I Can't Help You, Dear

Dan locks up the car, and promptly walks off without me, towards the entrance of the supermarket. He’s pissed off, because I said we’d go to a dinner party at my boss’s house tonight, and he hates dinner parties. I wouldn’t have asked him at all, only I needed the moral support. Which I’m realising I won’t get when he’s in this mood. We spent so long arguing about it that it’s already dark as we go to pick up the wine. A fine spattering of rain is falling and it speckles the cars in front of ours as I hurry after him.

I wish we could have gone to the nice family-run corner shop down the road, but we didn’t make it in time. The massive expanse of red brick and lurid glowing signage of the supermarket looms in front of us. It’s so dark now, you can’t immediately see where the brick ends and the sky begins. The name gleams on the side in bright green lights. It flashes behind my eyes, like a price on a till readout, when I blink.

Dan’s a good few strides in front of me still, so I gather my skirt in my hand and try and quicken my pace. We get suckered into this place because it’s always open, like a giant neon mouth, big enough so that it’s always on the way to everything. It sprung up out of nowhere about six months ago, as if it had suddenly landed from space - this giant, squat monster which promptly wiped out half the local shops. I signed a petition against it, in halfhearted protest a few months ago, but it came bulldozing in regardless. And we used it anyway. Of course.

Getting closer, I have to squint against the glare beyond the automatic doors. CCTV cameras sit on the roof, swivelling their heads slowly, like fat mechanical birds. Several billboards with demonically happy looking shoppers holding canned goods greet us as we walk in and a small, nasty-looking dog is tied to a bollard just outside. It barks at us suddenly, making me jump.

‘Come on then,’ says Dan, turning back to me. His face is still all bunched-up with annoyance from the argument. He shakes the rain off the sleeves of his jacket. ‘You wanted to go to this thing.’

‘All right, all right.’ I follow him through the aisles, walking as fast as i can, though I’m wearing my best heels and they’re already pinching my ankles. The store’s almost at the end of the evening rush, but shoppers are still milling around, looking aimless and bored, like zombies. I have to dodge a few trolleys and a young boy whining for ice cream before I catch up with Dan. He’s stopped at the end of an aisle, glaring at me.

I stop next to him, trying to get my breath back. ‘Look, I’m sorry I asked you to come tonight.’

He shrugs, looks away. ‘It’s fine. Let’s just get it over with.’ He stalks off again.

I follow him, past the vegetable aisle, past the milk and cheese aisle, and that’s when I hear this noise. It sounds like someone laughing at first, laughing so hard their breath is coming out in little gasps and chokes. Then I realise with a jolt that it’s not laughter, but someone sobbing. I stop walking and Dan charges off ahead of me.

‘Hello?’ I peer around the shelves to where the pharmacy is and that’s when I see the woman.

She’s slumped by herself on one of the green plastic chairs that sit in front of the pharmacy section, hunched up as if in pain, almost at an angle. In front of her are some large packing boxes full of stock that someone’s dumped, almost as if they were trying to hide her from view. A folded up umbrella is lying at an awkward angle at her feet, as though she’d dropped it suddenly, and then forgotten about it. She’s wearing an anorak which has bunched up at odd angles around her wide body, and she’s sobbing like God himself has pulled the plug on her world, like someone’s told her she’ll never know happiness again.

Her face is screwed up as if in concentration and tears are pouring down her face, like she’s melting away with the sheer force of them. This is the ugly sort of crying that only happens after a death or a devastating discovery. What I find the most unbelievable is that not only is she sat alone, but that everyone around her is utterly ignoring her, going about their business like there isn’t someone bawling their eyes out right in front of them. I stare at her while she sobs and gasps and splutters, almost choking. A shop assistant walks past with a big metal trolley, whistling cheerfully.

I step closer, trying to inch my way around the boxes, towards her. I swallow. ‘Are you all right?’ I say, timidly. She doesn’t acknowledge me, just keeps sobbing, face screwed up as if she’s trying to physically stop herself but can’t. I can feel my stomach knotting up in worry, in fear. Around me, shoppers are chatting, laughing, the staff are calling to each other. An announcement comes over the supermarket tannoy: special offers on baked goods, cakes...

I turn around and Dan is nowhere to be seen. The woman doesn’t look up as I walk away, checking the aisles to try and find him. When I do, he’s standing next to the DVDs, reading the back of a box, looking bored. I grab him by the arm. ‘Why is everyone just ignoring her?’ I hiss.

‘Who?’ he says.

I stare at him. ‘That woman. The one bawling her eyes out?’

