Part 7 (1/2)
”I know you're the man for it. Maybe you already realised we need someone to run Lorraine's reading group.”
Wilf presses one forefinger against the length of his lips so hard they're still pale when he releases them. ”Wasn't that supposed to be tomorrow?”
”Still is. Too late to tell everyone who's coming that we've cancelled, even if we knew who they were. You're working late anyway, and I remembered how you said at your interview you love nothing more than reading.”
”I don't know which book she chose. I may not have read it.”
”Planning anything tonight?” When Wilf only lifts a cupped hand as if he's trying to catch words to feed into his mouth, Woody says ”See, I knew I picked the right guy. Remember how you told me you can get through a book in an evening. Lorraine chose the Brodie Oates novel. Shows she was doing her best to be part of the team. Shouldn't give you any trouble, that size of book.”
Ray sees Wilf decide against responding and Woody 92 take this for agreement. ”Thanks, Wilf,” he says, and even more briskly ”Anything to add, Ray?”
It's less a question than a dismissal. ”Can you let us in, Wilf?” Ray says so as to feel in some kind of charge, and has to point out that Wilf is presenting the wrong side of his badge to the plaque on the wall. As they reach the staffroom Nigel looks up from the latest Woody's Wheedies sheet. He seems uncertain how bright he should allow his eyes to grow. ”Ray,” he says, not so much a greeting as an expression of sympathy, and in the same tone ”Wilf.”
”Nigel,” Ray feels bound to respond in as similar a manner as he can produce, though he thinks Nigel may be overdoing it a little. He runs his card under the clock and stuffs his rustling package into his locker, then heads for his desk. He hasn't switched on his computer when Mad emerges from Woody's room, followed by a policeman and a policewoman with expressions as identically sombre as their uniforms. ”Thank you,” the woman says without acknowledging that Mad is close to tears. As the pair tramp out through the staffroom, Mad mumbles with her back to Ray ”Can I stay in here a few minutes?”
”Have your break if you like.”
Apparently she doesn't. She sits behind him in Nigel's chair, facing the wall and Nigel's dead computer. Ray feels shut in, as though the emotion she's trying to restrain has merged with the windowless concrete. A m.u.f.fled sniff he a.s.sumes he's meant to notice escapes her, prompting him to ask ”Would it help to talk?”
”They said I couldn't have locked my car.”
”You think you did.”
”I more than think.” She swings around to stare not quite at him with a fierceness that almost dries her eyes. ”They said there wasn't any sign it had been broken into, but that just means whoever did knew how to, mustn't it?”
”A child would be able to do that, you think.”
”It's only Ross who says it was a child, and he didn't see what they looked like. I didn't even see anybody in the 93 car.” She turns her stare on Ray without toning it down much. ”Besides, I'll bet some children these days know how to do that and worse.”
”I expect that's possible.”
”Saying it's my fault the car was stolen is like saying I wanted, I wanted Lorraine dead.”
”Good heavens, I shouldn't think so. I'm certain n.o.body--was ”Somebody wanted it,” Mad says and glares through Woody's door at the security monitor, where grey figures foreshortened to dwarfishness are roaming the maze of the screen. ”Maybe when the police have finished with my car they'll be able to hunt them down.”
”Let's hope so. How did you get here today?”
”My father had to change his hours to bring me. My parents wanted me to take a couple of days off, but I don't think I've got the right. It's like saying I was harmed as well.”
Ray meant to entice her away from her pain, but she seems unwilling to renounce it. ”I think that's very--was he's compelled to start to say with no idea how to continue. He's glad that Woody gives him an excuse to interrupt himself. ”Oh, you're still here,” Woody says to Mad as he strides towards his office. ”Any problem?”
She dabs her eyes with the back of her hand so swiftly she might almost just be glancing at her watch. ”Only getting over being interviewed.”
”Is that going to take much longer?”
”Ray said I could have my break.”
”Did he? I guess you'd better be taking it, then.” As if she can't or shouldn't hear, Woody tells Ray ”At least she came into work.”
”Did someone not?”
”Ross called in sick. The police are having to go to his home.”
”I hope they won't be too rough on him.” Ray wishes Mad weren't hearing him ask ”Did they know he and, well, Lorraine had started going round together?” 94 ”Not from me they don't. Did I miss something? Did you know about it, Madeleine?”
”Yes,” she just about admits.
”Really? Pity, then. Kind of proves what I've come to think.”
Since she doesn't respond, Ray says ”What's that?”
”It's my experience it doesn't help the store if personnel get too close.”
”Oh,” says Mad.
”That's my experience,” Woody says as if he didn't grasp or doesn't care that she meant she could do without hearing. ”The girl I was telling you I phoned, Ray, I don't believe having her here would have helped me keep my mind on the job.”
With enough dignity for the person referred to as well as herself, Mad stands up and walks out through the stafriendroom, where Nigel is intoning ”Gavin. Greg. Jake. Agnes. Jill.”
”Don't sound like that or you'll have me in tears,” Jake pleads.
”You're starting me off too,” Agnes warns him or Nigel.
”The hardest part was telling Bryony last night why I was weepy,” says Jill. ”And you may all think this is stupid, but I felt guilty because she couldn't remember who Lorraine was.”
”I'd like to see anyone call you stupid for that,” Agnes challenges.
When Greg clears his throat Ray thinks he means to answer her until, presumably to Nigel, he says ”We don't want customers seeing anyone's upset, do we? It could put them off.”
”We can't afford that.” Woody has been watching two dwarf police leave the shop, but now he makes for the stafriendroom. ”Give me the floor a moment, Nigel.”
'Take as long as you need. It's your time, after all.”
”No, it's the store's.” Woody lets more than a second of it gather mutely before he says ”Okay, I know everybody's shocked and grieved about our loss. We wouldn't be 95 human otherwise. Does anybody want to take a moment to say anything?”
”We ought to send flowers,” Jill says.
”Already ordered. On their way.”
”When's the ...8 Agnes has to start again. ”When's the funeral?”
”I believe next week.”
”Maybe some of us should go,” Gavin says without a trace of a yawn.
”Sure, if it's your day off or you can swap with someone, but I've thought of another way we can remember her. Each of you and everyone that isn't here just now get to take charge of half an aisle of Lorraine's. That way we don't need to hire anyone else and it's like saying she can't be replaced, which she can't be, am I right? And I guess you all know what else that means.”
”Do we?” Greg asks as though his colleagues may not have grasped it.
”Everyone will need to work the overnight s.h.i.+ft,” says Woody to a silence Ray imagines full of shrugs and other expressions of unenlightenment. ”Why don't we think of it as a tribute to Lorraine.”