The Overnight Part 8

Jill releases her bitten lip to say "Is Lorraine's mother here?"

"She didn't want to come now she can't see Lorraine. You'll meet at the church."

"Oh yes. Sorry. And I'm really sorry ab..." Each of Jill's words seems to be harder to articulate, as if they're catching on the emotion behind them, but when she says "Could you excuse me?" it rushes out like a single word.

"I'll go with her, can I?" Agnes blurts and races after her to the staffroom.

As Ray retreats behind the counter so that it doesn't appear unattended, Mr Carey says "Ladies. They're better off than us in some ways, aren't they? They don't care if they see each other having a good cry."

Ray feels as though Lorraine's father and the women have delegated him to suppress emotion on behalf of all of them. He could imagine fog has lodged behind his eyes, blurring the far ends of the aisles. Even once he has risked a blink, Mad's section still looks vaguely befogged. Mr Carey peels back his hood, releasing tuft after grey tousled tuft of hair, and turns the photograph on the counter towards himself. He might be addressing it as he murmurs "I hope it was a child, don't you?"

"Forgive me, you hope which?"

"The police said a child was supposed to be driving the car. I wouldn't like to think anyone else could be so thoughtless."

"We've had to chase a few little savages, but I pray they're not that bad."

"Are you a praying man? I used to be." Mr Carey lifts a corner of the photograph with a fingernail bitten to the quick and returns the picture of Lorraine like a stigma to his palm. "Anyway, I'd best let you get on," he says. "I'm not a customer." 103 Three women with a handful of romances each have arrived at the end of the rope that leads to the sign requesting people to queue there. As Ray serves them he's distracted by the sight of Mr Carey's hunt for anybody wearing a Texts badge. Each of them is shown the photograph, which is starting to put Ray in mind of a members.h.i.+p card that gives admission to their hearts, an unforgivable idea but one he can't entirely dismiss. More than once he hears Mr Carey murmur "church." He's bagging a wrestler's ghost-written autobiography for a tracksuited man with rusty sunlamped skin and a stubby neck that looks electrical with veins when Mr Carey returns to the counter. He waits until they're alone to ask Ray "Have I met everyone?"

"Some won't be in till after lunch. The manager's in the stockroom."

"You'll have had enough of me by then. Be honest, you have now."

"Not at all," Ray says, performing a vigorous shake of his head.

"May I let you know once we've settled where and when so you can tell the rest of Lorraine's friends? I'll leave her picture if you like and you can give it back to me at the church."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary."

Mr Carey seems to grow belatedly aware of Frank the guard or of his significance. "Were you here when it happened?" he asks, brandis.h.i.+ng the photograph at him.

Frank turns such a slow frown on it that Ray fears his lack of recognition will distress Lorraine's father. He's about to abandon his post at the counter and explain when Frank says "I was in here. Ronnie and them that came with the park, they was on patrol."

"Where would I find them?"

"In their hut, only I'd think twice."

"Why's that?" 104 "He heard her running and the car and never went to try and stop it. He wasn't that slow when I worked with him in Manchester."

"Out of condition, do you mean?" Mr Carey wants to believe.

"Stupid and takes forever to get where he's going. Thinks he's so impressive he doesn't need to run. Maybe it's beneath him, I shouldn't wonder."

"I think perhaps I don't want to meet him." Mr Carey lays the photograph to rest in his wallet, only for his pocket to stay clear of his increasingly shaky hand. At last he manages to lodge the wallet and zip the pocket shut, and says to Ray "Could I ask you one last favour?"

"I didn't think you'd asked me any yet."

"It's kind of you to say so." Mr Carey tries for a smile that his lips shake off. "Would you mind showing me where Lorraine left her car?"

Jill reappears from the direction of the staffroom, and a moment later Agnes wheels a trolley through the exit near the lift. "I'll let you have the counter back, Jill," Ray says. "If anyone wants me I won't be out long."

