A proper mental Saturday it is, what with New Sue off with her hernia and the Lukes of Hazzard gone AWOL, so Muggins Here'll have to cover for everyone else's break. Not New Sue and Beverly are still giving me the silent treatment 'cause I can't let them take the bank holiday off, but it's water off a duck's back by this point. By ten o'clock the queues are looping back, and it's like all Greenland's one of those swilling dreams you get with 'flu. Full of eyes, drilling into me. Philpotts can't get close enough to fire off a "What are half your team doing without their name-badges, Pearl?" but I need the loo – no chance, not 'til all the breaks are over. This beardy customer's spitting, "Twenty-three minutes I've been in this queue!" I tell him, "It certainly is a busy morning" so in he leans, breath all pilchardy, and says, "Then hire – more – staff!", like I'm backwards, like Gary used to do sometimes. I ask for his "I Love Greenland" Loyalty Card and while he's fishing through his wallet I'm working out that I've still got three hundred and forty minutes 'til I can go home. Last week I turned forty-five so that's nineteen years 'til I retire, though now they're reckoning we'll have to work 'til seventy. Seventy! Doesn't bear thinking about, does it? I really really need the loo. When I ask the man, "Cash back?" he gives me this withering, "That's exactly what landed the economy in the crappers in the first place" and then, "What's so green about Greenland Supermarkets dishing out fifty plastic bags to every customer?"

Up in the staff room the kettle's rumbling to a boil and the microwave's pinging and Not New Sue squints through her glasses at the astrology page in Smiles'n'Stars. "Here we go, Beverly, here's you – Leo." By my usual spot under the health and safety notice board I'm munching my third WeightWatchers' walnut brownie (one or even two leave you hungrier than none) and I'm listening in 'cause my star-sign's Leo too. "'This week'," reads Not New Sue aloud, "'Daughters of the Lion will encounter a Fork in the Road.'"

"Careless to leave cutlery lying about," says Yusuf.

"Shut up," she says. "'One path leads to Pastures New. But with Saturn's Baleful Influence in your Ruling House, look before you leap. Better to cavort with the Devil You Know?' Make any sense o'that?"

"Not a lot." Beverly drinks a bag of pork scratchings. "Quite like the sound of 'Pastures New'."

Declan from Fresh Produce sits down and his chair gives off a shriek. "Never say 'no' to a good cavort, me. How about you, Pearl? You're Leo too, aren't you? Got up to much cavorting, lately?"

There's this horrible moment when everyone's staring.

Declan knows what Gary did. Everybody knows.

I should bite back, but my mind's gone blank.

If I get up and go, that'll make Not New Sue's day.

"Astrology proves one thing," Yusuf pulls the attention his way, "and one thing only. That there is one born every minute." He adjusts his false teeth with his tongue.

"She's the real thing, that Erin Silverwind." Beverly pops several NutraSweet into her tea. "The day before my scratch-card win, she predicted, 'Lady Luck will reward your patience with gold.' Six hundred and twelve pounds and 58 pence, thank you very much."

"'Erin Silverwind'," snorts Yusuf. "Wasn't that a 1970s sports car?"

The day before Gary cleaned out our joint account and cleared off to Spain, Smiles'n'Stars predicted, "A mask will slip from the face of someone close, to your considerable cost." Oh, that cost me all right. Still does.

Wendy, a student doing science at the university, asks Yusuf, "Is it against your religion, then, astrology?"

"Astrology is against rational thought!" Yusuf pecks his finger against his grizzled head. "Astrology is against logic!"

"If you've got so much rational thought and logic, Yusuf," Declan sprinkles bits into his Pot Noodle, "why've you been stuck in this shit-pit for the last ten years?"

I'm not laughing. Come next Christmas I'll have clocked up twenty.

After the 3 to 11 shift come on I'm freed up to do my duty supervisor bit, but straight away this frail old bird's tugging my sleeve with her trembly hand. "Where might the hundreds and thousands be?" I show her to Home Baking where two lads with rat's-tail haircuts are having a trolley fight. I tell them to cut the monkey business but one shouts back, "Or you'll do what, Mrs Gorilla? Sit on me?" and the other says, "Gorillas've got less facial hair than that fugly tub o'lard!" and glides slap-bang into the display of Jamie Oliver's pasta sauces. It goes everywhere and several jars smash. They leg it, cackling and snorty, so I go to fetch Frank to clean up the red gloop before people start slipping on it for compo, but Frank's door's locked and no one knows where he's gone. Back on the floor I'm ambushed by Philpotts who asks me why I'm fannying around when Jamie Oliver's sauces're bleeding their guts out? I tell him I went to get Frank but Frank's not there so Philpotts says, "Well where is Frank then?" and I say, "How am I s'posed to know?" and Philpotts says, "Someone has an attitude problem here, Pearl" and it's just as well that Yusuf rolls up with a mop and a bucket of soapy water and a CAUTION SLIPPERY FLOOR sign. The buzzer goes at the customer information, and Philpotts says, "You'd better scuttle along before you say another word." It's only Carla who's run out of pound coins, so I take a twenty to do a swap with Beverly on Checkout 1, but before I can get there there's a tug at my elbow and it's the frail old bird again asking, "What about the glacé cherries?" I tell her they're in Home Baking and she asks, "Where's that?" so I have to take her back. My knees are hurting. Passing through Meat and Poultry these beanpole girls with pierces and tattoos ask me, "Do you know the difference between a 'free-range chicken' and 'farm-fresh'?" For a second I'm too miserable to even say "No."

