The Overnight (47 page)

His words and the closeness of his voice have started to make Greg uncomfortable. He's unable to separate them from the waves of heat and chill that flood him each time he exerts himself. Whenever he bends or straightens up, the ache in his bruised shoulders fastens on the back of his head where it struck the floor. Perhaps Woody didn't see that Greg was knocked down by, of all people, Jake. Greg hopes not. He's certainly not about to tell Woody, let alone his own father, who he's sure would finally conclude Greg isn't worthy to be called his son. It's enough for Greg to know he remained, having played the man against the mob. He forces a smile and directs it at the ceiling before he reverts to searching for the gap he should make for the book. "Don't do it just for me," Woody says. "I'm sure you can use it as well."

Greg does his best to smile at finding more Kings at his feet. Of course he's in favour of the monarch, all the more so if it were a man, but the repetition of the word seems to drain it of meaning. Perhaps that's the fault of the dimness that is stinging his strained eyes. As he turns books to face outwards so as to clear space for additional copies, Woody says "You didn't answer my question back there. You're making me feel kind of useless."

With a book in each hand Greg glances at the dark where he can almost visualise Woody hovering, and stretches his arms wide. He means to mime incomprehension, but Woody says "Up to me to figure out how I can help, huh? Let's try this."

When he begins singing Greg can't react until he has planted both volumes on the shelf. By then Woody has repeated "Goshwow, gee and whee, keen-o-peachy" several times, though not always the melody. Greg smiles with all the energy he can summon and waves his hands on either side of his head to chase away Woody's behaviour. "Say, since it's just us listening I guess I can say you look like a minstrel in this light," Woody says. "Join in if you like."

Greg shakes his head as he ducks for books, and feels as if the clammy insubstantial burden of Woody's voice is pressing him down. Woody has stopped singing, but for how long? As Greg holds his breath for fear he'll recommence, Woody says "No? Don't let me distract you from that fine job. Holler if there's anything you need, that's all I'm asking."

What Greg needs is not to be alone in shelving. He jerks his hands at the shelves around him. "Say what?" Woody enquires. "Speak to me."

Greg stands up with a pair of Kings and mouths "Angus" at the ceiling. "Still not getting it," Woody complains.

Greg marches to the counter, where he drops the books beside the nearest phone and snatches the receiver. "Does Ray still need Angus? Couldn't Angus see if he can come through the other door?"

"Try the one they're at again first if you like."

This feels like being put in charge downstairs. Greg doesn't know how long it has been since either of his colleagues was heard from. Ray must have told Angus to keep quiet or sent him packing. Greg sets down the receiver and strides after his shadow, which the dimness stretches into anonymity. He's annoyed by the need to keep glancing over his shoulder, but the exit is open since the deserters smashed their way out, though he did his best to block the gap with a pair of double-parked empty trolleys. He can't help feeling that some mischief has been or is going on around him; perhaps that's because he's unable to discern the order of the books he's passing or even to remember whose responsibility they used to be. He's some yards short of the exit to the staffroom when he shouts "Ray, will you let us know what stage you've reached?"

Apart from the last of his footsteps there's silence. He understands Ray has to concentrate, but that surely needn't entail rudeness. Can Ray have fallen asleep on the job, and Angus too? Greg pounds on the door with the side of his fist in case anyone requires wakening. "Could someone answer, please?" he shouts and leans his ear against the door.

In a moment he hears a repeated sound but can't identify it. However much it resembles the dripping of water, it must have to do with the fuses. "Angus," he bellows. "We want to know if you're at a loose end."

Because of his position most if not all of his voice seems to stay outside the door. Nevertheless he hears movement, and is straining to interpret it when Woody demands "What's going on?"

Greg marches to the nearest phone and gropes for the receiver. He's distracted by an impression that the children's books are as jumbled as Madeleine kept claiming they were. It's too dark to be certain, and if they're disarrayed he more than suspects she's to blame. As he squints to distinguish which button to press, Woody connects them. "Here I am, Greg. You're not on your own."

"I'm assuming they both have to be there, but I haven't had an answer yet."

Woody's voice expands to fill the shop. "Ray or Angus, Greg's outside by himself. He needs to know you're there."

