Archive of Our Own

TUESDAY (SORT OF)

BAZ

Simon Snow has been banned from Tesco.

It was definitely him. I recognised him immediately, despite not having seen him in months. (I made a complete arse of myself at Bunce's birthday party.) (In public.)

The critical thing I've learnt in life is that you can put all conceivable time and distance between yourself and Snow, and he’ll still appear as though summoned, like a council estate Beetlejuice. He festers in the back of your mind, a particularly clingy subspecies of mould you can never quite be rid of.

No matter where life takes you, Simon Snow remains imminent.

It appears that not even a nationwide quarantine order can keep the man contained. What on earth is he doing, causing a scene in a supermarket when the country's under lockdown? It's just like him to take this ordeal personally. I can picture the headlines now: Local man and rumoured former member of Goldie Lookin Chain ransacks shop—says he “missed being the usual centre of attention”.

I try to focus on my clipboard of item quantities and barcodes, but it blurs to nothing before my eyes.

Typical.

It was an ordinary enough morning. There I was, innocently lurking in the biscuit aisle, doing my best to look busy and avoid my adoring public. (It's amazing how many people will leave their homes when visibly ill, despite inescapably clear medical advice.) (I had to fend off one chronic sneezer with a yard-long box of Jaffa Cakes. Honestly, Britain.) Next thing I knew, there he was—disregarding all known interpretations of the phrase personal space and looking like he'd lost a recent fight with a Sports Direct sale rack.

He's following me. He must be.

He knows I've been avoiding him since my wine-addled confession at Bunce's party. He's got himself worked up and came here to destroy me, my livelihood, my...well, alright, my part-time job at Tesco. Which is not the be-all and end-all of my existence, but it pays the bills—and given the present cataclysmic free fall the economy's in, I'd rather not lose it simply because Snow can't control his own febrile emotions.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous, in thinking this is about me. He did look surprised—he gasped, puffy eyes growing wide as we collided. (I latched myself onto a stack of Garibaldi, the sturdiest of biscuits, to keep my balance.) Snow went sliding all over the place, soaked trainers skidding on lino as he tried to escape Bill and Ted. (Not that Bill and Ted. They're the branch security guards. Not in any way excellent.)

“Baz?” he shrieked, face smeared with what I bloody well hoped was orange juice. “Baz Pitch?” I gawped at him, unable to shake or nod or do anything. “Help me, will you? They're trying to kill me!”

The guards came careening after him, slamming me into the wafers, gloved hands creaking as they manhandled their prey with a social-distancing broom.

“Simon?” I squeaked, no doubt a portrait of dismay as he slipped in spilt juice, baseball cap at a distressed angle, hoodie three sizes too big crowding his knees. He looked like he'd murdered the cast of EastEnders and stolen their clothes. He wiped at his face with a sweaty palm, a single own-brand tub of margarine tumbling from his arms, lid skittering off under the shelves.

“Do you know this prat?” Bill growled at me. “Just 'ad a dust-up with Mr Morris over marge! He was right narked. Wants us to kick 'im out.”

I regained control of myself long enough to shake my head, crushing wafers between anxious fingers. Snow's look of betrayal was absolute. He stared at me with his baleful blue eyes as they turned him with the probing broom, masks pulled up over their noses, bickering and muttering over his head.

“Come on—out yer go. Caused a right mess, you 'ave! Ain't you got nothing better to do? It's a bleeding pandemic!”

Why am I attracted to him?

Why did I follow them forlornly to the end of the aisle in order to lengthen the amount of time spent staring at the back of his head?

His curls, crusty with orange juice...clothes, stained and creased...fist, raised in defiance above his head...a single packet of Jammie Dodgers swaying with the rhythm of his righteous indignation...

It was my choice to avoid him. My choice not to try again, when he crushed me like a foolish daydream. (Or, more immediately relevant—a cheap wafer.)

“Got yer Jammie Dodgers!” he cried as he battled valiantly against security. (The Man, he would say. Fuck 'em, Baz. Fuck The Man.) “Sod you then, I'll shop at Asda!”

He was turfed out without ceremony. I peered from between my fingers as the automatic doors slid shut, Snow almost taking out another customer as he turned, pulling his cap down over his eyes.

In the aftermath, shoppers turned to look at me, eyes accusing as they examined the name badge pinned to my hideously unfashionable corporate fleece.

“Sorry,” I managed, returning to my sanctuary of packaged biscuits, pushing my face into a disturbed heap of chocolate digestives. “So sorry.”

It's been a good ten minutes since he left. Niall appeared with a mop to sort out the orange juice trail—“you look like you've seen a ghost, mate!”—and yes, I have. I’ve survived an encounter with what I can only describe as the chavvy ghost of pandemics past.

Nobody has come to shout at me about it, so I suppose I can breathe now.

In...out...stop crushing the shortbread...

“Did you know him?”

I look around, knocking a packet off the shelf. It's Niall again, leaning on his mop.

“Know who?”

“The bloke who got kicked out.” He picks up the biscuits and tosses them to me. “Margarine, apparently. Bad luck getting in a fight with old Morris over the last tub, yeah? Fucking vicious, that one.”

I grunt, busying my fingers in my hair and pretending to be intensely interested in my clipboard. The numbers are blurry. Nothing makes sense anymore. Niall takes a step towards me with his bucket and I step back, waving a gloved hand.

“Distance.”

“Oh, yeah. Soz. Is it your break now?”

I check my watch to see he's right, and slump with relief. I salute Niall with my clipboard and stagger off towards the staff room, sure in the knowledge that if I don't have a cigarette between my lips within the next thirty seconds, I will actually die of stress.

Simon Snow, banned from Tesco.

Simon Snow, there in the biscuit aisle.

Simon Snow, in the flesh, after months of being mere thought.

Simon Snow, making an arse of himself during a global crisis.

Nothing new, really. Everything he does has to be a production.

He's been a disaster on an international scale since we were kids, shoved together at the same desk in secondary school and expected to get along, by dint of that being what kids do. (At least until they hit twelve or so, and it suddenly matters who's cool and who isn't.) Grudging tolerance became intense dislike, and we fought like Kilkenny cats all the way through Sixth Form.

