Supermarket Secrets

"The thing is...," Ruby paused, her nerves tripping her up.

"The thing is Mr Carter. Your Area Manager's boss treats her like shit, so she treats you like shit. You feel that your work isn't valued and so you treat all of us like shit...you need to break the cycle."

Ruby's colleagues sat in the grimy staff kitchen staring at her open-mouthed. This was the most they had ever heard her say, and even more astounding, she was saying it to their boss, Mr Carter.

"Thanks for that Karl Marx," said Mr Jones, the Assistant Manager.

He shot the boss a conspiratorial look. He hated Ruby for the fact that she had been to University, always referring to her as 'the student', with a sneer on his face.

Mr Carter rolled his eyes and brought the staff meeting to a close.

"Bloody hell... Right you lot - get to work," he growled.

Ruby's work mates filed out of the room in a reluctant straggle - no one was enthusiastic about starting the day's work - and she was left alone in the kitchen with Mr Carter.

"You can clean the fucking toilets for that one, smart arse," he said, gesturing to the mop, propped up in a bucket in the corner.  He paused for a moment, weighing her up with his mad dog eyes, and then strode purposefully out of the room.

Ruby didn't mind.  At least it was time away from the till and its incessant beeping. Not to mention the human flotsam that was constantly washed up in this bargain basement establishment, attracted by its cheap and unwholesome wares. Not a fresh vegetable in sight: just endless rows of two litre bottles of cola, crisps and sugary breakfast cereals.

When Ruby finished swabbing the toilet floor, she turned the grey stringy mop upside down in its bucket. The ammonia stink caught in the back of her nostrils. She was only using bleach because Mr Carter hated the smell. He might rant about it later, but she didn’t care. She used to be scared of him, but not now. Not after what she’d witnessed at closing time the other night. It had given her the upper hand.

Mr Carter was an aggressive terrier of a man: short, quick and muscular. Ruby found him strangely attractive, but his looks were marred by his red raw shaving rash and the constant film of sweat on his brow. Ruby tried to imagine having sex with him. It would be quick and brutal – rutting – she thought.

She had glimpsed that side of him on Wednesday, when she’d gone to say goodnight…

Ruby tried to shake off the mental image, but it kept surfacing. The teenage girl, her face contorted with rage, threatening him with retribution: her brother from Moss Side with his gun. While Mr Jones behind her, tried to hold her still – his beefy arms under her arm pits, her legs kicking out wildly at Mr Carter.

Ruby walked to her cash register, past the rows of washing powder and through the clear plastic curtains of the walk-in fridge. She eyed the wall of lard with fascination, brick upon brick of solid animal fat. She imagined the huge expanse melting, deliquescing into an oily white sea, and sweeping away the customers in its oleaginous wake.

She adjusted her chair and settled herself behind the till. Keying in her passcode, she looked up at her first customer. It was the creepy middle-aged man who kept asking her to marry him. She had changed her route to work, since he told her that he watched her walk up Dickenson Road every morning. Now she was forced to take a longer way, up the back streets, past rows of red brick terraces, with their identical net curtained windows.

Fortunately, it was busy this morning, and her stalker couldn’t hold up the queue for long. Next, she served an Indian woman, who paid for her bottle of coke with greasy coins which she retrieved from a carefully folded, empty crisp packet. Ruby stared at the makeshift purse in disbelief, attempting to keep her eyes soft and friendly, as she said thank you. There was already enough hatred in this dismal place and after four months of working there, Ruby could feel it seeping into her heart. She tried to fight the ossifying effects of the supermarket, with its cardboard corridors of piled up boxes, but she felt it draining away her compassion with its constant drabness and pointless mind-numbing routine.

The Asian lady left, to be replaced by a smiling face - which was in itself a novelty. Ruby smiled back. He was a University student and she had served him before. She liked his gentle manner. He took his change and said goodbye, pointedly leaving his shopping list on the side of her till. Ruby thought it quaint that he should even have a shopping list: it was usually the old ladies who clutched their precious lists in papery skinned fingers, while they rummaged in their purses for exactly the right money.

The list was written on a strip of lined paper, neatly torn from an A4 pad. She imagined the student writing lecture notes on the remaining pages. It was written in a distinctive curly script: baked beans, eggs, bread… and a phone number. Ruby’s heart pulsed excitedly for a moment, but then she brushed the feeling away in panic.  She screwed up the shopping list and tossed it into the bin under her work station, along with the empty till rolls.

The next day was her day off, but when she returned on Monday, she found Mr Carter waiting for her with a smirk on his face. He called her into the Manager’s Office. It was a small cubicle with mirrored windows and Ruby often helped cash up in there at the end of the day.

It seemed that Mr Carter could barely contain himself. “To the cashier with the brown bob and glasses” he recited and reluctantly handed Ruby the envelope. Ruby recognised the description as herself and she also recognised the handwriting. The edge was torn – that nosy bastard, Mr Carter, had already opened it. She choked back her anger and pushed the letter deep into the pocket of her work overalls. She turned to go, but Mr Carter stopped her.

“Wait, Ruby.”

His face had changed, he was wary again, measuring her up. Ruby knew why and so deliberately relaxed her face, making her voice even.

“Yes, Mr Carter?”

“You never said goodbye on Wednesday. You usually make a habit of it.”

It was true - Ruby saw politeness as a last vestige of her humanity in this brutalising shit hole and clung to it stubbornly.

“I don’t remember,” she replied dismissively, not wanting to give anything away, “I’d better get on my till – Theresa’s out there on her own.”

Later, at the end of her shift, Ruby made her way to the kitchen to collect her bag. She was tired and her head ached from the strobing blue light of the scanner. She felt the crinkle of paper in her pocket. The letter had been completely forgotten in the overwhelming dreariness of the day. She would read it later. She could guess its contents and wasn’t sure they would make much difference.  What would she do with a boyfriend anyway?  Relationships were just another thing in life for her to fuck up.

Ruby passed Mr Jones on her way out.  He didn't even acknowledge her, just carried on shredding cardboard boxes with a Stanley knife.  She thought back to the young black girl he'd caught shoplifting – her ripped t-shirt and her bared teeth. Mr Carter and Mr Jones, their brutish red faces twisted with excitement, as they held her against the wall.

“Men - they’re all animals,” she thought to herself, as she slipped out the back way, past the skips full of rubbish, into the relentless drizzle of another grey and miserable Longsight evening.