Waiting for Bananas: a twelve act play with no interval

“They’re good for you, bananas –

Seven minutes. That’s how long I’ve got before I’m late.

– that’s why athletes eat them. Gives them energy.”

She’s stopped beeping things through. Why has she stopped beeping things through? She’s just holding the bananas – looking at them as if she’s Hamlet holding Yorick’s head.

“Mind they’re not my favourite fruit. I don’t like the texture.”

“Been around the world and I I I, I can’t find my baby”, Lisa Stansfield sings in the background. It’s taking everything I have not to sing along. 

“Oh I love bananas”, says the banana buyer, a woman of similar age to the cashier.

“Well they are good for you. Potassium.”

She finally relinquishes them to their new owner, who places them into her bag with the slow precision of someone trying to defuse a bomb.

“You know they can actually kill you if you eat too many”, the banana buyer announces, clearly delighted to be the bearer of such sensational doom.

“Really!”

“Yep. Eight bananas. Eat more than that in a day and you’ll die.” 

“Oh crikey! I didn’t know that.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for exchanging pleasantries and banana misinformation – but I’m late, and while it's admittedly my own fault, I didn’t think I’d have to factor in time to watch a perky little two-hander at the till.

“I tell you what I love–”

Wait for it.

“ – I love a nice pear.”

“Oh do you?”

I press my hand against the back of my neck and take a deep breath. 

“Oh yeah, they’re really lovely this time of year.”

The beeping has stopped again. This time she clasps her hands together under her chin and gazes upwards. Her eyes narrow in ponderous contemplation.

“I like all fruit, really”, she says with the same tone of discovery Newton probably had when that apple fell out of the tree. “Pears, oranges, plums, pineapple…mango – oh I love mango.”

My feet are starting to tap and twitch.

“It’s just bananas I’ve got a problem with.”

I look up at the ceiling as Lisa Stansfield goes for the key change.

“It’s funny that – how some people like them and some people don’t”.

“Yeah, it is strange. Because as I say, I do like fruit.”

If I wasn’t so late to pick up my son, I’d probably be basking in the mundane humanity of this dialogue; it could have been written by Alan Bennett or the late, great Caroline Aherne. But I’m too panicked to bask. 

I’ve only been late to pick up once before, years ago – by about 8 minutes – and he still reminds me of it to this day. Oblivious to the toe tapping and deep breathing of their audient, the players continue:

“My husband loves those little satsumas. He can eat a whole bag in one day.”

I tilt my wrist: officially late-late. It’s 3.27 and I’m supposed to be there at 3.30. I hop from foot to foot. 

“Oh I like those. Very Christmassy aren’t they? My son used to love those when he was little.”

Beat.

“He lives in Australia now.”

“Oh does he?”

“Yeah”, she exhales from somewhere deeper than her lungs.

She beeps the next three items through – carrots, apples, a loaf of bread – without comment. The silence is chasmic. Wow. I did not see this tonal shift coming.

Another futile tilt of the wrist tells me it’s 3.29. But I’ve stopped hopping.

I wonder how old her son is, and if he has children, and if she ever sees them; I wonder how long he’s been away and if she thinks he’ll ever come back. I wonder if she has any other children, and if they also live far away. The thought of my children growing up and moving thousands of miles away is enough to –

“Ooh caramel chocolate bourbons! I’ve not tried these.”

“I just saw them and thought, why not try something new?”

“Oh there’s all sorts now isn’t there – white chocolate KitKats…caramel Twix…

Sweet Lord, she’s going to list all the biscuits! 

…there’s all sorts.”

Phew. 

Death-by-banana lady is getting her bank card out! Another glance at my watch: 3.30. I should be standing at the school gates, about to walk in… it’s all about damage limitation now. If I can just get through this checkout in the next three minutes, it might not be too bad.

She taps her card…Yes! I take a triumphant step forward as they say their goodbyes, and…she’s gone. I place my bag at the end of the checkout, trying to look as harrassed-and-in-a-rush as possible.

“You alright love?”

“Yes, thanks.”

She beeps the chicken through. Should I ask her how she is? I can’t afford to encourage any chitchat, but I don’t want to be rude…

“How are you?”

“Oh can’t complain. I finish in a few hours so that’s good.”

I smile and nod, practically snatching the cucumber out of her hands.

“Oh bananas!”

Shit.

“Everyone’s buying bananas today! They are good for you – full of potassium.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, they’re popular bananas.

She places them on the scale and stops to look directly at me.

“Mind they’re not my favourite fruit.”

Is this purgatory? Is she reading from a script? Is she some kind of AI generated, machine apocalypse fembot?

“Did you know – the woman I was serving just before you, Mary, she was just telling me – if you eat more than six bananas in a day, you’ll die.”

“Oh that’s awful”, I reply, not knowing how else to respond to her mistelling of the original fake news. 

“Makes you think doesn’t it?”

She lifts the bananas off and hands them to me slower than any person has ever handed something to another person.

“Well good job I’ve only got five.”

She hoots with laughter. Great, we’ve ended on a high.

I scan my Clubcard, tap my phone, and run.