Part 15 (1/2)

”You're going to start then, are you?” This leaves enough of Jill's anger unexpressed that she blurts ”I wish my parents weren't on their winter break. I'd rather Bryony stayed with them.”

Upstairs the toilet flushes as if it's was.h.i.+ng away Jill's remark. Geoff looks close to giving her an understanding look, which makes her angrier still. She's tempted to forbid him to show up at Bryony's Christmas play at school--to threaten to walk out if he disobeys. Instead she shouts ”Hurry up, Bryony. I want to put the alarm on.”

She's ashamed of her sharpness when Bryony appears clutching her overnight bag, from which her teddy bear is poking out his battered head to see where he's going on the way to keeping her bed warm. She waits with her father on the path while Jill types the date she and Geoff split up. Jill has barely shut the door when Bryony drops the bag and runs to hug her so hard it feels as though she wants to root them to the path. ”It'll be fine. It'll be an adventure,” Jill says and strokes Bryony's head until the hug slackens enough to let her disengage herself. ”I'll see you tomorrow after school.”

Bryony stands next to the Golf as Geoff climbs in while Jill starts the Nova. As Jill eases the car away from the 192 kerb, Bryony lifts her free hand in a timid wave that Jill tells herself isn't really a hopeless attempt to arrest her. Bryony must still be more upset to be reminded that her parents aren't together than Jill realised. Once they're home again and Jill has slept off the night at the shop they'll have a proper talk.

Ten minutes take her through Bury and onto the motorway. She has sped past several exits when she encounters a slow herd of traffic. Eventually it takes her to the elevated section that gives her a distant view of the stretch past Fenny Meadows. While the fog emits only the faintest tinge of red, an elongated s.h.i.+ning wound leads there--the brake lights of hundreds of stationary cars. Jill switches on the radio and tunes it to a local station. The Nova has crawled for some minutes to the accompaniment of a folk song about the lone survivor of a battle when the radio issues a travel bulletin. ”The M62 eastbound of junction 11 is closed due to a series of accidents. Police do not expect it to be reopened for some hours. Drivers are asked to find an alternative route.”

That's where Fenny Meadows is. Jill is tempted to use this as an excuse to stay away from Texts tonight and let Bryony know, but it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the the staff. staff. When she arrives at the next junction she heads for the East Lancas.h.i.+re Road so that she can come up behind the retail park. Less than ten minutes later she's on the dual carriageway, but misses the turn for Fenny Meadows. If there's a signpost from either direction, it certainly isn't prominent. Once she reaches a gap in the central reservation she swings back so as to cross to the first side road she's able to locate, which is marked only by an illuminated bus shelter. The lane doesn't even seem to have a name. When she arrives at the next junction she heads for the East Lancas.h.i.+re Road so that she can come up behind the retail park. Less than ten minutes later she's on the dual carriageway, but misses the turn for Fenny Meadows. If there's a signpost from either direction, it certainly isn't prominent. Once she reaches a gap in the central reservation she swings back so as to cross to the first side road she's able to locate, which is marked only by an illuminated bus shelter. The lane doesn't even seem to have a name.

It's the route to Fenny Meadows, however. Before long the fog makes that clear as well as the opposite. The tall th.o.r.n.y hedges that enclose the road, their spikes glinting as the headlights sharpen them, appear to be liquefying 193 rather than shaping themselves from the murk. Occasionally a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.ses through the tangles of black twigs, and they exude greyness like a ma.s.s of cobwebs. There must be a wind, because the fog keeps lurching eagerly closer both behind and ahead of the car. By the time she has guided the Nova around all the curves and crooks of the narrow lane, she's more anxious to reach Fenny Meadows than she could have imagined. She lets out a relieved breath that glimmers for an instant in the air as a pale surface framed by the hedges proves to be more solid than fog.

It's the rear wall of Frugo. She drives past the shops, some of which are already closed for the night. The glow from their windows lies inert in the murk, which seems to snag on the livid graffiti that swarm over the unoccupied properties. Not a hint of Christmas is visible in Texts; the shop feels mired in the October that first gave rise to the fog. At the back her headlamp beams expand into a white stain that vanishes into the wall. She locks the car, and as the keys finish jingling she discovers she's holding her breath.

Why is the retail park so quiet? She feels as if the fog has swamped every sound until she realises what's missing: the noise of the motorway. When she heads for the front of the shop her footsteps seem shrunken by their isolation and yet too loud. She could fancy that something dwarfish is scuttling after her down the alley--her echoes, of course. She's glad to have left the dim pa.s.sage until she sees Connie in the window.

The three photographs of Brodie Oates lie at Connie's feet. Jill won't miss the display--presumably it's redundant now that he has visited the shop--and she won't let herself feel as though it's her face Connie seems about to wipe her shoes on. She's hurrying past Frank the guard, who looks preoccupied with the fog, when Connie calls ”I put these on a trolley for you, Jill.” 194 Jill has half a mind to pretend she didn't hear. She wasn't expecting Connie's voice to render her body so stiff it feels crippled and shrivelled, and to bring such an unwelcome taste to her mouth. She turns to see Connie pointing at the books she has taken out of the window. ”That's kind of you,” Jill says with a sweetness that can't quite overcome the taste.

”It is rather, isn't it? You can put them and the signed ones on a shelf end. Maybe they'll move faster once people can get their hands on them.”

”You've got some left over from your show, you mean. Didn't it go as well as you were planning?”