It's his fault. All of it. It always is.

Making a scene, razing my day.

Kissing me when I was expecting a punch.

And when I finally, years later, find the courage to tell him something true, it means nothing.

This awkward emptiness between Snow and I started behind the bins at school, and I imagine it will end in such a place. He'll lead me behind the metaphorical bins of the far-future, and I'll go with him. He'll kiss me again just to torture me anew.

Then he'll set fire to it. He'll set fire to our proverbial bin.

And every single hope I had for us will burn.

Six cigarettes. Six cigarettes at least, to forget this. My aunt will smell it on my work fleece and lecture me about hard times and diseases and withered lungs, even though she smokes like a bloody chimney herself.

Simon Snow. Margarine. Biscuits.

He does know there's a pandemic happening, doesn't he? Somebody let him know?

SIMON

There I go, fucking everything up again. Classic Simon, Penny would say. Primetime Simon Snow.

It's just like me to get kicked out of Tesco, of all places. Fuck's sake. She's going to kill me. (Maybe I won't tell her. Maybe Baz won't tell her.) (I can't believe Baz works in Tesco.)

Where's the nearest supermarket, after this one? I heard rumours of a Sainsbury's once, but I've never seen it with my own eyes. You'd probably have to take a bus, and the timetables have been wonky since the virus picked up speed. There's an Asda down by Five Ways, but—

On my left there's a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. (I always thought one of those would be useful for real life...you know, when you make a stupid mistake, you open it and fuck off somewhere else. Sorry, can't cope. Best be off.) (I would use that door a lot.)

I'm round the back of the supermarket, trying to get away from people who seem to be everywhere, even though we're all supposed to be staying inside. Take away people's freedom and they'll want it more than ever. I'll go outside, even if it kills me! (Disclaimer: it probably will.)

The fire door swings open. Fuck. People. Fuck people.

I have a sudden distinct memory of a security guard, looking at me like he wanted to eat me. What if this is a staff entrance, and those two knobheads in yellow jackets are coming out for round two...no one would ever find my body back here. Between them, they could rip me in half and chuck me in those industrial-sized rubbish bins. Ship me off to the landfill. Maybe I'll be a sad segment on Crimewatch one day, if Penny reports me missing.

I thrust a fist into my packet of biscuits and ram a Jammie Dodger into my face.

I felt bad about stealing them, but it was all I had left to hold on to after losing out on the marge. I had a fiver—Penny gave me pocket money before she left for work this morning—and I tossed it through the automatic doors as they closed.

So the biscuits aren't stolen. Not really. Five fucking quid! I am going to enjoy the fuck out of these bad boys. For that price, they better be luxury, gourmet—all the good stuff. Rivers of jam. The crumbliest shortbread. And no broken ones—the broken ones taste rubbish.

I focus on the first biscuit and then the second. I know I've gone red. I can't help it. A bloke pops out on an innocent butter excursion, and look what happens! I swear this virus stuff is sending people round the bend—there was no butter left, for a start, because everyone's turned into fucking Smaug, hoarding shit and leaving nothing for anybody else. Then I saw the lone tub of margarine, right, and I honest-to-god-swear-on-my-life had my hands on it first. I didn't even know the old bloke was there! I would've given it up in a heartbeat, I really would—what kind of monster would I be, depriving a man of his marge?

But he didn't say anything. Didn't clear his throat or say excuse me, young man! or ask if he could have it. Instead, he whacked me round the back of my legs with his walking stick and called for the police. The police! Those two burly security guards came flying over, the old bloke said I was stealing the marge from him, and then it became a fucking thing, didn't it? A scene! A daylight fiasco!

I remember him calling me a hooligan. And a Villa supporter. (Because my hoodie's claret, I guess.) (He must've known that'd wind me up further.) Then he coughed, so I jumped back because there’s an effing virus on the loose...the fruit's piled up in bins by the chiller cabinets, because Tesco doesn't make any sense...and next thing I know—I'm down, oranges are down, everybody's shouting at me.

I know I shouldn't have run. I made things fifty thousand times worse by legging it around the shop, but I panicked.

I bury another Jammie D into my mouth, thinking about the sloppy skid of my trainers as I turned the corner, knocking into a worker and ending up on the floor, looking up to see...

Him. Baz.

Baz Pitch of all bloody people, stacking shelves in Tesco.

It was definitely him. He had one of those cloth masks on, and his hair was tied back in a ponytail, but I'd know that eyebrow anywhere.

Bloody hell. Tyrannus Basilton “if it's not an A, it's not okay!” Grimm-Pitch, he of properly tied ties and fancy shoes and soft, shiny hair. It didn't even look like he was the manager! It looked like he was...well, like he was stacking shelves on purpose. Biscuits, the professional calling of Baz Pitch! What he gets paid to do on the regular.

I take a deep breath, waiting for my heart to slow. (Are those butterflies?) (Kill the butterflies.)

I knew he was back in the area. He went to City uni—same as Penny—so he never moved that far away, after school finished. Just into halls of residence. But now he's back where he was before, with his aunt in the flat above the candle shop, avoiding all the places we used to go.

Avoiding me.

Penny said the reason he hadn't texted me back since her party was because he'd got a new number and lost his contacts. Dropped his old phone in the sink, or something. She said I absolutely shouldn't go looking for him, because it was high time the two of us stopped whatever weirdness it is we unlocked in the universe, when I snogged him on the last day of Sixth Form.

She thinks it's a good thing, having a break.

And I was going to go and see him anyway, just so we could talk about the party, but then the lockdown happened and life got put on hold, and...this is my first time out of the flat in a week. Look how well that's gone. Total fucking disaster.

It's been months, months since I've seen Baz.

And there he was, casually counting packets of biscuits in a mask and gloves! Collar on his polo shirt pulled up like a 90s premier league footballer. Looking cool, despite the panic. Despite everything.

It's a sign. It has to be.

Penny would say it's a coincidence—he's got to work somewhere, right?—and I know it probably doesn't mean anything, but...

