The Overnight (33 page)

"Absolutely," Nigel says, and Ray mutters most of a yes.

"No call to look that way, Greg. We aren't doing anything up here you wouldn't do. Okay, are you all on your marks?"

"I am," Ray declares as he puts the handle at arm's length, and Nigel shouts his readiness while Angus says his.

"One," Woody warns them, and then his voice falls out of the air and hides beyond the door. "Say, it wouldn't hurt someone to remind me what I'm doing here."

As Ray wonders whether the intercom system has failed, Nigel asks "Sorry, what are you?"

"I'm only meant to be counting for you three. All of them down there looked like they were waiting for the signal too. You can all still hear me, right? Then let's do it. One. Two. Three."

Angus and Nigel hurl themselves at the door. As Ray drubs it with his shoulder Nigel knocks Angus against him and collides at least partly with the wall. "Oh, blast it. Damned stupidity," he cries.

"Whose are we talking about?" Ray wouldn't mind knowing.

"The whole idea. There isn't room for all of us."

"Just say the word and I'll leave you two together."

"That didn't do shit, did it?" Woody complains. "What went wrong this time?"

"Too many people getting in each other's way," says Nigel.

"How many stooges do we have out there? Three sounds like it ought to work."

A chill shiver travels through Ray before anger heats him up again. He feels as if their antics have attracted an eavesdropper. He must be mistaken; Agnes and her trolley have reached the lift, which informs her that it's closing. He even thinks he hears her give it a startled reply that the doors enclose as Woody calls "Okay, this is it. This is when it opens up. Let's make sure it happens this time. Are you all ready for it?"

Ray barely hears his own mutter, never mind anyone else's. "I didn't catch that," Woody shouts. "Let's try it again. Are you ready?"

Ray imagines Woody smiling wildly as if he's urging reluctant children to join in a Christmas game. "Yes," he responds with a good deal more enthusiasm than he's feeling, and can tell the same is true of Angus and Nigel.

"Here it comes, then. One Fenny Meadows … Two Fenny Meadows … Wait for it … Three!"

Ray assumes Woody means to build up everybody's tension and ensure they attack the door with all their strength, but the pauses are so extended that he starts to feel they're rendering time stagnant, just as lying awake in the worst of the dark can. As the final number arrives at last he tries to stay clear of Angus while shoving the handle down and heaving himself at the door. This time he's aware of a concerted impact that shudders through his entire body. At once he is utterly blind.

He's terrified his effort has severed some connection inside him until Angus stammers "What did we do?"

"You didn't get me out of here," Woody calls, "that's for sure."

"I mean the lights have gone out."

"Yeah, I did notice that. Can't you guys see at all?"

"No, not at all," Nigel says in a stiff pinched voice.

"Then I guess it's easier for someone downstairs to fix it." Out of the absolute blackness overhead Woody says "Connie, can you check the fuses? They're under the stairs."

At least the phones are functioning, then. Ray hopes they won't be assailed by too much of Woody's distended commentary, since it adds to the oppressive weight of the dark. He senses that Angus is trying to stand completely still beside him, perhaps so as not to risk brushing against him. He doesn't know if the waves of heat that keep coming into conflict with the chill that has gathered in the dark have anything to do with Angus. Somewhere past Angus he can hear Nigel's breathing, his lips parting with each breath, some of which sound like groans he's increasingly less concerned to stifle. Ray is about to warn him to take control of himself and stop bothering the rest of them when Woody's immense voice and its accompanying mutter say "Keep trying, Connie. Your badge still ought to work."

Ray imagines her groping blindly for the plaque, and then he realises that the sales floor must be floodlit from outside the shop, a notion that feels like a promise of regaining his sight. He assumes the unhappy distant female voice he hears is Connie's, or is he hearing Agnes in the lift? Has its power failed too? Before he can ask his companions whether they've recognised who is in distress, Nigel blurts "You've got a mobile, haven't you, Ray?"

"Did have."

"You aren't saying you've left it downstairs. What's the point of having one if you don't keep it with you?"

"It's in my pocket, but it's useless. Agnes took it in the fog and did for it."

"Have you tried it since?" Nigel's voice sounds rigid with struggling not to grow shrill. "Couldn't you now?"

