Polar Bears

The Scottish Arts Council is proud to present Polar Bears ( doc ) by Carol Anderson - read more about Carol Anderson.

When she glances up, Audrey thinks she glimpses the wee polar bear woman, hovering in the cereal aisle.

No time now. Onions. Milk. She passes a cauliflower under the barcode-reading thing, which doesn’t emit its usual beep. The item has been reduced – that little orange sticker – so she types in the number laboriously, while the customer waits. The cauliflower rolls down beside a sliced white loaf. The customer, fifty-ish, chunky gold rings in ears, grabs a plastic carrier, rummages, hands over a tatty ten pound note. People round here aren’t big spenders. Audrey counts out change.

‘Bye now.’

‘Cheerio.’

At the start, one of the things Audrey liked about this job was not having to talk. If she was in the mood she would chat about the weather or cost of food, smile and nod. But if she wanted, she could just sit, pushing items down the metal tray, silently lifting them into carrier bags, keying in the costs. Crisps, milk, shower gel, chocolate. Five pounds twenty. Sixteen pounds fifty seven. She still finds it restful that she doesn’t have to talk.

It’s growing late, and for now the store is quiet. Not long till she can go home. Audrey’s tired. If she turns, she can see the large windows behind her washed dark with late sky. Under the glare of orange streetlights, snow is clumped in perilous troughs that have partly melted. There are still bumps of ice on the tarmac in between, gleaming like glassy plates.

The wee woman with the polar bears shifts slightly. Turns a corner, disappears into the next aisle, teas and coffees.

Audrey hasn’t always worked in a supermarket. She used to be a nurse. But that stopped – she stopped – after Mum died, then Denis left. Everything got too much for a while.
Audrey dropped into this job almost by chance. She’d seen the little advert on the pinboard by the store exit one day; she’d started going out again by then. Part-time assistants required, it said. Involves some shift work. And she’d thought: well, I think I could manage that sort of thing now. Not too demanding. Just for a while.

Ben had said: ‘Mum, you can do better than that. You don’t have to work in a supermarket.’

‘I have to start somewhere.’

‘Well, at least it’s the Co-op.’ He’d sighed. ‘And if it gets you out.’

Ben doesn’t like supermarkets. He’s got bees in his bonnet about them, about all sorts of things. Big cars, for instance. The other day on the phone he said: ‘You know, I think Dad’s really lost it.’

‘Lost what?’  

‘The plot,’ said Ben. ‘Dad’s gone and bought a four wheel drive. Which he absolutely doesn’t need.’

Audrey’s not sure she really cares about that.

She still doesn’t think she could face going into the hospital, though it’s the only one nearby and she worked there for years. Ben sometimes says: ‘Mum, you shouldn’t let Dad put you off. You wouldn’t have to go near the cardiac unit.’ Denis is a surgeon.
 
‘No, I know.’ But she might meet him in a corridor. Or in the café – though Denis doesn’t go there often – or at the entrance doors, with visitors swishing by. Or in the drizzle at the car park. She imagines how she’d feel: that awful swooping sensation in her stomach. He’d be calm, polite. Solicitous, even. She knows that’s how he’d treat her. Like some remote acquaintance – a former patient, perhaps – rather than the woman he’d been married to for twenty-five years.

Audrey shoves tins onward. Baked beans, peaches in syrup, cheap cat food, all clink down the metal slope and roll together at the end. Prime Scotch mince slides after with a dull little thud. A bag of apples follows. A chunky discounted fruit cake, tail-end of the festive season.

She’s been wondering about the wee woman with the polar bears. Hasn’t seen her for a while. Since Christmas, New Year: snow and ice, a sklent of rain, a skirl of snow. The days are short, the nights bitter. Hope she’s been okay. It looked like her just now, that small dark figure –

But when Audrey looks up, she’s nowhere to be seen.

