Part 17 (1/2)
”Jill? You're the one it seems to be an issue for.”
”He rang in to say he was lost in the fog, and now are you saying his mobile's dead, Woody?”
”Someone ought to phone the police, shouldn't they, Jill? We don't know what could have happened to him.”
”I would feel happier.”
”Hey, getting your shelves right should do that for you. I thought you Brits were supposed to have your emotions under control. I wouldn't have expected you to want to send the cops to track down some guy who's just gotten turned around in the fog.”
”Some guy,” Agnes repeats. ”That's all he means to you. That's how much the shop cares for the staff.”
She's confronting him with a stare, and Jill has produced a somewhat sadder toned-down version. He's about to inform them that it depends how much the staff care about the store when the phones intervene. ”Hey, maybe that's him now,” Woody says as he makes for the nearest. ”Maybe you summoned him.”
Grasping the phone gives him back to himself. ”Texts at Fenny Meadows,” he takes pleasure in announcing. Woody speaking.” 216 ”Thought for a moment there you were in Yankee land.”
Is he meant to know the caller? The man sounds as if he expects to be recognised. ”I'm where I'm supposed to be,” Woody tells him. ”I'm the manager.”
”Brought you over to take charge, did they?” The man's local accent is growing flatter than ever, or his voice is. ”Let's hope you can.”
Woody is close to wondering aloud whether this is someone else who wants to undermine the store or him. Instead he says ”May I help you?”
”Me, no, I shouldn't think. More like it's the other way round.”
”Go ahead. We can always use input from our customers.”
”I'm a bit more than one of them. You thought so, any rate,” the man says with a pride that sounds ashamed to own up to itself. ”You invited me there, or one of your crew did. Sorry I turned you down, but I'm glad.”
”Should I know why? I believe I've read something of yours.”
”That wouldn't tell you.” Apparently he doesn't intend to either, since he asks ”Is the feller there that was putting notices about? He stuck one on my car and dumped the rest in all the shops by you, as if that's going to do any good.”
”Why shouldn't it?”
”Show a bit of sense, lad. Have you looked around you lately? I'd be surprised if you've got any customers at all.”
”That's because the expressway's blocked just now.”
”I forgot I shouldn't be expecting sense.” Before Woody can deal with this, Bottomley--that's his name, Woody has remembered--says ”Any road, is he available?”
Woody is gazing straight at Angus, but there's no question of letting him or any of the staff hear from the writer. ”I'm afraid you'll have to leave a message.”
”Tell him I must have sounded rude.”
”I'm sure he'll know that without being told.”
”Clever,” says Bottomley in a tone that means the opposite. ”What I'm driving at, I should have made myself 217 clearer while I had the chance. That place was getting to me, and that's the truth.”
”You must have to imagine all sorts of stuff to be a writer.”
”That's the last spot I'd imagine anything. It's not the sort of book I wrote about it, is it?”
”I couldn't honestly say.”
”There's plenty more like you. You're in the vast majority, no arguing with that.” His pride has sunk to the level of resentment, and Woody is hoping his indifference has brought the call to an end until Bottomley says ”I wanted the lad with the notices to know I wasn't trying to insult him.”
It's only because Woody needs to learn all he can about the incident before confronting Angus that he asks ”Why should he have thought you were?”
”I didn't mean he wasn't up to the job. I was saying just the contrary. You'll have got even more qualifications, won't you?”
Woody can't see the point of the question but is provoked to retort ”A bunch.”
”And you never noticed the mistake either.”
Woody's furious to seem to be confirming this by saying ”Which mistake?”
”Good G.o.d, have you not still? It's got to be worse than I reckoned. You didn't know there was a word wrong on your notices.”
”Of course we did. We fixed it.”
''Not on the ones you left round that place.”
”Yes, those. There was a rogue apostrophe we got rid of.”
”Lots of them about these days, but it wasn't one of those. I'm talking about how you said there was a readin group.”
”Reading, you mean.”
”You did, but it's not what your notices said.” Woody s.n.a.t.c.hes one off the stack beside the phone and narrows his eyes at it. For a moment he's unable to locate 218 the word--he could imagine he has forgotten how to read--and then the misprint swells into his vision as though he has rescued it from being submerged. His rage seems to make the floor quiver underfoot; no doubt that's how it feels to be so undermined. His fist is crumpling the leaflet into a hard spiky lump when Bottomley comments ”Sounds like you've got it now.”
”It'll be dealt with,” Woody promises through his fiercest smile.
”How are you going to do that? If you're blaming anybody you've missed the point.”
Woody knows he's going to dislike the answer but can't refrain from saying ”Who else would you suggest I blame?”
”Try where you are.”
”If you've any complaints about my store I'm listening.”
”Not the shop.” Bottomley fills a pause with a clink of gla.s.s and a generous amount of pouring before he says ”That's another thing I could have been clearer about. He may have thought I meant the shop as well.”
”I wasn't told you said anything about it.”
”I expect he didn't think it was worth mentioning. He'd have thought I was asking where it got its name.”
”Pretty obvious, I'd say.”
”That would be, right enough, but I meant your business park.”
Why should Woody care? The man's drunk and embittered and most unlikely to tell him anything he would like to hear. It's only in order to speed the conversation to its end that he says ”What about it?”