The fog has closed in. The retail park resembles a photograph blurred almost blank by sunlight or by chemicals gone wrong, with just the shopfront and its strip of pavement and a bite-shaped arc of tarmac left in focus. "I believe the car is over by the supermarket," Ray murmurs.

"Why so far away?"

"We aren't really supposed to park at the front. I expect she didn't want it to be noticed."

"By you, do you mean?"

This sounds like a sad accusation, all the harder to deal with because of its vagueness. Mr Carey leaves it behind as he hurries past Happy Holidays, where handwritten offers of travel are peeling away from condensation on the inside of the window. Perhaps he doesn't hear Ray protest "I did." 105 Ray catches up with him alongside TV'Id, where a couple are screaming at each other on the daily Relate Relate show on at least a dozen televisions. Next door in Teenstuff a pregnant but otherwise skinny teenager is fingering sc.r.a.ps of cloth that are either skirts or blouses. In the Baby Bunting window ranks of cloth dolls with perfunctory faces seem to be watching for a spectacle to begin, while inside Stay in Touch the staff appear dissatisfied with all the mobile phones they're testing. Beyond the unoccupied properties covered with boards that are crawling with graffiti--primitive shapes and brief yet illegible words--an alley leads to the guards' long low boxy hut, in which a radio commentator's voice sounds frantic to escape a mouth stuffed with fur. Mr Carey hesitates beside the alley for a moment and then trudges onward. As the front of the supermarket looms into view, its windows displaying special offers in letters so large only the fog can defeat them, he disentangles his key-ring from a pocket and uses both hands to point the fob at a red Shogun, which acknowledges him with a beep of its horn and a wink of its lights. "It used to be the family car. Lorraine wanted it, so we gave it to her," he seems to feel required to explain, "though we thought there was too much room." show on at least a dozen televisions. Next door in Teenstuff a pregnant but otherwise skinny teenager is fingering sc.r.a.ps of cloth that are either skirts or blouses. In the Baby Bunting window ranks of cloth dolls with perfunctory faces seem to be watching for a spectacle to begin, while inside Stay in Touch the staff appear dissatisfied with all the mobile phones they're testing. Beyond the unoccupied properties covered with boards that are crawling with graffiti--primitive shapes and brief yet illegible words--an alley leads to the guards' long low boxy hut, in which a radio commentator's voice sounds frantic to escape a mouth stuffed with fur. Mr Carey hesitates beside the alley for a moment and then trudges onward. As the front of the supermarket looms into view, its windows displaying special offers in letters so large only the fog can defeat them, he disentangles his key-ring from a pocket and uses both hands to point the fob at a red Shogun, which acknowledges him with a beep of its horn and a wink of its lights. "It used to be the family car. Lorraine wanted it, so we gave it to her," he seems to feel required to explain, "though we thought there was too much room."

Ray's afraid Mr Carey may add that there is now, but he only climbs into the vehicle. "Thank you for looking after me," he says. "I'm glad Lorraine had you for a manager."

Ray turns his hands up in a gesture he hopes is selfdeprecating rather than dismissive. He watches fog redden and grow pale as the Shogun backs away from the kerb. The headlamps appear to draw tendrils of murk while the car dawdles towards the exit from the retail park. The rear lights swell before their redness vanishes as if the place is trying to pretend a stain was never there. The drone of the engine is shrinking towards the motorway when Ray dodges into Frugo. All at once the errand Sandra sent him 106 on feels like a rea.s.surance that nothing has threatened their and Sheryl's lives.

He finds tights in the Household section and carries two packets united like Siamese twins to a checkout staffed by a severely cropped young blonde with trish pinned to the left breast of her pink overall. Clutching a Frugo bag, he hurries out to confront the fog. Can it have grown colder? He does his best to hug himself while maintaining his grasp on the carrier. The grey ma.s.s drags itself ahead of him along the pavement and lurches at him from the car park. As he pa.s.ses the graffiti, a drop of condensation traces the outline of a squat discoloured figure with a smeary blob for a face. He could almost imagine that the frenzied jabbering from the guards' hut is using the daubed mouth. The unappealing notion makes him feel pursued, and once he's alongside Stay in Touch he can't help glancing back. He's in time to glimpse movement beyond a lonely parked Toyota, over which the edge of the fog is lapping--a blurred huddle of shapes ducking out of sight. They're no taller than the bonnet of the car.

