Part 6 (1/2)

She's watching the security monitor. Ross joins her in time to observe Woody rus.h.i.+ng through the top left-hand quadrant while Frank the guard tramps across the sector diagonally opposite. The rest of the screen shows a pair of deserted aisles until two figures dart into the lower lefthand section, throwing books off shelves as they run. There must be a fault with the monitor, because the figures are trailing grey strands of themselves--but a fault can't explain why their faces look as though they've left all their skin and flesh somewhere else. 80 If they're made up or wearing masks, how rea.s.suring is that? Ross feels as though he's less watching than dreaming the sight of two prancing dwarfish shapes with faces so basic they resemble primitive images. He has to see what they really look like. He runs downstairs almost as fast as Woody did and hauls the door open, to be met by two skulls topped with hair.

He sees the boys are wearing masks left over from Halloween before the wearers dodge out of reach, masks so cheap they couldn't be more rudimentary. As he starts after them the boys sprint past the counter and out of the shop. ”Leave them to it, Frank,” says Woody as they merge with the fog. ”Just so they don't get back in.”

”I think we may already have had to chase them once,” Agnes says from the counter.

”n.o.body told me. When?”

”The day we had the quiz. I think they're the ones that were being a nuisance.”

”Explains the masks. If any more of those show up we'd better see their faces.”

Woody stalks into Homecrafts, where his angry head ducks and reappears like a bird's as he picks up cookery books. When Ross starts to retrieve medical medical volumes volumes from the adjoining aisle, this only seems to aggravate Woody's rage. ”Go finish your break,” he mutters. ”We don't need anybody saying you were cheated out of it.” from the adjoining aisle, this only seems to aggravate Woody's rage. ”Go finish your break,” he mutters. ”We don't need anybody saying you were cheated out of it.”

No doubt he means Lorraine. Ross thinks she has approached to keep an eye on how he's being treated until she says ”I haven't had my coffee break yet. Can I take it now?”

”Sure, why not. Leave me to fix these.”

Ross shelves the books he picked up and is heading for the staffroom when Lorraine takes hold of his arm. ”Let's talk outside.”

She lets go once he follows, and hugs herself as they step out of the entrance. The fog beyond the three scrawny trees has soaked up all the heat and light of the sun, 81 transforming it into a sourceless greyish diffused presence. The murk retreats a pace as though acknowledging or mocking Lorraine and Ross, then drifts back, leeching colour from a few parked cars. Ross wonders if the boys could be hiding nearby in it as Lorraine trots along the shopfront and waits for him to catch up. ”Did he make you come down with him?” she demands.

”Of course he didn't, Lorraine.”

”Then why do you have to jump to his defence?”

”I didn't think I was. I didn't know he needed it.”

”Men don't, you mean.”

Though Ross keeps his sigh quiet, he sees it swell in front of his face like a thought balloon in a comic. ”I don't, no. I mean, I don't mean that. Why do you ...8 ”Go on, tell me it's my fault somehow.”

”I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. It just seems sometimes you don't like working here at all.”

”I expect I'll like running my reading group. I like talking to people about books. That's why I thought I'd like a job that was all about them, but it isn't, is it? Do you know what I'd love to do?”

”Is it something for Connie?”

”For G.o.d's sake, Ross, there's more to my life than this place.” Lorraine glares at the fog as if it has dared to contradict her and says ”I'd like to teach riding.”

”Can you?”

”I've taught my little cousin Georgie on her pony. You should see her bouncing up and down on it all proud of herself. There was a job at the riding school, but I didn't know then I was that good at it, so I applied here instead.”

”There'll be other riding jobs round where you live, will there?”

”Not often. I don't think the girl the school took on has settled in too well, though.”

”Maybe you'll be able to take over, and you've got to like more than your reading group while you're here, have 82 you?” When her eyebrows rise a slow quarter of an inch, perhaps to let the possibility in, Ross says ”At least that's something to thank Woody for.”

”I put myself forward. He didn't choose me,” Lorraine objects and twists around as if to confront Woody through the window. As he straightens up, tenderly smoothing the corners of a paperback, his gaze snags on Ross's and his lips move. ”What does he mean, you're busy?” Lorraine requires to be told.

”Maybe you should ask him.”

”Fair enough, I will.”

The fog seems to greet her intention with a dance, trailing its hem over the tarmac. ”Hang on,” Ross blurts. ”He'll be thinking of me and Jake.”

”Well, that is unexpected. Why would he do that?”

”I think he thought I was giving Jake the wrong kind of hand in the stockroom. I hope you don't need me to tell you I wasn't.”

