A Few Bits

Hannah Prime 

The automatic doors slide open as you approach them. An airconditioned wave washes over you, welcome relief from the blistering heat outside. You pick up a basket and become aware of the pop playlist blasting through the supermarket speakers. It drowns out your podcast, so you press pause with the intention of returning to it once you’ve left the shop.

You’ve only come in for a couple of things anyway. You walk through the fruit and veg section in full bloom. Blushing pink apples. Green, muscular bananas in large tight bunches. Neat little punnets of blueberries and strawberries and raspberries. Big lustrous leaves alongside purple sprouting broccoli, an earthy array of mushrooms, shiny tomatoes attached to the vine. The shelves must have recently been restocked, as they are overflowing. Bountiful. 

You did your big shop the day before, so you’re only popping in to pick up a couple of things you missed. In fact, yesterday’s haul had to go on the credit card as it’s nearing the end of the month, so you know you should be careful. But that’s not going to drag you down. The supermarket playlist is surprisingly uplifting, and you find yourself stepping in time to the music.

You’re at the root vegetable section now, to find a jacket potato to go with all the salad leaves and cottage cheese and pickled beetroot in the fridge at home. Now that’s a nutritious dinner. You’ve recently entered your healthy girl era and you’re feeling very good about it. You select a satisfyingly large potato and place it in the basket. 

On the other side of this mid-aisle supermarket island are the carrots. The main reason for this return visit is that you thought you already had carrots in the fridge. But when you put away your shopping yesterday, you discovered them languishing at the back of the vegetable drawer. Bendy. Wrinkled. Past it. You always end up forgetting about them somehow. Not this time. You pick up a thick, sturdy carrot. You have a large pot of hummus at home, and you know this will be enough to polish it off nicely, probably in one sitting. It’s truly the best combo. And so healthy. 

Ok, that’s it for the fresh section. Only one more thing to pick up – a tin of chopped tomatoes. Then you can get out of here and get your podcast back on for the journey home. Nice, quick work, you think to yourself. 

Before you get going again you look down at the potato and the carrot. You are struck by how much space there is around them. How the exposed metal grill of the basket appears harsh and cold. How glaringly obvious it is that your shopping list was written for a single person who lives alone. When you were in your early twenties you fantasised about solo living. Having a flat all to yourself. A place where you could hang your pictures. Curate your furniture and objects. Make room for your ever-growing houseplant collection. Propagate cuttings on windowsills and cultivate a herb garden on your roof terrace. You’d have a table and chairs out there for al fresco evening dining. You’d share bottles of crisp white wine with friends and exhale cigarette smoke into pink and orange skies. You’d have extravagant dinner parties. You’d invite all sorts of attractive, interesting people who didn’t know each other yet, and bring them together to become lifelong friends. You’d constantly create, setting up a spare room as a studio where you’d write and make art. You’d spend a luxurious amount of time reading, reclining on your sofa in the sun all morning drinking fresh coffee. You’d have a lot of sex with various casual yet committed lovers, who respected you and admired your confidence and positive outlook on life. You’d stay up late into the night talking and kissing and laughing and drinking and fucking. You’d be free. 

A woman knocks into you as she picks up a bag of onions and says, ‘sorry love!’ before bustling away. Chopped tomatoes. That’s what you need. 

As you turn the corner you clock a person you recognise. She is contemplating the rows of canned beans and pulses before her. Several months ago, while she typed her number into your phone, you had a moment to consider how the delicate shape of her lips and the natural blush of her cheeks and her slightly chipped nail varnish all came together to make you hold your breath a little. How the scent of burning firewood mingled deliciously with her perfume and the sweet cider on her breath, as she handed your phone back to you with a smile, leaning in to hug you before she left the pub with her friends. It was not long after you moved to this new town by the sea with its bracing winds and dramatic winters. When everyone was swaddled in sweaters and scarves. 