Fat chance of a proper break, so I slope off for a quick smoke and a bit of air. When I started work at Greenland we all smoked up in the staff room, but now there's signs saying "Smoking On Site Is A Disciplinary Offence" – that's Brussels for you – so now those of us left've got to puff away under the side entrance. Least it's a lovely afternoon. Cars crawl round the hot car park, hunting for spaces. I catch a snatch of George Michael, and I remember being sixteen and spending the day at Russell Bolger's instead of going to my English exam. Five or six Polish lads from the delivery bays are taking a break with their shirts off and you don't have to speak Polish to guess they're talking about the girls coming in and out, with their bellybuttons showing.

Twenty August bank holidays come, twenty gone.

Greenland was only going to be a one- or two-year job. I was going to go back and retake exams and apply for a course in childcare, but then I met Gary – he was tiling the manager's bathroom – and two months later my period didn't come. Six months later my waters broke in the staff toilet, and out came Damien. Damien was my childcare course, and I've never been able to afford to give up Greenland. Some tilers were coining it during the booms, but Gary never did. That's what he claimed, anyway.

Damien actually phoned last week, from Sydney. Thought he'd remembered my birthday, but he wanted a "loan". I asked about the "serious pile" he said he'd made in Dubai, but he just said, "Go on, Mum – just a couple of grand, it goes a long way here." I asked about his bar-owning father in Gibraltar, but it was, "Dad's always in meetings. Pay it into my Visa card like last time." I said I'd paid the last of what I had spare after he phoned from China but the beeps went and Damien said, "Don't let me down, Mum" and the line went dead.

Had to borrow it from the Credit Union.

I'm stubbing out my cigarette when Beverly's rushing up like someone's had a heart attack. "Your nutter friend Clive's back."

"Not the 'They Are Everywhere' Clive?"

"How many other Clives do you know?"

"But… we were told he was moved away."

"He's standing in Detergents now," says Beverly, "talking to himself. Large as life."

Same puffy face, same shaven head, same dead eyes. Like broken windows in an empty house. He's tracing his fingertips over a bottle of Ariel Non Bio, like he's reading Braille. I go up and say, "Hello, Clive. D'you remember me? I took you back last year. No magic markers, this time, right?"

What I think he says is, "Go release them, Ariel..."

Not New Sue's making a totally bonkers face.

"My charms I'll break," Clive says, "their senses I'll restore…"

Philpotts walks towards us with Brian the security guard.

I make a sort of Just give me a moment gesture.

"Better call the police," Brian tells me, like Clive's not there. "Your average nutcase can turn without warning."

"Don't be soft," I tell him. "He wouldn't hurt a mouse."

"Greenland won't accept liability," Philpotts warns me.

Clive mumbles "…and they shall be themselves."

I ask him, "Is that a poem you wrote, Clive?"

He turns to me. "Do you use Ariel? Personally?"

I do sometimes, I tell him, when it's on offer.

"Does it really make your whites whiter than white?" He asks his questions like a kid, like the answers really matter. "Like it says?"

"They're all much of a muchness, if you ask me."

Next Clive studies a box of Persil Powerballs.

"Are you living back at Beech Grove now, Clive?"

He says, "Delivering premium care in the community."

I take that as a Yes. "Let's head back, then, shall we? Before they wonder where you've gone to?" Brian's tensing up, ready to rugby-tackle Clive, but Clive lets me take his sleeve and lead him gently off. Declan passes by, smirking: "Off for a cavort?" Philpotts says this: "I want you back in –" he checks his watch "– 15 minutes, or I take this matter higher. Greenland Supermarket's not a charity and you're not Florence Sodding Nightingale."

I let go of Clive's sleeve and we walk down the steps to the old canal from the back of Greenland Car Park. "Nice and cool," I say, "under these trees. I do this walk every day, to my bus stop." Clive doesn't answer but he's listening, so I talk about Rizla and Spliff, my new cats who the couple upstairs abandoned when they left. "Two lovely cats! Our housing association was going to have them put down, but I thought, 'No, I can't just stand by and let that happen'."

Crossing the bridge, I steer Clive to avoid a roller-blader.

Down on the towpath there's a fisherman, not moving.

"Looks like a garden gnome, doesn't he? That floppy hat."

Clive doesn't answer, but that's OK.

A pale girl steps up asking, "Got any spare change? I haven't eaten all day." All I've got on me is 50p so I give her that, and she says all sarky, "Oh wow, thanks – that'll buy me at least half a bag of M&M's."

