Christmas Eve at the Yellow Shop
Before I’ve even opened the door, before I’ve had the chance to stick
the kettle on, switch the lights on, and put my Give A Shit face on, he’s rung.
The fucking area manager. His end of year bonus in the balance, no doubt.
Telling me to stick the Christmas CD on. To ring him if I need help. Fuck that.
I’ve made my own Christmas CD and that is going on instead. The office one that
he wants me to play is all the usual shit you can hear in any other shop.
Shaky. Slade. The Pogues. Nothing wrong with them. It’s just they’re
inescapable. My CD is more self-satisfied I know but fuck it, I have to show
I’ve got some cultural cachet somewhere. The Fall, Aimee Mann, Nat King Cole.
Someone might ask me hey what song is this playing, and I’ll say
it’s Just Like Christmas by Low and if I’m lucky the person asking me will look
a bit like Scarlett Johansson and fall in love with me there and then. We’ll
get a nice house near my daughter’s place and I’ll write a best-selling book
and eventually Scarlett will die in a terrible car accident, hanging on through
weeks of life support and blood transfusions before finally giving in seconds
before I make it to her bedside to say goodbye. Everyone will say how brave I
am, how dignified.
I will never love again.
It isn’t going to happen of course but it’s Christmas and even
your humble off-license lackey needs a little fantasy. Besides, no one ever
bought an extra bottle of third-rate champagne on the back of hearing Mariah
Carey.
Key in the door, the shutters opening. A wet and icy wind
telling my kidneys just how festive I feel. Lock the door behind me. Stick the
lights on. Put the cash in the till. Put the heating on. Go to the kitchen.
Kettle on. Customers banging the door already. The bastard phone ringing. One
minute past nine and they want to come into your grotty grotto. Fuck off. I’m
making a brew.
Busiest day of the year and already I’m wondering how to do as
little as possible. There’s not quite enough room for a chair between the till
and the Jägermeister. So, you’re stood up the whole shift. It’s deliberate,
isn’t it? Another act of cruelty from The Man. God forbid you’re never less
than 100 percent ready for retail action. At an angle between the shuttered fag
racks and the counter, it is possible to lean with your heels tight against the
base of the Cigarette Prison. I spend my days here, at an angle of 40 degrees
to my waist and then leaning across the counter. I look like twenty to three on
an old clock.
The recession has hit this town hard if the number of off
licenses are any indicator. Used to be three in the town centre. Now we’re the
last. Not because we’re the best, by any fucking stretch, but we’re dead centre
of town. In between the chemists and the bookies. There must be people here who
walk along this street and put on a bet that doesn’t win, then come in here for
some booze to numb that disappointment and finally pop in to the chemists for
antidepressants to make them feel better about the first two.
I mean, it can’t be just me.
On goes the CD and I open the doors. Christmas Eve at the Yellow
Shop. My daughter gave it that name. She’s only five. It’s got a big yellow
frontage. Alcohol is sunshine. Or something. It doesn’t look like sunshine when
you’re opening the door at nine and our morning regulars are in for their
Frosty Jack or their economy vodka. It doesn’t feel like yellow then. Not that
sunny yellow anyway. More like the smudged yellow of a 50-a-day man’s fingers.
The yellow of Pissed Billy’s face when he’s tutting at you for not opening till
five past because you’ve overslept. That’s not a sunny yellow. That’s not sunny
at all.
Been working here five years. Five years. I spend most of my
time sitting in the storeroom out back, pretending I’m dealing with a delivery
when I’m really eating a nicked Twix and reading a good book.
Pissed Billy is gone. Time for a sip of tea. I nick a Twix. It’s
ten past nine and this is the one day of the year I’ll be properly busy. Still,
I’ve positioned the one chair, they’ll let you sit down out the back on your
break, in such a way that I can see the shop door in the angled mirror and the
CCTV if I missed them coming in. It’s a good life, this, when it’s quiet. The
only thing I like better than reading is watching people and imagining their
lives.
You can tell what kind of time people are having from the way
they act in a shop like this. I’m not talking about my regulars. Scratch card
Sue. Boring Frank. Dr. Wilson with his nightly use of the 3 bottles for a
tenner offer on the Cab Sav. Anyone can hazard a guess at those people’s lives.
No, I’m talking about the irregulars, the people who just pop in once a year.
The end of year drinkers. Today is the day I meet them all.
