by Pip Adam
‘Hello, Dollar Ninety-Five Store, Lloyd speaking. Can I help you?’
‘Oh, hello.’ It’s the guy. In the reflection of the glass cabinet that’s sitting on the counter I can see him with a cell phone on the street outside the shop. My eyes squint a little bit. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me what you sell?’
‘Sure,’ I say, ‘we sell almost everything: toys, stationery and craft supplies, kitchen utensils, make-up and beauty supplies, and it’s all only $1.95.’
‘That’s great,’ he says.
‘It is,’ I say. I think I can hear myself in his cell phone, like an echo. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?’
‘No,’ he says, ‘I think that’s everything.’
It’s almost lunchtime; Lee and Nancy will be in any minute. I hang up the phone and I’m still holding one of the orbs and I notice for the first time that the bubbles have eyes, like they’re fish or one-celled organisms. I hold it up to the light coming in the front door from the street. It’s a bright, cold day.
‘They’ve got eyes,’ I say.
Lyall looks up and for a second we look at the eyes in the bubbles in the orb together.
‘It’s flat on the bottom,’ I say turning it over a bit. ‘I guess it’s for your desk or something.’
Lyall moves away from me and says, ‘You should probably get them unpacked,’ nodding toward the box and the shelf, ‘before lunch.’ At the same time he reaches for a piece of paper which he puts in front of him on the counter and looks at.
‘Yeah,’ I say, and I go back to unpacking again.
Lee and Nancy arrive at lunchtime. It gets busy at lunchtime. From the door Lee says they’ve come to watch their money coming in. He says it like it’s a joke and we all smile and Lyall laughs. I call them Lee and Nancy. Everyone knows, but I still call them Lee and Nancy and smile when Lee makes jokes about money and being weak and things like that. There are still some boxes lying around and Steve has about a dozen lip gloss sets to hang up on moveable hooks that are precarious until the weight on them is just right. I grab the boxes and Dave goes to help Steve. Lyall runs to help Lee with the stock he’s carrying and trips heavily on something. ‘You right, Lyall?’ Lee says. ‘Watch it big guy.’ He slaps Lyall on the back and they both laugh again.
Most people in the town we live in work for Nancy and Lee. Not so much in the store but in the warehouse and driving the trucks and in the office. The idea was so simple and although they have three hundred franchisees nationwide they like to run everything from here. Lee likes the beach and Nancy likes her friends. They keep the international airport running. If you asked a class of sixteen-year-olds at our high school, a quarter of them would say, ‘Going to university,’ and three quarters of them would say, ‘Working for Lee and Nancy.’ If you asked them a year later, they would all be working for Nancy and Lee, or training to work for Lee and Nancy, or wanting a job with Nancy and Lee.
Lyall went to university for two years. If you asked him he would tell you he was head-hunted. Lyall and I used to go to school together. The day he had his interview at the Dollar Ninety-Five Store, Lee and Nancy called Steve and Dave and me over and Nancy said, ‘Fellas, this is Lyall, he’s your new manager.’ Then they showed him round and he left the store and came back a couple of minutes later. He couldn’t have gotten any further than the corner and he found me in the shop, up a three-step ladder and said he wanted to concentrate on his career and that’s why he’d come back. I looked down at him and said, ‘Sure.’ It was the first thing he’d said to me in two and a half years. He said he doubted he would be back for long. That was thirteen years ago.
‘Hi everyone,’ says Nancy as she comes in the door. We all say, ‘Hi,’ and she says, louder, ‘I said Hi everyone,’ and we all say, ‘Hi,’ a bit louder. ‘That’s better,’ she says, and to someone who’s just come in the shop, ‘Isn’t that better?’ The woman with the pram nods and Nancy says, ‘I thought I was at the morgue. Let’s get some energy into this shop,’ and she walks around the shop touching just about everything on the shelves.
She stands behind Steve, who is balancing the lip glosses on the hooks and says, ‘Hi Steve.’
‘Hi Nancy,’ Steve says, turning at an odd angle to look her in the face.
‘Those glosses look great. We are going to sell some of those today, aren’t we Steve?’
‘We sure are, Nancy,’ Steve says.
‘We sure are,’ says Nancy as she continues round the shop, touching things and adjusting things and looking at where the light is falling on things. ‘Hi Lloyd,’ she says.
‘Hi Nancy,’ I say. She’s standing right in front of me. She’s caught me just standing.
