"You"re going to start then, are you?" This leaves enough of Jill"s anger unexpressed that she blurts "I wish my parents weren"t on their winter break. I"d rather Bryony stayed with them."

Upstairs the toilet flushes as if it"s washing away Jill"s remark. Geoff looks close to giving her an understanding look, which makes her angrier still. She"s tempted to forbid him to show up at Bryony"s Christmas play at school--to threaten to walk out if he disobeys. Instead she shouts "Hurry up, Bryony. I want to put the alarm on."

She"s ashamed of her sharpness when Bryony appears clutching her overnight bag, from which her teddy bear is poking out his battered head to see where he"s going on the way to keeping her bed warm. She waits with her father on the path while Jill types the date she and Geoff split up. Jill has barely shut the door when Bryony drops the bag and runs to hug her so hard it feels as though she wants to root them to the path. "It"ll be fine. It"ll be an adventure," Jill says and strokes Bryony"s head until the hug slackens enough to let her disengage herself. "I"ll see you tomorrow after school."

Bryony stands next to the Golf as Geoff climbs in while Jill starts the Nova. As Jill eases the car away from the 192 kerb, Bryony lifts her free hand in a timid wave that Jill tells herself isn"t really a hopeless attempt to arrest her. Bryony must still be more upset to be reminded that her parents aren"t together than Jill realised. Once they"re home again and Jill has slept off the night at the shop they"ll have a proper talk.

Ten minutes take her through Bury and onto the motorway. She has sped past several exits when she encounters a slow herd of traffic. Eventually it takes her to the elevated section that gives her a distant view of the stretch past Fenny Meadows. While the fog emits only the faintest tinge of red, an elongated shining wound leads there--the brake lights of hundreds of stationary cars. Jill switches on the radio and tunes it to a local station. The Nova has crawled for some minutes to the accompaniment of a folk song about the lone survivor of a battle when the radio issues a travel bulletin. "The M62 eastbound of junction 11 is closed due to a series of accidents. Police do not expect it to be reopened for some hours. Drivers are asked to find an alternative route."

That"s where Fenny Meadows is. Jill is tempted to use this as an excuse to stay away from Texts tonight and let Bryony know, but it wouldn"t be fair to the rest of the the staff. staff. When she arrives at the next junction she heads for the East Lancashire Road so that she can come up behind the retail park. Less than ten minutes later she"s on the dual carriageway, but misses the turn for Fenny Meadows. If there"s a signpost from either direction, it certainly isn"t prominent. Once she reaches a gap in the central reservation she swings back so as to cross to the first side road she"s able to locate, which is marked only by an illuminated bus shelter. The lane doesn"t even seem to have a name. When she arrives at the next junction she heads for the East Lancashire Road so that she can come up behind the retail park. Less than ten minutes later she"s on the dual carriageway, but misses the turn for Fenny Meadows. If there"s a signpost from either direction, it certainly isn"t prominent. Once she reaches a gap in the central reservation she swings back so as to cross to the first side road she"s able to locate, which is marked only by an illuminated bus shelter. The lane doesn"t even seem to have a name.

It"s the route to Fenny Meadows, however. Before long the fog makes that clear as well as the opposite. The tall th.o.r.n.y hedges that enclose the road, their spikes glinting as the headlights sharpen them, appear to be liquefying 193 rather than shaping themselves from the murk. Occasionally a shiver pa.s.ses through the tangles of black twigs, and they exude greyness like a ma.s.s of cobwebs. There must be a wind, because the fog keeps lurching eagerly closer both behind and ahead of the car. By the time she has guided the Nova around all the curves and crooks of the narrow lane, she"s more anxious to reach Fenny Meadows than she could have imagined. She lets out a relieved breath that glimmers for an instant in the air as a pale surface framed by the hedges proves to be more solid than fog.

