Page 50 of 56 Days
She can’t even go sit in the car. He has the keys.
“You can go in, too,” the guard says, “but you have to shop separately.” He holds up a hand in astopgesture to let her know that she can’t do this just yet, that she’ll have to wait until another person comes out. Her face must communicate some kind of reaction to this because he adds, “It’s to keep the aisles as clear as possible so everyone can stay well away from each other.”
When she hearstut-tuttingfrom behind her, Ciara feels compelled to say, “Of course, yeah. I understand,” more loudly than she might have otherwise.
“It’ll just be a minute,” the guard says.
She pulls out her phone and looks for the grocery list they made that she’s recorded in her Notes app. Oliver is an okay cook while she’s mostly a microwaver, so the bulk of the meal planning was his. She doesn’t know what he’s going to do with things like lamb cutlets, a fresh mint plant, garam masala (?), and tahini (??), but he’s promised she won’t starve. They’ve also made what Oliver nicknamed their Doomsday Prepper List. They’re saying if you get this thing you’ll have to isolate yourself from everyone else for up to two weeks, so they both tried to think of nonperishable things they could stock up on—extras, to have just in case.
It was, in a weird way, fun. A challenge. They came up with dried pasta and readymade sauces, the kind that don’t go bad for years. Bread mixes that can be baked as needed—but only the brown or soda ones, because they need water added, not milk. Porridge. Sweet snacks so full of preservatives they’ll last until thenextglobal crisis. Canned fruit. Canned fish. Canned beans. Maybe some multivitamins, just in case. Instant coffee, the fancy kind with supposedly fresh grounds mixed in. Cartons of oat milk because it doesn’t require refrigeration and won’t completely ruin the coffee. Bottled water, although when the shops open again Oliver says he’s going to buy one of those filter jugs. Toothpaste and shower gel. Toilet paper, toilet paper, toilet paper, because who wants to be trapped in a confined space with someone they don’t know very well, who may be suffering fromintestinal issues, without an ample supply ofthat?
There is no part of Ciara that believes for one moment that either of them will ever need to survive on a diet of dried pasta and canned grapefruit segments, but the idea of having them is reassuring nonetheless.
She emails the list to Oliver and waits to hear thewhooshthat confirms its safe departure.
Another three or four minutes pass before a man in his forties emerges from the doors pushing a cart overflowing with crates of beer, and the guard gives Ciara the okay to go inside.
Running to catch up with Oliver seems like a childish contravention of the rules, and not one he’d approve of. And anyway, he can manage the shopping by himself. They’ve already agreed she’ll reimburse him for half the total in cash; she can just give it to him afterward. But she might as well have a browse rather than stand outside, bored and waiting for him.
As soon as the sliding doors close behind her, she’s struck by how eerily quiet it is inside. She’s never taken any notice of how much sound there normally is in a vast supermarket—chatter, she supposes, andshopping-cartwheels on the floor and rubber soles squeaking—but she’s sure this is the first time she’s ever been able to hear distant music being played from some concealed speaker system. Theone-person-one-cart system is evidently working; the only other person she can see is the uniformed staff member directing her to follow the large red arrows stuck to the floor.
Ciara grabs a basket to keep up pretenses and goes where she’s told.
The flower bays and magazine racks are empty. Astore-brandclothing area has been roped off with a sign that says, “This section is temporarily closed. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Even as Ciara advances into the food aisles, she meets no other customers, only staff members hurrying to empty the contents from stacks of blue bins and transfer them to the shelves.
Milk fridges and bakery baskets are stuffed to overflowing, but elsewhere there are huge, yawning gaps where product should be. Thereistoilet paper, but signs warn one package per customer; Ciara puts one in her basket because it seems silly not to. The pasta section has been picked clean and she doesn’t see any of those bread mixes in the aisle where she knows they should be; apparently they weren’t the only ones withthatbright idea.
It’s a weird feeling to know that whatever you need, you must get ithere, right now. There’s nowhere else to go except shops just like this one and smaller versions of it with more limited product ranges.
What if this thing lasts longer than two weeks?
She grabs a packet of ballpoint pens in the stationery aisle, and some razors and a bottle of hair conditioner in beauty. When she finds a small selection of paperbacks withdiscount-pricestickers on them, she picks up a few in turn, inspecting the text on their back covers until she remembers that she shouldn’t be touching things unnecessarily. She chooses two at random and throws them into her basket, mentally updating its total cost.
She doesn’t find Oliver until she reaches the last red arrow on the trail and emerges at the row of checkout desks. He’s three tills away, stuffing things into his backpack. There’s no one waiting behind him and the cashier is protected behind a plexiglass screen, so she hurries to join him.
The last item on the belt is a large box containing a Canon printer. She hastily dumps the contents of her basket behind it.
“You got one, then?”
Oliver swings around, surprised to see her. “Oh. Yeah. Thankfully.”
The cashier sees Ciara’s toilet paper and does a little eye roll, evidently unimpressed by her rule bending.
“No pasta, though,” Oliver adds.
“I saw. Whoever thought there’d be apastashortage in Ireland?”
“Hey, at least we’ve moved on from potatoes.”
He hands her ascrunched-upplastic bag, one of the ones she saw him stuff into his backpack before they left the apartment.
The question is, what’s in the backpack now?
She could swear that, just before he turned around, she saw him hastily zip it closed in a way that makes her think he’s put something in there he doesn’t want her to see.
Operation Grocery Shop takes up most of the day. Between the queuing to park and the queuing to get in, it’s after two by the time they’re driving back to Harold’s Cross. Unloading the car takes two trips up to the apartment, and then wiping everything down and finding somewhere to put it takes an age. Oliver seems to visibly relax when they reach the collection point for the GoCar—to which they’re returning it now—without having encountered any Garda checkpoints. His shoulders and spine lose a tension that they’d been carrying for much of the day. He may claim it’s about his driving, but on the walk back they passed two squad cars in the process of setting up a roadblock and Ciara would swear she felt the hand holding hers grow clammy with a cold sweat at the sight.
But she didn’t ask him about it.