Well, what are the odds that he'd be here? Looking fit in his uniform. Holding a clipboard. As surprised to see me as I was to see him.

If I weren't banned, I'd go back in. Stand six feet away and ask him to talk to me.

Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him what I was really thinking, at the party.

I wouldn't fuck it up this time.

I'd...

I slump against the wall and sigh, mashing another biscuit into my gob, feeling guilty about it but unable to stop.

The fire exit opens again and whoever's mucking about in there finally steps through, letting it swing shut behind them. I look at the pavement as smart black shoes appear, then disappear from view. Fuck off, people. The shoes dither for a bit, turn and come clicking back, a judgmental shadow falling over me.

I squint up at a familiar man in a navy blue fleece, with tight-fitting black jeans that cannot in any way be practical for frontline supermarket work. (When he reaches for the top shelf, does he tear a seam? They can't be comfortable.) (He's got all the same bits I have and I'd be dying, cooped up in there all day.) He's still got his hair tied back—he used to wear it like that at school sometimes—and the grey eyes are the same. (Cold and cruel and droopy, like his mouth.) (I know quite well what his mouth is like.) (Better than I should, really.)

He's holding a clipboard, tapping a pen against it, all out of rhythm.

“Snow?”

Snarl. Teeth. Eyebrow.

Fuck.

“Hi Baz,” I say through a mouthful of Jammie D, wincing as he drops the clipboard. “Didn't know you worked here.”

He rolls his eyes, and I swear for a moment it's like we're back in English and I've mixed up my analogies and allegories. Then he glances at the pavement between us and takes a step back.

I'm offended. I know things got a bit sweaty in there, what with all the running and sliding and security-guard-avoidance I was doing, but even so.

“Social distancing,” he says, pushing a cigarette between his lips and lighting up. He must catch the shocked look on my face, because he pauses with the lighter by his mouth and smirks. “A llama's distance away—that's what I read this morning. Cat got your tongue, Snow?”

“No, you berk,” I splutter, smashing another biscuit into my face. “You never used to smoke at school. It's bad for you.”

“Really? Do tell me more.” He sneers, puffing smoke into the air between us. “I only do it when I'm stressed. I'm currently looking at you, which is always stressful.”

He turns away, taking a long drag of his cigarette. I imagine racing over there and breaking every quarantine rule by plucking it from his mouth. Instead, I hold the packet of biscuits up and shake it at him. “Want one?”

“Six feet, Snow. Two metres, if you'd prefer to be metric about it. Keep your distance—I don't know where you've been.”

“Oranges.”

“Pardon me?”

“I've been in the oranges. Six feet? Is that the width of a llama?”

“Length, Snow.”

“A llama. Big, spitty things.”

“Yes, a llama. I imagine the inside of your head is a lot like a zoo—ask your remaining brain cells to rub together and conjure a likeness for you.” He blows smoke over the bins. “And you ought to remove that stolen merchandise from my line of sight, before I go inside and call the police.”

“What is it with you people and police? They're not stolen. I chucked a fiver through the doors. If anything, I overpaid.”

He sneers at me again and I pull the packet into my lap. Sod you, then.

Remember at Penny's party, when you took an ice cube out of my mouth with your tongue?

Then you told me you liked me. That you've always liked me, since school.

Better not go there. He doesn't look happy. I glance around—no one else is on this side of the building. Those two fluorescent security guards are nowhere in sight.

“Nervous, Snow?”

There's a shake in his voice I'm sure he hopes I won't notice. (But I do.)

“Not really. Paid for them, didn't I? And I know you think I'm stupid, but I'm not going back in. Fuck 'em. I meant what I said—I'll shop at Asda. I'll bloody well do it.”

He sighs, stubbing the cigarette out against the wall and flicking the end into the nearest bin.

“What're you stressed about? Apart from me. My face.” I swallow.

“Oh, I don't know,” he begins, leaning into the bricks and crossing one ankle over the other. “The world's ending, I've been snotted on by three different people today, you show up and almost kill me...” He pulls at his ponytail and finally, finally turns his head my way. “I was having a perfectly sensible quarantine Tuesday, before you came barging into my life again. I almost broke a tooth on a packet of ginger nuts, Snow. Ginger nuts. Allow me a pretence of dignity, at least.”

I growl, feeling even worse. (As if I need more guilt on my plate.) (I just got banned from Tesco, for fuck's sake!) (And I know he thinks I'm a knob for what I said at the party, but—)

“Hang on,” I say, mentally backtracking. “Tuesday? It's Friday, mate.”

I experience a surge of otherworldly panic. Is it Friday? How can I be sure? It's hard to keep track, since the lockdown started. Days used to feel different—I had favourites, ones I avoided—but now they're all the same. A mash of hours and minutes there's no point keeping track of.

Baz is still messing with his hair, clipboard tucked under one arm. “As far as I’m concerned, it is Tuesday, and it shall remain Tuesday forevermore—seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. A lifetime of Tuesdays. A relentless march of Tuesdays until I die alone, on a Tuesday, having lived through decades of interminable Tuesdays before.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out another cigarette. “We received our lockdown orders on a Tuesday morning, and then we stepped out of time. And so it is Tuesday, from now until the end.”

He's so bloody dramatic.

Still, it's got to be hard, working in a supermarket. Everyone's gone barmy with stockpiling. Apparently we’re all applying for the next series of Bake-Off, because self-raising flour's sold out for miles around. Even Penny got in on the casual madness of it all—the airing cupboard at our flat's got at least three trees' worth of loo roll, stacked behind the bath towels.

I don't know what to say. What are the right words, the ones that won't make him even more pissed off at me?

“S'hard, innit?”

“Yes, it's hard,” he hisses, crossing his arms. His name badge is wonky, but he'd only throw a fit about llamas if I offered to straighten it. “Though nothing compared to what nurses and doctors are going through, so...” he sighs, shaking out his hair. It's a lot longer than it was at school—down on his shoulders, wavy. It's nice. “Shouldn't you be at home?” he asks, defeated. He slides down the wall and puts his head on his knees. I glance up at the door. “Nobody will join us. I'm the only crisis smoker left.” He laughs without humour.