‘Well, Lloyd, I can hardly hear you, I said, Hi Lloyd.’
‘Hi Nancy,’ I say louder, and I smile.
‘That’s better Lloyd. My, but don’t those glass novelties look grand. Lyall, don’t these glass novelties look grand?’
Lyall nods and says, ‘Sure do, Nancy.’
‘Well done, Lloyd,’ says Nancy.
I smile and nod. There’s nothing in her eyes.
‘They’re flat on the bottom,’ I say, picking one up to show her.
‘Well done, Lloyd,’ she says and turns away and continues round the shop touching things.
We used to fight a lot. We would shout at each other and after a while she would shout, ‘I’m happy Lloyd. Can you say that?’ and I couldn’t and I can’t.
The shop gets really busy. There’s a bit of a queue and Lee starts handing out sweets and 10 per cent off vouchers. The glass orbs all but sell out and Lee gets Steve to get some more out of the box he brought in and those go too, people are buying three and four of them at a time. People are buying the lip gloss sets as well and the balance tips and the ones that are left on the hook fall on the floor. As Steve’s picking them up, people take them out of his hands and off the floor and they all go. People come to the counter with boxes of boats and coffee mugs and cheese graters and pen sets and pen sets for their fridges and caps and socks and colouring books and the cash register rings and the bags snap open and crackle shut. Then almost as fast as it started it’s quiet in the shop again. Steve and Lyall take the first lunch break and I go and tidy up the shop while Dave counts the cash to do a change order.
Lee says, like he’s giving a speech, ‘Oh, well, we should be off then, Nancy. Flying visit lads,’ and he smiles like his eyes are busy doing something different.
‘Right you are, Lee,’ Nancy says.
Lee has to pass me to leave the store and as he does he says, as low as he can, ‘Dinner’s at six. Your mother’s planning something nice, so don’t be late.’
I nod and say, ‘Thanks, Lee.’
They like to keep me close and we don’t fight any more. I go to work and I come home from work and we have dinner at seven and always my mother plans something nice and I go out with Lee on Thursdays, or when there’s a rugby match, for a drink, and I smile and I listen and I watch and Lee drinks and says things like, ‘One day all this will be yours,’ and we smile at each other and he pats me on the back and he drinks some more and says, when he thinks no one else can hear, ‘This is better. Isn’t this better, Lloyd?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, this is better, Lee,’ and pat him on the arm and finish my beer and take him home. Every day I try to find something to fascinate me or something that used to fascinate me or something that might fascinate me at some point in the future. It’s like being a stamp collector in a digital age.
Lee slaps Lyall on the back again as he leaves, and whispers something in his ear, and they laugh again. It occurs to me I’ve known Lyall longer than I haven’t known him. He’s walking back toward the counter shaking his head and he says to Steve, ‘That Lee,’ and he takes the paper Steve’s been working on and checks his sums for the change request. He’s still laughing and shaking his head and saying, under his breath, ‘That Lee.’ Lee says things like ‘camp as a row of tents’ and ‘useless as tits on a bull�
� and ‘dry as a nun’s cunt’, and all these things make Lyall laugh. Lee and Nancy often go for dinner at Lyall and his wife’s house. Lyall’s wife is called Michele. I imagine what those dinners must be like. Lee making jokes and Lyall laughing so much he can’t get a word out. I imagine him laughing and laughing until his sides hurt and he’s crying and the only words he can get out are, ‘Lee, stop. Please, stop.’ Nancy and Michele in the kitchen. I have no idea what women talk about when they’re in a room together. In my imagination they get dessert and talk about children and shoes – the things I know about children and shoes. Lyall and I used to spend every hour we could together. When people ask me how well I know Lyall, I say, ‘Not very.’
The mystery-shopper report comes in. The guy from the warehouse who brings boxes of new stock hands it to Lyall in an envelope. While Steve and Dave and I check the stock in the boxes against the invoices Sellotaped to the lids of the boxes, Lyall takes the envelope to the counter, opens it and reads the report. As we’re unpacking the stock, Steve says to Dave, ‘Wow, what cool new stuff,’ and Steve replies, ‘Yeah, we are going to sell some of these egg slicers.’ I laugh and go to look up and they’re not laughing and I say ,‘Yeah,’ and stop smiling and nod. There are four boxes. When they’re empty I pick them up, one under each arm and the other two in my hands. I open the door at the back of the store with my foot and go into the alley to the caged skip where we put the boxes and the paper and the packaging the stock comes in. I drop the boxes and they make a hollow bang. None of the sun at the front of the shop gets into the alley. It’s grey and cold and quiet. I pull the lid of one of the boxes and the glue gives way and I flatten it and throw it into the cage of the skip.
