It’s a weekly ritual by now. Thursday night – 9pm. A bit later, perhaps; once or twice, a bit earlier. You hear the engine as it rounds the final corner, revs past the house and to the top of the street to turn, then draws up outside with a crunch of brakes. Tesco man is here.
What started as a means of saving time has become routine, but now it’s making you think. He rings the doorbell – tells you what wasn’t available on your order – you take the stylus and sign the screen. ‘OK then,’ he says, and smiles. ‘Here we go…’ and he walks purposefully, like the cowboy swaggering through the half doors at the start of a western, back to the Tesco van. He brings out the long pole and pulls open the sliding doors of the van. A gust of dry ice emerges and your groceries are unveiled with a theatrical flourish. Gradually, the green crates come into the kitchen. Tesco man is strong. Sometimes he’s tall too – in fact once recently, Tesco man must have been 6ft6 and probably felt as though he was delivering groceries to Lilliput. If you get giant Swedish Tesco man, he might carry in four green crates at once, dropping them like an Olympic weight-lifter when he reaches the kitchen, ducking his head to stride through your doorway. Or you might get older Tesco man – Tesco man who used to do something else but has retired. Older Tesco man might bring your crates in on a trolley. ‘A good idea,’ you’ll say. ‘Every little helps,’ he’ll smile, scaring you as he quotes his own advertising slogan…
… and suddenly you wonder. Do they all do this, the delivery men for the local supermarkets? Does Sainsbury’s Man go around ‘making life taste better’? Perhaps he makes you a quick cup of tea, or rustles you up something tasty, to fill up those moments as you fill up the cupboards? And how about Morrison’s man? Do you get a little Richard Hammond clone, pushing your groceries through all weathers, across all terrains, in a shopping trolley, complete with a Take That soundtrack echoing around your street, offering more reasons to shop at Morrisons – even if your street has to be accessed by a rope bridge? And how about Asda man? Now isn’t that a scary thought… Asda man and his colleagues, leaping around your kitchen, slapping their back pockets in a frenzy of celebration at the money they’ve saved you as they’ve rolled back their prices all the way up your driveway? Admit it: you’re scared even thinking about it, aren’t you? But then you can comfort yourself with the thought of greater exclusivity. If you got a delivery from M&S, surely you’d get the ultimate. ‘I’m not just a delivery man: I’m an M&S delivery man.’ If you live somewhere obscure, you can really only dream of that rare and elusive creature – Waitrose man. Famously discreet, you’ll only find this sophisticated character in the most rarified of atmospheres, but if he does come to your house you’ll know… you’re at the pinnacle of culinary home-delivery, and no slogan could really do that justice.
Think about it, though. Tesco man and his cohorts – they know all your secrets, don’t they? They know what you have for breakfast – things you might be shy about telling a new friend. What you have for your packed lunch at work… what cleaning and laundry products you use, and how much of them you use, and so, by extension, how clean you are. Talk about washing your dirty linen in public! They spot things on your list. Things like that you order red wine and also headache tablets and eye drops. They figure out whether you’re on a diet and identify those weeks when you’re craving chocolate or indulging in a bit of comfort food. They spot the patterns in vitamin tablets or hygiene products. They figure out whether you’re planning a night out (that wine’s more expensive than usual – a gift for someone on the dinner-party circuit?) or a night in (ah, a DVD and some snacks?) or even a holiday (suncream and stomach tablets?) They know about your family occasions – birthdays, weddings, marriages – your crises (that extra bottle of Kalms, the sudden purchase of a rom-com dvd collection, huge box of chocolates and massive supply of tissues) – and can probably guess your voting preferences by the newspapers you read. It’s hard. You think about it suddenly, when Tesco man arrives, and you realise he’s looking at you and through you and all around you. He knows so much. He knows that you eat an awful lot of fruit, salad and fat-free crackers, but that you have a weak point too: Green & Black’s chocolate. You’re more conscious of it by the week as your funny grocery habits perpetuate themselves, and the small talk starts to stall… the talk of the roads and the ice and the rain dries up, as you glance to the floor in awkward quiet and spot the damp footprints he’s left on his way in…
You think further and you start to worry… what if Tesco man ever got hold of your Boots card, or your Sky+ schedule or your Amazon account? Then you’d be in trouble. Then he’d really know it all. He’d know everything down to your favourite shower gel and hair products, your bedtime reading and your favourite songs, the programmes you watch from time to time and the series it would break your heart to miss. When you think about it… when you meet a new friend, a new partner even, you let them into your secrets slowly. Gradually. They find out all about you at a dignified pace. Your likes – dislikes –needs –foibles – quirks of taste and habit. Your breakfast choices and what you read to help you sleep at night. All those little details, individually insignificant but adding up to a sum of parts which makes a whole. Which makes you. And yet all that stuff – all those facts – are held on databases everywhere, out on the ether, on our loyalty cards and computers and in the mind of Tesco man. ‘That merlot you ordered,’ he tells you. ‘We didn’t have it this week. But I’ve brought this instead, and I think you’ll like it.’ You acquiesce. He knows. He knows everything. He’s not just any man: he’s Tesco man, and he knows it too, because that’s how he introduced himself that time you bumped into him in town one Saturday at Christmas. ‘We didn’t have any plain porridge left,’ he tells you another week. ‘How about trying the variety one? Lots of different flavours…’ but he looks so disappointed when you break the news that, really, your husband is the porridge fan in the house and he’ll only eat the plain kind. ‘These strawberries,’ he warns in a solicitous tone. ‘They’re best before tomorrow. I’m not sure about them. Past their best, if you ask me… I’ll take them back if you want me to…’ And you agree. Because he knows everything. Because he’s Tesco man.
Sometimes, you decide, it’s worth letting people know your secrets. Maybe you do get irritated when Amazon does that busybody thing, like an interfering shop assistant or nosey librarian, and bombards you with daily e-mails and website recommendations: ‘you might enjoy this book/dvd/album/source of other retail opportunity from which we can profit’. You might even resent it when you keep getting money off vouchers for anti-ageing products from your Boots Advantage Card. Bloody card, you think. Is it saying I look old? Has it been whispering to that shop assistant when you hand it over to get swiped on a Saturday morning? Cheeky thing, you think, with its plastic complexion of botox-like smoothness. These aren’t wrinkles, you think, these are character, and anyway… it’s not like you’re buying anti-ageing products because you’re looking older, it’s to stop you starting to look older. That’s what the anti bit of anti-wrinkle means, isn’t it? And the rant goes on in your mind. But somehow when it’s Tesco man, and he’s standing in your kitchen, and you’re talking about the strawberries or the bananas or the porridge or that new wine you’ve decided to take his word about… you don’t mind. It feels all right. It feels cosy, almost – swapping grocery tips in your kitchen. For that instant you’re a proper housewife, sharing ideas with a neighbour. Or you’re in the Wisteria Lane of ‘Desperate Housewives’ and maybe a whole subplot is about to unravel, where Tesco man will turn out to be someone completely different, from cereal deliverer to serial adulterer or serial killer or serial drama…
… and so you know, and you know it with certainty, that when you drive down your street one summer afternoon, and you see your neighbours’ kids all around the street and the gardens, playing football and riding their bikes and throwing Frisbees, and you notice that they’re all dressed as superheroes, that Batman is playing football against Superman and Spiderman and Wonder Woman, the truth suddenly hits home.
There’s another superhero in the suburbs. It isn’t a bird. It isn’t a plane. It’s Tesco man in his van; he knows what you want, and he always delivers.
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