Greg wouldn't have phrased it quite like that, and isn't wholly happy with the response it brings. The movements beyond the door sound as if somebody is coming to life in mud; the shuffling seems not just aimless but unpleasantly soft. The best, if hardly acceptable, explanation Greg can find is that Angus is rousing himself from whatever he found to lie on. "Well, don't stay there," Woody exhorts. "Go to the door."

Greg is about to echo this when he realises it was addressed to him. While he resents being classed with Angus, he would be wrong to show it. As he strides to the exit, Woody says "Greg's there now, Angus. See if the two of you can shift that goddamned door."

Greg applies his badge to the plaque as he thumps the door with one shoulder, sending an ache across and up his neck, but he might as well not be a member of staff. He runs at the door and bruises the heels of his hands on it with no other result. He's labouring entirely on his own. At first he hears Angus rubbing part of himself over the far side of the door—both his hands, perhaps, since the surface sounds large enough for his face. Is he too stupefied to locate the metal bar? Now he seems to be shuffling about as though he's prancing with idle delight, so loudly it suggests Ray has joined in. Greg hurries to the phone to report "I'm making no headway, and I've no idea what anybody else is up to."

"You can hear me, right, Angus? Anything more you can do to help Greg?" After not much of a pause, Woody's voice shrinks into Greg's ear. "Anything?"

"Nothing at all."

"Okay, Angus, why don't you see if you can find your way down to the door by the elevator. You can check how Agnes is."

The shuffling recommences, though now it sounds like meat being dragged across the floor. Greg hasn't managed to sort out the noise when Woody addresses him without bothering to keep the phone between them. "Plenty of shelving to finish while you wait, Greg. Give him a yell when you're down, Angus."

Greg has to restrain himself from stamping back to retrieve the books from the counter. He isn't one of the women or Jake. As he makes his measured but speedy way across the sales floor he discovers how tired he is: sufficiently to glimpse squat shapes withdrawing into the aisles or collapsing into themselves like grey jelly. Surely he didn't take his attention off the entrance long enough for anyone to have sneaked in, and besides, no intruder could look like that. He shelves the books and the rest of the regal heap so that he can return to the end of the aisle by the window.

The illumination lacks the strength he thought he remembered, but that's no excuse for him to slow down; there are no excuses, as his father often used to say and still does. Greg crouches and straightens his back and does his utmost to have found the right place for each book as soon as he's at attention. Here's a Lamb, but it's not for him to sacrifice: only God should do that, because it was part of God turned into flesh. Here's one by Law and three by Lawless, which just about sums up the state of the world. Here's Lone, which is what Greg is at the moment, with no reason to complain—his father has to deal with greater difficulties every day he's at the barracks. Greg would be there too or patrolling somewhere in the world if his mother didn't upset herself at such length whenever she thinks of his coming to harm. He thought his father might appreciate his helping people improve themselves by reading, but the shop contains few books Greg would be happy to recommend. He'll have to take a stand if Texts intends to promote the likes of Brodie Oates, men so ashamed of being their sex that they want to be women. His father and the other real men are forced to have them in the forces now. Greg knows what kind of force they deserve, but is his expression as grim as his thoughts? When he trains a smile on the ceiling, that earns him no response from Woody. He busies himself with more volumes—Mann, which looks like a man determined to prove he's one; Marks, not Marx, Greg is glad to see; May, which you might assume has sunk out of the language. He thinks of a joke he would like to tell ("These days May ought to be filed under Can") just to show he has a sense of humour. He gazes upwards, but Woody doesn't ask what's on his mind. Greg could share it with Angus if he ever bothers to arrive at the door by the lift; how long does Angus mean to let it take him? The dark would be no excuse for a soldier, and it shouldn't be for anyone. It isn't Angus who makes Greg replace May on the stack at his feet, however. He's sure he glimpsed movement outside, almost concealed by the fog.

He flattens his hands against the window and peers through his breath on the icy glass. Before the fog obscures it he sees a blurred light prowling the car park. He has been so intent on shelving that he forgot to look out for the emergency services; perhaps he doubted any of the renegades would call them. He swings around to raise his face and shout "Here at last."

