Читать книгу The Choice - Alex Lake - Страница 8

Matt Westbrook stepped into the shop. It was one of the last of its kind – an independent local shop stocking a mixture of groceries, alcohol, newspapers, magazines and basic home cleaning and maintenance supplies – and he was the only customer.

He was only there because it was open and it was on his way home and Annabelle had texted to say they needed milk, coffee, bread, pasta, and beer or wine – and, if they had any, toilet paper and disinfecting wipes – and could he stop and get them on his way home with the kids?

Which was fine. She was recovering from a cold and didn’t need to go out on a chilly night. He could pick up the stuff and do a big shop the next day at the supermarket. He wouldn’t bother with the wine, though – they were trying for another baby, so she was off the booze and he didn’t much feel like drinking alone.

They had three already, which was quite a handful, but he had managed to persuade her to add one more. Norman, seven, was named after her late father, a physics teacher and one of the most creative and inspiring people Matt had ever met. Keith – named after the Rolling Stone, if anyone asked – had come next, followed by Molly. Each kid had brought with them worse morning sickness and harder labours: Norman was nine pounds, Keith ten, and Molly eleven. As far as Annabelle was concerned, that was nature’s way of telling them to stop at three, but the years passed and the memories faded and, after a while, she had agreed to try for another.

His friends thought he was crazy, but he liked having kids. It was chaotic and busy, for sure, but he enjoyed it. More than that: he loved it. At work he daydreamed of sitting on the couch watching a movie with the three of them snuggled up to him and Annabelle, or of coming home and reading them a book.

And even though Norman was only seven he felt the time slipping away. He couldn’t bear the thought there were only eleven years to go until he left for university or a career or whatever came his way, to be followed swiftly by Keith and Molly.

The first seven years had vanished in the blink of an eye, so eleven more was nothing. He wasn’t ready for it, and the only way to stop it was to have more kids. Five, maybe, or six.

Annabelle might have something to say about that, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

He looked out of the shop window at the car. The doors were still closed. The front doors were unlocked, but the rear doors were child-locked so, even if they tried, the kids wouldn’t be able to get out. They’d have to climb into the front and go out that way, which was unlikely.

Still, he’d be as quick as he could. He didn’t need a police officer walking past and seeing them and questioning where their mum or dad was. He was pretty sure it wasn’t against the law to leave them there but he still didn’t want to discuss whether it was good parenting or not to do so.

He grabbed a basket and moved around the shop. Milk, skimmed. A block of Irish cheddar cheese. A bag of pasta – fusilli, he noted, whatever that was. Coffee, not a brand he recognized and probably awful, but it would have to do. Bread, brown, unsliced – they had surprisingly good loaves here – and a warm baguette. He paused at the wine shelf. Maybe he would have a glass after all. Red, perhaps. It was cold, the nights drawing in. He picked up a bottle of Cabernet. That would do.

The checkout was at the far end of the shop. He carried his basket over and put it down.

‘All right, mate.’ The man behind the counter was in his fifties and had a Liverpool accent. ‘Got everything you wanted?’

‘Yes, thanks. Just grabbing a few bits.’ He glanced around. ‘Got any wipes?’

‘We’re out. Toilet paper’s all gone too.’ He shook his head. ‘Load of fuss about nothing, if you ask me.’

‘You never know,’ Matt said. ‘There’s quarantine in parts of Italy.’

‘Won’t happen here, mate. But I’ll sell people whatever they want to buy.’

The man punched in the prices, one by one. Easy to fiddle the take. Perhaps this place was a front for a gang, a place to quietly wash clean their ill-gotten gains.

‘Twenty-seven fifty,’ he said.

Matt hesitated and looked at the basket. Seven quid for the wine. A fiver for the coffee. He’d looked at the price of those. Which left fifteen-fifty for the bread, milk, baguette and pasta. How much was bread? Three pounds? Milk and pasta? The same probably. Which meant the baguette was outrageously expensive.

Or they all were.

The man looked at him, his expression questioning. For a moment Matt thought about asking for the prices of the bread, coffee, milk and pasta, but then the man interrupted.

‘Everything OK, mate?’

He nodded, and handed over two twenties. If this was a front for a gang they didn’t need to use it to launder any money. They were robbing people in plain sight.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and picked up his change and his shopping. It was definitely the supermarket next time.