You’d somehow never texted her though. You could put it down to tipsiness or forgetfulness or shyness or whateverness. Some truth to it is you didn’t know whether it was a friend thing or a flirty thing or a pity thing, in response to you admitting to being new to the town and spending your first cruelly cold winter here alone in a flat with single glazed sash windows. Some truth to it is that you didn’t know what to say in the message, and so not sending the message was altogether easier. Some truth to it is that you always intended to send the message, you really did, but the weeks slipped by and the time to send the message passed.

Now here she is, a little further down the aisle and here you are, walking towards her. Carrying a basket containing just two depressing root vegetables and you can’t turn around now because it would be so obvious. So outrageously obvious. She hasn’t yet seen you. Perhaps she won’t see you. She reaches out to grab a can of chickpeas and then she looks up and of course she sees you. And now she’s smiling that broad, glowing smile that so drew you to her in the first place. How much you regret not just texting her. Just one simple text, is all it would have taken. For fuck’s sake. 

‘Oh hi!’ She says, with a delight so authentic that it seems to radiate from her. 

‘Ah, hello’, you reply, as if you are feeling very casual. You are not feeling very casual. ‘How are you?’ 

‘I’m very good thanks! Just here for a few bits.’ She gestures toward the bag of salad and loaf of fresh bread tucked under her arm. You’re only here for a few bits too. Why did you have to pick up such a ridiculous, unwieldy basket? What’s wrong with you? 

‘Yes,’ you say, ‘yes me too, just a few bits.’ The hand carrying your basket raises a little, seemingly of its own accord, and you lower it again gently to avoid drawing attention to it. You can’t bear to look down. You hope that she doesn’t look either, but you see her glance at the basket ever so briefly. Long enough to see its tragic contents. Long enough to glimpse the reality of your life. 

‘And how are you settling in?’ she says. You are grateful to her for not mentioning the basket or what is inside it.

‘Oh, very well thank you, yes. Really well.’ Somehow you cannot think of a single thing to say to corroborate this statement. She’s chatting away again though, bouncing off your awkwardness with nothing but generosity. 

‘Well, I mean there’s a lot more going on now isn’t there, the town really comes alive at this time of year. I think everyone was pretty much in hibernation when we last saw each other!’ She remembers, then. More than that. She sees you. She sees exactly the kind of person you are. You are the worst. You open your mouth to say something, anything.

‘Just gorgeous isn’t it. I’ve been loving the sea.’ You could not have said anything more vacuous. Who doesn’t love the sea. Why would you have moved to the sea if you didn’t love it. Idiot. 

‘Well, any time you’d like to go for a dip you just let me know. I’ve got to dash – but I think you still have my number. Text me! I’d love to hear from you!’ She is away then, towards the checkout.

You manage to call an unconvincing ‘I will!’ after her. You watch her all the way down the aisle until she is out of sight. 

You stand very still by the tins, staring at the chopped tomatoes. Christ. Why can’t you just use a phone like an ordinary person? It would only take a minute to compose a simple text. To reach out towards connection. Friendship. Perhaps something more. It’s nobody’s fault but your own that you don’t have these things. You look down at your basket and place the single tin of chopped tomatoes next to the carrot and the potato. Pathetic. 

You turn around and set off in the opposite direction that she went in. You feel profoundly empty, as if a flood of shame has swept away everything inside you. Slightly dazed, you reach the bright white refrigerated shelving on the back wall. Your eyes linger on the stacks of freshly baked goods lined up neatly in pastel-coloured boxes. Cakes covered in whipped cream and icing and glazed fruit and delicate dustings of sugar. So perfectly contained. So appetising. You reach for a box of two chocolate eclairs and just hold it for a moment. Feel the weight of it in your hand. You imagine taking a bite into one of them. How the cold whipped cream would reveal itself as it folded onto your tongue. How comforting it would be to eat on the sofa at home, curled up in blankets. But you know what will follow. You know how it will make you feel, to sabotage your healthy girl era so soon. To capsize so easily. But perhaps you never believed you would get very far anyway. Perhaps failure is exactly what you deserve. You place the eclairs at the bottom of your basket. 

