THE SUPERMARKET

They recognised each other straight away, but didn't immediately have the opportunity to say anything. While he gradually loaded his groceries onto the conveyor belt, she dealt a bad-tempered mother accompanied by two talkative children, aged about three and five.

In the meantime, he had a chance to wonder why she was working in a supermarket. It seemed a bit unlikely, if she had finished her course. He also wondered if she was seeing anyone.

Equally, she had time to wonder why he was shopping. Presumably, he no longer lived with his parents. Did he live on his own then, or with someone else? She tried to analyse his purchases, while she waited for the woman to pay.

The woman took forever to put her food into carrier bags. Her kids were no help, a lot more interested in a nearby psychedelic machine that dispensed clear plastic spheroids containing useless small plastic objects. Eventually, she paid with a credit card, then steered her loaded trolley away and yelled "No, you can't have twenty p!" at her children.

The cashier's eyes met those of her next customer's for a second.

"Hi," he said, shyly, looking down at the "Next customer" sign he had placed behind his groceries. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Not since 22nd August 1996," she said. Most of their year had gone out since it was Michelle's eighteenth. A week after they'd celebrated getting their A Level results.

"Really? You've got a good memory." He too remembered that night only too clearly, though. Not the date or the reason behind it, only having endless arguments with his himself about whether to approach her or not. He hadn't and still regretted it.

"Only for meaningless bumph," she said, although that occasion hadn't been meaningless in the least. It had been one of the most painful nights in her life, not because of what happened but what didn't. She started scanning items. Two pizzas, a tin of tomato soup, four yoghurts. Convenience food with some concession to health.

"So, what are you doing working here?" he asked.

"Making a living," she said, knowing that he meant What Are You, A Recently Qualified Young Person, Doing Working In A Supermarket? "It's just a holiday job. I decided to do a four-year-course."

"Ah," he said. "Well, I'm still at uni for another two years. If I can be arsed. I changed course last September - changed universities too - and I don't know if I'll manage to stick it out."

"What are you doing now?"

"Media studies. Here. Don't laugh."

It was funny that someone should change from the ultimate impossibility of Vetinery Medicine to the ultimate doss subject at the local far-from-prestigous university. Still, it wasn't a laughing matter, so she only smiled. "What went wrong with Vet. Medicine?"

"Too much work. Just like everyone warned me. Anyway. How are you?"

"Fine." She wasn't really. She was bored and tired all the time, her supervisor was an idiot and her family were making her scream. But you didn't tell a virtual stranger that. They had been fairly good friends at one point, but three years without contact was a long time.

"Good," he said, wondering how he could raise the issue of relationships. It was impossible, but perhaps that was a good thing. There was, what, a fifty? seventy? percent chance that he wouldn't want to hear the truth.

She bleeped some more items. "What brings you to these parts then?"

"Hunger?" he suggested, knowing that she meant If You're Still Living With Your Parents, Why Are You Doing The Shopping? "I'm living on my own now. Got fed up with Mum and Dad breathing down my neck."

"Know what you mean." So that was that mystery solved. The question that remained, the one that there was no subtle way of asking, was Did He Have A Girlfriend?

The supermarket was noisy enough. It was eight thirty on a Friday night, one of the busiest times of the week. From her own checkout alone, there were the bleeps (which supposedly reminded everyone of 'Supermarket Sweep') and the clunks as she set items back down on the conveyor belt. At the end, the carrier bags rustled continually as he filled them. Yet they both experienced an overwhelming silence.

I can't believe we spoke each other on a daily basis for years, and after all this time apart we can't think of a thing to say to each other, they both thought.

After what seemed like an eternity, she scanned the final product, a bottle of wine, and he put it into a carrier bag. "That'll be thirty four pounds ninety six," she told him, her words ringing loudly and strangely.

He removed a wallet from his pocket and paid her in cash. A twenty and two tens. "There you go." He gave her the notes and they both made sure their hands didn't touch.

She pressed the appropriate buttons on the till and the receipt clattered out. She tore it off and gave it to him along with his change. "Five pounds and four pence." This time, they accidentally made contact. It was brief and meaningless though.

"Thanks. Well..." He busied himself putting away the money. "I guess I'll see you around."

Ask him, she told himself. Just say, "How about we go for a drink sometime?" It's so easy. There's nothing to it.

But of course, she didn't. "Yeah. See you."

He plunked his carrier bags into the trolley and steered it towards the exit. She gazed after him. He glanced back once, not long enough for his eyes to find hers, then steadfastly concentrated on the automatic doors ahead of him.

She sold a hundred and five tins of cat food to a woman with green hair. He manipulated the trolley to his car, put the food in the boot, gave the trolley to a bloke collecting them, got in his car, and attempted to leave the car park, only to succeed in crashing into a bollard that he hadn't noticed.

The car was slightly dented, but he didn't bother repairing it. The bollard remained tilted at an angle of sixty degrees for over two years. Then someone crashed into it in the opposite direction and it was more or less upright once again.