NEWSLETTER

I began stealing when I was twenty-two. The first thing I stole was a chocolate muffin. I started eating it on my way round the supermarket and finished it before I got to the till. From then on, whenever I did my weekly food shop, I’d steal something: a luxury item like olives or cashew nuts or, on one occasion, a whole salmon. I called it my discount. Like my own loyalty card scheme.

I didn’t steal because I was poor. I did it because it made me feel independent.

After a couple of years, I got caught. It was embarrassing. And now I don’t steal anymore.

Most people like to have something to fight against. A part of me believed I was rebelling against corporate homogeneity. Of course, I wasn’t.

This short story is about choice and rebellion: internal, external, political, domestic. And another universal motivation: our stomachs.


What I need to do is eat something small, something forgettable, like a plum. But I’m way too hungry for that.

I have done this before. Gone in to Sainsbury’s literally starving. People say that. Literally starving. Gone in to Sainsbury’s quite hungry, so hungry that I am susceptible to grand hyperbole, and moments later found myself sitting on the edge of the pavement with a plastic spork eating a blueberry yoghurt.

I know how that looks to the outside world. You see a man on a pavement eating a blueberry yoghurt with a plastic spork you think: oh God, that’s messed up, no-one should have to live like this. You want to buy me some soup.

Once, I had a strawberry yoghurt and a banana and I alternated bites. Sat on a bench, one bite banana, not swallowing, then a sporkful of yoghurt. Jaw going like a concrete mixer. Eyes dead with hunger, unable to register my own reputation.

So I need something small, something inconsequential. I don’t want to spoil the hunger. A hunger is something to be treasured. When I wake up and I am hungry, it’s the greatest feeling. Here’s this new day, here’s this endless opportunity. A choice of breakfast cereals allows each morning its distinction. I could wake up feeling humble with a Weetabix-Muesli mix and the next morning, forget about it, it’s a Coco Pops-Cheerios-Golden Graham’s triumvirate and, on that day, nothing is certain.

The high wall of cereals in the supermarket. The full range of life decisions, represented. The Kellogg’s Family Assortment, ten individual-serving boxes, and no-one chooses Raisin Bran when there’s Froot Loops on the go. No shame in a fully grown man carrying Lucky Charms to the tills. He must stay with what he feels. Porridge contains trajectories: milk or water, sweet or salty, thick or runny, with raisins or blueberries or a chopped-up pear.

I’ve got it. A chicken wing. A god-damned chicken wing. From the rotisserie, in a grease-proof bag.

I see that the girl behind the counter is black and I am pleased. She’s in charge of the self-service salad, the cold meats and the chicken.

“One chicken wing, please,” I say.

“Just one?” she asks.

And why would she know my particular needs? She wouldn’t.

“Just one” I say.

She picks it up with the tongs, drops it in the grease-proof bag. The bag has a strip of transparency down the front so you can see what you’re getting. She prints off a sticker-receipt and tapes the package shut.

“Thanks,” I say casually, but I can feel my saliva glands going nuts. The tease of the sealed packet. My mouth like a car wash. I’m not going to the six items or less queue because it can be deceptive.

I see it from distance. Or rather, I don’t see it, because it’s hardly even there. Till Eighteen’s moving like a mother fucking bullet train. I am running along the tills, clutching the single chicken wing to my chest, mouth like a fountain.

I pull in at the till. The lady in front’s already bagging up. There’s a couple of tinned flageolet beans and a pack of lean steak mince still waiting to be scanned. Nothing needs to be weighed, which is a bonus.

Sometimes, if you wait too long, you can come clean out the other side of hunger and feel like you don’t want to eat. You feel fine but you’re not.

I hand the check-out girl the chicken wing, I don’t bother putting it on the conveyor belt. There’s a man behind me, his trolley stacked with tankers of mineral water and tinned food: tuna, sardines, baked beans, breakfast-in-a-can, peach slices, pineapple rings. He’s expecting the apocalypse.

The chicken wing costs eighty-six pence. It’s nothing. I’ve got the exact change. I don’t need a bag. It’s already in a bag. I don’t need a receipt. There ain’t nothing coming back from where this thing’s going.

And I’m skipping along past the tall windows gazing out at the car park. Hundreds of colours. Then, counting down the tills until I reach the exit. Thirteen, twelve. I see the Security Man in the distance by the door, watching me. Ten, nine. He thinks I’m a fruit loop. Eight, seven. He thinks I’m an addict. Six, five. He cannot understand happiness. Four, three. He steps out from behind his lectern. Two, one. He adopts the traffic police man’s stance for Stop.

“Excuse me, sir, can I see your receipt?”

Oh I see. A man sits on a pavement alternating between a yoghurt and a banana and this is what he gets.

“I understand,” I say.

“Can I see it please sir?”

He has the most normal face. Pale skin, indistinct nose, the slightest overbite, visible pores between his eyebrows.

“I left it at the till,” I say and I turn and start jogging back.

I hear the security man running behind me. He thinks I’m going to make a break for it. With my chicken wing.

I get back to the girl who looks scared as I approach.

“Can I have my receipt please?”

I feel the guard’s hand clamp on to my elbow.

The girl looks down at the loose oranges on her weighing scales. She’s embarrassed for me.

“I didn’t take my receipt. Can I have my receipt please?”

She looks in the bin under the counter.

The man with the stockpile of tins has stopped unpacking his trolley. He is looking at me like I’m dangerous. Like I might be the man to deliver Armageddon.

The tips of the guard’s fingers are pressing my elbow bone. She’s still looking for the receipt.

“Here,” she says, relieved.

“Here it is,” I say.

The guard leans past me and takes it from her. He looks from the receipt to my chicken, which I can feel, warming my thigh.

“You got anything else?” he says.

“No. I haven’t got anything else.”

“Hold your arms out please.”

Tills fifteen through twenty-one have stopped to enjoy my ritual humiliation. I hold my arms out straight, chicken wing in my right hand, cooling in the air, losing its looks by the minute: the mottled skin, the greyish tan.

“Okay, sir.”

“Okay. I can go now can I?”

“My apologies. You can go.”

He signals me toward the exit.

“This is really bad,” I say.

“You shouldn’t have been running,” he says.

“I was running because I was excited.”

He walks alongside me. Following me out. I’m a good decade younger than him.

“I wasn’t to know that,” he says.

“I was running because I was happy.”

“I didn’t know why you were running.”


Outside, I sit down on a bench next to the Queen’s Road. I’m not even that hungry any more.

The chicken’s slippery in my hand.

I turn the wing round to find the meatiest bit. I take a big bite and most of the skin comes off too, so I’m sat there with a flap of membrane over my chin like a beard.

When I bought this chicken wing, I thought it was the right decision. I didn’t know what to buy and then – wham! – Newton’s apple – it was obvious: go to the rotisserie. But that clarity is gone now. Chewing through skin, lukewarm fat lining my mouth, I can’t imagine what to do with the rest of my day.

I’m down to the bone, biting off any elusive meat-scraps. It’s completely automatic. I can’t think about anything.

My stomach knows more than my mind. I feel my hunger returning. It’s like waking up. The destination of appetite. My body’s priorities: food before indignation. My stomach is William Wallace. I will live my life on my own terms. My stomach is Mel Gibson. To boycott Sainsbury’s would be the easy decision. I am literally starving. My stomach is the black civil rights movement.


TO BE CONTINUED
MY APPETITE | 1 | 2 |

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