The Other Woman's Shoes by Adele Parks Page A

after I’ve made Michael’s breakfast and given the kids their lunch. That way Michael can read the papers in peace, and there’s a chance at least one of the children will fall asleep in the car.’ Martha made the offer with a huge smile on her face, as though she were inviting Eliza somewhere nice. In truth, Martha thought she was. She liked supermarkets. She liked the clean tidy aisles. She admired the armies of people ensuring that the bottles sat side by side, just so. She enjoyed the fact that the jars and tins stood in perfect lines. She loved choosing items, and always imagined the enormous pleasure she’d get as she’d place a special dish on the table and the fresh ingredients, the exotic spices, or the flavoursome cheeses would impress her guests. Her supermarket was her friend and helped her achieve that swell of pride and satisfaction. She liked visiting the supermarket best when Mathew was at playschool and Maisie fell asleep in the trolley. Then she had time to really examine the new lines and products. Reading labels was Martha’s idea of ‘me time’.
    Eliza couldn’t think of anything more depressing than spending her Saturday afternoon in a supermarket – itseemed unnatural. Didn’t Martha know that the shops on the King’s Road were open?
    ‘Why don’t we go now and leave Michael to get his own breakfast?’ suggested Eliza.
    ‘Yes, we could – why don’t we?’ giggled Martha.
    ‘Let’s live dangerously,’ muttered Eliza as she reached for her wallet. ‘I’ll leave Dog here.’
    An hour and a half later, Martha and Eliza, Mathew and Maisie finally trundled through the doors of the local hypermarket because ‘now’, with two children under the age of two and a half, actually means an age later.
    ‘There’s so much choice,’ mumbled Eliza, somewhat overwhelmed, as she walked through the fruit and vegetable aisle. There were fruits Eliza could hardly pronounce the names of, let alone recognize – tamarillo, guava, feijoa, grenadillo. She wondered what prickly pear, custard apple or star fruit tasted like and whether she ought to keep them in the fridge.
    ‘Where do you usually shop?’ asked Martha.
    ‘The newsagent’s at the corner of our street, or the garage.’
    Maisie sat in the trolley that Martha pushed, and Mathew sat in Eliza’s.
    ‘It’s a joy to have an extra pair of hands,’ commented Martha. It really was turning out to be such a lovely day for her. ‘If they’re both in the same trolley Mathew often attempts to beat Maisie over the head with a tin of beans or something similar.’
    Eliza looked at her angelic, smiling nephew and wondered why Martha exaggerated about how difficult it wasto look after the children. It sometimes grated on Eliza that Martha didn’t know how lucky she was. Mathew and Maisie always behaved beautifully whenever Eliza was with them. It was just a matter of discipline; children would push you as far as they could. If she became a mother her children would know the boundaries. Fun time would be great fun, and the other times would be calm, tranquil, relaxed. Perhaps she’d do Zen meditation throughout her pregnancy – that would certainly help the baby’s karma.
    Eliza looked around the supermarket and noted with some disappointment that most of the parents with children hadn’t explained the boundaries clearly enough. She doubted whether any of them had ever benefited from Zen meditation. It seemed that every child, in every trolley, was crying, sulking, begging for sweets or pestering a sibling. Eliza couldn’t understand why one mother, standing near the dairy fridge, was arguing with her three-year-old daughter about yogurts. If she really wants the yogurts with the ghastly cartoons of TV characters, then let her have them. That’s the fun of being a child.
    But Eliza had no concept of sugar content.
    She lost interest in the ignominious yogurt battle between the mother and daughter and turned her attention to