Nectar Card
A chance encounter in the Dalston big Sainsbury’s sparks an emotional release. Words by Conale. Illustration by Luke O’Reilly.
Good morning, and welcome to Vittles! This week’s newsletter, by Conale, is an essay on migration, forgiveness, and the Dalston big Sainsbury’s.
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Nectar Card
A chance encounter in the Dalston big Sainsbury’s sparks an emotional release. Words by Conale. Illustration by Luke O’Reilly.
I used to be a till-girl in the big Tesco beside my house in Belfast. That was during my last couple of years at school. My shifts were Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. Tuesdays were always an easier shift, mostly people coming in for bits they needed for dinner that evening. Saturdays, however, saw the heavy-hitters arrive at your tills. People who were short on time throughout the week would show up with their weekly shops spilling out of enormous trolleys: custodians of the big family shop.
I had a group of regulars who I was glad to see every Saturday. These were usually women in their forties or above. It was the only place where I had access to these women’s lives and they had access to mine. Interactions were fleeting but meaningful. When they’d arrive at my till, I’d reduce the pace at which I scanned each item and insist on packing their bags for them. Our conversations over those years tracked the progress of my A-levels and unfolding storylines of gossip in their lives. Then, in the months before I left for university, the dominant question became, ‘Well, are you nearly ready for the big move to London?’
*
Big supermarkets aren’t really the same in London. They lack the warmth of their regional counterparts. Here, the ceilings are low (or at least feel it), no one spends time luxuriating in the aisles, and the customer service often leaves a lot to be desired. They’ve always felt cold, so I’ve always hurried through them.
It is at that hurried pace I find myself moving through the lanes of the big Sainsbury’s near my flat in Dalston. I’m deep in the back of the shop, a cave-like area where no natural light reaches. There’s only the dumbing, austere, energy-saving overhead lights and the LED glow of the cold aisle’s glass cabinets. Half my attention is on the loosely drawn-up shopping list in my head and the other half is stuck on the same conversations I’ve been having with myself for months. I’ve spent six of the best years of my life in London, but I suppose recently I’ve been in a bit of a rut. I don’t think it’s anything more than that. I know that to identify it as anything more would require me to pay greater attention to it, but a rut feels manageable.
I drift through the aisles in a daze until I hear their voices. The familiar tones of Irish accents. I turn my head to look in their direction. A couple in their early thirties, dallying through the shop. I only take a couple of modest glances at them so I only really understand their frames. She has great hair, and he has great legs. They are musing over what they should have for dinner tonight. ‘Homemade chicken burgers’ is his suggestion. ‘Well, I’m not making them,’ she quips back. She’s short with him in a way that I know women from home to be. She’s short in a way that steers him, that tells him indirectly what he should already know. She is to him what any good shepherd is to their sheep: firm, caring, and loyal.
As I listen, I feel a lump develop in my throat and my eyes begin to well up. Flustered and embarrassed, I turn away from them and begin to walk. I don’t want them to notice what feels like the onset of a heavy stream of tears.
My pace begins to slow as I reach the baked goods. I have composed myself enough to ensure no tears will fall, but my eyes still feel hot and sore. Surrounded by croissants and pains au chocolat, I breathe deeply. The ridiculousness of the moment is not lost on me.
Emotional volatility has become part and parcel of my life in recent months, but this sudden swell of feeling in public comes as a shock. If I’m honest with myself, though, I know the feeling isn’t all together alien. It has come before.
*
It was an uncomplicated day in the depths of summer a couple of years ago. My friend Hannah and I were walking down Bethnal Green Road, probably gossiping or trying to make sense of life post-uni. Either way, I would have been trying to make her laugh, one of my favourite sounds. Then, a familiar, transporting smell pulled me from our conversation.
It was the specific scent of stale alcohol wafting from a pub that hadn’t had a deep clean in years. In Belfast it would register as little more than a grubby pub, but here it felt exposing and out of place. Two men in their sixties stood outside the pub, smoking cigarettes. Their accents were like mine, but their voices were worn. They were drunk at four in the afternoon, which told its own story – a story of hang-ups with the past: a combination of their own life experiences and the pain of a history impossible to make peace with. Maybe that’s what had brought them to London. Preoccupation had aged them. Deep-set lines and creases were woven into their faces like embroidery. A tapestry of everything they couldn’t forget and couldn’t accept.
To my right was Hannah – a kindred soul, someone who draws out the best in me and helps me see it in myself. To my left was a reminder of some cultural inheritance, an innate defect, all the invisible scars.
Now, standing in the bakery aisle, it dawns on me that I haven’t seen Hannah in months. But those men outside the pub have never felt as near as they do today, in the Dalston big Sainsbury’s.
A couple of minutes later I see the Irish couple again down another aisle and find my legs carrying me towards them. I stand nearby, just within earshot, to pick up the soft murmurs of their lulling voices. I don’t catch the content of their conversation this time around. It’s enough to be soothed by the harmonies produced by their overlapping lilts. It’s a while before my eyes focus in on the item I’m pretending to examine: cupcake casings. Maybe one day I could be someone who finds themselves in the home baking aisle for motives un-ulterior. Today is not that day.
As I walk away from them, I imagine the life they lead together and hope they might invite me home with them. I don’t mind what we have for dinner. Maybe they would light candles and I could be charming again and make them laugh. We would talk about where our parents are from and why they came to London and where they like to drink here. And maybe they could forgive me for some of it.
I head to the front of the shop to pay – time to wrap this up. Thirty-eight pounds, down to thirty-five with my Nectar Card. Hopefully this will get me through the next few days. The bags are heavier than I intended them to be. They always are. They’ll weigh down my stride on my walk home. Before I set off, I look up from the self-service till, hoping I might get one last glimpse of the couple. No joy. Even I know that people can only rely on themselves for forgiveness.
Credits
Conale is a writer and creator who grew up in Belfast and now lives in London. They want to help others to feel and to laugh. They are on TikTok and Instagram.
Luke O’Reilly is a multimedia artist and hairstylist from Belfast who is currently living in London. They won the Castlefield Gallery Associates Prize 2021 after graduating from the Manchester School of Art in 2021. Their Instagram handle is @lookoreilly.
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Well that made me cry. Absolutely beautiful piece
Great piece, absolutely identify with this as a Belfast exile in England myself.