This branch of the Co-op is quieter than the other supermarkets in town – there are at least seven of them. More, maybe. Tesco, Asda, Marks and Sparks, all the usual and some others. Audrey used to trek regularly round the biggest, most popular supermarket, the one at the retail park. The giant mega-superstore. It’s where almost everyone seems to shop these days. But she’d grown tired of its jingly-jangly, over-stuffed aisles, its three for two offers, its clanging trolleys. Twenty four hours, seven days a week: lemongrass from Thailand, beans from Mexico, blueberries from Peru. Four for three offers. Five for four offers. But who needs five bottles of Sunshine Special? Or twelve donuts for a pound (two of which, they say, are free)? Crisps: giant crinkly, shiny packs encasing twenty crinkly smaller shiny packets. Salty snacks. Sugary snacks. On and on. Everything family-sized. Over-sized in an American sort of way. Glaring artificial lights, chatter and ching of cashback. Last straw had been the ripply overhead screens, drawing the eye, mesmerising, issuing insidious messages: you want that, you need this. And everywhere those dangling red and yellow starburst signs: buy this, buy that.

Here, where she works now, there’s less choice. The store’s a bit tatty round the edges; it’s in a poorer part of town. The customers are older, not well-heeled. This, though, is where she’s shopped in recent times. And the quieter atmosphere suits her. She’s got enough to cope with, just getting by.

Ben says from time to time: Mum, you could get back into nursing, you know. Or do something else.

She says: ‘I suppose so.’ But – she thinks – nothing with responsibility.

Audrey hears Denis has bought a new, executive-style five-bedroom home with his new wife, Melanie. Known to Denis as Mel. He’d always called her Audrey. Not the sort of name you could shorten, really. ‘Aud’ would sound – well, odd. But then: that’s how she felt for a while – still feels. Out of sorts, out of step. Not quite pulled together.

She’s always been emotional, of course. Over-emotional, Denis would say. You wear your heart on your sleeve, he’d say, in a snidey, mocking sort of way.

Audrey lives alone these days, in a wee boxy house on the north side of town. The old family home was too expensive, she’d had to move on. This new place catches the wind, but there’s a patch of garden, the fields begin and the sky looks big. On the horizon, hills hump like beached whales, smattered with snow.

Moving from her old home had been hard. Clearing Mum’s house maybe even worse. Raking out cupboards full of tin-foil, neatly folded; drawers tightly packed with paper bags and plastic carriers. Her mother had never lost frugal wartime habits. Rolling soap-ends together. Soup-making. Growing her own parsley, potatoes, carrots. Audrey still sees Mum’s bony brown fingers caressing green leaves. Her dark eyes puckering in a smile.
When Mum died, she was just a rickle of bones. The worst thing had been taking her clothes to charity shops. The little old coats. The ancient jackets.

Audrey rubs her hands; her knuckles and finger-tips feel raw. She flexes her back. It used to be the mornings that were difficult. Now it’s when evening’s drawing in. She doesn’t like the winter, the chills and floods and endless darkness.

She still sometimes feels like just giving up. ‘You didn’t give up on Gran,’ says Ben. Well, that was different.

The first time Audrey saw the polar bear woman was in December. Glittery snowflakes twirled from the shop’s ceiling, among swags of gold tinsel. There were piled-up mince-pies on the corner of every aisle, red-ruffed Christmas puddings, fat bottles of brandy. Audrey caught a movement, something dark that crossed the corner of her eye as she was counting change. When she looked up a little later, there she was, a wee figure in a baggy fleece, stooping by the chiller cabinets. A child, Audrey thought, seeing her from behind.
Then the figure turned round. Tiny – not five feet tall. White cap of hair, wizened brown face. Eighty years old at least, by the look of her. And wearing this large fleecey jacket covered in polar bears. Dark blue fleece with large white bears prowling all over. Too big for her, really. The woman’s white head poked out the top, looking smaller than it should.

Audrey’s seen folk in this kind of clothing before. She’d once noticed a well-padded figure inspecting shrubs in the local garden centre, wearing a jacket patterned with wolves. The wolf-woman didn’t even look the outdoor sort. Audrey thought at the time: how pretentious. Do people who wear wolf-patterned jackets really care about wolves? Know anything about them?

The woman with the polar bears, though: she’s different. She’s wee and old, with a wee old bag-lady sort of look, a bit weird in her baggy, too-big fleece. Looks like she might go around muttering to herself, feeding pigeons, shouting at strangers – . Audrey stops herself short.

