The Overnight (20 page)

Someone has been walking a dog on the grass around the edge of Fenny Meadows, or several dogs. The prints must have frozen and melted and frozen again; they might as well be shapeless, despite conveying the impression that they're determined to take shape. Do they lead all the way around the outside of the retail park? He can't see why it should matter, except that as he crosses the hardened mud bristling with tufts of grass behind Frugo he realises the mistake he made. The marks he thought a pet or pets had left are the size of human footprints, if not nearly the shape, and the ones he took for the owner's are several times as large. They must have been made by some machinery while the shops were being built, and have become misshapen since. The undertaste of the fog seems to rise from his sore jaw to fasten something like electricity on his brain until he stops staring at the prints and heads past Frugo onto the car park.

He knows his way across, however foggy it becomes. If the tarmac feels soft and not entirely stable underfoot, that's because hours of dancing under the jagged light at the club and his tramp along the lane haven't entirely worn off. He just has to dodge from one stand of trees to the next, four token plantations before he should be in sight of Texts. His lack of sleep must be catching up with him: the trees nearest Frugo look swollen, only very gradually losing weight as the fog that blurs them appears to drain into them rather than retreating. The trees beyond them start out even greyer and fatter, and their fleshy appearance seems to sink into the patch of grass. Gavin doesn't like that much, thought it's preferable to the sight of the third clump shuddering as if they're ridding themselves of a jellyish greyness that vanishes into the mud. They must be shifting in the wind that urges fog at him as he sprints towards the last excuse for a grove. A few dead leaves fly to meet him as well, a couple landing on his sleeve while the rest settle on the tarmac so stealthily he peers at them. They're clenched empty spiders, or is he hallucinating? To end up that size they would have been bigger than his hand when they were alive. The taste of the fog wavers through his head as he shakes off whatever's clinging to his sleeve. He hurries past the tree Mad's car cut down, but why is he hurrying? His watch shows that nobody is due at Texts for a quarter of an hour. Then a layer of fog peels away from the shopfront, letting him see through the bleary window a figure scurrying down an aisle and brandishing a weapon.

Even when he identifies Woody, Gavin thinks he's chasing someone and about to club them unconscious or worse. It's only after Woody has wagged the object gleefully above his head as he parts two books with his free hand and inserts his burden into the space on the shelf that Gavin understands it's a book. By then Woody has caught sight of him. His smile is beyond magnification, but his eyes bulge with a greeting as he runs to open the door. "Hey, Gavin," he cries through the glass. "Thinking you could beat me?"

"Beat you at what?"

"Say again?"

Now that the door is open the question doesn't seem worth repeating, but Woody smiles at him until he mutters "Beat you at what?"

"At nothing. To the worm. Anyone behind you?"

Once Gavin grasps that he's being asked if he has arrived by himself he says "Nobody I know of."

All the same, Woody turns his smile on the fog for several breaths that resemble drifts of it before he shuts the door, which tolls like an underground bell. Gavin is beginning to wish he'd taken more time on the road but feels compelled to ask "Did you say something about a worm?"

"The one the early bird gets. You have to eat a few worms if you're going to fly."

Gavin is making for the staffroom in the hope he'll be leaving that idea behind when Woody says "Take a moment. You can be the first to see."

Gavin swings around to be confronted by Woody's smile and his breath, which is continuing to mimic fog. "See what?"

"Don't you notice any difference?"

He's staring past Gavin, who has to turn his back on him. At the far end of the aisles the children's section looks almost imperceptibly drained of its colours and possibly not quite in focus, as though a trace of the fog he can still taste has reached it. He doesn't think this is what Woody is eager for him to notice—so eager that he senses Woody's expression like a hint of teeth resting on the nape of his neck. He squints harder at the children's books and at the aisles that lead to them. "It's all tidy."

"Nearly all. I'll be through by the time we open. I wanted to show you guys how the store can look, how it needs to every morning from now on. If I can fix it by myself a bunch of you sure can."

"How long did it take you?"

"Twice as long as a pair of you, three times as long as a whatever you want to call it, what do you, doesn't matter, three. You do the math."