They're children, then. He mustn't a.s.sume they are in any way connected with Lorraine's death, but he wants a word with them. "Hold on there," he calls and sprints towards the car. He hears a retreating commotion that sounds oddly unlike footsteps. He's abreast of the Toyota when he sees the fog embrace three small blurred shapes out on the deserted tarmac.

He has no idea why he hesitates before das.h.i.+ng in pursuit. They're only children, despite the tricks the murk and his nerves are eager to play. When the fog puts an end to an indistinct glimpse of the trio, it makes them appear to merge not only with it but also momentarily with each other. As he veers across the car park after them he catches sight of the audience of dolls in Baby Bunting, which explains why the notion of unfinished identical faces has lodged in his brain. The three small figures seem to be shuffling rather than running--that has to be why their movements sound 107 barefoot, if not softer--and yet they're outdistancing him. He's unable to identify how they're dressed; the grey tatters that smudge their outlines must be fog, which has also steeped them in its colour. Then he's distracted by silhouettes of trees that drift into focus beside them, two saplings and the broken stump of a third. He thought he was heading for the buildings that are still to be completed, but somehow he has strayed back towards Texts. "Where are you wandering off to, Ray?" Woody calls behind him.

He turns to see Woody gripping his hips with his splayed fingers in the shop entrance. Ray jerks his free hand at the saplings. "You can see I'm--was The hand hovers in the air with nothing else to do, because the tarmac is deserted. "Say what?" Woody shouts.

Ray backs towards him, squinting at the fog in case the children resurface. "Did you see where they went?"

"I don't talk to anybody's back, Ray." When Ray faces him Woody says "We saw you charging about and that's all. You just looked lost to me."

"Some children are hiding out there. I thought..."

"Did you? Maybe you want to check that out, Frank." As the guard heads for the splintered stump, Woody says "The way I heard it you were supposed to be taking care of Lorraine's father."

"I did that. I took him to her car."

"Did he give you that for your trouble?"

He's gazing at the Frugo bag, which rustles as though indicating Ray can't keep still for guiltiness. "The car was by the supermarket and I thought I might as well nip in while I was there," Ray explains. "Women's things, you know, for my wife."

"Nothing like efficiency, Ray."

"We can call it my break."

"Good idea," Woody says, and his gaze lets go of Ray. "Anything?" he shouts.

"Can't see n.o.body," Frank's flattened voice responds.

"Were they doing much, Ray?" 108 "I told you, hiding."

"Looks like they hid. I guess they might with someone chasing them. No need to a.s.sume they're bad just because they're kids, am I right? They're potential customers. Or did you recognise them?"

Ray has had enough. He's struggling not to s.h.i.+ver, and his s.h.i.+rt is beginning to glue itself to him like chilly wallpaper. "No," he says and makes for Texts with a rustle of the supermarket bag.

Perhaps the word or the plastic sounds defiant, because Woody's stare seems to rise from some depth Ray would rather not encounter. "Next time you run a staff meeting, tell them not to leave the store in future without checking with me first," he says, and then his gaze sinks inwards but doesn't lose its hold on Ray. "No," he decides. "Forget it. I'll deal with everyone myself. That's my job." 109

CONNIE.