He shrugs me off, irritated. ‘How the hell should I know? I don’t work here.’

‘Why hasn’t anyone asked her if she wants to sit somewhere else?’ I’m angry now. ‘She’s obviously in a state.’

Dan looks even more bored and irritated in equal measure. ‘Look, if you’re dead set on wasting yet more time, why don’t you go back and help her?’

‘All right, fine.’ I march back around the corner of the aisle and look towards the pharmacy, but the woman has disappeared. The green chair she was sat on is empty and her umbrella is gone from under the seat. I stare at the empty seat stupidly, as if she might suddenly reappear. There’s no trace of her at all; it’s eerily quiet without her cries. I turn and head back to Dan.

‘She’s not there anymore.’

Dan shrugs. ‘That’s that, then. She probably went home.’

‘I’m just finding it a bit strange that one minute she was there and the next she-‘

I stop in shock as an awful, animal-sounding wail echoes through the store. It’s surreal, shocking: like someone’s screaming at a horror beyond belief. I feel my stomach seize up in panic and stare all around me, turning a 360 degree circle. Everyone around me is still shopping as normal, as if nothing’s happened. I start sweating: what the hell is going on?

‘Sam?’ Dan is staring at me. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Didn’t you hear that?’

He stares at me. ‘Hear what?’

Before I can answer, another scream echoes through the shop, just as loud as the first. No one around me stops, no one looks worried. Everyone’s chatting and laughing and shopping as normal and Dan is still staring at me.

‘There’s someone screaming somewhere. That woman – she’s gone, and now...’

‘For God’s sake.’ Dan turns on his heel and walks off down the aisle towards the wine section, forcing me to run after him again.

‘Are you kidding me?’ I gasp. ‘You can’t hear that?’

Dan stops suddenly so that I almost crash into him. ‘No, Sam. No, I can’t hear anyone screaming. Can we please just get the wine and get out of here?’

I ignore him and dart back to the pharmacy chairs. There’s no one there. The woman is nowhere to be seen. There are a few members of staff shifting the boxes, and a sickly-looking man looking through the cold and flu cures. Another scream shudders through the entire store and nobody looks up. I screw my eyes shut and put my hands over my ears.

‘What are you doing now?’ Dan has caught up with me, looking livid. I turn to him slowly.

‘You’re being serious? You can’t hear anything?’

He stares at me and then sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Sam, I’ve got no sodding idea what you’re talking about. You drag me out of the house to go to this thing, and then-‘

‘Shh.’ I hear another high-pitched scream from somewhere behind the walls. It’s tortured, anguished, like someone’s in a huge amount of pain. The staff are still steadfastly ignoring the noise, pushing carts full of food, stacking shelves, chattering to each other. I ignore Dan and push on to the next aisle.

A woman with frizzy hair and pale, slightly jaundiced-looking skin is checking a list off on a clipboard. She’s wearing the supermarket’s uniform, so I go over to her. ‘What is that?’

She turns to me slowly, weirdly slowly, as if there’s something wrong with her body, as if she’s not used to using it. ‘What’s what, dear?’

There’s something a bit off about her expression, I can’t quite put my finger on it. Her eyes look dead, soulless. Dan has caught up with me and takes my arm, as if I’m on day release and he’s my minder. ‘Sam...’

‘That wailing noise. There was a woman, she...’

The woman tilts her head slowly to one side, a little further than necessary. Behind her, a couple who are halfway through picking some cans of beans from the shelf also turn to look at me. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear,’ says the woman.

A particularly loud wail comes from somewhere over by the bakery. It’s so loud it sounds like it’s vibrating throughout the entire store. Nobody moves. Then I look at Dan.

‘For god’s sake, you must’ve heard that!’ I say, practically sobbing myself.

‘It’s probably just someone’s kid, yelling about something.’ He shrugs, then looks apologetically at the woman, as if to say, ‘Sorry about my crazy girlfriend’ which only makes me angrier.

Another woman in the supermarket uniform suddenly appears at her side of the first woman. ‘Maureen,’ she says, ‘can you come and help me?’ I know she’s talking to the first woman, but she’s staring straight at me the whole time, it gives me the creeps.

Maureen turns and nods at her, then turns back to me. ‘Sorry, dear. I can’t help you.’ She walks away with her colleague, slowly, awkwardly, practically gliding down the polished aisle. The couple next to her are still staring at me, tins in hand.

‘What?’ I roar at them and they look at each other, startled. Dan pulls me by the arm, practically frogmarching me to the next aisle. He pulls me to face him, so we’re practically nose to nose.