Ben has always said: ‘Mum, you were good at your job. Don’t ever forget that. They miss you on the ward, you know.’ Her old colleagues sent cards and flowers after Mum died, phoned when she first went off work. She used to love nursing. Not the paperwork, not the long hours or staff politics – but the rest of it, yes. She’d loved caring for patients, even the crabby ones, despite the blood and mess, the ugly smells. But she still didn’t go anywhere near the hospital for ages. In fact, for a long time she didn’t go anywhere at all. At least she goes out now – at least she comes here.

Ben is training to be a doctor, like his Dad. He’s worked in various hospitals: the Borders, Airdrie, Fife, further away. Always long hours. He visited his Gran whenever he could, though. Came to see her, too; phoned when she was ill. ‘Mum, I hope you’ve been eating?’ Brought grapes and peaches, magazines. He still calls often. She’s proud of Ben, of how he’s turned out. She doesn’t mind that he lectures her about wasteful cars, packaging, countries engulfed in tidal waves. Whatever it is that’s going on.

She tries to keep up, watches the news in her cold front room. The screen flickers, the voices jabber. It all feels too much – the world and its troubles. She’s got enough to worry about as it is. Dishes to wash, bills to pay. Daily life in general.

Still. Audrey remembers seeing a photo in the paper. A big white bear clinging to a melting lump of ice. All around it stretched the grey Arctic sea. Must have been about the time she first encountered the polar bear woman. Now she seems to see these pictures everywhere.

‘People don’t care,’ Ben says. ‘Like it’s nothing to do with them.’ Which, thinks Audrey, is understandable.

At first, she didn’t notice the customers particularly. She’d hardly looked up in the early days. Just stared into baskets, plucking out the jars of pickle, the bottles of detergent, the bags of coffee. But she’s come to recognise that frazzled young mother, clutching Glamour magazine. The girl with a rucksack shaped like a dog. The old man who totters round alone, buying white rolls, tinned ham, just one banana. Customers nod and smile and say hello. Nowadays, some even seem to favour her till. And that’s oddly pleasing.

The first time the polar bear woman came to her, Audrey saw a weathered face peering over. Dark fierce eyes gleamed. ‘Hello,’ said a cracked old voice. Close up, she didn’t look crazy. ‘What weather, this.’ That day, sleet was slanting across the store’s glass panes. The polar bear woman’s trolley contained: brown bread, potatoes, oranges. She’d brought her own shopping bag, the old-fashioned canvas tartan kind, like Mum used to favour.

Since New Year, snow has skithered down and settled. Just an inch of softness, white on dark. For a few mushy days it melted. Drains gurled and gurgled. Water dripped from the roof. Then everything froze again. Frost scratched windows. The birds’ water turned frigid. Hail flailed the garden.

Audrey’s always tired when she gets home. Usually she slumps on the sofa as soon as she gets in, puts her feet up, often falls asleep. When she wakes, it’s dark. Yesterday, through unpulled curtains, she lay seeing dark blue sky with a skimmer of stars. A single bright white star shining to the north.

She’s never been to the Arctic, never wanted to go there. But now she thinks about it. Imagines ribbons of light shimmering high above. Imagines the rough crunch of ice below. Imagines gnawing hunger. An article in last week’s Sunday paper said: the Arctic ice is shrinking, breaking up, melting. Polar bears need the ice for their hunting, to reach their food. She knows they’re not cuddly, not like children’s toys. They’re huge animals; apart from humans, no creature preys on them. But what will they do when the ice is gone?

Sometimes customers want to stop and chat. It holds things up, but she lets them talk. The girl who’s had a mole removed from her lip and is finding it hard to smile. The man shedding crumpled carriers, hectic, from a pocket as he hunts for change. Several people whose new houses by the river were flooded in the autumn, and still aren’t back to normal. Audrey has listened to tales of water slooshing through familiar rooms, leaves gummed everywhere, sodden curtains, kitchens drowned. Sometimes she wishes people didn’t tell her these things, didn’t drag her into sharing their lives. 