She didn didn 'that go to bed with Geoff to spite Jill. It wasn't her idea to have a post-cinema drink at Orient/Occident, it was Rhoda's and another girl's who Connie met at university. She didn't object to the venue, however, and once she saw Geoff behind the bar she didn't mind admitting to herself she'd hoped he would be. When it was time for Rhoda and her friend to leave, Connie gave up her lift home so that she could carry on talking to him, and everything after that felt like already having made her choice. That doesn't mean she wasn't in control, and she's not about to lose it: even as a child she couldn't bear it when other children made a fuss, and the few times her parents started arguing in public she wished she could shrink. 'that go to bed with Geoff to spite Jill. It wasn't her idea to have a post-cinema drink at Orient/Occident, it was Rhoda's and another girl's who Connie met at university. She didn't object to the venue, however, and once she saw Geoff behind the bar she didn't mind admitting to herself she'd hoped he would be. When it was time for Rhoda and her friend to leave, Connie gave up her lift home so that she could carry on talking to him, and everything after that felt like already having made her choice. That doesn't mean she wasn't in control, and she's not about to lose it: even as a child she couldn't bear it when other children made a fuss, and the few times her parents started arguing in public she wished she could shrink.

There's no reason for Jill to know about her night with Geoff, especially when they're distressed about Lorraine. Why was she so harsh to Jill about her window display, though? Perhaps she's nervous about how their first author's visit will turn out, but that's no excuse. Controversy is publicity, and surely the best way to promote Brodie Oates. She'll say as much to Jill when she sees her, she 110 promises herself as she drives away from her snug little two-bedroomed house in Prestwich.

Five minutes later she's on the motorway. In another ten she would be at Texts if it weren't for the fog. Once she sees it crawling onto the road she knows she's close to Fenny Meadows, though the retail park and the sign for it have been blotted out, together with the sun. The wet green fields on either side of her turn grey and diminish to large verges walled in by nothingness, and she feels as if her brain is dwindling too, as if while it's robbed of sunlight the s.p.a.ce is plugged by fog. She's in second gear by the time she coasts past Frugo; she could almost imagine the patch of tarmac the fog doles out has given way to waterlogged earth that is dragging the wheels down. She parks behind Texts and hurries down the oppressively blank alley to the front of the shop.

A breath of fog seems to have caught in her head to grow more stagnant than it already smelled. Clearing her throat doesn't s.h.i.+ft it, but makes Gavin cut a yawn short and busy himself at tidying the events leaflets on the counter. All the customers have one; at least a dozen men and women are at large among the shelves. Woody ought to be pleased, but he isn't working today. Connie runs upstairs to the restroom, as he prefers to call it, and blows her nose so hard on several tissues her skull feels pumped up. Her vigour must be why she seems to glimpse a grey ma.s.s quivering into view at the foot of the mirror; she's annoyed by having to turn to confirm she's alone in the room. When she has rid herself of enough of the residue of fog to ignore any that remains, she clocks on and flashes a smile at Nigel's s.h.i.+ft meeting, Jill included but not singled out, on the way to her desk. She's about to check her email when she hears the meeting scatter and the office door inch open. "Connie?" says Jill.

Her voice is low and guarded but determined, and her grin looks shy of being noticed. "What's the joke, Jill?" Connie prompts. 111 "I don't know if you'd want to call it that," Jill says, snapping open her handbag. "Have you realised what you did, if it was you?"

Has she deduced somehow that Connie spent the night with Geoff? Why should Connie react as though it has anything to do with Jill? She's suppressing her resentment at being made to feel defensive when Woody jerks his door open. "Something else wrong?"

"Isn't this your day off?" Connie blurts.

"Why, would you like it to be?"

"Only for your sake. You need time off like the rest of us."

"Time enough for that when we're on top of everything. I'm still dreaming of a stockroom with nothing in it waiting to go down, except that isn't going to be just a dream." He pauses long enough for Connie to wonder if behind his murky eyes he has indeed drifted close to sleep, and then he says "We interrupted you, Jill."

He's aggravated Connie's defensiveness so much that she's ready to deny whatever the letter Jill produces from her bag is accusing her of. When Jill unfolds it, however, it proves to be an events leaflet. "I was saying to Connie, sorry, Connie, I don't think you could have spotted this."

Woody lurches out of the doorway to twist his face towards the leaflet. "Hey, that's new."