When I get back inside the store Lyall is talking to Steve and Dave and holding the mystery-shopper report. When I reach them Lyall puts his arm around me and pats my shoulder. ‘Look at this, Lloyd,’ he says and shows me the report and it says we did good. ‘Well done, Lloyd,’ he says, and takes his arm from round me. ‘Well done all of us.’ He walks toward the counter. ‘This deserves an afternoon tea.’ He picks up the phone and calls Michele. Steve and Dave and I go to separate corners of the store to count the stock and check the stock is facing out. ‘Hi honey,’ Lyall says. ‘Look, we just got a great mystery-shopper report down here at the store and I was wondering if you could bring us down something nice for afternoon tea.’ He has his hands in his hair and he’s looking out the front door. ‘Great. You’re great. Half two? Thanks honey. Love you, too.’
It was all about timing. If they’d come in earlier, Lee and Nancy would have seen the truth of it and Lyall wouldn’t have been able to do what he did; he would have been forced to do something different. But they didn’t. We were supposed to be at school and they were supposed to be at work but they came in and the room smelt like sex and it looked like sex and I was stripped to the waist and Lyall was dressed and Lee said, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ and Lyall went to leave and I said, ‘Don’t leave, Lyall.’ He kept leaving and I held him and said, just to him, with my face buried in his hair, ‘You don’t have to leave,’ like this was the moment when all the hiding stopped and our families stood around us and held us in our joy.
In my memory, usually, it’s slow, like time stopped and Lyall had hours to mull it over and think about the pros and cons and travel into the future, to a time when he has a girlfriend pregnant by accident and he has to come home from university and he needs a job and Lee and Nancy employ just about everyone. And then time starts again and he punches me and shouts, ‘You fucking faggot,’ and leaves and gets a girlfriend and goes to university.
When I looked up Lee was shaking his head and everything had gone from Nancy’s eyes.
I make up a scene which explains everything. Lyall comes to Lee and Nancy the night after he punches me and explains he was trying to help but it can’t go on so he has to stay away. Lee says he understands and Nancy says it’s a fine thing he’s doing to help out a friend in need. This is what she says to me when the fighting starts – ‘It’s a noble thing Lyall is doing.’
But, sometimes, in my memory, it happens quick – lightning quick.
Michele comes into the store with a carrot cake and one of Lyall’s children, probably the youngest. He kisses her and the child on the cheek and he takes the cake. Michele says, ‘Hi Steve,’ and, ‘Hi Dave,’ and, ‘Hi Lloyd,’ and we all say, ‘Hi,’ and I say, ‘Can you stay for afternoon tea, Michele?’ and she says, ‘No’ almost before I’ve finished and she kisses Lyall again and leaves, carrying the child on one of her hips. Lyall says, ‘Steve, you be mother’ and hands him the cake and Steve goes to the staff room and boils the jug and one by one we go into the staff room, which is only big enough for one of us at a time, and we have a cup of milky tea and a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese icing which Lyall says Michele whipped up in between looking after the children and keeping the house tidy and then he tells a joke Lee told him about why brides wear white and Dave and I laugh. Steve’s in the staff room having a second slice of cake.
It gets slow in the shop, really slow, and Lyall has us take all the eye shadow sets and nail polish bottles off the hooks and put them closer to the counter because he says he’s worried about shoplifters. Steve and Dave leave at about three and Lyall and I are in the shop by ourselves for an hour or so. It gets darker outside and some lights come on in the street. Lyall stands at the counter looking at bits of paper and phoning Lee, and I clean the shelves. I take everything off the shelves, spray glass cleaner on, wipe it off and then put everything back on the shelves. Every now and then someone comes in and looks around and either buys something or asks me where something is.
Lyall always sends me home at twenty-five minutes past five. He says something like, ‘You might as well get going, Lloyd.’ I say something like, ‘Okay,’ and I get my jacket and my bag and I say, ‘Bye.’ It’s to give me a head start. Otherwise we would have to walk part of the way together. I get paid until five thirty. I don’t think he’s told Lee. That’s how much he doesn’t want to walk home with me.