One in now. Studying the form on the shelves. Quarter past nine
in the morning and he’s consulting the merlots. Anyone spending more than five
minutes looking at our wine has either got money problems or thinks they’re an
expert on wine. I’ve done a wine course and it’s a piece of piss. By piece of
piss, I mean I haven’t done a course but my boss thinks I have and I’m supposed
to wear a badge that says, “Ask me About Wine!” but the badge is in landfill
somewhere being ignored by a seagull.
Say someone comes in, it’s nearly always a bloke and you know
the type, they’re looking at the top shelf stuff, the expensive stuff, which
has never made any sense to me because if they fall, they smash. Put the cheap
stuff up top, surely. But I’m not the manager so top shelf stuff is top
priced. Anyway, back to your bloke who thinks he knows about wine or wants to
imply, via sighing and umming and pretending to read the bottles thoroughly,
that he does. Time to earn my money.
“Can I help you sir?”
“Mm. I’m after a bold red, I think. I’m having some family and
friends over for dinner on Boxing Day. And we’re having INSERT SOMETHING
LUDICROUSLY EXPENSIVE for dinner. And I was looking for something to compliment
this.”
Now, what I do here, is this. I agree with this cunt’s choice,
but only to an extent. Then I move over to a shelf that I know to be empty.
“Aah,” I say, “we don’t have, erm let me just check whether or
not I’ve got this other wine in the back.”
I go out the back and I have another mouthful of Twix, while I
kick an empty box about for effect. Then I look up to the wall where I’ve
sellotaped a biro chart I’ve made – Foods down one side and types of wine or
spirit that go with it. This prick is having veal. I mean, where do
people buy this stuff?
Anyway, there it is on my chart. I’ve written, whatever the
customer says, suggest the opposite and say that veal means you can be quite
versatile. So I pick up a bottle of the most expensive white wine we sell.
Deep breath. Back into the arena.
“Sorry, I was so long. Yes, the thing of course (the of
course here flatters the customer, lets them know that you appreciate their
expertise, and that the knowledge you’re about to impart is not news to them)
is veal is so versatile. I suggested this particular bottle to a customer a
couple of weeks back and they popped back in to thank me a few days later.
Obviously the red you have there is a good solid choice. But…”
They always buy both bottles. Fuck em. Isn’t veal the one where
they kill it soon as it’s born? The deer, isn’t it? Something like that. What’s
foie gras? That’s on my list. That’s something horrible too.
Anyway, I like to imagine these people’s lives and evenings.
It’s very rare I imagine something nice for these people because why should I?
Honestly, everyone should do Working Behind A Till instead of National Service.
Two years in a shop, it would transform the country.
Two Bottles of Wine with Veal Man? Well, I imagine he works in
something terribly important to do with Money. And he’s probably younger than
he looks. He looks about 50 but I reckon he’s late thirties. He’s probably got
a wife who likes her expensive things more than she likes him. And they’re
inviting over friends for dinner to “catch up” and “remember the old days.” And
each of these two couples will secretly resent the other couple for being, in
their minds, much happier and much more successful than they are. And they’ll
have had veal with broccoli and Expensive Potatoes. And they’ll be playing some
Miles Davis or something quietly in the background because he’s got a book
called What Music Goes Well with Expensive Food. Something like that. And
they’ll drink the wine. And the guy says, “veal is so versatile, you can have
either red or white with it.” And they’ll all nod, like they knew this already.
And the men will end up talking about house prices, and the women about schools
in the area because you know the clock is ticking. It’ll be the dullest evening
in the history of the world, but everyone will hug and kiss and Make Plans to
Do it Again Soon when it’s over. They’ll exchange presents. Books by Jamie or
Nigel, no doubt. And then both couples will have a row at bedtime.
Here comes another punter. It’s raining so he’ll dawdle but he
already knows what he wants. He’s looking for the chiller. There it is mate, in
the fucking corner, it’s not Big Tescos. And he’s so clearly a cider man but
the drink has an image problem. You can dress it up all you like but cider is
hooligan juice in many people’s eyes. If he’s drinking cider, he’s probably in
for some fags too. Also, a Diversionary Purchase, as I call them.
The diversionary purchase is designed to make the humble shop
assistant swiftly recalculate the mental image you may have drawn up of the
person buying a Suicidal Amount of Sherry or Two Bottles of Tramp Piss.
Luckily, retailers are aware of these instincts. And so, this December, we have
a small amount of “Christmas DVD’s.” – films you can buy for a couple of quid
to pretend to watch when really you’re just going home to get absolutely fucked.