‘Will you stop acting so mental?’ he hisses at me.

‘You saw that woman!’ I hiss back. ‘You saw how upset she was and now there’s all this screaming-‘

Dan’s already turned away. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s people who draw attention to themselves in public. We’re in the wine aisle now, surrounded by shiny black and green bottles. Dan pulls one off the shelf (the cheapest) and reads the back of it. Another scream vibrates through the store. The other shoppers don’t even look up. I feel like stuffing my fingers in my ears, screaming back myself.

‘I’m done here,’ declares Dan. He takes the bottle and walks off without waiting for a response. I stand, shellshocked, for a moment before I realise he’s heading for the checkout, and I’d better follow him or he might actually drive off without me. I walk after him, reluctantly, stopping to pick up another bottle (more expensive) on the way.

When I reach the checkout, Dan’s putting the wine on the conveyor belt, and he doesn’t look up as I approach. I put my bottle of wine down meekly and stand next to him. There’s one woman in front of us and Dan waits as though there’s no one else around, deliberately looking the other way.

‘Dan? Look, I’m just a bit freaked out-’

He doesn’t answer.

‘Dan?’

‘Yeah OK, Sam,’ he sighs finally. ‘You’re just nervous about the dinner or something, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I say faintly. ‘Yeah, of course.’

From back along the aisles, there’s another wail. I can hear it faintly over the beep of the checkout and the murmurs of the customers. The woman paying for her shopping doesn’t look up and neither does the checkout girl. Dan starts whistling through his teeth. I shiver.

The woman in front pushes her trolley slowly away from the checkout and the girl turns to us. ‘Hello.’

‘Hi,’ I say, nervously. She’s youngish, maybe early twenties. Her dark hair is pinned back with purple clips and she’s wearing a thin stroke of black eyeliner. Her nametag says ‘Grace’ and it’s pinned at an odd angle on her shirt.

‘Do you need a hand packing?’ she says, tiredly.

‘No, thanks,’ I wonder how long she’s worked here, while Dan stuffs the carrier bags. ‘Look, can I ask you something?’

She looks at me warily. ‘I guess...’

Dan looks at me. ‘Sam...’

‘This is going to sound mad, but there’s this screaming and wailing noise coming from the aisles,’ I say in a rush. ‘I saw this woman earlier and she-‘

‘Oh, that.’ Grace returns her eyes to the till. ‘Yeah, that happens.’

I stop, stare at her. ‘That happens?’

‘Yeah,’ she shrugs. ‘Two or three times a week. Someone cracks up, starts wailing. They get dealt with.’ She carries on punching numbers into the till. ‘Can I interest you in any...’

‘They get dealt with?’ I cut across her. I want to seize her hand from the till, make her look at me. ‘What does that mean? What happens to them?’

Dan’s looking furious again. ‘Sam!’

Grace glances at him, then shrugs at me again, irritatingly casual. ‘I dunno.’ She sucks her breath through her teeth, then looks at me, almost defiantly. ‘Look. You can’t have someone sobbing in full view of the customers. Bad for business. No one wants to see that, not while they’re doing their shopping.’ She says this almost mechanically, as though she’s memorised it from somewhere, then turns back to the till. ‘I dunno what happens to them. I don’t see them again. D’you want cashback?’

When she looks up at me again, her expression is as dull and vacant as if we’d been discussing the weather. Dan is shifting from foot to foot, glaring daggers at me. I look back at Grace. ‘No, thanks.’ Dan swings the carrier bags off the shiny metal counter and Grace nods at me. ‘Here’s your receipt.’

Another wail comes from somewhere behind us, deep in the aisles. I have to work hard to stop my hand from shaking as I take the bit of paper from her. ‘Thanks.’

‘Pleasure.’

We’re about to turn away when Grace suddenly says, ‘Hey.’

I turn back and she’s looking at me with a strange expression, as though I’ve said something she can’t work out. Then she shakes her head. ‘Probably you shouldn’t ask anybody else about that.’

‘Why?’

Grace does her little shrug again and starts brushing something from the buttons of the till, not looking at me again. ‘Probably you shouldn’t.’

‘Come on, Sam.’ Dan grabs me by the arm and steers me towards the automatic doors. We head towards the pitch black sliding glass that leads onto the car park. I take one more look at Grace. She’s not looking at the till anymore, she’s staring upwards at something on the ceiling. I look up, too. There’s a shiny glass dome fixed on the ceiling, just above her station, black as the night outside. I turn back again and let Dan lead me out of the store.