Gavin doesn't care about the answer but will feel stupid if he doesn't make his point clear. "How much sleep have you had?"

"Enough or I wouldn't be standing here, right? Once we're through tonight we'll all have a chance to sleep."

Does he think Gavin needs to be told that? Gavin feels close to overdosing on Woody's intensity—he doesn't know if the man looks more like an evangelist or a clown. When Woody pounces on another book to relocate with smiling vehemence, Gavin heads for the staffroom. He's just here to do the job he's paid for and to have some fun if he can find it along the way.

The plaque by the exit insists on being shown his badge twice. The delay gathers like a storm cloud in his head. Frustration or the last of the speed sends him up the stairs without treading on half of them. He shoves the staffroom door aside and snatches his card from the Out rack. He slides the card under the clock and drops it in In, and is considering awakening the percolator when he hears a flurry of activity. Footsteps are hurrying upstairs, though for a second he thinks their approach has blotted out another movement, softer and of no shape he can define. Was it in the stockroom? It has gone now, and he tells himself it couldn't have been there as the door by the clock admits Nigel and Mad. To his bewilderment, both the clock and his watch show they're on time, and Woody is following as if he has herded them upstairs. "No need to sit down," he says. "This won't take long."

Nigel's mouth droops open as though having his shift meeting hijacked is no joke. "Here's how we do it starting now," says Woody. "Why doesn't everyone try to be the best at something to do with the store, your choice." His smile barely slackens while he adds "Come up with it while you're working. Gavin, you man the counter for an hour unless Madeleine wants to woman it."

"He can have it," Mad says without humour. "I expect my section's needing me as usual."

Gavin feels as if he has inadvertently antagonised her. He heads for the stairs as much to escape a sense of being trapped as to start work. He hasn't reached the bottom when Woody darts after him. "Okay, I'm not hounding you," Woody says.

He's hurrying to open the shop. His haste seems pointless, since he lets in nothing but a surge of fog that immediately vanishes. The absence of customers may be why Mad doesn't restrain herself at the sight of the children's section. "Well, thank you, whoever you were," she cries close to the top of her voice.

"That would have been me," Woody calls.

"I doubt it. I hope not."

"Where are you seeing a problem?"

"Where aren't I? Take a look."

Gavin doesn't see why that shouldn't include him; there are no customers for the counter to be guarded from. He follows Woody to the Teenage bay, where Mad is staring at the books and gripping her hipbones with her splayed fingers. When Woody swings around he seems ready to order Gavin back to the counter, but then he says "See anything out of place? If you do you're a better man than me."

Gavin finds his having to take sides makes his skin tingle while his mouth recalls the stagnant taste of the fog. "Sorry, Mad," he's forced to admit. "It looks fine to me."

"Maybe it's something men can't see," Woody offers, and a smile as well.

Mad isn't won over by either. "What's that meant to mean, I'm seeing things?"

"Maybe it's the time."

"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm wide awake."

Woody tilts his head leftward and slits his eyes, a pose that he appears to think renders his smile apologetic. "Time of the month. The girl I used to be with—"

"Keep it to yourself," Mad says so fiercely and unblinkingly that he retreats a step. "Looks like men aren't welcome right now," he murmurs.

Gavin is even less inclined to side with him, but Mad turns her back as if he has. He leaves Woody observing her and retreats to the counter. At least the shop has attracted customers; two squat figures are plodding across the car park. They're past the splintered stump, which grows mouldy with fog and then merges with it, before Gavin is certain they're the two men who have spent he doesn't know how many days in armchairs in the shop. As they shamble through the entrance he dons his wildest grin. "Welcome to Texts," he enthuses. "Can I recommend
Dance Till You Drop
by D J E?"