Or there’s the boxes of chocolates. Or there’s our World of Christmas Snacks,
supposedly snacks from around the world but really it’s just beef jerky propped
up against the Quavers and Wispas. Tinsel sellotaped all around it. Ho ho ho.
Sure enough, the man moves to the chiller, thinks about only
purchasing a four pack but realises he’s going to have got through them pretty
quickly and we’re shut tomorrow so he moves in for a second. A moment later
he’s bought some beef jerky. The hat-trick looks like it could be on, he scours
our small selection of films and then looks at me and goes “Shame, I’ve seen
all of them.” Moments later he is out of the store convinced I haven’t already written
a mini biography of him in my head.
It gets progressively busier. The day goes reasonably quickly. I
recommend scratch cards, whiskies and cigars as Christmas presents, I prove
that I can bullshit on German brandy as quickly and as convincingly as I can on
everything else in my life. I turn up the music and watch as the till fills to
the point where I’ve got enough there to finally get the fuck out of here and
start again.
Of course, it’s not my money and I’d probably end up in prison.
But that would be a fresh start I suppose. Not so much wiping the slate clean
as smashing it and hoping no one fashions a shiv out of it and kills me in
Swansea nick. The phone rings. I don’t answer it. It’ll be someone who wants to
know what time we close. Just get here. I’m busy. I know why people ring places
to find out what time they’re shut. It’s because they can’t make decisions. I
know what that’s like. Five years in this shop all because I can’t quit. To
quit means having to try something new. Risk. Fear. The unknown. The job pays
the bills. But nothing more. I could do more with my brain, I suppose. She knew
that. And she made a decision when I wouldn’t.
Don’t ring the shop, just come over.
Just Like Christmas comes on and it’s a punch to the guts. I
remember how it’s going to be tomorrow. I’ll drive over to the ex in the
morning and we’ll do presents with our one gift to the universe. And it’ll be magical,
and she’ll smile and my ex will pretend she’s impressed with the gifts I’ve
bought and for a second there’ll be the smell of regret and possible change and
redemption in the air and I’ll want to grab it and she’ll think about it and
then we’ll remember who we really are deep down and then that sadness will
permeate everything, even the taste of Christmas lunch. And my daughter will
fall asleep on my lap watching Elf or something. And I’ll be sitting there
wanting to go, wanting anything to not be there when she realises it’s time for
me to go and she’ll be hurting and crying and somehow despite me not being the
one who left, it’ll be my fault and all that regret and possible change will be
over, just like Christmas.
There’s nothing I can do about any of that, of course. We go the
way we must. The last of the regulars punctuate the long evening. Frank and
Margaret and their dog in a basket. Mad Mike. Scratch card Sue fucking up her
life, scrubbing away the silver dream in front of me till the counter looks
like broken glitter. Even Pissed Billy manages a third and final visit,
offering me a swig of the can he’s finishing. Swaying in front of me as he
tries to remember what fags he smokes, and I know I shouldn’t but I pretend I
don’t know and he finally remembers it’s Superkings and I give him a free
lighter as a Christmas present.
As he moves away, he spots the DVDs. He picks one up and squints
until he sees enough to make a decision.
“It’s A Wonderful Life!”
“It certainly is, Billy.”
“No, the film mun. The fucking best Christmas film ever. You
seen it? Probably too old for you.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. It is good.”
“My mum, god bless her. She loved this film. Always made her
cry.”
He pauses to take a sip from his can.”
He looks at me with tear-filled eyes and says “Me too.”
And in that precious tiny little moment Pissed Billy is
elevated, transcendent and glorious, all his stories are revealed to me at
once, tragic and untellable, a flash of pain and tenderness across his face and
all our mutual Ghosts of Christmas Past are sat between us, forgiving and kind.
“Do you want the film, Billy? Only I’m closing up soon.”
“Nah butt. Fucking seen it.”
I laugh at the majesty of that fucking. Billy burps and says
excuse me and almost leaves without his fags.
“Happy Christmas Billy.”
“Happy Christmas.”
I see him out the door and watch as he swerves his way round
obstacles known only to him. I check the street for any last-minute shoppers,
any Scarlett Johanssons, but there are none. I rinse my cup out in the sink and
put the money in the safe. I put the Twix wrappers in my pocket and turn on the
alarm. Thirty-five seconds to leave and lock the shop. I manage it, I always do
but there’s a reluctance tonight. A hope for something I can’t quite put my
finger on. Off go the lights. I just about get out on time and when I finally
lock the shop, I realise what it is.
