Charlie

      I can pinpoint almost to the second the moment everything changed. I was feeling so fatherly, caring and – I don’t know – sort of smug about my relationship with the checkout girl until then. I’d been back many times to SavaMart, making sure I chose Stacey’s till of course, and getting her to open up to me that little bit more each visit. I’d get home and describe progress to Judy, enjoying the fact that I now knew more than she did about the whereabouts of various goods in the store. I knew it was irritating her that I insisted on doing the shopping at SavaMart rather than Waitrose or Sainsbury’s, which, admittedly, do have a far better class of produce, not to mention service and choice. But Jude can be very understanding when she wants to be, and when I explained that this wretched checkout girl had become a bit of a project, if not challenge, she put up with the unexciting selection of goods I invariably returned with, and relaxed into the unusual luxury of not having to shop.

      Meanwhile, I determined to help Stacey – as to why, I find that very hard to answer. Looking back on it, it’s difficult to rid myself of the way I now inevitably see things, and to try to remember what originally prompted my innocent and uncomplicated interest in the girl is almost impossible. I know I had become fond of her: making genuine contact with her had become a bit of an obsession, I can see that – it was certainly more than an amusing challenge, which was how I presented it to Judy and Ben. I keep coming back to the word fatherly. Yes – paternal, quite definitely. I think, in spite of the gross physical differences between the two of them, Stacey somehow reminded me of Sally, or, at least, of Sally when she was still at an age to need her dad in a real, physical way. Stacey’s disguised but – to me – quite apparent vulnerability stemmed from her size and Sally’s was simply because of her youth and inexperience, but the protective response they both produced in me was the same.

      So, a middle-aged attempt to replace a beloved daughter? No, not replace: Sally, however changed and grown-up, will always keep that particular place in my heart that a first child has. But my feelings – and I use the word lightly in the context of those early days – for Stacey rekindled the caring, nurturing part of my character, if you will, that had previously been reserved for my offspring. One reads so much about the unhappiness of today’s youth – and, indeed, I come across its manifestations only too often in court – but it’s rare for me to come slap bang up against it in real life, so to speak, and I was determined to do my little bit to change the fortunes of at least this one unfortunate creature. I was also aware that since I had begun to take an interest in her, the bouts of depression, or boredom, that I had been experiencing increasingly often over the last few years had entirely ceased. Something about the girl fascinated me, and took me out of myself so much that I noticed I was worrying about her rather than about my own problems.

      Each time I saw her I wondered whether her size bothered her in any way – she seemed so bored by everthing around her, apart from the brief flicker of life I’d seen in her eyes at the appearance of the store manager, the smooth Warren thingummy, that I really wasn’t quite sure if there could be any sensitivity to her own condition buried deep within the parcel of flesh. But, having seen Judy and, more markedly, Sally worry obsessively about their figures over the years, I knew that Stacey’s apparent indifference was almost certainly hiding a miserable awareness of her own unattractiveness. I thought a compliment couldn’t go amiss, and might just chip away at the defensiveness she wore around her like an impenetrable shawl.

      ‘What a pretty ring!’ I said to her on about my tenth visit to the store. On the middle finger of her right hand she wore a small gold ring, sporting a swirling design of filigree work and tiny blue stones. Inevitably it was partly submerged in the fleshy roundness of what still tended to remind me of a sausage, but it was true that the little points of blue against the gold, nestling into the cushions of pale, smooth skin, as in folds of cream satin in a jewellery box, made a sweet and surprisingly touching sight. I wondered briefly if the adored Warren had perhaps had a moment of madness and presented it to her as a birthday gift, or, more likely perhaps, if it came from a doting mother or father.

      ‘QVC,’ said Stacey, mysteriously.

      It never ceased to surprise me just how often this girl came out with words or phrases that made no sense to me whatever. My brain, in a desperate attempt to cobble some sort of meaning out of the apparently random and disconnected three letters, struggled for a moment with the mad idea that the girl had said ‘QED’. Could Latin have acquired street cred without my being aware of it? It hardly seemed likely; close proximity to Ben and Sally kept me reasonably up to date with modern parlance, and, in any case, it would have made no sort of sense as a reply to my compliment. I hesitated, loth to admit I had no idea what she was talking about. I felt like one of the mothballed judges I sometimes encounter in court (‘Tell me, learned counsel, just what is this BOGOF?’).

      ‘Sorry?’

      ‘I bought it on QVC.’

      ‘Ah!’ I was none the wiser, of course, but nodded briefly as if in approval. Clearly, to buy a ring ‘on QVC’ was something positive – nothing to be ashamed of, at the least – so that an acknowledgement of her wisdom could do no harm. I assumed that it was some sort of hire-purchase agreement. It was clear, however, I didn’t fool the girl for a second with my pretence at understanding.

      ‘Shopping channel,’ she said flatly, looking up at me with a mixture of boredom and sympathy in her expression.

      It all suddenly fell into place. ‘Of course!’ I laughed. ‘QVC shopping channel. Yes, yes, indeed, my wife and daughter have shown me that on Sky. Fascinating. Strangely addictive, my wife tells me. Do you know, Stacey, I thought you meant you’d bought it on some sort of hire purchase: I mean that QVC was a type of credit loan or something.’

      Did I see a hint of a smile? Yes, I did – I was sure of it. The dimpled folds either side of her mouth deepened a fraction, and the toffee-coloured eyes, as she looked back up at me, definitely twinkled.

      ‘So did you buy it for yourself? Or was it a birthday present or something?’

      ‘I bought it myself. Off QVC.’

      ‘Yes, I see. So tell me,’ I went on, as I packed a net of sprouts into the plastic carrier, ‘how does it work? Do you phone them up or what? I mean, how do you order what you want?’

      ‘Yeah, you just phone them up with the credit card.’

      ‘Amazing.’

      ‘No – s’easy.’

      And then she smiled. Genuinely, wholeheartedly smiled. And all the clichés in the book couldn’t describe the change that smile made to the girl’s face: yes, the clouds parted; the sun came out – it all happened, and more. It made her look quite extraordinarily pretty – the softness of her round, plump face was, in an instant, made charming rather than podgy, and the eyes, brightened with the touch of warmth, were more startlingly golden than ever.

      I was desperate to capitalise on this moment of breakthrough, and, on impulse, leant over the checkout belt and picked up her soft, warm hand to take a closer look at the ring. She didn’t appear to mind; she looked down at her own hand in a detached, vaguely interested way and then back up at me, still smiling.

      ‘Nice, innit? You just phone, you see. Even you could do it.’

      I