You drift further down the aisle. You should have known you would come across her again at some point in the future. It’s a small town after all. What did you think was going to happen? The sight of a box of four egg custard tarts makes you realise you want nothing more than to have their crumbly pastry casing and their soft, thick centre filling up your mouth. Your stomach moans at the thought. Into the basket they go. 

You have always been terrible at digital communication. Messages and texts from friends and family build up and up, unanswered and undealt with, a constant reminder of how useless you are at interacting with others. How little you apparently have to say. You have taken to turning your phone off altogether for days at a time, an act that feels somehow radical in this age of constant contactability. Deviant even. 

Your gaze is drawn to the glistening grains of sugar coating a family-sized apple pie. You pause for a moment as you recall the last dessert you baked yourself, for that gathering of housemates and friends the week before you moved out of the city. How the rich cherry filling went so perfectly with your homemade vanilla custard. How excited everyone was about the big step you were making, about the prospect of beach weekends and wild camping trips. But promises from afar to see each other soon began to feel less genuine. Your enthusiasm for responding waned. Time passed. As it turns out, replying to messages is also pretty crucial for making any new friends. Obviously. But who would want to be your friend anyway? People already have enough friends. People don’t tend to have room for more, especially for a person who offers as little as you do. Who is a waste of space. You can smell the pastry from here. It briefly, ever so briefly crosses your mind that there is still time to resist this. Time to resist all of it. But then you think fuck it. And fuck this. And fuck you. You dump the pie in the basket. 

Your pace picks up now as you stride onwards and the fresh aromas of the bakery fill your nostrils and you know what it is that you need. You need cookies. Into your basket goes two bags of five, double chocolate chip and white chocolate chip. A packet of sugar-coated custard-filled doughnuts stares back at you from the shelf and so you snatch it down before you can give it any more thought. You know you can’t lose momentum now so down you go to the next aisle and pick out a sharing bag of chunky ridge-cut flame-grilled steak flavour crisps and another large bag of salt and vinegar, the sharp and tangy kind that stings your lips. Your mouth floods with saliva at the thought. Your basket is filling up but there is always space for chocolate and you’ve come this far haven’t you. You know you must focus to keep going, to continue your journey from the aisles to the checkout to the walk home with your spoils and so you remain committed. You march towards rows upon rows of shiny bars and variety boxes and sharing bags. Your eyes flit between them all as you stand before the shelves, paralysed by choice. You know the most reliable option is the smooth milk with that soft, gooey caramel centre, the kind that will melt in your mouth and linger on your tastebuds and make you feel good no matter what. No matter how fleetingly. This is chocolate for every occasion. Three large and in charge bars go into the basket with a box of Celebrations for good measure. Not a lot to fucking celebrate but you can’t resist the prospect of unwrapping each tiny piece like a present, popping it into your gob and mashing down its sugary mass between your teeth. Your basket is officially overflowing but there is no stopping you now and you have a final appointment before the exit and that is with the freezer aisle. Into the basket goes a bright pink tub of strawberry flavour ice cream jam-packed with marshmallows and sweets and all kinds of other artificial looking shit. You chuck in a carton of cookie dough for good measure because you’re a greedy fucking bitch. Aren’t you. The basket is so heavy that you’re gripping it with two hands now and you rest it against your thigh and you look down at it finally. You look down and you can no longer see the carrot and the potato and the can of chopped tomatoes and you think you didn’t want the day to end like this but here you are. Here you are again. This is the ending you deserve. So towards the self-checkout you go. Because it’s time to get out of here and get your podcast on and get yourself and your shopping back to your flat so you can shut the door behind you and turn off your phone.