Hater (Hater #1)

Hater (Hater #1) Page 21

We need food. The last thing I wanted to do was go outside again but I didn't have any choice. The kids and Lizzie have been trapped at home for the last couple of days and the cupboards are almost empty. We should have thought of it sooner. I need to get some supplies before things get any more uncertain out there.

I have as much cash as I could find in my pocket and I'll see what it will get me. I've always been bad with money. I don't have any credit since I got into a mess with my bank a year or so ago and they cancelled everything on my account. I've got a 'last chance' loan now. Once the payment's gone out on pay day and I've paid the bills I cash the balance and that's what we live on until the next time I get paid. It's two weeks until pay day so I haven't got much left.

I didn't think about where I was going to go until I'd left the flat. Instinctively I drove towards the supermarket we usually use for our weekly shop but I turned back before I got there. Even though it was early there was already a huge queue just to get into the car park. It's a bad-tempered and busy place at the best of times and setting foot in there today would have just been asking for trouble. Two cars collided in the queue just ahead of me. Someone shunted into the back of someone else. Both drivers got out and started screaming and shouting at each other and I got the feeling that the trouble was about to spread. I didn't want to take any chances. I turned around and drove back towards home along roads which were surprisingly quiet. There's still a fair amount of traffic about, but nothing like the number of vehicles you usually get at this time of day.

I'm outside O'Shea's convenience store now. It's only a couple of minutes away from the flat. It's tucked away in a side-street just off the main Rushall Road. It gets most of its trade from the workers at a steel factory just around the corner. It stands to reason that if people aren't going to work today the factory will be closed and the convenience store should be empty. They have a fraction of the stock of the supermarket and they charge double the prices but I don't have any choice. My family needs food and I have to get it from somewhere. I park up (further away than usual) and cross the street.

Bloody hell, as I get nearer to the shop I start to think about turning back again. The building looks like it's in the process of being looted. It's rammed with people and the floor is covered in litter and debris. I force myself to go inside, reminding myself that my family have to eat. Half the displays and freezers are already empty and there's more rubbish and packaging left on the shelves than food. I grab a cardboard box (it's the biggest thing I can find) and start getting what I can. Looks like everyone's had the same idea as me today and they're out panic-buying. I take whatever I can find - cans and packets of food, bottles of sauce, crisps, sweets, spreads - pretty much anything that's salvageable and edible. There's nothing fresh here, no milk or bread or fruit or vegetables.

The shop is small and the mood inside the hot and congested little building is tense. Shopping always seems to bring out the very worst in people. Today I can taste the animosity and nerves in the air but no-one's reacting. Everybody keeps their head down and gets on with stripping the shelves. No-one speaks. No-one makes any intentional contact with anyone else whatsoever. An old guy accidentally elbows me in the ribs as we're both reaching up for the same thing. Normally I'd have had a go at him and he'd probably have had a go back at me. We look at each other for the briefest of moments and then silently take what we can. I don't dare start an argument.

The box is soon two-thirds full with junk. I turn the corner into the last aisle and see two empty check-outs ahead of me. People are just walking past them and there's no sign, unsurprisingly, of any staff. Naively I expected the people I've seen leaving the shop to have paid for the food they were carrying. Should I just take what I've collected? In spite of everything that's happening around me I still feel uneasy at the prospect of walking out with this stuff without paying for it. But I have to do what I have to do. Sod the consequences, I have to think about my family and forget everyone else. This is absolutely crazy. This is looting with manners. Fucking bizarre. I keep loading up the box and edging towards the exit.

There's a scream. Christ, it's a bloody horrible sound and it cuts right through me. People stop moving and look around for the source of the noise. I can see a woman on the ground just behind me. She's lying in the middle of the aisle covering her face with her hands. I try not to stare but I can't help myself. Someone shuffles out of the way and I can see that there's a child attacking her. A girl of maybe eight or nine, no older, is virtually sitting on top of her, punching her and pulling her hair. Jesus, in one hand she's got a tin of food and she's using it to batter the woman. She lands the tin on her forehead and it immediately swells up in a bloody red welt. The woman is screaming and crying and... and bloody hell, she's shouting out the girl's name. Is she being beaten by her own daughter? For a fraction of a second I think that I should help her but I know that I can't. None of us can risk getting involved. Everyone seems to have come to the same conclusion. Everyone is shocked by what they can see but no-one does anything to help. People cautiously edge forward and work their way around the fight to get out of the building as quickly as they can and I keep walking with them. The woman's out cold now but the kid is still pummelling her face. She's covered in her mother's blood...

The speed and number of people leaving the building is increasing rapidly. I can feel panic bubbling up under the surface and I keep moving, desperate to get out before it explodes. I look at the empty check-outs as I run past them and feel another momentary pang of guilt before pushing and shoving my way back out into the open and running towards my car. I throw the supplies into the back and then get in and lock the door.

I start the engine and look back at O'Shea's. Desperate people are flooding out of the ransacked shop now, tripping over each other to get away before the situation inside gets any worse. I stare at the building in disbelief, my head filled with images of my family and of what I've just witnessed. Could any of my children do what I've just seen to Lizzie or me? Worse than that, could we do it to any of them?