Past the bridge, under a big sycamore, the path forks. The right-hand path goes to what used to be the main shopping street, but me and Clive take the left path into an alley. A black lab's barking through a wire fence but I tell him to shut it and he does, and we come out into a sort of cul-de-sac of linked-up bungalows. By the entrance there's a sign saying THE BEECH GROVE TRUST – DELIVERING PREMIUM CARE IN THE COMMUNITY. The hanging baskets've got purple daisies and geraniums and I tell Clive, "Someone's been busy."

"Flowers look like eyes," Clive mumbles. "Unblinking."

I sort of see what he means. "Specially pansies."

"Iris the flower," Clive mumbles, "and iris in the eye."

Words. I tell him I've never noticed that.

"Each day," says Clive, "is a trail of breadcrumbs."

The big black warden from last time opens the door. "Clive Pike, you'll be the death of me! You agreed with Dr Hayes – you must register before you go out."

Clive just sighs and steps inside, around her.

"Please tell me he didn't write anything on the walls this time?"

She means me. "No. Clive was just browsing. Then I brought him back during my break, just to make sure he got home OK."

She recognises me. "You escorted our mystery wanderer back the last time he graced Greenland, didn't you, sweetheart? Why don't you step inside, just for a second?"

Reception's got goldfish in a tank with a fairy castle, and glass doors leading into a courtyard thing. There's the sound of wind chimes, and homemade mobiles dangling from the ceiling, and photos of a visit to an amusement park. A radio's burbling away quietly. In the courtyard garden some men – patients, I s'pose – are working away. Clive's frowning at the goldfish. The warden tells him, "How about dropping the Butter-Wouldn't-Melt-in-My-Mouth act, Clive, and thanking this kind lady? Your group's at four – you'd have missed it if she hadn't brought you back – and Dr Hayes would not have been best pleased, would he?"

Clive acts like he hasn't heard her.

"No trouble," I say. "It's a nice stroll, down the hill."

Clive suddenly speaks up. "Thank you, Pearl Bundy."

I'm so surprised that I just look at him, and for one or two or three or four brilliant seconds, Clive's enjoying the look on my face. "You're wearing your name-badge, Pearl." Then he's off through a swinging door.

Why's this big stupid grin taken over my face?

"He's there," I tell the warden, "isn't he? I mean, on the inside."

"Yes, sweetheart. Yes he is." She purses her lips. "All our residents are, but people don't see that. They're too afraid. Look, thank you for returning our lost sheep. I'm Sandra, by the way. We're always understaffed, but the woman who started Monday lasted a grand total of a day and a half before quitting, and finding a suitable replacement…"

"I do the rosters at Greenland. Nightmare."

"So where did you train as a carer, Pearl?"

"Me? I only ever worked at Greenland. Why'd you ask?"

Sandra shrugs it's obvious. "You've a gift is why."

"Just treating people like you'd want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot, that's hardly a gift."

Someone's playing some drums somewhere.

"Call it what you like, it's rare, all too rare." Sandra gives me a funny look. "Fancy an application form?"

I'm a bit slow on the uptake. "You mean, to work here? Isn't it all qualified doctors and nurses and that, here?"

"Well, our therapists need help during the sessions – music, craft and so on – and then we need willing hands in Respite, for spillages, answering the phone and whatnot. Now it's not a glamorous job, and you need thick skin sometimes, but it's never boring. And just by being your cheerful capable self, Pearl, you'll help our residents no end. There's interviews, usually, but I've got a staffing crisis so we can do the formalities later. If, of course, you're tempted."

I'm gobsmacked is what I am. She's only just met me.

"No, I mean. I mean, thanks, really, but…"

"'Nough said," says Sandra. "Cheeky of me to head-hunt you."

Hurrying back to the sycamore, I'm all sweaty and worried and wishing I'd just delivered Clive and gone straight back. Philpotts'll be hovering, looking at his watch, plotting his lines: Both Mr Matthews and myself are frankly stunned, Pearl, that you saw fit to waltz off on one of the year's busiest Saturdays. Something like that. Not New Sue'll have a field day. Golden Girl's not so golden now, is she? That Sandra must've been out of her crust to offer me a job on the spot like that, and I was out of my crust to listen to her, just because she calls you "sweetheart". Thump-thump-thump goes my aching feet over the wooden bridge. Up ahead, up seventy steps, Greenland sits like a UFO that's sucked up all life from the neighbourhood. Supermarket work's all I'm good for, that's the truth of it. If I hurry, I'll make it back just before Philpotts' deadline: two minutes to climb the steps, and one to cross the car park.

So how come I've stopped here, on the bridge?

Slap-bang in the middle. Like my legs're on strike.

Down on the towpath, the fisherman's casting off.

You, Gary's voice echoes, mucking out the funny farm?

The critchetty sound of the reel unwinding…

Just two grand, says Damien's voice. I'll pay you back.

…the line whipping the air. A quiet splosh.

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