The Overnight Part 29

"But you did. You thought it was so important you rang us back. You'd seen something, you said."

"Just on some videos I took home. People fighting instead of what was meant to be on them."

"I'm with Woody," Connie says.

Rather than inform Connie she wishes she were, Jill asks Gavin "Why did you want us to know?"

"It seemed like there had to be something wrong. Two people that lived, I don't know, forty miles apart brought them back."

"I'll bet they were the same sort of tape, though," Connie says. "Do I win?"

'They were both concerts. So?"

"You check and see if they weren't released by the same company. It'll have been a glitch when they were copying the tapes."

Jill doesn't know whether she remains unpersuaded 364 364. because she prefers not to agree with Connie. Gavin's faceless silhouette in the mirror has fallen silent. She's willing him to take issue with Connie when he sits forward. "This looks like it could be it."

The road is doubling back on the curve she has just negotiated. As the lit patch of fog extends itself more dimly through a gap in the left-hand hedge, Gavin says "The phone was down somewhere like that."

Connie lifts a hand towards Jill. "I see it. There it is."

Jill doesn't know if Connie is imperiously gesturing her to stop or even considering a grab at the handbrake. When she halts the car just ahead of the gap she enjoys imagining that the pedal underfoot is part of Connie. She narrows her eyes at the track leading away from the road. It's either bare churned earth or tarmac encrusted with mud, and the object in the fog to which it meanders could be a wide tree-trunk chopped off about seven feet from the ground. "I don't think so," she decides aloud. "Would you drive along anywhere like that in this?"

"If it got help to some people who need it," Connie retorts, "I certainly would."

Jill doubts it, and steers the car into the gap to clarify her objection. The blurred object by the track grows no clearer; indeed, the fog appears to be gathering around it, which may be why its outline seems less regular than a phone box ought to be. Jill lifts the headlamp beams to it, but this only blinds her with fog. She squeezes her eyes shut to find she's so tired that she begins to see images that Gavin's description must have put into her head, of people fighting savagely and sinking on if not into the earth. She gropes to dip the headlights and opens her eyes once they feel ready for use. Now the shape ahead reminds her of a totem pole, though of course she isn't seeing the rudiments of faces starting to materialise, one piled on top of the other. "I'm sorry," she says, "I'm not happy going any further." 365 "Maybe Anyes isn't too happy right now either," Connie says. "We don't know that, do we? Mad and Jake may have sent for help."

"And they may not have. All right, let's vote whether we drive to it or I've got to end up muddy. Gavin?"

"You want us to be democratic now, do you? It's not long since you were acting as if you were in charge." As Gavin's hand begins to waver in the mirror, Jill continues "No point in voting. We aren't driving, I am. It's my car. If you don't like it you can get out and walk, but don't expect me to hang around."

She's confused by the delight that her speech seems to intensify, because the glee doesn't feel like hers; it feels as if it's closing in. It confuses her so badly that she imagines she sees the tree-trunk or the object that resembles one twitching with eagerness. "It isn't even a phone box," she tells Connie. "Go and look for yourself if you can't see that."

"Will she wait while I do, Gavin? Could you make her, do you think?"

He disagrees with one or both of those, mostly with a yawn. They can give Jill all the arguments they like, but it's her car. She jerks it into reverse and swings it out of the gap, sc.r.a.ping the front offside wing on the hedge. As the headlamp beams veer away from the field, she seems to glimpse the object in the fog splitting like an amoeba and the topmost segment hopping or collapsing onto the earth. How tired must she be? Not too tired to drive, which she does in the midst of a frustrated silence like a lack of breath. Then Gavin yawns again, perhaps at the spectacle of yet more fog oozing backwards over the same wet black patch of road and dragging itself through the hedges. Gavin," Connie almost shouts, "for the love of I won't say it will you stop that wretched yawning all the time."

For once Jill agrees with her, but has to grin when 366 Connie yawns furiously. "You're doing it as well," Gavin points out.

Amus.e.m.e.nt hasn't finished tugging at Jill's lips when a yawn forces itself between them. "It's you," Connie retaliates. "We weren't till you came. Keep it to yourself, can you? We've enough problems without not being able to stop doing something."

"Tell me how I can help it, then."

