No, as a matter of fact, but I’ve heard it’s good …’ he was saying.

There’s a pig in it that can talk and everything.’

‘Really? How do they do that?’

‘Come on Matt. We’re losing our place,’ the girl’s voice whined.

‘Dunno,’ said Jamie. ‘I suppose they must’ve taught it to.’ He was doing everything in his power to prolong this agonising encounter.

‘Must’ve been some bright pig,’ said ‘Matt’. I knew his name now — Matt. He was being really nice to Jamie for some reason.

There was more hassle coming from the girl, who was through the doors by now.

‘OK, I’m coming …’ I heard him say, and then they went ahead of us and bought their tickets and disappeared arm-in-arm into Screen 2.

Gemma gazed after him. ‘He is gorgeous,’ she sighed.

‘But he’s got a girlfriend,’ I pointed out. ‘So forget it.’

Gemma then proceeded to give me the benefit of worldly-wise advice gleaned from her obsessive romance reading — like how ‘true love’ always had to overcome all sorts of totally impossible obstacles which made it all so much more worthwhile in the end.

‘Thanks a lot Gem, that’s a big comfort.’

I didn’t have the heart to point out that, in real life, guys like him went out with girls like the one he was with — and girls like me went to see Babe with their kid brother and sister.

Saturday morning. Mum likes to use Saturdays to catch up on chores. So it had become a sort of ritual that Dad and I should make the routine shopping expedition to the supermarket. I had an ulterior motive, of course, like making sure decent shampoo and conditioner found its way into the trolley, not just family stuff — and slipping in things like Fruit Comers and Coco Pops when he wasn’t looking. If Dad had his own way he’d come out with an entire trolley of unwashed, unwrapped, organically-grown fruit and veg. He has this real thing about packaging, keeps ranting on about what a waste of the worlds resources it is. In Dad’s ideal world, we’d all have to juggle our groceries home with our pockets filled with detergent. So for Dad, Saturday mornings at Sainsbury’s isn’t just shopping — its a crusade.

We’d stocked up on fruit and veg and Dad had given a lady who was helping herself to a stash of special mushroom bags a lecture on criminal waste — when I spotted Matt.

He was with that alkie guy — the one who looked as if he’d been guzzling vodka on number twenty-fives front wall. The alkie guy actually had an open can of lager in his hand, and between bouts of slopping it everywhere, he was drinking out of it. Their trolley was packed sky-high with booze. A third guy, who was huge and ferocious-looking with matted dreadlocks, was tagging along behind. I knew Dad would throw a wobbly if he saw them. I steered our trolley into safer territory between the cereal aisles and started up a distracting argument about the virtues of Kelloggs versus Own Brand Cereals. I knew this would get him going.

‘They’re all made by the same people, Natasha.’

‘No they’re not. Says so on the packet.’

‘It’s basically the same stuff inside, though.’

‘It can’t be.’

Dad was well into a tirade against branded goods when we moved on to Jams and Preserves. Since it was Saturday morning the place was pretty crowded. At this rate I just might get Dad out of the supermarket without him spotting the guys.

All went well as we went full steam ahead through tinned foods and stocked up on pasta. Nearing the end of the maze of aisles, we reached pet foods. I was reminding Dad of the varieties of cat food that Yin and Yang would or would not currently eat.

‘What do you mean, they’ll eat Chicken & Rabbit but not Chicken & Turkey? Those can’t taste much different.’

‘Maybe they read the labels.’

‘Well, they’re getting Own Brand. I’ve never heard of brand-conscious cats.’

‘That is so unfair; Dad. They don’t do Own Brand Salmon & Shrimp — and that’s their favourite.’

‘One tin, Natasha — for a treat. And that’s their lot.’

So all we had left to do now was detergents. We rounded the top of the Shampoo and Soaps aisle and as luck would have it, there they were. The alkie guy with the flat-top haircut was throwing his weight around, having some sort of argument with one of the shelf-stackers. He had him by the lapels.

Dad stopped in his tracks.

‘Just look at that,’ he said. ‘Disgusting.’

‘Mmmm,’ I said.

But Dad hadn’t homed in on the aggressive little scene in Wines and Spirits. His interest was closer to home. He’d picked up a box containing a hideous plastic crinoline lady full of strawberry-scented bubble bath.

‘It’s criminal! An outer pack — an inner pack — about ten grams of high grade coloured plastic — and all to package a teaspoonful of artificial strawberry-scented detergent. Do you know what stuff like this is doing to the ozone layer?’

‘Making a hole in it, Dad,’ I replied dutifully.

‘Too right it is,’ he said, passing the pack to me. He took charge of the trolley and steamed off towards the check-out. ‘Come on, we’re going to take a stand on this one.’ I was left to trail behind carrying the gross crinoline lady.

I’d had scenes like this before. Incredibly mortifying scenes with everyone staring at us as if we’d gone totally insane. Scenes with poor harrassed staff trying to keep their cool and churn out all that ‘the customer’s always right’ stuff they learn in supermarket school, while Dad ranted on making a total prat of himself.

Dad had rounded the bend at the end of Shampoos and Conditioners when we were caught in a knot of people. A traffic jam of trolleys and mums and kids had built up. That’s when we came face to face with them.