For a moment as she peers at it Connie is able to believe that nothing obvious has befallen it, and then she rereads the top line: event's at text's. The apostrophe is almost small enough to be mistaken for a crumb of mud--just not quite. "I don't believe it," she hears herself say, which makes her feel even stupider. "I checked it onscreen and when I printed it out as well."

"Still looks to me like we're screwed, then."

"Sometimes you read what you expect to be there, don't you?" Jill says. "I didn't see it at first myself. It was when I took a bunch to school to give people, my little daughter asked if there wasn't a mistake." 112 112.

Her grin is fiddling with her lips again. It may mean to be wry and sympathetic, but is she really unaware of worsening Connie's situation? "Maybe people will think it's right and just a bit original, like you," she tells Connie. "It could be saying event is at Texts, you know, there's an event at Texts, though I suppose it should really be events are."

Connie's almost certain Jill is slyly taunting her. Perhaps she thinks Connie won't challenge her in front of Woody, in which case she's about to learn that she's a presumptuous b.i.t.c.h. Did Connie think something else about her earlier? It's nowhere to be found in her mind now. She opens her mouth, only to feel as though Greg is using it for ventriloquism and to make her look more of a fool. "Connie call six, please. Connie call six."

"Better do that," Woody says. "And thanks for the publicity, Jill, even if it doesn't give the impression we want."

She didn't say she gave anything to anyone. Connie would take time to point that out except that Woody is staring at her phone to urge her to use it. "Yes, Greg," she says, having s.n.a.t.c.hed it up.

"The reading group is asking where they're supposed to be."

Why doesn't he transfer the call? She knows he's anxious for promotion, but she doesn't care for the way he behaves as though he's already a manager. "Put whoever it is through," she says, "and I'll speak to them."

"They aren't on the phone, they're here. They're due to start in a few minutes."

"I doubt it, Greg. Somebody's lost track of time."

"That's what it says on your handout."

"Who told you that? Jill?" Perhaps the name sounds like an accusation rather than a request for the leaflet, because Jill hesitates before pa.s.sing it to her. "I'm not seeing this," Connie says only just aloud.

"Can't be there then, can it?" Woody says as his eyes demand an explanation. 113 "I know I put eighteen hundred, not eleven. I'll swear I did."

"Swear all you like, just not in front of the customers."

His voice is so lacking in encouragement that returning to the phone is almost a relief. "Is Wilf about?" she asks.

"He's on his way to the stockroom."

"I'll catch him."

As Connie stands up, Woody lifts an open hand so fast she could take it for the threat of a slap. "Before you hustle, have we finished finding problems with the stuff you wrote?"

"I hope so."

"Better make sure, huh?"

What infuriates her most is that he's saying this in front of Jill. Rage must be blinding her; she can hardly distinguish what she's labouring to read, let alone whether it contains any further mistakes. "Didn't you check it?" she sees no reason not to ask. "I thought you liked to keep an eye on everything."

"I guess I must have figured we could trust you to fix it this time."

The nearest to a response she feels able to risk is "Jill, are you hanging around here for anything in particular?"

Jill reaches for the leaflet and then lets it lie on the desk. "You keep it, I've still got some. What should I do with them?"

"Connie will give you some with no mistakes in them, won't you, Connie? Let's make certain we don't waste any more paper." Woody adds a stare to that and strides through the staffroom to throw the far door open. "Wilf, you're in demand."

"I was going to put my books out and the ones you said I had to of Lorraine's."

"Time for those later. Right now Connie has a surprise for you. Your fan club's waiting down below."

Wilf is struggling to keep an expression to himself. "Who is?" 114 "Your reading group. I know they were meant to be here this evening, but we can't send them away when they've been told it's now."

This seems not to strike Wilf as any kind of an improvement on whatever he was expecting. "You read the book, didn't you?" Woody urges.

"I nearly finished it last night at home. I fell asleep at the end."

"We're talking about how many pages?"

"At least a chapter."