It"s the rear wall of Frugo. She drives past the shops, some of which are already closed for the night. The glow from their windows lies inert in the murk, which seems to snag on the livid graffiti that swarm over the unoccupied properties. Not a hint of Christmas is visible in Texts; the shop feels mired in the October that first gave rise to the fog. At the back her headlamp beams expand into a white stain that vanishes into the wall. She locks the car, and as the keys finish jingling she discovers she"s holding her breath.

Why is the retail park so quiet? She feels as if the fog has swamped every sound until she realises what"s missing: the noise of the motorway. When she heads for the front of the shop her footsteps seem shrunken by their isolation and yet too loud. She could fancy that something dwarfish is scuttling after her down the alley--her echoes, of course. She"s glad to have left the dim pa.s.sage until she sees Connie in the window.

The three photographs of Brodie Oates lie at Connie"s feet. Jill won"t miss the display--presumably it"s redundant now that he has visited the shop--and she won"t let herself feel as though it"s her face Connie seems about to wipe her shoes on. She"s hurrying past Frank the guard, who looks preoccupied with the fog, when Connie calls "I put these on a trolley for you, Jill." 194 Jill has half a mind to pretend she didn"t hear. She wasn"t expecting Connie"s voice to render her body so stiff it feels crippled and shrivelled, and to bring such an unwelcome taste to her mouth. She turns to see Connie pointing at the books she has taken out of the window. "That"s kind of you," Jill says with a sweetness that can"t quite overcome the taste.

"It is rather, isn"t it? You can put them and the signed ones on a shelf end. Maybe they"ll move faster once people can get their hands on them."

"You"ve got some left over from your show, you mean. Didn"t it go as well as you were planning?"

Connie parts her full pink lips to lure her closer. The gesture sickens Jill, but she can"t resist approaching for Connie to murmur "Not as well as our star kept telling us it should. He blamed everything except the fog and his book. Your display, I"m afraid."

"I do apologise. I"ll just have to try even harder, won"t I."

"I"m not criticising you, Jill. I"m only saying what he said. I don"t think we could have done any more for him than we did, any of us."

"Well then," Jill mutters, and is about to head for the staffroom when Connie says "You"ve got ready for the marathon, have you?"

"I expect I"m as ready as anyone."

"Someone"s looking after your little girl, what"s her name, Bryony, isn"t it? Someone"s taking care of her."

"Her father." Jill feels as if she"s spitting out the stale taste of the phrase as she adds "He"s very good at taking care of people for a while."

Connie either has no answer to that or doesn"t feel any is advisable, but the sight of her lips nestling together to conceal an expression goads Jill to enquire "May I ask where you got my daughter"s name from?"

"Didn"t I hear it the day you brought her along?"

Jill can"t remember. She only knows she feels that 195 Connie has bested her. As she turns away, her mouth filling up with dirty words and their taste, she hears Connie promise "They"ll be waiting for you when you come down."

She means the books--the excess of them that she ordered and dumped on Jill. Two men who seem to have occupied a pair of armchairs ever since Jill can remember watch her stalking away. She brandishes her badge at the plaque on the wall and comes close to kicking the door. Eventually it gives way, and she chases her faint breaths upstairs to the staffroom.

Ross and Mad are sitting at either end of the table with Agnes between them. She"s wearing a prim frown like a reluctant chaperone and saying no more than they are. All three seem glad to see Jill, though perhaps only because she"s somewhere to look. As she runs her card under the clock, Woody darts out of the lair of his office. "There you are. I thought we"d lost another of the team."

Jill doesn"t know if his red-eyed smile makes his thoughtlessness more shocking or suggests he"s too tired to think. Ross grows rigid so as not to wince, and Agnes lets her jaw drop on his behalf, while Mad looks as though she might give him a comforting pat if she could reach. Jill can only try to lessen the tension by saying "The motorway"s closed. I had to use the old road."

"Connie told me," Woody says, presumably about the motorway, but the name sours Jill"s mouth. "Want to hear the good news?"