Connie parts her full pink lips to lure her closer. The gesture sickens Jill, but she can't resist approaching for Connie to murmur ”Not as well as our star kept telling us it should. He blamed everything except the fog and his book. Your display, I'm afraid.”

”I do apologise. I'll just have to try even harder, won't I.”

”I'm not criticising you, Jill. I'm only saying what he said. I don't think we could have done any more for him than we did, any of us.”

”Well then,” Jill mutters, and is about to head for the staffroom when Connie says ”You've got ready for the marathon, have you?”

”I expect I'm as ready as anyone.”

”Someone's looking after your little girl, what's her name, Bryony, isn't it? Someone's taking care of her.”

”Her father.” Jill feels as if she's spitting out the stale taste of the phrase as she adds ”He's very good at taking care of people for a while.”

Connie either has no answer to that or doesn't feel any is advisable, but the sight of her lips nestling together to conceal an expression goads Jill to enquire ”May I ask where you got my daughter's name from?”

”Didn't I hear it the day you brought her along?”

Jill can't remember. She only knows she feels that 195 Connie has bested her. As she turns away, her mouth filling up with dirty words and their taste, she hears Connie promise ”They'll be waiting for you when you come down.”

She means the books--the excess of them that she ordered and dumped on Jill. Two men who seem to have occupied a pair of armchairs ever since Jill can remember watch her stalking away. She brandishes her badge at the plaque on the wall and comes close to kicking the door. Eventually it gives way, and she chases her faint breaths upstairs to the staffroom.

Ross and Mad are sitting at either end of the table with Agnes between them. She's wearing a prim frown like a reluctant chaperone and saying no more than they are. All three seem glad to see Jill, though perhaps only because she's somewhere to look. As she runs her card under the clock, Woody darts out of the lair of his office. ”There you are. I thought we'd lost another of the team.”

Jill doesn't know if his red-eyed smile makes his thoughtlessness more shocking or suggests he's too tired to think. Ross grows rigid so as not to wince, and Agnes lets her jaw drop on his behalf, while Mad looks as though she might give him a comforting pat if she could reach. Jill can only try to lessen the tension by saying ”The motorway's closed. I had to use the old road.”

”Connie told me,” Woody says, presumably about the motorway, but the name sours Jill's mouth. ”Want to hear the good news?”

His smile is fierce enough to prompt all his listeners. It's Ross who mumbles ”If there's some.”

”Hey, why am I not seeing smiles round here? What is this, a wake?” When everyone but Agnes has been forced to placate him, Woody says ”Okay, the good news. You just heard it. Your expressway's blocked.”

Mad breaks the bewildered silence. ”That's good?”

”Right now it is. Just this one time we can live without customers coming in the store and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the order. I 196 guess we may need till tomorrow to clear the stockroom. We had a big delivery this afternoon and we're short of a member of staff.”

”You keep bringing that up,” Agnes protests. ”Don't you realise Ross--was ”Gee, I'm sorry. I didn't tell you yet. We had to get rid of Wilf.”

”Wilf,” Agnes says, not unlike a bark. ”How do you mean get rid?”

”Let go. C. Fire.”

”How can that be? He said at the funeral, sorry, Ross, he'd be in today.”

”He was here sure enough. That's why he isn't any longer.”

”But you can't just dismiss someone like that. What was he supposed to have done?”

”Attacked a customer and did his best to choke him. I guess even you wouldn't hire a guy who did that.”

”Who says Wilf did what you said?” Mad intervenes.

”I do. Everybody that was here for our author signing does. The security tapes will too.”

”I'd like to see them,” says Agnes.

”When you have some authority you can. That's if they aren't out of date by then.”

Agnes opens her mouth, only for Angus to play the ventriloquist. ”Manager call thirteen, please. Manager call thirteen.”

”I've tidied the stock on the racks so you can get straight to it. Shelve your own books first and then we'll sort out who takes which of Wilf's,” Woody says and sprints into his office.

Agnes plants her forearms on the table with a thump. ”I don't know what he thinks he can expect of us after talking to us like that.”

”I didn't think he said anything too bad to me,” says Mad.

”Oh, are we only a team when it suits us?” Once she has glared so hard at everyone that n.o.body ventures to answer, 197 Agnes says ”I don't see why we should carry on working here if he can sc.r.a.p whoever he feels like whenever he feels like it.”

”It's not that simple, is it?” Ross says. ”Sounds like he did have a reason.”

”You ought to be the last person who'd want us to lose someone else. What do the rest of us say?”

Jill has to finish being shocked by what Agnes said to Ross before she can respond. ”We're here now. You say we're a team. You don't want to let us down.”

She has lowered her voice. At first she a.s.sumes she's trying to keep the discussion secret from Woody, but is he likely to hear while he's repeating ”Who is it” to the phone? All at once she has the notion that the argument has attracted an eavesdropper in the stockroom; she even imagines she hears the side of someone's face rubbing against the door, except that the sound is so close to the floor that the listener would have to be on all fours. She starts when someone comes into the room, although it's Ray emerging from the office. ”Jill's right,” he murmurs. ”Let's get this night done with and show the bosses how reliable we are, and then I'll talk to Woody about anything you want me to, I promise. If you want I'll have a word with them while they're here if I get the chance.”

”That should do it, shouldn't it?” Mad says to Agnes, who stares at her as if Mad has no right to speak. Jill is about to agree with Mad, not least because she feels as if they're all stuck up to their necks in a mora.s.s of stagnant emotion, when Connie's voice produces itself out of the air. ”Jill to window, please. Jill to window.”