I should be at home. Everyone's supposed to stay in, except for thirty minutes of exercise a day and essential trips to the shops. (Butter isn't strictly essential, Penny says, but we were out. Is a man meant to eat dry toast in a pandemic?) (The biscuits aren't essential either, but I'm going to count my running away as part of today's exercise quota.)

“Should be, yeah. Penny's working—she's been deemed essential—so I've been doing the shopping. Hadn't been out of the flat in ages, so I walked down here to get a few things. Do a bit of baking.” Another shrug. “I was going a bit mad on my own, to be honest. Thought I'd love being stuck inside all day, but it's difficult.”

Baz's eyebrow goes up again. (He used to do it all the time in maths, and I'd use it for target practice.) “You strike me as the sort to excel on the sofa.”

“I don't. Not forever, anyway.” I'm over halfway through the biscuits. “Not when it's mandatory. Not when there's no end in sight.”

Baz hides a laugh behind a frown, picking at his fingernails. “Mandatory. Big word, Snow.”

“Piss off.”

Another laugh. I relax against the wall, crossing my legs.

“Cultivating domestic bliss with a spot of baking? The way to your heart is through your stomach, but that may not ring true for everyone.”

I shrug. “I mean, me and Penny—it's not like that.” I tear the biscuit packet. (Why do I feel the need to clarify? It's none of his business.) “Just, we've always got on, right? She puts up with my shit. I was trying to be nice. Plus...” I shred the plastic between my fingers. “It's something to do. Keep busy, you know?”

I look up at him. He does know—I can tell by how his face softens. How the frown slips, just for a moment. I push the biscuits across the space between us again, and try to raise an eyebrow like he does.

“I can't touch them, Snow. Hygiene. Social distancing. Llamas.”

“Suit yourself, Basil. Your loss, not mine.”

BAZ

Basil.

I can count the number of times he's called me Basil on one hand.

He called me that when...

Damn and blast it, Snow.

He looks tired, drawn. I don’t think he’s been taking care of himself. I understand the strain—the desire to give up on showering, on getting dressed, on being your old self.

I'm half-tempted to accept his peace offering, if only to give my hands something to do. (I've pushed my palms between my knees to hide the shaking.) (I'm dying for cigarette number three, though I can practically smell the disdain wafting off him.) Management have made things perfectly clear, and even if they hadn't, I'm not a fool—keep away from customers. Put your own safety first. Do not eat your arch-nemesis's purloined jammy biscuits.

Instead of staying at home, as the entire country has repeatedly been advised to do, Simon Snow is sitting on the pavement with me, plying me with potentially infected snacks and twisting a curl of bronze hair around a finger.

Damn him. Damn him to hell and back. Damn him to Grimsby.

Why does Bunce put up with him? They were attached at the hip at school, making utter arses of themselves in drama class. (Which I always felt I should have naturally excelled at, but it was impossible to remember my lines with that mouth-breather staring at me, mumbling stage directions out loud.)

I wonder, did he lead Bunce behind the bins and kiss her senseless on the last day of school? Or was I the chosen one, in that regard?

Therein lies the problem at the crux of Snow and I. We don't communicate. We had a perfectly functional nemesis dynamic, operational between the ages of eleven and eighteen. Though it came fraught with tension and unresolved yearning on my behalf, it was clearly defined and comprehensible.

Then he kisses me behind the bins, and it all goes to hell in a handcart.

I go to uni with Bunce. I think about him. He visits.

I try to wank my problems (and degree) away and he's there, in my head like a 2000s pop song, irritatingly catchy and impossible to erase.

After the apocalypse is done ravaging mankind, all that will remain will be cockroaches, Pitbull ft. Ke$ha and Simon Snow, gazing up at me with his boring, irresistible blue eyes.

I sit against the wall of my workplace, staring at overflowing bins as the world goes to shit around us, thinking about illicit kisses and how it really should have stopped there, at school. It should have been once, and then over.

But I went to Bunce's party and cornered him. Behind a fucking bin, because apparently I have a complex about that now. See a bin, feel the urge to snog your adversary!

There were many things coming out of my mouth that night. Insults. Kisses. Feelings...I was losing my mind, getting lost in him. And then he opened his ridiculous face and told me he didn't know what he was thinking.

Baz, I…it's…s’well gay, innit?

From there things swiftly unravelled, and I found myself sucked into another futile Public Scene With Simon Snow.

I swore I was done with his drama. But he's here, vulnerable, wreaking havoc.

And I still want to kiss him.

(It's the bins. They're giving me flashbacks.)

I break every rule in the Tesco Staff Safety in Unforeseeable Circumstances and/or Worldwide Health Disaster Scenario handbook, and shuffle a biscuit free of the packet. I pick at the jammy bit with my teeth.

We don't talk about the kissing. We didn't then and we certainly won't now, surrounded by week-old rubbish.

"How come you work here?” he asks, biting his nails. They look sore and ragged.

I have a thought, flipping over pages on my clipboard to find a blank space.

“Because this is twenty-first century Britain,” I mutter. I get enough snide comments from classmates who've gone on to better things—internships at financial firms on the Wharf, as though working for free makes them better off. At least I get paid. “Prospects for graduates are dismal, Snow. Have you even looked at a newspaper since leaving school?”

He holds his hands up, as if in self-defence. (Or surrender.) “No, I wasn't being funny—I was just wondering, alright? I’ve never noticed you here before.” He huffs. “It's not like I can brag. I don't have any kind of job. I finished my electrician course and I can't even get an apprenticeship.”

I swallow. (The cigarettes are bitter.) I pull another one from the packet and twist away, so he won't see me light it. Whilst my hand’s in my pocket, I fish out a pen.

What a sad sack of endings my life has become.

“I've been here a few months,” I say slowly, “since moving home. I work in the back more often than not, so it's possible you won't have seen me. All hands on deck during these trying times—can't fill the shelves fast enough, and certainly not in a way that will please people.”