The polar bear woman has started coming regularly. She’s a shilpit thing in that baggy fleece jacket, seems a bit shoogly on her pins. Audrey holds her breath each time she sees the wee figure rounding a corner, lugging an impractical basket of something like potatoes, or leaning on a half-empty trolley, polar bears rambling across her back and arms. Audrey feels faint irritation. She hopes there’s no treacherous fallen crisp bag strewed nearby, no squashed plum or spilt milk on the floor. She doesn’t want to be the one who has to pick up a fallen body or deal with problems. And why’s the wee woman out on her own like this, anyway? She looks so vulnerable.

Out there in the car-park, it’s started snowing again in blotchy clumps that seem to be lying, though there’s talk of more thaw on the way. The darkness is gathering.

Ben has helped connect Audrey to the internet, and she looks things up. They know no boundaries, polar bears. They roam across the arctic world freely – or at least, they used to, till the ice began to melt. Polar bears are solitary creatures, mainly. But when the cubs are born, in snowy dens, their mothers care for them, attentive. A documentary about the Arctic on television a few weeks back showed how when the ice is very thin – and it’s often too thin these days – polar bears crawl on their bellies, spread their weight, to keep from breaking through. The camera lingered on a great beast crawling, ungainly, ice cracking and floating away all around and below. Audrey bit her lip.

That night she dreamt of icebergs floundering, of weeping snow. She woke, seeing sleet pelt the windows, great wet lumps sticking to the glass.

For some reason the polar bear woman often shows up in the late afternoon, when Audrey is growing especially bored and tired. There she is, with her dark, bright gaze. Why does she always come so late in the day?

Audrey sighs on such occasions. Starts packing things into the battered shopping bag. Enquires, a little wearily: ‘And how are you today?’

The wee woman just crinkles her eyes and shakes her head, never a big talker. She struggles on, seems to be the gist of it. Got to keep going – that sort of thing. She shrugs, the great white bears roving, incongruous, round her narrow shoulders.

One time Audrey ventured: ‘Your jacket looks warm. I like your jacket.’ That last bit isn’t exactly true. She thinks the fleece looks sort of weird.

But the polar bear woman’s face creased into a grin.

Audrey remembers there’s a son, who lives abroad, who travels; perhaps it was a gift from him.

‘Oh no,’ the woman rasped, ‘I found it myself.’ Her other words were lost in a rattling breath as she started to hoast. From a charity shop, is what it sounded like.

Last time she saw her, it was just before Christmas. Afternoon, growing dim outside, the weather uncertain. Audrey asked the wee polar bear woman: had she far to go? The woman peered at her with those button-dark eyes. Her voice seemed to crack even more than usual, perhaps with the cold. She lived over the north side of town, but the nearest store there was noisy, the food not fresh. That’s why she comes here.

But could she manage home by herself, shopping and all? – Audrey asked. ‘Shall I call a taxi – to get you home with that shopping?’ She knew she sounded impatient. A queue was forming, folk looking at watches. ‘Other people take taxis,’ Audrey said. ‘The drivers are used to it.’

The woman paused, looked at Audrey. A long hard look. Wheezed slightly. Thanks, she’d manage. She’d make her own way. Slowly, she had turned away.

Audrey watched the wee body hirple off. She felt a bit guilty, though there was no reason. The girl at the next check-out must have seen her expression: ‘Don’t let things get to you. Don’t get too involved, hen. It’ll drive you mad.’

But that was during the day-time. It hadn’t been completely dark, that time.

Now it’s growing late. Evening has crept in. Behind Audrey, when she twists round, the blue bruised sky has darkened. Great wet flichts of snow are drifting past the window, thickly now, settling. Perhaps they’ll pile up then turn to sludge, or maybe it will freeze. She hopes the roads aren’t going to be difficult tonight.

It’s almost the end of her shift, but she won’t get away early. It’s not that the store is busy, exactly, but folk have been dropping in after work, wending past the unsold Christmas cakes and nuts and nougat, the half-price crackers. There’s only two other check-outs on tonight – folk are off with flu and colds, the place is short-staffed. And now there’s a longer queue than usual at her till.