”No reason to get defensive if you were, Ross. That's half the problem with the world, men not accepting their feminine side.”

”The other half is women not owning up to their male part, you mean.”

He knows she doesn't before he has finished speaking. His attempt at wit seems nothing more than automatic now that it's exposed; he feels as though he's being forced to perform a script for an unseen audience--the boys in the masks, perhaps? When Lorraine turns towards the fog he thinks she has the same impression, but she says ”I'm going for a walk.”

”Shall I come with you?”

”I wish I were riding.” She mustn't intend him to hear any wistfulness; none is left in her voice as she says ”There's really no need.”

”I just thought you mightn't want to be alone in this.”

”I won't be going far.” Apparently deciding that's too much of a concession, she adds ”Unless I want to.” 83 She marches along the side of Texts to the staff car park and disappears into the fog without a backward glance. Her rapid footsteps grow m.u.f.fled as if she's walking into mud. Ross can hear no other sound except the unresolved thunder of the motorway, but suppose the boys are lurking An An the fog, waiting for Lorraine to see their skulls bob up from it? When her footsteps shrink to the size of pins being tapped into a board and then dwindle into silence, Ross wanders back past the bleary display window, rubbing his arms hard. He has just trodden on the READ ON! mat when the alarm begins to shrill like a bird gone blind and insane. the fog, waiting for Lorraine to see their skulls bob up from it? When her footsteps shrink to the size of pins being tapped into a board and then dwindle into silence, Ross wanders back past the bleary display window, rubbing his arms hard. He has just trodden on the READ ON! mat when the alarm begins to shrill like a bird gone blind and insane.

Woody is the first to reach him, trying while he sprints to rub creases out of the pages of a book on puddings. ”Who went out?” he's eager Ross should tell him.

”I think it was me coming in. I don't know why. I didn't touch anything.”

Woody types the code only the managers know on the keypad to gag the alarm. As he resets it Ross produces the comb that's all his s.h.i.+rt pocket contains, then empties his trouser pockets of a handkerchief and some change, not to mention a stone that reminds him of an eye asleep, which Mad picked up last week in the car park. Frank the guard watches Ross's pockets hang their tongues out and continues to look suspicious even when Woody says ”Okay, Ross, we trust you. Put your stuff away and walk back through.”

Ross is pocketing the stone that feels coated with fog as he ventures between the security pillars. He s.n.a.t.c.hes out his hand as the alarm pipes up. A woman in a fawn coat and matching scarf and hat, who is wheeling a toddler lagged in a hooded one-piece suit of the same colour, pulls the push-chair back from entering the shop. ”Please, ma'am, step right in,” Woody urges and informs the toddler ”I guess a goblin got into the works.”

The child starts wailing either at the noise or at Woody's explanation. It sounds as if the alarm has taken 84 on an extra note, a siren that persists once Woody finishes retyping the combination. ”It's gone now,” the mother mumbles through her scarf, but the puffed-up bundle of a boy or girl arches its back in an attempt to escape its bonds as she wheels it between the security posts. ”Sorry,” she says more indistinctly still.

”That's perfectly all right, ma'am,” Woody says. ”Any time you're ready, Ross.”

Somewhere in the fog a woman is coughing as she runs, and someone is driving a car. There's no reason why these sounds should make Ross nervous, though the antics of the alarm do. The moment he advances between the posts it begins to screech. The toddler enters the compet.i.tion, and Mad ambles over to give the child a grin of amused rea.s.surance. ”What's your secret, Ross?”

”Nothing that I know of. I don't see how I can be doing it.”

”Then show me who is.” Woody frowns at the keypad as the mother unwraps her mouth to tell the toddler ”It's only a silly machine, look. The gentleman who sounds like the funny men in your cartoons can switch it on and off.”

”Let's hope so, ma'am.” Woody has to raise his voice to be heard over the toddler's solo. Yet louder and a good deal more sharply he says ”Hold it, Ross. I want a few seconds before I reset it.”

The step Ross was about to take hovers above the mat. What's happening in the car park? The coughs sound almost starved of breath, and he feels anxious for whoever is running about in the fog. Perhaps she's breathing the fumes of the car as well. He steps towards Woody instead of through the posts. ”Can't I just--was ”In a minute.” Woody doesn't glance away from peering over the hand he's using to ensure n.o.body can read the combination. ”Try it now,” he says. ”On second thoughts you try, Madeleine. See if it likes girls better.”

”Watch,” Mad says to the toddler. ”It isn't going to hurt me. There's nothing round here to hurt anyone.” She takes 85 the longest stride she can between the posts, and the alarm commences yammering at once.