I don't know why I'm telling him this. There's no reason on this earth why I should be looking to impress Simon Snow, he of middling Cs and Ds. He of bin-kisses and dark looks thrown across corridors. He of I don't know and innit and Baz, come back.

I finish my biscuit, though it's largely tasteless, clouded by the smoke I'm desperately inhaling. I slide the packet his way and draw rectangles on my paper.

There. If he's a carrier of the virus, I have it now, too.

Dear supervisor, I was careless and have been exposed. I should self-isolate immediately. After isolation, I will proceed immediately to the self-immolation phase.

“Bet it's hard,” he says. “You got to work every day? Do you get days off?” I choose not to answer. “How's your quarantine going?”

How's your quarantine going?

I'm undecided as to whether I'd rather kick him to death and stand triumphantly over his corpse, sprinkling biscuit crumbs on what remains, or kiss him and ask for his thoughts on such things.

I think about you all the time and would like more than the occasional hate-fuelled game of face invaders. Could we try that?

“It's going slowly,” is what I eventually say. I can't tell him about my pathetic existence in a flat above a candle shop, can I? I can't tell him that if it weren't for the doomsday-style articles popping up on BBC News each day, I wouldn't know the difference between my life mid-pandemic, and whatever I was enduring before. That maintaining a six-foot distance between myself and everybody else is the least depressing social directive I've ever been advised to follow.

I look down at my paper, think, then draw another set of rectangles.

Snow squints at me, mauling the final biscuit with the sort of determination he once reserved for rainy-day school cricket matches. I would stand as far back in the fielding position as I could go and watch him tear between wickets, threatening all and sundry with his bat.

“Only eight in a packet, can you believe it? Paid a fiver for this.” He tugs at the wrapper as if to make absolutely sure there isn't a ninth biscuit, hiding just out of sight. “I swear there used to be more when we were kids.”

I sigh, inhaling, choosing not to react to his snort of disgust.

You really shouldn't, he'll say.

Shouldn't what, Snow? Ruin my lungs like you're ruining my life?

Alright, that's a tad dramatic.

But I've spent at least five minutes of every day since the last day of Sixth Form thinking about that kiss. The way he pushed me against the wall and called me every name under the sun, pulling at the knot in my tie, going at my face like I was a plate of the dinner hall's Wednesday Beef Special. (His favourite.) (Carnage, every single week.)

He said that we needed to sort out our differences. Apparently, we were to do it with our lips.

We left school and he went off to vocational college to do something bone-jarringly practical. I went to uni and made my father proud. (Then swiftly undid that pride by taking a job at Tesco. But needs must, Malcolm.)

I kept him in the corner of my eye, checking up on him through Bunce, enduring his visits to our halls of residence as best I could. When I saw him at the party before the lockdown, I was determined to say something. You've ruined thinking for me for the rest of my life. Something like that. And how I'd like to go on like that, but in a slightly more organised fashion. With a schedule. A relationship, if he'd like.

I should slow down on the cigarettes. I'll have nothing to ease the stress when I'm sitting in my bedroom later, desperate to erase the entirety of today.

“There was more when we were kids, Snow. A lot more.”

He looks at me strangely and I let it go.

I want to shake the tired out of him. He looks so done.

“Put that out, Baz. Don't you have to work?”

I watch the cigarette die between my fingers, ashes flicked on the chewing gum-flecked slab that's currently freezing my arse off. “Yes, I do have to work. Go home and stay there, won't you? Defeats the entire bloody point of a lockdown if you're out and about, loitering in supermarkets.”

He grimaces, shaking crumbs into his hand and licking them off. (Because he's an animal.) (You haven't felt true sexual frustration until you've sat through a science lesson with him, watching him do the same to the dust at the bottom of a Quavers packet.)

I glance at my watch—this is by no means an official smoke break. (There's no such thing.) I've been gone for at least fifteen minutes, but I doubt anyone will notice. I run a hand nervously over my paper. Go on, say it. Show that you care. “Why don't you lock yourself in your cave, or whatever passes for a flat in your parts, and indulge in a bit of self-care? Then Bunce can coddle you upon her return. Tell her all about your exciting day at the shops.”

SIMON

I can't tell Penny about this. She can't know. (Especially the Baz works at Tesco part. She'll think I'm stalking him again.)

I wish we weren't sitting by these bins. I've done things behind bins with Baz I'd rather not be thinking about right now. Especially not when he's right there, and I can’t touch him.

I wonder if Baz still thinks about the last day of school.

I do.

It's a good job we're in a pandemic. (I mean, it's not good—it's bloody awful.) We can't defile the Tesco bins because we need to respect the rule of llamas. Keep our distance.

“Baz,” I begin, wondering where I'm going with this. “I just wanted you to know I'm sorry, yeah? For what happened at the party. I was—I wanted to...I didn't say what I was thinking. What I was feeling.”

He stubs out his cigarette and doesn't automatically reach for another one. That's a good sign.

“And what were you thinking, Snow?”

He isn't looking at me.

“That I...think about you a lot?” All the time, really. “And I was trying to say that I felt the same as you, and...all that other shit came out, didn't it?”

“Insults,” he says dryly. “Excuses.”

“Yeah. But I didn't mean— ”

“I distinctly recall the words that's well gay and posh git being thrown around.”

“Yeah, but. Baz.”

He sneers at me. “Such feeling you put into it, too. Echoed in my head all the way home.”

We've never been able to talk without winding each other up. There's all this emotion, and it's the same on both ends. When one of us tries to get it out, the other lets their own stuff get in the way.

Well, there's nothing between us now. (Alright, so there’s a pandemic.) It's us and the bins and that’s it.

“Do you have feelings for me?” He doesn’t immediately scream NO! and run away, so I carry on. “Because I have feelings for you. I always did.”

Something clatters behind one of the bins and we both jump.

I look at him and he looks away.

“Don't be disgusting, Snow. I don't have time for feelings.”