Woody doesn't respond. He must have fallen asleep. As the manager he deserves more rest than anybody else, and Greg feels left in charge. Ray and Angus must have heard him, and seem to be throwing themselves about with glee, leaping up and landing with soft thuds and bumping against the doors, Angus having reached the other one at last. Greg can do without their antics, not least because it has distracted him from events outside the window. When he stares through it he realises the lights are lost in the fog.

He sprints to the entrance so fast he jars pain from his shoulders into his head. He shoves the trolleys aside and is on the pavement when he falters. What sounds like huge breaths in the glaring murk—like the moist snuffling of some gigantic beast in search of prey? As it trails off into an expectant silence he understands that it can only have been the noise of a vehicle that has halted out of sight. "Over here," he shouts. "We called you here."

Apart from the frolics of Ray and Angus, which have started to annoy him even more than they bewilder him, there's silence. He can only assume that the driver of the vehicle is contacting a control room, inaudibly to Greg, but that may not help. He cups his hands around his mouth to yell "Can't you hear me? We're here. The bookshop."

The engine gives a snuffle that he takes at first for a response. When it subsides he's afraid that the driver can indeed not hear him. "Woody, I'm just going to get them," he shouts, pointing with his hands into the fog. "They don't seem to know where to find us."

Woody stays asleep. Greg considers using the phone but doesn't want to waken him abruptly. Besides, he might be allowing the driver time to move off. He can't help resenting how Angus and, yes, Ray have left him to do so much, but it shows that he's equal to any number of tasks. He blocks the entrance with the trolleys and hurries away from the shop, calling at the top of his voice "Hold on. I'm coming to you."

He hears an exhalation that must be air brakes, however large and eager it sounds. "That's the drill, wait there for me," he bellows, sprinting across the tarmac. The fog trails over it like a mass of sodden rotting cloth, from which the nearest trees unpick themselves, two saplings and the stump left by Madeleine's car. He dodges around the strip of lush grass in which the trees are rooted. The noise of brakes was beyond them—beyond the saplings that the fog momentarily unveils a couple of hundred yards behind them too, apparently, or could the vehicle have crept away unheard? "Where are you?" Greg demands so vehemently his throat feels raw with fog. "We're the ones who called you. You've found us."

This appears to have some effect, thank the Lord—Greg was beginning to wonder how much of an invitation the fellow expects. The noise like an excited breath is repeated not too far ahead. It has acquired a slobbering quality that Greg could live without, and sounds as though it's emerging from somewhere lower than makes sense, which must be a trick of the increasingly dim fog. It sinks into silence, but not before he locates it in the middle of the car park. He makes for it so fast he nearly loses his footing on the muddy tarmac. There are the lights of a vehicle about a hundred yards ahead, so blurred they seem less to penetrate the murk than to be part of it. Are they retreating? Half a dozen strides fail to clarify his view of them, and he can't distinguish the vehicle at all. He's opening his mouth to call out, though it fills instantly with fog, when the lights swerve and rush at him.

Has he come to the same end as Lorraine? He doesn't deserve it; even Lorraine didn't. Then the lights fly apart and merge with the fog on either side of him. Too late he realises he was in no danger. He started to run from the lights instead of facing them down, and now he has no idea which direction he came from.

At least it's clear that he was right to be suspicious. None of the deserters has bothered to put in a call, or help would have arrived by now. So much for their pretence of solidarity with their colleague in the lift, never mind setting Woody free. Greg has no doubt they would be delighted to know they've caused him to lose his way in the fog. Of course that's an exaggeration; the retail park is too small for anyone to stay lost for any significant length of time. What would his father do? Remain on the spot, he thinks, and turn slowly until a landmark shows itself. He's beginning the manoeuvre when he hears a voice as blurred as the fog.

"Goshwow, gee and whee, keen-o-peachy …" It has left many of its consonants behind, and almost anything that could be described as a tune. He isn't even certain who it is until he realises Woody is singing, if it can be called that, in his sleep. Greg could never have dreamed how welcome this would be; it tells him that the shop is about a hundred degrees to his left. In a moment the mumbled song trails off, but he doesn't need it any more. He starts in its direction, only to jerk to a halt. What has crept up to surround him?