Suddenly, the polar bear woman emerges from behind the freezers. Audrey sees the wee peaky face, the beady eyes. Why is she still here, at this time? – so late, even later than usual. Audrey’s heart sinks slightly.

The tiny figure pauses, glances Audrey’s way. Then joins a different, shorter queue at the furthest-away checkout. One less customer for Audrey. She ought to be relieved; she’s got enough to deal with right now. But. There’s a student on that other till, Kieran, a nice enough lad. But. He’s new and young, won’t take trouble. One more old woman – they all look the same. What will matter to him is getting finished, getting a beer and a burger, getting home to his girlfriend. Which is understandable. But –

Audrey thinks uneasily of what lies outside. She visualizes the wee old woman struggling out into the night alone with her bags, lumping up the orange-lit, snowy streets, waiting for some non-existent bus or trying to find a taxi – she doesn’t have a car, or a mobile phone to call a cab in advance. Audrey knows this, because she asked, once. No mobile, no.

It’s drawing towards the end of Audrey’s shift. In another twenty minutes she’ll be able to leave, heading in the same direction as the polar bear woman. It occurs to her that she could offer a lift. If she could just get the woman’s attention. Explain. Get her to agree.

But the wee old woman never looks across – it’s her turn at that far-away till and she’s concentrating, head down, purse open, counting out coins.

Audrey pushes tinned peaches grimly onwards. Toffee yoghurt, cherry cake, soft white rolls. Bin-bags, laundry-liquid (magnolia-scented). Air-freshener. Pack of beer. Mature Canadian cheddar cheese. Chocolate Yule log. Orange stickers, discounted items. It all takes ages.

She can just make out the polar bear woman gathering up her few things. Shuffling towards the exit.

Half-price turkey. Oven chips. Bacon. Large jar instant coffee. Canned tomatoes and sweetcorn. Fresh custard. Puffed wheat. Lemon wafers. Frozen pizzas. So much food – do they really need all that? Jammy biscuits, plastic trays of ready-meals, clunky cans of diet Coke. Then they can’t find their wallet, pat their pockets, start stuffing carrier bags – 

It’s going to be too late.

Audrey takes a decision – slams down the plastic sign that says: ‘This check-out is closing.’ She grimaces to the customers, and rises to her feet. Mutters sorry to the other check-outs as she hurries by. Hears someone calling her name behind her. Just keeps going. Perhaps she’ll get into trouble, could even lose her job. But she’ll deal with that another time.

Now she runs to the staff area, pulls off her nylon overall in a flurry, snatches her bag and coat from out her locker. Pulls on boots, stuffs shoes away. Probably too late but –

When she stands at the front of the store, the cold stings her face. Snow lies in claggy heaps near the door, with gleaming discs of ice here and there, or wet patches where they have melted. A few heavy flakes drift in the yellow light spilling out from behind her. They settle on her skin, nip a little, dissolve. Her breath puffs out pale and frays away. She stares around. The air is filled with a flocky stillness, wet snow swithering. It makes her dizzy.

The car park is quiet. Crusty folds and furrows of dirty snow lie everywhere, with duller slushy stretches in between. Drifts keep swirling down, resting, so everything is turning vaguely white. A few orange lights still glow, blurry, at the edges. The farther reaches are too dark for comfort.

 Audrey steps out, slithers at once among slumpy floes – it’s wetter than she thought – stretches out a hand to balance herself. Skids again. Almost topples. Holds upright, but unsteady.
 
‘Hello!’ She doesn’t know the polar bear woman’s name, and now regrets that. ‘Hello!’
No answering call. The only voice she hears is her own, buffeted back by the loose falling curtain of white.

Her feet fumble again on lumpy ice, wetness seeping chilly through the seams in her boots. She stumbles a short way. Pauses. Squinnies into the darkness, through the constant flicker of the snow, the soft giddying tirl that surrounds her.

She blinks, gropes forward. She thinks she sees a bleared shape, moving away ahead. A small figure, dark blue with shifting patterns of white, almost lost in the night.

Audrey follows after.