BAZ

I'm being deliberately cruel, but it washes over Simon like Fairy liquid sliding off a greasy dinner plate. “You must have feelings, else you'd be dead.” He juts his chin out at me. “I can't tell Penny about this. Can you not tell her, either? She'll go spare.” He gives up on the last few crumbs, knocking what remains off his hands. (And so he laid the infernal tongue to rest.) “I'll have to go to Asda next week.”

Asda. The prospect makes my skin crawl. (Despite the staff discount, I do my own shopping at the M&S food hall. I drive twenty miles to get there.)

“I'm sure all will be forgiven, Snow. Bill and Ted are far too busy to remember individual faces. And it's not as though they took your photo for their wall of shame.”

He splutters, choking on lingering vestiges of jam scraped from his palm. (I'm being very careful not to watch his teeth in their ministrations.) “There's a wall of shame?” His eyes go wide, unnecessarily long neck twisting as he looks along the shop's cracked mortar. “And...Bill and Ted? What the fuck?”

“Not that Bill and Ted, you dolt. The fine gentlemen who escorted you from the building for battering an old man. Security.”

He rubs at the back of his neck. “Oh. Them. I read the sign—one tub of butter per customer, right? Only it was margarine, and it was the last one left. He gave me no warning, Baz—the geezer jumped me out of nowhere!”

“It's unfortunate, I'll give you that. The customer—Mr Morris—was the manager here many years ago, and he has retained a certain sense of entitlement. It'll be alright, Simon.” His name slips out before I can help it. (He's too far gone in his own misery to notice.) “What did you need the margarine for? Fancied helping yourself with a spoon?” I wouldn't put it past him. He's done it before.

“Flapjacks,” he says with a miserable shrug. “Something to do. He got a bit pushy, so I tried to get away, and...knocked the pyramid of oranges over. Who builds a pyramid of oranges? Then I got one stuck in my shoe. The juice went everywhere, they chased me, and...yeah. Thought a packet of Jammie Dodgers for my troubles'd make it alright, but I felt bad about that an’ all.” He closes his eyes, the image of despair. “Five fucking quid for eight biscuits. They don't even taste the same anymore. Now I've gone and pissed you off, and...and...” He ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. “...that's not what I want.”

I close my eyes and try to imagine the incident in the fruit section. What will they do with the toppled oranges? The way things have been, all hygiene! this and germ-ridden! that, I doubt they'll pile them back up as if nothing happened.

Simon Snow, causing a scene. Wasting fresh produce in a crisis.

I smooth my hands along my jeans, forcing out the creases.

Do you have feelings for me?

I have feelings for you.

I grip my clipboard with renewed resolve. Let’s try something. I want to try.

“Go home, Snow. Put the day behind you, and tell your flatmate whatever you need to in order to cover your crimes.” His eyes flash, and I allow myself an indulgent smile. “Self-care. I'm sure you can find something to do besides baking with margarine.”

“Like what?” he grunts, shaking his head. “Does self-care mean selfish?”

Does self-care mean—

I consider taking my lighter out again and setting fire to myself. It'd be easier than struggling through this.

“It’s not selfish, Snow. It’s self-care. Caring for one’s self.” I sigh. The look on his face says he still doesn’t get it. “Look—I’ve drawn a grid, so we can make a list of it. Even better—a game. You always were disastrously competitive.” I hold up the clipboard and show him the two wobbly grids I’ve drawn with my pen. “I'll write something I like to do for myself, then you write something you like to do.” I pull on my disposable gloves, for all the good they’ll do me now. “Do you have something to write with?”

It seems a foolish question, but the pockets on that hoodie must be cavernous. (Is he an Aston Villa fan?) I watch him root around for a moment, and sure enough, he pulls out a chewed felt tip pen. I permit myself another eye roll, then scribble down what is essentially my plan for the evening, after I get home from work.

Exfoliating face mask
Bath with LUSH bath bomb followed by Draconian moisturising regime
Thoroughly alphabetise something until all sense of reality is lost

I slide the clipboard across the pavement.

“I don't have any gloves.”

“That's fine.” My hands are sweating. “Have at it.”

He flashes me another strange look, then picks up the clipboard and starts to write.

SIMON

Have at it.

That's what was going through my mind on the last day of Sixth Form. I think I actually said it aloud, right after I finished shouting at him. I wonder if Baz remembers?

All those years, us going at each other. Chucking pencils across classrooms, tripping each other in corridors. That time we fought on the stairs and Miss Possibelf stuck us in detention for a fortnight. Throwing a board rubber at the back of his head, leaving chalk marks on his blazer. Him handing me a dry cleaning bill at lunch time, which I tore up in his face. Him stealing my uniform after swimming and making me run to the headmaster's office in my trunks...

...and me, on the very last day, planning to deliver a general beating, and instead...

...well, bloody kissed him, didn't I? Hard enough to bruise my own mouth.

And then at Penny's party this year, he pulled me to one side to talk. We weren’t doing much talking but we were kissing again, and after, he said all the things I'd been thinking. Then I opened my gob and wrecked everything.

Now the pandemic's brought us together. And he cares about me—enough to make me care for myself, at least.

I was shocked, seeing him in there. It didn't seem right. But what is right about this year? Everything's wrong and the world’s off-kilter. It’s funny because you think the apocalypse is everyone running around like headless chickens, fighting for survival…when in reality we’re shuffling off down the shops, hoping there’s a cabbage left. Wrestling strangers for margarine.

Maybe this isn’t the apocalypse. Maybe I can behave as if there is a tomorrow, and not get into any more daft situations. Carry on, instead of giving up.

Maybe I can fix this. Baz and me.

I pull the lid off my pen and think about what he said. Something you like to do. Have at it.

I resist writing snogging you behind the bins. (There are bins right there.) It’d probably send him running, if I made a move. Also, I’m a germ farm. I smell like an armpit.

It takes me a bit to get started…I don't really like doing things for myself. The flapjacks were for Penny—something to come home to after work. (Not that I wouldn't have eaten half the tray before they’d cooled.) I try not to worry about what Baz is going to think. He did say to think about myself.

And he says it’s not selfish if it’s self-care.

I push the clipboard back to him.