It’s dark outside. The street is full of kids; teenagers smoking, skateboarding, getting together money for party pills. All the other shops are shut and all the lights are off. There are three ways to walk home and probably four variations on each one of those ways. I take the ‘stay close to shops as long as possible’ way. It means I have something to look at most of the way home. It’s cold. It feels like it’s been dark all day. I leave for work in the dark. I leave for home in the dark. It’s quite metropolitan, like living in London or New York, that’s what Lee says. Lee has never lived in London or New York.
I can only stay close to the shops for so long and eventually I’m walking past workshops then houses and finally down our street, past the Playcentre Lyall and I went to, which is attached to the primary school we went to.
When I get home Lee and Nancy are around the dining table with their accountant and a real estate agent. Nancy looks up as I come in the door and says, ‘Is that the time?’ She looks at her watch. ‘Lee, is that the time?’ Lee looks at his watch and before long the accountant looks at his watch and the real estate agent all in escalating indignation: they’re a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus. Nancy says, ‘Lee, call Lyall and get him to drop off some takeaways on his way home. Get Lloyd a burger or something.’ Lee gets his phone out of his pocket and I leave them looking at their watches some more and shaking their heads and go to my room. I take off my Dollar Ninety-Five Store T-shirt and listen to them talking about things. I crouch for a minute with my shirt off, looking through a drawer for something I want to wear. When I find a T-shirt I put it on and pull the drawer all the way out and kneel on the ground and reach my hand in. I pick the Sellotape off the back of the drawer and pull out the plastic bag of tranquilisers I’ve been saving up. In the the months I haven’t been sleeping, in the dark I’ve been counting my teeth with my tongue and stroking the nail of my pointer finger with the pad of my thumb trying to
catch my body working; exploring the machine of it, trying to be surprised.
As I stand up I see Lyall out my bedroom window. He’s picking his way up the driveway in the dark carrying a bag of takeaways. He thinks no one can see him. It holds me, him walking and his face open like no one’s watching. I move round and lean slightly out the window so I can watch him all the way to the door and just before he reaches the light of the house I say, ‘Lyall,’ not loudly, not like I expect him to hear, just like I’m naming something, a pen set, some lip gloss, an old friend. ‘Lyall,’ I say again and his head swings and he sees me and there’s a second he’s looking at me and still doesn’t realise anyone’s watching him – then it’s gone and he raises his hand so he might be waving or he might be signalling stop but in that second, when he sees me without realising, the decision’s made and I grab my wallet and my jacket and I stuff the pills in the pocket of my jeans and climb out of the window. Lyall looks worried as I walk over Nancy and Lee’s lawn toward him. ‘Lyall,’ I say, ‘Lyall, I’m going to have a beer. Come and have a drink with me.’ It surprises neither of us. Lyall looks behind me and his face changes and it changes back. ‘Lyall,’ I say, ‘I’m going to have a beer then I’m going to kill myself.’ It feels like the time he takes when I remember that day; the same long, still moment. ‘Lyall,’ I say. ‘Come on. It’s my birthday.’ Lyall laughs, it’s not my birthday. ‘One drink,’ I say. Then it’s quick. He looks at me and he puts the bag of takeaways on the lawn next to where he’s standing and we walk into town.
We sit in the bar and drink and don’t talk much and then I say, ‘What do you call this?’ I mean the waitresses in hula skirts and the torches and palm trees. Lyall looks around and shrugs and says, ‘Tiki theme?’ ‘It’s comfortable,’ I say and drink some more. Lyall doesn’t say anything. Neither of us say anything for a long time. Then Lyall says, ‘How are you going to do it?’ ‘Pills,’ I say. ‘Pills and a plastic bag.’ He nods and looks at his beer, then he wipes his mouth with his hand in a fist. ‘I left,’ he says. I smile and nod and, looking straight ahead of me, say ‘You left.’ I can feel him looking at me and I turn to look at him but he can’t look at me and he turns away and his eyes flash like they’re alive and he says, ‘And I came back,’ and I look away to give him some privacy and he says ‘For you,’ and I say, ‘What?’ and Lyall says, ‘Nothing.’ Then we sit in silence again. A waitress takes some bottles off our tables and leaves. ‘I’ve got nothing for you Lloyd,’ Lyall says, and he finishes his beer and reaches for his jacket. He gets up to leave and then he looks at me and leans down and it’s his face in my hair and he says, just to me, ‘Don’t fuck up.’ Then he puts his forehead to mine and I can smell the tears in his eyes like we’re walking beside the sea together at night.