His smile is fierce enough to prompt all his listeners. It"s Ross who mumbles "If there"s some."

"Hey, why am I not seeing smiles round here? What is this, a wake?" When everyone but Agnes has been forced to placate him, Woody says "Okay, the good news. You just heard it. Your expressway"s blocked."

Mad breaks the bewildered silence. "That"s good?"

"Right now it is. Just this one time we can live without customers coming in the store and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the order. I 196 guess we may need till tomorrow to clear the stockroom. We had a big delivery this afternoon and we"re short of a member of staff."

"You keep bringing that up," Agnes protests. "Don"t you realise Ross--was "Gee, I"m sorry. I didn"t tell you yet. We had to get rid of Wilf."

"Wilf," Agnes says, not unlike a bark. "How do you mean get rid?"

"Let go. C. Fire."

"How can that be? He said at the funeral, sorry, Ross, he"d be in today."

"He was here sure enough. That"s why he isn"t any longer."

"But you can"t just dismiss someone like that. What was he supposed to have done?"

"Attacked a customer and did his best to choke him. I guess even you wouldn"t hire a guy who did that."

"Who says Wilf did what you said?" Mad intervenes.

"I do. Everybody that was here for our author signing does. The security tapes will too."

"I"d like to see them," says Agnes.

"When you have some authority you can. That"s if they aren"t out of date by then."

Agnes opens her mouth, only for Angus to play the ventriloquist. "Manager call thirteen, please. Manager call thirteen."

"I"ve tidied the stock on the racks so you can get straight to it. Shelve your own books first and then we"ll sort out who takes which of Wilf"s," Woody says and sprints into his office.

Agnes plants her forearms on the table with a thump. "I don"t know what he thinks he can expect of us after talking to us like that."

"I didn"t think he said anything too bad to me," says Mad.

"Oh, are we only a team when it suits us?" Once she has glared so hard at everyone that n.o.body ventures to answer, 197 Agnes says "I don"t see why we should carry on working here if he can sc.r.a.p whoever he feels like whenever he feels like it."

"It"s not that simple, is it?" Ross says. "Sounds like he did have a reason."

"You ought to be the last person who"d want us to lose someone else. What do the rest of us say?"

Jill has to finish being shocked by what Agnes said to Ross before she can respond. "We"re here now. You say we"re a team. You don"t want to let us down."

She has lowered her voice. At first she a.s.sumes she"s trying to keep the discussion secret from Woody, but is he likely to hear while he"s repeating "Who is it" to the phone? All at once she has the notion that the argument has attracted an eavesdropper in the stockroom; she even imagines she hears the side of someone"s face rubbing against the door, except that the sound is so close to the floor that the listener would have to be on all fours. She starts when someone comes into the room, although it"s Ray emerging from the office. "Jill"s right," he murmurs. "Let"s get this night done with and show the bosses how reliable we are, and then I"ll talk to Woody about anything you want me to, I promise. If you want I"ll have a word with them while they"re here if I get the chance."

"That should do it, shouldn"t it?" Mad says to Agnes, who stares at her as if Mad has no right to speak. Jill is about to agree with Mad, not least because she feels as if they"re all stuck up to their necks in a mora.s.s of stagnant emotion, when Connie"s voice produces itself out of the air. "Jill to window, please. Jill to window."

This reminds Jill that there are none in the upstairs walls. No wonder she feels close to suffocated. She"s relieved to escape the room, even to join Connie, at least until she does. Connie is standing in front of the window, drumming her nails of one hand on the apex of the trolley in a childish rhythm blotted out by Vivaldi overhead. "I thought you"d be down by now," she says. "Better just stack these books 198 on the floor at the end of a shelf for the moment. We"re going to need every trolley in the place tonight"

"Pity you waited for me to do it, then." Jill"s on the edge of saying something of the kind when Connie asks "Will you want these?"