Her answer is another enraged yawn, not the only reaction Jill thinks Connie is unable to control. Obviously when she complained of problems she meant Jill, but Gavin was hardly in the car before Connie turned on him. It seems not to matter whom she attacks as long as it's someone. A yawn that feels like a dismissal of the notion overcomes Jill, carrying with it the wish that she had failed to brake in time when he stumbled in front of the car. Suppose she asks him to walk ahead as people used to precede vehicles in fog? Still better, why doesn't she suggest that Connie keep him company? She wouldn't mean to run them over, but she's so exhausted that n.o.body could blame her if she lost control, if she forgot which pedal she had to push down hard-- It isn't just the childishness of the plan that s.n.a.t.c.hes all her breath. It's the exultation that her thoughts seem to bring to the surface, a joy too vast and savage, surely, to be hers. "Can we all stop arguing till we get out of this?" she pleads. "I mean really try and stop."

"We might if you did," Connie says.

At least Jill made an effort to suppress her irrationality, but Connie sounds like a child in a schoolyard. Jill senses delight welling up again, drawn by her own contempt. They've all reverted to thinking and behaving like fractious children, her included--and then she sees more in the situation. She has observed it all too often, children fighting when another child relishes slyly turning them against each other. She opens her mouth to pa.s.s on the insight, but she already knows how Connie reacts to being 367 included among the childish. She's about to let her thoughts subside into her dull mind when she senses they're being engulfed by more than her fatigue. The impression so resembles lurching awake from a dream that she gasps "I know why we mustn't fall out any more."

Gavin doesn't quite yawn, but barely p.r.o.nounces "Why?"

"Think about it." Jill is doing so aloud, which seems to help. "We've all been arguing all night, haven't we? And before that too for I don't know how long at the shop. Something wants us at each other's throats. Why, you even saw people fighting on your tapes."

At once she's afraid that her last remark is one comment too many. At least Gavin isn't yawning. She glances away from the reflection of his silhouette she hopes is thoughtful. She's watching the road, though the dim ill-defined enclosure of fog has begun to make her feel helpless as an insect trapped under a gla.s.s, when Connie says "Well, I'll vote that's the silliest thing I've ever heard."

Words won't suffice as a response to that; not words alone, at any rate. Perhaps she'll believe they are little better than puppets if Jill gives her a demonstration. "This is even sillier," Jill says and shuts her eyes before pressing the accelerator.

At first n.o.body notices. She's beginning to think she can judge the road without looking when Connie says "Careful, you'll have us in the hedge."

"Better do something about it, then."

"I just did. Careful," Connie repeats with an edge.

"I need more than that. Which way do I steer?"

"Left, of course. You can see--was As Jill eases the wheel leftwards, Connie says "I'm not falling for that. You haven't got both eyes shut."

Jill shows Connie her face and releases a smile that feels dry as a crack in dead earth. "All right, you've made your point, whatever it was," Connie says, and when Jill doesn't relent, "You're the driver. You drive." 368 Jill's seat quivers as Gavin leans between it and Connie's. "Right now. Right," he urges, no longer sounding inclined to yawn.

"I was about to tell her, Gavin. There was time," Connie says and adds "Right."

"It's going to need both of you with a driver like me."

"We weren't saying anything about your driving," Gavin protests.

"You will," she a.s.sures them and faces forward as she presses the pedal harder. In a moment she feels Connie clutching at the wheel. "All right, you steer," Jill says, letting go. "But I want Gavin to tell you which way. If he doesn't I'll drive faster."

She has to do so before they're convinced she's serious. "Left," Gavin directs in a choked voice, and she feels the car slew that way. She's glad he and Connie are too preoccupied with the situation to ask her what she's doing, because she can't explain it even to herself; it just feels right, perhaps by accident. She has the notion that she's beating some vast idiocy at its own game. She thinks she senses it pacing the car behind the hedges or under the road or both. That makes her desperate to speed out of its reach, and she doesn't know if she's yielding to the impulse when Connie cries "Jill, slow down. Think of your little girl."

"You said I was too slow before. Can't you make your mind up, or haven't you got one?" Connie is the last person she needs to remind her of Bryony; indeed, Jill resents it so much that she can't decide if she ought to chance driving faster. Suppose she will otherwise never see her daughter again? She imagines Bryony in the Christmas play with only Geoff to support her, unless he takes Connie, but of course Jill has Connie at her mercy in the car. Whichever of these thoughts is compelling her to accelerate, she's amused to hear Gavin cry "Right" and Connie respond in the same agitated tone "I know." She's close to feeling that she's dreaming the journey, that the pictures within her eyelids are more real: the crowds of greyish 369 shapes struggling to destroy one another or tear themselves separate from one another, if not from the mora.s.s into which they're sinking, unless they're emerging from it. Her fascination with all this is one reason why she's in no hurry to respond to Connie's entreaty. "We're there."

"Where's that?" Jill hears herself ask sleepily.