"Who do you think I should call, Nigel? The leccy company to come and mend the fuses?"

"Nobody."

"Tell you what then, Nigel. That's exactly what I'll do."

"I think I know what Nigel means," Angus admits.

It isn't only his hot moist breath too close to Ray's face that provokes Ray to demand "So who's going to let me into your little secret?"

"Won't it light up if it's working?" says Nigel.

His insistent tone makes Ray want to lash out at him. Ray feels so stupid for not realising the phone could provide them with illumination that as he fumbles it out of his pocket he wants it to prove Nigel wrong, which is even stupider. As he feels for the On key, Woody says hugely "Connie isn't getting in. One of you in the office will have to go down."

Ray presses the key, and the keypad lights up green. He sees Angus begin to smile as the glow pastes his distorted greyish shadow to the door beyond his glaucous face. Nigel leans around him, his panicky expression starting to relax from the mask it must have become in the dark. The next moment the light flickers and dies, and no amount of poking at the keypad will revive it. Ray hears Nigel moaning under his breath like someone unable to waken from a nightmare, and this time he has to fend off Nigel's despair. He knows it's irrational, which ought to save him from being infected, but even once he has stuffed the lump of lifeless plastic into his pocket he feels cut off from Sandra and their baby in a way he has never felt before. Until he drives the notion out of his head he starts to believe that the blind dark means he will never see them again—that the spark of energy remaining in the mobile was his last chance to reach them.

It's only dark. It isn't solid, however heavily it presses on his eyes. It can't stop him breathing; there are yards and yards of air all the way across the office and the other rooms, even if no more can replace the air through the windowless walls once it's used up. There's enough for him and Ray and Angus and Woody. He ought to be glad he's not alone as well as sightless; he oughtn't to be wishing that he could have chosen his companions. Woody is hardly one, given the immovable door, and Ray seems even less of one after having offered Nigel the flare of the mobile phone, the mocking light Nigel's eyes tried to cling to until it and they were swallowed by the redoubled blackness. As for Angus, he seems to be doing his best to stay unnoticed, surely not by the dark—Nigel mustn't let such fancies stray into his mind. All the same, it takes him a while to recognise that the insect clicking somewhere close is Ray's attempt to regain some light. Then it stops, and Nigel is grinding his lips together so as not to plead with him to give it just another try when Ray says "Looks like it's you or me, Nigel. Which?"

The dark appears to respond to the question with a sluggish flurry of greyness, but it's surely only in Nigel's eyes. "What are you talking about?" he has to ask.

"Don't say you never heard him. He wants one of us to go down to the fuses."

Nigel feels as if the dark almost managed to crowd the memory out of his head, along with most of his ability to think. "Would you mind?"

"I might. I've worn myself out for a while."

Nigel's shoulder is still aching from colliding with the wall rather than the door, but he rests it against the wood in case that helps him feel less threatened by losing himself in the blackness. "To be honest, I don't know if I can."

"Had I better go?" says Angus.

"No, you better hadn't. It's just as hard for you as Nigel, or have you got a special problem, Nigel?"

"Perhaps I have."

"Go on, share it with us."

"I wish I could give it to you, believe me," Nigel mutters as Woody shouts "Has anybody gone yet?"

Nigel's feelings speak up without giving him time to think. "Ray is."

"You're trying to order me about now, are you, Nigel?"

"No, I'm saying I won't be going. I'm no use in this."

"Glad there's one thing we can agree about."

The next moment Angus bumps against Nigel and recoils. Has Ray deliberately pushed him at Nigel? Nigel's stance wavers as if he's about to be sent floundering helplessly into the blackness, and he glances down at the feet he can't see as he plants them apart to steady himself. Though he doesn't immediately understand what's there or why it should matter, he blurts "Ray, wait."

"Changed your mind? Don't you want to be left alone with Angus?"

"Of course not. I do, that is, I don't mind. Only what am I seeing?"

"Can't imagine, can you, Angus?"

"Look," Nigel insists and feels idiotic for pointing. "Look down."

When they're silent he begins to grow afraid that he isn't really seeing the faintest trace of grey underlining the door until Ray grumbles "So Woody's got some kind of a light. What bloody use is that to the rest of us?"

"I think we may be able to get some out here too."