She"s pointing at the three versions of Brodie Oates with the toe of her expensive multicoloured trainer. "I"ll let you decide where you ought to put them," Jill says with her sweetest smile.

For a moment she expects Woody"s voice to appear in praise of her expression, and then she"s distracted by a blemish on the outside of the window. Something has trailed along the gla.s.s at knee height, no doubt a child marking its territory with a greyish discolouration like the track of an overgrown slug. The irregular swath is punctuated with imprints that resemble kisses from a large wide sloppy mouth. She isn"t about to direct Connie"s attention to it--Connie might send her to clean it off. As Jill unloads the trolley at the end of the shelf for Oates, Connie peels the images of him off the carpet and takes visible pleasure in crumpling them before dropping them daintily into the bin behind the counter. She"s rubbing her hands together, either wiping them or in some kind of triumph, when the phones ring throughout the shop.

She"s closer to one than Jill is. Jill interests herself in arranging books until Connie answers it. When she says "Sorry?" and repeats it after a pause, Jill glances up to meet her eyes. Something like amus.e.m.e.nt surfaces in them, and she holds out the receiver. "Is this for you, I wonder, Jill?"

If it is, Jill resents her having got in its way. She doesn"t quite s.n.a.t.c.h the phone, but she waits until Connie is bound for the stockroom before speaking. "h.e.l.lo?"

At first she can"t hear anyone. She"s about to return the phone to its stand when a voice seems to form out of the emission of static. Is it attempting to tell her what it 199 wants or saying that somebody or something was little once? As Jill strains to distinguish the sluggish mutter she feels as though it is rising towards her. If it"s repeating a phrase like a chant, even once her ears start to ache with effort she"s uncertain what the message is supposed to be. "Little ones" or "Little one" perhaps? The voice sounds like a recording blurred by age and close to slowing to a halt It must be a prank, but aimed at whom by whom? She grows furious with herself for being held there by it, focusing the whole of herself on it as though it means anything at all. "h.e.l.lo?" she demands. "Who"s really there?"

The chant seems to be disintegrating, sinking back into the ooze of static. The words sound softened, half digested by the whitish noise. "If I don"t hear something else right now I"m putting down this phone," she says as if she"s addressing a child, maybe less than a child. When her threat has no audible effect she waves the receiver at Angus to bring him along the counter. "What can you hear?"

"I don"t know." Having listened for a few more seconds, he offers "Nothing much."

She takes back the receiver to find nothing but a hiss that could only pa.s.s for a voice if the mouth it belonged to was liquefying. "I wish you"d try to be a bit more definite now and then," she tells Angus as she silences the phone with its stand.

He isn"t the one she should be angry with. She hurries upstairs to catch Connie wheeling the trolley into the stockroom; the lift must have taken its time. "Why did you give me that call?" Jill is determined to learn.

"Ross, you grab this trolley while it"s free." Once he has, Connie turns to her. "I thought it was about some child."

"I"m not the only person here with one of those."

"No need to look at me."

"I wouldn"t dream of it. You still aren"t giving me a reason why you pa.s.sed the call to me." 200 "Some child was supposed to have done something wrong, wasn"t that it? Doesn"t yours ever? What an angel."

"Of course she does sometimes. Don"t we all, Connie? That doesn"t mean the call had anything to do with her. You"d no right to a.s.sume it did."

"All right then, maybe it was about those kids we had trouble with over the quiz. You won"t say you weren"t mixed up in that."

"Mad was too, and Wilf."

"They weren"t around. You were. Couldn"t you deal with the caller? I didn"t realise I needed to stay in case you couldn"t handle it."

"There wasn"t anything to deal with by the time you gave up. I don"t believe there ever was. It was just a stupid pointless joke."

Does that sound as though she"s accusing Connie? She"s simply trying to convince herself. Either the call or Connie"s interpretation, if not both, has made Jill anxious about Bryony, all the more so for being unable to define why. As she wonders how to move away from the argument, she hears the lift begin to talk. It sounds lower than the bottom of the shaft--so distant that the words rising at her back seem too close to the phrase she heard over the phone. It"s a childish idea, and hasn"t the squabble been childish too? "Shall we both stop?" she suggests. "We"re acting like kids in a playground."