He couldn't do this if he didn't find it hilarious, but Woody can't object to the recommendation, since they do stock the disc jockey's memoirs. Gavin's grin is threatening to own up to a giggle by the time the men finish frowning wordlessly at him and stump off to Tiny Texts. Mad doesn't conceal her distrust as she watches them. When they each select a copy of the same picture book for infants without disarranging its neighbours she shakes her head, perhaps at herself. As the men sink into armchairs, which emit creaks like frogs exchanging calls, she raises her hands beside her shoulders, though Gavin doesn't think she's blessing anyone. "All right, maybe it's me," she says and heads for the stockroom.

It sounds less like an admission than some kind of accusation of whatever has confused her. Gavin used to think she took the same attitude as he does to the job—have fun wherever you can find it and make fun of the rest to yourself—but she hasn't shown much of that lately. When Woody dodges through the gap as the door closes after her, Gavin wishes he'd taken the chance to let her know he's on her side. At least she has to realise he's not like Woody's pet Greg.

He leans on the counter to watch how long it takes either of the seated men to turn a page. One rouses Gavin's hopes by pinching a corner crablike between a finger and thumb, but then he releases it. In perhaps no more than a couple of minutes his friend takes hold of a corner so as to let it drop. Gavin doesn't notice that their lethargy is dictating his pace until Mad reappears with a trolley full of books. He's about to find some way of appearing to be busy, in case Woody is observing him from upstairs and doesn't think Gavin looks as though he's pondering how he can excel, when Woody emerges from the delivery lobby and pushes a loaded trolley over to Animals. "Here's half your stock that's waiting to be put out," he tells Gavin through a smile his words leave behind. "You'll be close enough to the counter."

Is it his lack of sleep that's compelling Gavin to examine every cover before he shelves the book? By the time he has finished in Pets he feels as if his head is full of eyes gazing up in stupid worship. In Zoology he has the notion of reorganising the volumes in the order opposite to evolution, but why? It's a good job he has no books on amoebas, or he might. Before he has unburdened the trolley of many more volumes he doesn't know if he's filing them or supporting himself on them. He has never been so glad to see the next shift arrive.

Greg bows Connie and Agnes in, though there's room between the security pillars for all three, then sends his voice after at least one of them. "Glad to see I'm not the only person who's eager."

"What are you saying you're eager for, Greg?" Connie wants to know, unless she's pretending.

"Work, of course." He seems genuinely—Gavin would say stupidly—unaware that she could have meant anything else. "You'll have given yourself time for parking, Agnes."

"My car's not in my handbag if that's what you're asking."

"You know what I'm getting at. It's where we're supposed to park."

"It's where it is right enough."

"I'm asking if it's round the back. I'm putting you on your honour."

"I'm not even going to answer you, Greg."

Her stare does that. When she glances at Connie for agreement with her disbelief, however, Connie says "He is right really. No point in arguing over something this silly."

Agnes looks betrayed. "I'm parked where I feel safe and that's where I'm staying," she tells anyone who cares to hear, and stalks off to the staffroom.

Gavin wants to giggle to himself at the pompous pettiness of it, but the confrontation has revived an unwelcome taste in his mouth. Greg and Connie follow her upstairs, but Greg reappears almost at once. "I'll take over at the counter, Gavin," he says as if Gavin should have stayed there. "I'm sure you'll need to catch up on your sleep for tonight."

Gavin presents him with a yawn even huger than it has to be. Once he has seen Greg's jaw work like a camel's to contain a responsive gape, he pushes the lightened trolley to the lift and sends it upwards. Hearing the cheery but decayed voice of the lift sets off the lingering taste in his mouth. He collects the trolley when it arrives at the stockroom and unloads the books that will have to wait until later to see—he was about to confuse himself by thinking daylight, but since when has that entered the shop? As he clocks off he observes Agnes and Connie not speaking to each other, sitting as far apart as they can manage at the staffroom table while Woody watches for the rest of the shift on his screen. The hostile atmosphere feels yet more suffocating for the lack of windows, but Gavin veers into the office to ask Nigel "When are those videos you're sending back going?"

"They'll have to be tomorrow now."

"Could I take a couple home and bring them back tonight?"

"They've all been returned faulty, you know. That's why they're on my rack."

"There'll still be stuff on some of them, won't there? I just wanted to see if there's anything I'd like to buy a copy of."