Free Billy and Girl by Deborah Levy

them load up three baskets and still come to Express. They’re cunning. Do anything not to queue with the trolleys.’
    ‘Cash only,’ Girl says with feeling.
    ‘’Nother thing.’ Louise stands up and moves out of the way for Girl. ‘Sometimes the till’s stiff. Won’t open. You have to call Mr Tens.’
    ‘Right-o.’
    Louise takes a lipstick out of her overall pocket, squints while she smears it on her lips, glances at her watch and walks off.
    Girl reaches for whatever is nearest her hand. A packet of chocolate-chip cookies. Bleep. Seven more packets of chocolate-chip cookies. Five tins of meatballs in tomato and basil sauce. Jeeezuz. How do they cram them into the baskets? Girl wants them to shove the whole of FreezerWorld into their baskets. Two bags of nappies. One large tin of powdered milk formula. Three bleeps. One tiny weeny tin of spaghetti rings. Two jars of rollmop herrings. Theherrings won’t bleep. Nothing happening. No red light, no green light.
    Complete fucking silence. It’s like there’s been a nuclear accident and there’s a horrible calm in FreezerWorld. A rustle in the undergrowth and then silence again. A big sad sky. A bottle of 4711 Cologne lying in perfect condition in the ash. A mangy teddy bear with one shattered glass eye sitting on a pile of corpses. The world has come to a standstill. The end of FreezerWorld, Girl can’t bear it when the silver herrings tremble as she floats the glass over the bleep border. Nothing. The fish hasn’t got what it takes to get through. Girl tries again.
    The customer has an anxious expression on her face. Girl hates that look. She hates it particularly because her first customer is one of her Mom-check specimens. The one with gonk slippers and tissues. The Mom with the Polish husband. Herrings for her husband. Jeezus. What bad luck! Can’t get away from them. FreezerWorld is probably crowded with mother material. Didn’t she just see her real mom on Aisle Three? Girl punches numbers into the till like she went to supermarket school at five years old. She lets the herrings go. Get that woman out of her sight. Go. Back to Poland with your husband and die in a tram crash.
    Girl tells herself: If something doesn’t bleep, let it go. Thing is, she wants the money. It’s like she’s management. If it doesn’t bleep, ring it up, punch numbers in, any numbers. Get cash. A basket person waits with basket fear in his heart. Two bags of frozen prawns. Two bags of steak chips. Two trays of pork rashers. Two tubs of peanut-cluster ice cream. Two pots of noodles. Two potatoes. Whaaat? Two potatoes? Why is everything in twos?
    Aaaaaaaaaaar. It’s a soft sound. Aaaaaaar. The breath trickles out of her lips. Pain inside Girl. Crackling inside her Girlform. The shoes. The little pink shoes. They come in pairs. Girl has one shoe and Mom has the other.
    Twelve giant economy bags of lo-calorie crisps. Girl looks up from bleep. The customer is a woman, that’s the important thing. Fat white arms. Lo Calorie. Kwik Bake. Rol and Bake. Every single woman in FreezerWorld could be Mom. Girl wants to interview every one of them. She presses the Open button and the till drawer slides out effortlessly. It’s crammed with cash. Girl handles it like she owns it, counting the notes possessively. A bit resentful about giving change. Like she’s giving away something that is hers. Keeping an eye on Billy who has just appeared out of nowhere and whisked the NEXT CUSTOMER PLEASE ruler onto the sliding belt. Girl sneaks a look at the mountain of goods heaped in his trolley. A senior FreezerWorld citizen stares at him in dismay. She could be Mom. Kind but firm. She shakes her head at him and says something about Till Five. Billy looks puzzled and hurt. She points to one of the other tills. Mimes him wheeling his trolley over there, far far away from Express. ‘Express is baskets only,’ she explains slowly, dragging out the o-n-l-y. He gasps like she’s explained the meaning