Connie"s lips grow straight and thin before she speaks. "I"ll behave like a manager by all means. Maybe you can remember how that means you should behave."

The lift announces that it"s opening and then lives up to its words, revealing an empty trolley. "Load all the books you can and leave them by the shelves they"re for and let someone else have the trolley," Connie says and marches away to the office.

Jill seizes the trolley as the lift begins to creep shut. As she races into the stockroom she fancies running Connie down in what would after all be an accident, but the room 201 is deserted. A book topples off a pile out of sight on a rack, and then the silence holds itself still and thick. It must have been a book, though it sounded oddly soft as well as large. No wonder her nerves are distorting her impressions when she"s worried about Bryony. She flings armfuls of novels onto the trolley until it"s full and plods behind it to the lift, which opens as soon as it has raised its crumbling voice. She shoves the trolley in and thumbs the b.u.t.ton, then dodges out and runs downstairs to the phone by the Teenage alcove. For a moment--G.o.d, longer-- there"s only a featureless patch in her mind where Geoff"s number should be, and then she dredges it up to dial.

"Hi there. Geoff here or maybe not, which is why you"re listening to a tape. Whatever I"m doing I hope you"re having as good a time as I am. Talk to me about anything you like and don"t forget to say who you are at least and where I can get in touch."

"It"s Jill. It"s mummy, Bryony, if you"re listening," Jill adds, which brings her no answer either. "I thought you two might be there by now. I expect you"ve gone somewhere for dinner, have you? Don"t bother telling me I"m silly for asking when you can"t answer. I just wanted to say I"m here at work and I"m fine, Bryony, so you make sure you sleep all night for me. If you feel like saying good night you can always ring this number," she"s desperate enough to suggest, and reads it off the plastic stand. "You ought to put your mobile number on the machine, Geoff, and then I could speak to her right now."

This isn"t just for him to hear. Connie has trundled a load of books onto the sales floor and is waiting with monolithic patience to be noticed. When Jill turns to her, having finished with the phone, Connie unfolds a fist towards the trolley. "I found this in the lift. Are you already calling it a day?"

"Of course not. I was coming back for my books. I was only trying to have a little word with my daughter. I didn"t manage, maybe you heard." 202 "I don"t know what you think I can do about that."

She knows perfectly well, which is why she"s saying the opposite. Nothing but anxiety for Bryony could force Jill to ask "You"ll have Geoff"s mobile number, will you? I would have but he"s changed it recently."

"It"s possible I"ve got it somewhere."

"Then could you let me have it?"

"I don"t believe so."

Jill"s appeal sounds as puerile as she finds Connie"s behaviour. "Why not?"

"You should know why."

"Because you"re enjoying keeping it from me."

"No, Jill," she says so stiffly that Jill is almost convinced she"s telling the truth. "Because n.o.body"s allowed to make personal calls except in an emergency, and it doesn"t sound to me as if we"ve got one of those, not to mention how much it costs to call a mobile. I"m surprised you need telling, but you wouldn"t expect me not to, would you? Just a few minutes ago you were wanting me to act like a manager."

"I wouldn"t think you"d take what I want into account."

"That"s right, it should be what the shop wants, and I hope that"s what we all do."

Before Jill can think of a retort or withhold it so as to renew her plea in whatever way she has to that will reach Connie, Woody"s voice descends on them. "Hey, let"s see some smiles. No reason why we can"t have fun tonight."

"Are you going to tell him different?" Connie says, exhibiting a smile Jill"s sure is manufactured for the cameras. "Just put your daughter out of your mind for a while. As you said before, she"s being looked after."