SANDWiCH
SLEEP x 3
GET DRESSED (TRACKY Bs)

His eyebrow goes up. “Trackie Bs...? Do I want to know?”

“Tracksuit bottoms. Premium ones, if you’ve got a pair.”

“Premium tra—? No, don’t. I don’t need that knowledge buzzing around my head like a scorned wasp.” He stares at me, fiddling with his cigarette packet. (How many’s he had? Three, four?) “Like what you're wearing now,” he says slowly, eyes roaming up and down my legs. “Premium, are they?”

I frown. “No. These are going-out trackies.”

“I see.”

I swallow, watching as the corners of his mouth curl up.

“What?”

“Nothing. The way you've scrawled sandwich is rather ominous.”

“What’s wrong with sandwiches?”

He shakes his head and presses his pen against paper. “Come on, Snow. We'll keep going until the game is set. I saw this online—I trust you know how to play bingo? You must complete a line of tasks to win. Any direction, as long as you cross the grid.”

He passes it back to me. His ideas are way better than mine—practice a foreign language, drown in herbal tea, serious meditation—but he doesn't say anything sarcastic about what I write. Just lets me get on with it. We pass the clipboard back and forth until the grids are filled.

BAZ

It's...something.

Laugh? Beef? Sleep x 3? Zombie TV progs?

I peer at Snow's grid, wondering where to begin.

“Fire toast? Dare I ask?”

He seems surprised. “Yeah. When you hold bread over the fire on a fork? Fire toast. Tastes better than toaster toast.”

“Tastes better than toaster toast,” I repeat vacantly. “And do you and Bunce have an open fire in your flat?” It sounds unreasonably dangerous for someone who gets banned from supermarkets.

He shakes his head. (Again, it seems I'm the crazy one for asking.) “No. Course not. Fumes. Wait, were we supposed to be realistic? I was writing things I like the sound of.”

My eyes gloss over the casual inclusion of an afternoon wank, which he has underlined three times for emphasis.

“What's this here—BIP?”

It's his turn to smirk. “Guess.”

I feel my face contract in on itself. “No.” (Guessing games are beneath me.) (Bingo is beneath me, but I'm that desperate to cheer him up.)

He merely shrugs another infuriating shrug, and goes on crinkling the biscuit wrapper stuffed under his hoodie. “Suit yourself. It's not something you'd be up for anyway.”

Up for...?

I'm suddenly certain the B in BIP stands for bin, and I shoot him the filthiest look I can muster.

“Tell me. Now.”

“Breakfast in pants,” he says nonchalantly, as if once again, he’s surprised I need to ask. “Haven’t you ever done it? Butter a bagel in your pants. It’s freeing. Then get dressed after, if you want.”

“Butter a bagel in my…no. That’s ludicrous.”

“Not really. It’s my bingo game, alright?” He’s smirking at me like he's king of something I'll never fully grasp. “Hey, Baz—I've got a great idea. You up for it?”

“I can't be up for something without knowing what it is,” I scoff.

“You take my grid and I'll take yours.” He’s disgustingly confident, all of a sudden. “See who gets bingo first.”

My head's filled with malevolent thoughts of wanks and pants and breakfast, and I'm agreeing to his inane suggestion before I can stop myself.

Weak.

But he’s smiling, so I can’t hate myself completely.

SIMON

I'm not sure how far I'll get, trying to have an afternoon of self-care with Baz’s grid. He tears the paper down the middle, sliding his neat boxes across the space between us. (I lean over and snatch it up before the wind can whip it away.)

Herbal tea? Hot oil treatment? Moisturising regime? I'm not sure I can do this stuff.

But I can probably manage a healthy meal. And I can find some classical music on my phone before I start the washing up. Sleeping ten minutes later than usual is hardly going to be a problem, is it?

I wonder what Baz will do first...I doubt he watches much telly. And does he even know what the Sims is? He used to act a bit like a Sim in school. When he started talking about Greek literature, it'd come out sounding like a load of gibberish.

He's reading over my ideas, rotating the paper in his hands and scowling. (At least it's keeping him off the cigarettes.) (I don't have anything against them, but this is verging on a catastrophic chain smoking event, and I don't get the feeling he's enjoying it.)

He keeps checking his watch. I’m making him late. How long's a Tesco smoke break?

“So,” I say, standing and brushing off my trackies. Does he own a pair? “Are we starting this tonight? I’m going to win.”

He looks up at me like I've asked him to drop his jeans and run around the car park, singing the national anthem. (Or like I've commanded him to make breakfast in his pants.)

“You truly want to do this?”

“Yeah. Self-care bingo. It’s a great idea.”

He stands, one hand pressed against the wall as though he might fall straight back down again, without support. (Like that mountain of oranges. Or the wall of biscuits.)

“Yes. Tonight, then. I trust you’ll be honest?”

“Yeah, of course. You too—no crossing out the BIP box if you’ve got your trackie Bs on, alright?”

He actually tuts at me, the smarmy git.

I stare at my shoes. We’re both shuffling a bit—the wind’s picking up. “S’pose I should get going before Bill and Ben chase me off again.”

“Ted.”

“What?”

“Bill and Ted, not Bill and—oh, never mind.” He’s grinning. (It’s brilliant.) “Can you manage the journey home without being arrested?”

“Probably.”

“Probably,” he mimics, redoing his ponytail. (He’s got the hair bobble between his teeth.) “Well, if you do make it home, enjoy your adventures in self-care.”

That makes me blush and I’m not sure why.

(He’s definitely not going to have an afternoon wank. Is he?)

He's trying to sort out his name badge, but he's not doing a good job of it. He gives up, tuts again, and pulls his pony tail over one shoulder. (I watch his fingers twist around the elastic. He catches me watching and sneers.)

“Alright,” I say, crossing my arms. The empty Jammie Dodger packet falls out of my hoodie, and I bend down to pick it up. (I don't need to add littering to the day's list of offences.) I carefully fold Baz's self-care grid and put it in my trackie pocket. “Hey, I was thinking…maybe if I write a letter to your manager explaining what happened, he'll let me—”

“Do not write any sort of letter or plea or apology or last will and testament to my manager, Simon Snow.” His cheeks turn burning red. (I'm definitely driving him to more cigarettes.) I take a step back as he steps forward, to maintain llama-distance. He takes a deep breath, one hand on his hip, the other hassling his face.

