A R N D A L E

That morning the strong smell of cheese was first noticed by shoppers walking past the entrance to The Virgin Megastore. There seemed no logical explanation. Inside The Megastore, the Assistants told each other - behind cupped hands - which of their customers they believed had let one off. The Manager of Barclays Bank, who was looking for a Pink Floyd CD, thought they were laughing at his wig, and left. He was almost tumbled over by the wheelchair which someone had carelessly abandoned in front of The Megastore’s window-display. A cross between an Eggy-One, a Cheesus Maximus and a SBV (Silent But Violent) was the general consensus of the three schoolboy truants sitting on the bench, sipping Tangos. The Manager of Barclays Bank walked past them and they began chanting: “Wiggie Cunt! Wiggie Cunt! Wiggie Cunt!” One of the middle-aged female Assistants of Salisbury’s (the middle-market bag shop) came out briefly to sniff the air. “It is, you know,” she said back into the shop, where her Supervisor was standing behind the till. “Should we call the Gas Board, d’you think?” The Supervisor came out to check, nose wrinkled up. “Let’s leave it a while and see what happens.” A woman bought a belt quickly and left. A small boy, just coming out of the car-park lifts, turned to his mum and said: “Phew!” The mum looked around at the floor, to check there was nothing dead or dangerous there. “Come on,” she said, and sped up. One of the schoolboys began to foam at the mouth. The other two, because they thought he was putting it on, began to mimic him. Just past the benches, the owner of a fruit-stall caught his first whiff. “Oh fuck,” he said to his mate. “They’re letting off fucking stink bombs again.” They looked over to where the schoolboys were writhing in real and feigned convulsions on the bench. The young mum and her son walked through the smell and into Safeways. She got a shopping trolley into which she inserted her son. By the time they entered the Bread Department the air was almost fresh. The two schoolboys, because they were starting to feel a bit weird themselves, began to take their friend’s groans seriously. Just then, a black-wearing Assistant lurched out of The Virgin Megastore and collapsed onto the marble floor. They had had something important to say, but no strength with which to say it. As they fell, their arm hit the wheelchair. It wheeled a short way towards the benches before stopping. A lime-green foam was streaming from the black-wearing Assistant’s nostrils. “Eugh, gross,” shouted the least ill of the schoolboys, just as a similar foam erupted from the nose of the most ill. As the young mum and her son advanced past the Meat Department and through Tinned Goods, the smell followed them. Occasionally, the boy would turn to look behind him. He expected to see an old person, as they sometimes smelled very bad indeed. When he saw an old woman, stocking up on Baked Beans, he asked his mum, “Is it her?” He was slapped and started to cry. The black-wearing Assistant on the floor had attracted a small crowd. “Stand back and give him some air!” “What’s that smell?” “Does anybody know who he is?” “I’m a doctor, at least I used to be.” “Put him back in his wheelchair!” Just before dying, the black-wearing Assistant managed to say the words, “All dead.” The Salisbury’s Supervisor vomited into the till, making sure she avoided the higher-value notes. The customer who had been paying walked out, disgusted, without taking her new handbag. A middle-aged businessman got into the car-park lifts and collapsed before he could press the button for the top floor. The fruit-seller’s mate fell backwards into the avocados. Inside Safeways, the smell had reached all the way to Cereals and Wines and Spirits. The young mum steered her shopping trolley straight into one coming the other way. “Look where you’re going!” said a grandmother, immediately softening her tone to add: “You’ve got an important passenger.” The first of the schoolboys was now dead, but none of the small crowd took any notice: they thought he was tastelessly mocking their black-wearing corpse. A bank-teller out on her morning break strolled hurriedly past the crowd and into The Virgin Megastore. A few seconds later, she ran out screaming. Further into the Shopping Centre, downwind, the strong cheese smell was overtaking other shops: Bookworld (where they thought it was a smelly customer), Dolcis (where they thought it was a customer’s feet), Wax Lyrical (where an Assistant noticed the candles were now burning green), Dollond & Aitchison (where an Assistant called the Gas Board). The scream had its effect. Members of the crowd outside The Virgin Megastore, having helped put the black-wearing Assistant back in their wheelchair, began to disperse and collapse. It was now clear something terrible was happening. A war widow coming out of Sainsbury’s dropped her shopping basket and cans of Asparagus Soup rolled across the marble-look floor. A Labrador, its lead trailing behind it, followed one of the cans with its foaming nose. The two remaining schoolboys ran out of the Shopping Centre in opposite directions, their bags banging against their hips. One died in W.H.Smiths ten minutes later, the other was run over outside the Bus Station. The fruit-seller’s mate died in the fruit-seller’s arms. “You can’t do this,” said the fruit-seller. “You owe me money, you bastard.” The war widow tried to claw her way into the car-park lifts, but could get no purchase on the marble-look floor. She wanted to shout, to save children, but she had no strength. The Manager of Barclays Bank vomited over the display of designer frames in Dollond & Aitchison. The young mum died looking up at a special offer on Heinz Tomato Ketchup. Her son wailed weakly in the dead arms of the grandmother. Assistants and customers at the Checkouts began to foam at the mouth. An announcement over the in-store tannoy screamed more and more wildly for Roger to come to the Store Room. Someone ran down an aisle, knocking jars of the shelves. “Nerve gas!” croaked the war-widow, just before joining her husband. The fruit-seller began praying, loudly. The Shopping Centre was almost empty, cleared by panic. There were by now thirty bodies at least outside The Virgin Megastore. The black-wearing Assistant sat above them in his new wheelchair, like a cannibal king before his prostrate subjects. No-one nearby was alive to hear as the faint hiss issuing from under the wheelchair’s black-vinyl seat slowly got quieter and died away into silence. Inside The Virgin Megastore, the new Air CD came automatically on.

words: 1,126

© 2000