"The phone. You're pa.s.sing it. You've pa.s.sed it. The phone box."

Jill slits her sticky eyelids and is confronted by a mult.i.tude of eyes glinting at her out of the dark. They could belong to hundreds of swollen spiders or a single immense one, but then she recognises them as beads of moisture on the tips of the hedges. She can't see a phone box, not until the brake lights paint its lower section crimson in the mirror and splash the interior dull red. She leaves the engine running to power the lights while she says "I'll phone about the shop. What do you want to do about your car that doesn't involve me driving back?"

Connie seems almost too enervated to say "Just get us home."

The call may take too long for Jill to risk leaving the lights on with the engine off. She's certainly not about to trust Connie or even Gavin with the key in the ignition. She s.n.a.t.c.hes the key and gropes her way out of the car to pace alongside, one hand on the slimy roof. Two diagonal paces away from the rear bring her close enough to the phone box that she senses it looming over her. She fumbles at the door, which feels moist enough for rot, and locates the drooling metal handle. As she lets herself in, the box lights up with a glow that she could think has floated upwards rather than appeared beneath the cramped ceiling. It stays lit as the door shuts with a creak that seems to find an echo in the hedge behind the box.

There's no directory on the rusty metal shelf, but she doesn't need one. Someone has sprayed incomprehensible symbols over the mirror and the framed notices, rendering all the words unreadable and trapping her exhausted face 370 in a thick web. The tarry paint has caught the phone as well. As she lifts the chill receiver, the light dims as though it's shrinking from a waft of fog. She taps one of the most basic three-digit numbers in the world as soon as she's greeted by the dialling tone, m.u.f.fled though it is. When it's silenced by a click, she calls "h.e.l.lo? Operator? h.e.l.lo?"

"Operator."

It's hardly surprising if so late at night the female voice sounds somewhat mechanical. "I'm not sure which service I need," Jill admits.

"Which?"

"It's an emergency. Someone's been trapped in a lift for hours, and there's no power in the building at all. Can you connect me with whoever will deal with it?"

"Connecting." Before it reaches the last syllable the voice cuts itself off, and in a very few seconds one so similar Jill could mistake it for the first if she let herself says "Power emergency service."

"All our electricity has gone off. That's you, yes?"

"Electricity. Yes."

"It means someone's stuck in a lift. Can you fix that too?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if you'll know the area. It's quite new. Fenny Meadows."

"Yes."

Jill hasn't heard so much agreement for a while; by now the voice sounds positively enthusiastic. "It's a shop there," Jill says. "Texts, the bookshop."

"Yes."

"I ought to tell you it's very foggy there. It is here too, quite a way away."

"Yes."

The enthusiasm seems misplaced now, though Jill a.s.sumes it's intended to be rea.s.suring. "I can leave it with you then, can I?" she suggests.

"Yes." 371 Perhaps she has asked one question too many; the voice has dipped half an octave, which makes her think it's impatient. "Thank you," she says, and hangs up the scrawled receiver on its similarly defaced hook. At once she feels foolish for not giving her name in case management would have learned she made the call, and shouldn't she have ascertained whether Mad or Jake has already been in touch? The apparently sourceless light flickers overhead as if it's about to fail, and she doesn't want to be shut in the box in the dark. She shoves the door so wide it catches the twigs outside; that must be why the hedge gives a creak extensive enough to suggest that something is raising itself behind quite a length of it. She runs to the Nova and lowers herself into the driver's seat just as the box and the livid patch of hedge around it are engulfed by blackness like a rush of mud. "That's dealt with," she says, and succeeds in locating the ignition to revive the engine and the lights. "Everyone ready to move?"

"I don't think I came this way," Gavin says.

"Just let her drive," Connie blurts. "We'll have to get somewhere."

"All right, forget I said it. Sorry, Jill."

Jill can't help smiling like a fool when she realises they're afraid of how she may behave if they start another argument. That's close enough to agreement for her, and when the Nova coasts forward she's sure she has done something right; they're leaving the hungry frustration behind. Although she has no idea what that means, it's enough that the view of the fog doling out the road and the hedges no longer seems nearly as oppressive. She hasn't taken many foggy breaths when Connie hopes aloud "Is that the main road?"

There's certainly light ahead. In not too many seconds it's brighter than the glow Jill's headlamps are lending to the fog. It's bright enough for floodlights; indeed, that's what Jill thinks the source may be. Then the fog thins while retreating, and she sees a tall streetlamp beyond a 372 gap between two pairs of bulky houses. "This isn't where I came along from," says Gavin.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Connie says. "We'll be out in a minute."