She inches the trolley at Jill and pushes herself away from it. Words crowd into Jill"s mouth, but she"s just able to restrain herself from shouting that perhaps one day Connie will know how it feels to have a child. Instead she trudges with the trolley to her shelves. 203 The books might as well be cartons full of nothing she can use, unless they"re simply empty. That"s how little they seem to mean, born while she"s putting them in order and once she has stacked them in front of the appropriate shelves. How can she feel like this when she loves books and came to work at Texts because she did? Perhaps the Brodie Oates novel has turned her against reading, except that she doesn"t seem to have done much of it since she started at the bookshop; in fact, she can"t recall any of her colleagues reading much. Just now that"s an oddity she hasn"t time for, because she knows what"s intervening between her and all the books: her misgivings about Bryony. As she returns from parking the trolley by the lift she sees the fog under the floodlights is heavy as rotten velvet, a giant discoloured greyish curtain that sways sluggishly back from the window at her approach. Suppose there were an emergency? How long would it take her to drive through the murk to wherever Bryony is? She has to believe that Bryony is safe, that she has no reason to think otherwise. She shelves books and moves books along shelves and from shelf to shelf to shelve more books with thuds that seem as dull and repet.i.tive as her thoughts. Woody has unloaded a trolley in Wilf"s section and is filing books with rapid terse precise flat impacts that she can"t help taking as an apparently endless series of criticisms of her pace. Bryony must be home soon--at Geoff"s, rather--and when they hear Jill"s message, surely they"ll call. Nevertheless when a car coasts out of the fog and halts outside the entrance she hopes it has brought them.

It isn"t even a Golf. It"s a Pa.s.sat, and Jake climbs out of the pa.s.senger seat. The last of the staff are arriving: here comes Greg along the smeared window. Jill can"t be sure if he"s one reason why Jake leans down to give the man in the driver"s seat a lingering kiss. Greg twists his entire torso away from the sight, only to be confronted through the gla.s.s by Jill"s lack of disapproval. He marches as far as the security posts and stands by them as if he means to 204 reinforce their vigilance. Jake hasn"t reached them when Greg says "There"s no excuse for behaviour some people might find offensive."

"Who are you calling people besides you, Greg?"

Frank the guard tramps scowling out of the Erotica section. "There"s me for second."

Jill doesn"t like seeing anyone outnumbered, in the schoolyard or anywhere else. "Nothing wrong with showing a bit of affection," she calls with a smile at the three of them even Woody might be proud of, except he"s intent on his shelving.

"Maybe you"ll both know what it feels like sometime," Jake says to Frank and Greg. "Maybe you"ll show up at the Juicy Fruit some night, you protest that much."

That"s more combative than Jill cares to be. She confines herself to smiling at him as he struts in the direction of the staffroom once he has blown a kiss and waved the car away. Greg and Frank shake their heads at each other in disgust before Greg strides after Jake. Jill doesn"t imagine he realises how this looks in the context, but she has to smother a giggle. Seconds later her amus.e.m.e.nt leaves her alone with her mult.i.tude of books.

Is she starting a fever? Either the ones she picks up or her arms are growing heavier as she finds s.p.a.ce for another book, another book, another book. Unbelievably and unbearably, Woody has finished his shelving and gone to find more. She"s unable to judge if she"s hot or cold or alternately both, which may be an effect of the fog that must be sneaking unseen through the open doorway. Can"t she use her feelings as a pretext to leave? Is she really so worried that she would make for Geoff"s flat and have to wait outside if n.o.body is there? What on earth is there to be nervous about beyond her own state of mind? All she knows is that when the phones shrill, the sound feels like a hook that has lodged deep in her brain. She dashes to s.n.a.t.c.h up the phone at Information before anyone else can reach one. "h.e.l.lo?" she hopes aloud. 205 "Who"s that?"

She wants to believe the blurred voice is Geoff"s, but there"s no point in deluding herself. "It"s Jill," she says, and has time to add "Jill at Texts at Fenny Meadows."