"How do you reckon we'll do that, Nigel? Is he going to poke it under the door?"

"Is it the security thing?" Angus blurts as if he hopes to stop the argument.

"That's it exactly, the monitor. It must be on a different circuit, and the computers will be too. If we switch them all on we'll have plenty of light in here."

"That'll solve everything, then," Ray scoffs.

"It certainly should help, wouldn't you agree?"

"Won't help me see the fuses."

Nigel is well on the way to feeling Ray is as mindlessly immovable as the dark. "Maybe once we're able to see what we're doing," he says just short of losing his temper, "we can plug some of the computers in nearer the stairs."

"Good on you, Nigel. You've convinced us. Go ahead."

"You aren't expecting me to do all that by myself."

"Did I say that, Angus? We just want you to switch one on, Nigel, so we can see to do the rest. No point in us all falling over each other and bugger knows what else in the dark. If I'm dealing with the fuses, the light's your job."

"What's the holdup now?" Woody shouts and deals some item of furniture a thump.

"Nigel's going to switch on a computer."

"What in Christ for?"

"To light up the place," Nigel feels slowed down almost to inertia by having to explain.

"So do it, then. What are you waiting for?"

"Yes, what are you, Nigel?" Ray murmurs. "You heard the boss."

The heat that floods over Nigel is anger, and the chill that follows it is apprehension, which he tries to convince himself makes no sense. He relinquishes the handle and slides his right hand off the door, over the shallow frame, onto the wall. He inches his hand over the slippery surface and shuffles to keep up with it, but doesn't care at all for the sensation of offering his face to the dark. Instead he turns towards the wall and presses both hands against it on either side of him. He begins to sidle along it, though its presence so close to his face makes him feel walled in with very little air. His hands progress over it with a series of halting sticky creaks irregularly echoed by the dragging of his feet across the linoleum. He assumes the noises are apparent only to him, since he can barely hear them for his short harsh breaths and the thudding of his heart, until Ray enquires "Are you really going as slow as you sound?"

"I've got to find my way," Nigel protests, or most of it before the fingertips of his left hand recoil from what they've encountered. It's the wall at right angles to the one he's tracing, and it must feel damp because his fingers are. There's certainly no excuse for him to imagine that anything moist has trailed over it to await him in the blackness. For quite a few seconds manoeuvring around the corner is enough to make him nervous—feeling the walls and the darkness they've trapped closing around his face. Then he has to grope along the second wall, moving yet more slowly for fear of sprawling over some item low on the floor. What would it be? A wastebin, of course, but the obstruction he meets in the blackness jabs his hip. He confines his reaction to a gasp, still enough to make Angus demand "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm at the desk," says Nigel, though that's too grand a term for the shelf at which he and Ray and Connie work. He flattens his hands on it and reaches leftwards until his little finger bumps against the edge of Connie's keyboard. He brushes his hand across the keys, which feel like stones unsteadily embedded in a medium as soft as mud and emit an agitated plastic chatter. As the keys grow dormant his fingertips graze the computer monitor, dislodging an object like a dead insect. Just in time not to gasp again he remembers she has decorated the monitor with a metal butterfly. He gropes farther left and knuckles the tower that houses the computer. He runs his hand over the front of the tower until he locates the power button. With his shaky forefinger he presses the button in as deep as it will sink.

There's a loud click, but the darkness doesn't even twitch. "Was that it?" says Ray.

When Nigel peers towards the question he can no longer be sure that he's seeing a hint of a glow under Woody's door. "Apparently," he has to admit.

"It couldn't …" Angus pauses to think, unless he dislikes hearing his voice surrounded by the dark. "It couldn't be switched off at the plug, could it?"

"It could. Thanks, Angus," Nigel says, only to feel significantly less grateful as he realises he'll have to crawl under the desk. He grasps its edge with both hands and lowers himself to his knees on the cold linoleum. Rather than risk banging his forehead against the desk he ducks beneath it, though he has to fend off the idea that it's forcing him towards some presence lurking underneath. He feels as if he's thrusting his hand into a lair. There's danger enough; his fingertips almost dig into the holes of the wall socket. His fingers retreat to the linoleum and light upon the flex that straggles from the plug. He's attempting to line up its prongs with the holes in the socket when Ray says "What's that?"