BAZ

“Look. If the incident comes up in the next morning meeting, I’ll put in a word on your behalf, alright?”

He nods, looking tentatively hopeful.

Do you have feelings for me, Simon?

Because I—

“And,” I add, furious with myself for how my voice wavers. “And if you should need someone to talk to during all of this,” I wave my hands at the world. The state of things. “Someone who isn't your flatmate, then...then I suppose that would be acceptable. To talk to me. About it. From six feet away.”

He smiles, and I try to arrange my face into something less ghastly than usual.

“Alright. Yeah. That’d be great.” Hesitation and an awkward shuffle of feet, like we’re both about to break into dance. Then, softly, “Take care, Baz.”

“Take care, Snow.” Take care of yourself.

I walk away from the wall, away from the bins, away from him, towards the front of the shop. (There's no opening the emergency exit from the outside—I must complete the Tesco Smoker's Walk of Shame.) I falter once, almost tripping over a crack, but manage to right myself in time.

My heart's racing. In my pocket, I close my hand around Simon's crumpled scrap of paper. Have I left my clipboard against the wall? Damn and bugger it. I'll have to take a detour to the storeroom to find another.

I nod to Bill as I pass the customer service desk, and he eyes me suspiciously. I spare a glance for the smashed orange display, now enclosed by bright yellow wet floor signs, juice pooling like lurid blood on the linoleum. I groan, turning down the biscuit aisle and burying my face in a stack of tea cakes.

The hours pass slowly. (At one point I fall asleep with my head on a treacle tart.) (Fortunately, the plastic container holds steady, and I do not end the day both sticky and feeble.) (Just feeble.)

I sigh on my way to the locker room. I already hate how weak I am, knowing full well what the first item on this evening's agenda will be. (The allure of the unwelcome wank.) (Bin wank. Wank of weakness.) (A wank of despair, a wank for the ages.)

It is my sincere hope that Snow has gone directly home—he'll be fined, if he's caught out without good reason. I don't believe the local constabulary will accept Jammie Ds in my Trackie Bs as a valid excuse, during a global pandemic.

I hope he's taking care.

TUESDAY (AGAIN)

BAZ

When I get to work on Tuesday (Monday) morning, I walk not through the staff door, but around the back of the building. I head for the bins, checking behind me in case Bill and Ted are on their rounds, and spot the target ahead.

My clipboard, right where I left it. It's been here since Tuesday (Friday) afternoon. Something has been shoved under the clip, flapping feebly in the wind as the day begins its haunting. I crouch down to free it.

It's a piece of curled paper covered in my own handwriting. Through four of the boxes Snow has drawn messy crosses in felt tip pen. A badly drawn blank grid is cramped under the completed one, and across the top is a message:

BINGO! :)
I will be back on Tuesday?!?! to collect my prize.
Round 2: you make my grid, I make yours. BE NICE.

I grin, rifling through my bag for a pen. I clip a hand-sanitised five pound note under his completed bingo slip, and before I can think too hard about it, fill in the crooked boxes. (Nothing with hot oil this time. He'll only do himself an injury.) There's another folded piece of paper behind this one—my name's scrawled across it. I push it into my pocket.

At the bottom of my bag is an unopened packet of cookies I salvaged from a cupboard in my aunt's kitchen. I slide them under the clipboard.

Don't eat them all at once.
Remember - self-care is not selfish.

I stand and walk to the staff door, disgusting myself by staring vacantly, unable to recall my door code. (I get it eventually, though it takes three tries.)

According to his victorious bingo grid, Snow not only survived what I assume were intimate burns from an amateur hot oil treatment (PENNY SUPERVISED, apparently), but also stuffed himself with a healthy meal, washed the dishes to a touch of Beethoven, and slept in late. He bravely attempted to read a book—The Odyssey, of all things—though he didn't quite meet the time requirement.

I like the thought of it—Simon Snow, somewhat cared for. I'll ply him with bingo grids, positively batter him with self-care until he gets the hang of it.

Until he knows.

I care about you. All of these sickening feelings amount to you.

It's something to look forward to when quarantine ends. Another beginning.

It's ridiculous that it should lead back to bins—these bins, not the ones at school. (That would be trespassing.) It's oddly appropriate, given our combined lack of dignity.

I hang my coat on a peg and flick my hair off my shoulders. Niall is dancing around his mop, singing the Tesco quarantine blues. I think I'm ready to stare at a clipboard all day and get absolutely nothing done.

Mask in place, hands washed, gloves on, fleece zipped.

Our manager approaches the doors where bleary-eyed customers gather, completely ignorant of social distancing rules, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their eagerness to assault the aisles before their neighbour. Contenders, ready. Gladiators, ready.

The doors open on another day.

And it's strange, but I think I'm ready for tomorrow to be Tuesday. (A real Tuesday, not another quarantine Tuesday.) (And the day after that can be Wednesday.)

I think there might be seven days in the week, again.

A customer asks me where the biscuits are and I grin into my mask, pointing the way.

“Thanks, duck—don't even know what day it is anymore. Got my head screwed on backwards.”

I know the sort, because I'm the same—lonely. Wants to talk. Tired of being tired. I try to smile with my eyes and step back to let her pass.

“It's Monday,” I say, straightening my name badge.

And you know, I think it is Monday. It feels different. Not like a Tuesday at all.

When I find an empty space free of grabbing hands, I huddle into the shelves, sliding out Snow's folded note. I open it to find another bingo grid, this one made for me.

The path to victory is clearly marked.

I stack items, shuffle them, tidy shelves.

I recognise shapes and numbers on packets and labels, but it's hard to recall what any of it means.

I arrange the biscuits, and even at the end of the day when the shop has been ransacked and there are gaps a mile wide, I swear there are more than before.

There's more here than yesterday.

I leave work at five and step back into time.