You see, I’m trying to use what we’ve got in: putting those soft, bendy carrots in a soup, not minding the brown edge of the iceberg lettuce, and peeling the skin off a courgette that has seen better days.
I’m not tight, I’ve just started looking at things in a different way. That courgette took the trouble to grow, in fact when I look at the label, I notice that it took the trouble to grow in Morocco and then get its little courgettey-passport and fly all the way over here to come and live in my fridge. It took in hot African sunshine and nutrients from the Moroccan soil, it took the work and care of the Moroccan farmer who tended it, and it drank the water the Moroccan farmer could have drunk – Morocco is a dry land bordering the Sahara. A LOT went into that little courgette’s life. And it’s stayed in my fridge, unwanted and unused and going mouldy because I bought it as part of a bumper value pack, and because Mark’s been away a lot, and because I’ve been behind on the housework and saying ‘ok we’ll have frozen peas’ more times than I’d like.
So I finally go to Sainsbury’s on Friday because I have, at last, used up those continent-hopping zucchini and all the rest of the sad old veg in the chiller drawer and I’m feeling rather pleased with myself.
As I unload my groceries on to the belt, an elderly Indian couple join the queue behind me. The woman is grey-haired and tiny and wears a brilliant white sari, the man wears white too; they both have red bindis painted on their foreheads. They look a little lost and I smile at them.
The man smiles back.
“For month?” he asks.
“Sorry?” I say, looking apologetic: he has a heavy accent.
“For month? Or for week?” He points at my shopping.
It has turned out to be a bigger shop than I thought: vegetables as well as the fruit; milk, bread, eggs, cheese, a bottle of squash and 3 packs of microwaveable popcorn because they’re on offer. I hesitate. It is a weekly shop but some of the items – the popcorn in particular – will last a month or more. He’s not looking for a detailed explanation, so I say,
“Week.”
He pulls the corners of his mouth down in a considering-type of frown and nods slowly.
I am aware of our difference. I look at my shopping. Could we live on that for a month? If I had bought a big bag of rice, some flour and yeast, and a bag of lentils instead of the popcorn?
“There are four of us,” I say, holding up four fingers, trying to excuse myself.
Again he nods, taking this in. “Four” he says, and his eyes scan my shopping. Then he turns to his wife and says something I don't understand. Now she looks at my shopping and nods too, raising her eyebrows, not in disapproval or amazement, but with interest and looking serious, as if she were a professor studying the shopping of an extra terrestrial.
The man and I talk a little, with pointing and using single words: he asks me what the blackcurrant squash is and then translates to his wife who, again, looks at the squash as if it were from Mars. It turns out they don’t want to buy; they want to make a return. So I direct them to customer services.
When I turn round the cashier is waiting. She tries to catch my eye but I don’t let her because I can see that she wants to shake her head and roll her eyes.
“I’ve got my own bags,” I say instead and walk to the end of the check out with my eyes on the ground.
Read last month's post: sad cows