Once Jill has crossed the dual carriageway so as to head for Manchester she realises Connie was referring to the car. "Stop," Connie orders. "I'll take this cab."

Jill has scarcely braked when Connie flings herself out of the Nova and sprints ahead, waving and shouting if not screaming at the taxi. As it halts and backs up she calls "Gavin, do you want to share?"

"I might if you don't mind, Jill."

"Why should I mind? I want to get home like everyone else."

"I'll see you, then." He yawns and stretches in the process of opening the rear door, then lingers to say "I'll see you, won't I?"

"We don't know at the moment, do we? I expect we'll find out soon."

"I don't think I know what soon feels like any more." He's demonstrating this by the speed at which he leaves the car when Connie shouts "Are you with me or not, Gavin?"

"Thanks for getting us out," he murmurs to Jill, and hurries to the taxi as fast as his lingering stiffness allows.

The taxi switches off its roof light and races away. Jill follows more slowly, and in a short time she's alone with the parade of twinned houses on either side, mostly dark except for the towering streetlamps. The blocks of light are softened, but it's only fog. She can't recall when that became the case, let alone what she means by it. Perhaps she will once she has slept. A few minutes' drive shows her that she joined the main road a couple of miles past the route she took to Fenny Meadows some unimaginable period ago. At least there's another way to the bookshop, which ought to bring more customers if someone erects a sign for the retail park. 373 Before long she reaches the motorway to Bury and leaves behind the last of the fog. There's n.o.body about to object to her driving as though she's in a built-up area. Eventually she is, where the clocks among the shops inform her that it isn't much later than four in the morning, though she can hardly believe she hasn't missed Christmas. A few windows embroidered with fairy lights or occupied by trees laden with coloured bulbs only make her feel the season has pa.s.sed her by. Of course she will be spending it with Bryony, but she's so tired that the thought of not doing so starts her rubbing her eyes, both to stay awake a little longer and so as not to weep.

A milk float prowls moaning down the next side street as she turns along her road. There's plenty of s.p.a.ce outside her house for the Nova, but nevertheless she sc.r.a.pes a tyre against the kerb while reversing. The dandelions she prevented Geoff from denying Bryony sprawl over the path; they're bedraggled by dew and flattened by the harsh light of a streetlamp. Jill unlocks the front door none too expertly and pushes it past whatever obstruction it always encounters. She finds the switch for the hall light, then types the alarm code, a date that feels meaningless just now. She plods into the kitchen to fill a gla.s.s with water and raise a feeble toast to her reflection in the window. Having run another gla.s.sful, she's sipping it when she's confronted by muddy footprints all along the hall.

They're hers, of course. She forgot to use the doormat. She shuffles her shoes clean on it, but the carpet will have to wait until she's awake. Instead she trudges to the phone and dials Geoff's number. Once he has finished saying he's on tape and the rest of it, she murmurs "Only me, Bryony. Just wanted you to know I'm home. I'm off to bed now. I hope it'll be you that wakes me up."

She replaces the receiver and carries the gla.s.s past the exhibition of pony drawings. Perhaps sometime she'll be able to afford riding lessons for Bryony, she thinks, 374 though how likely is that if Jill's out of a job? All that matters is that they'll be together and manage somehow. Jill brushes her teeth in front of the foggy mirror, having performed the rest of the minimum required by the bathroom. She gives the faint muddy tracks on the stairs a reproachful blink as she heads for her room, where she wriggles gradually into bed before switching off the final light As she closes her eyes. she holds Bryony in her mind in case that brings a dream of her. Perhaps Jill won't hear her coming upstairs. Perhaps Jill won't know she has company until she wakens to see a small face close to hers. 375

GREG.

"Keep it up, Greg. You 'll go down in the history of the store. I 'll go down in the history of the store. I only wish I could be with you. If there's anything else I can do, just say the word."

Greg isn't going to ask for a break. If Woody doesn't think they can afford the time, how can he disagree with that? Far too many of the staff have succ.u.mbed to weakness without his succ.u.mbing too. He stoops to retrieve book after book and hold them close to his face while he deciphers each author's name and each t.i.tle. Another dozen or so and he'll be able to move to the opposite shelves at the end by the window. He's crouching in the dimness to locate Khan when Woody says "So where did I go wrong, Greg? Advise me on that if you can."

Greg would have to leave his task to do that, and Woody mightn't want to hear that he could have chosen better personnel. As Greg finds the book a place among its tribe, Woody says "Okay, let me tell you. I guess you'd be too modest to admit it, but I ought to have hired more guys like you. Pity I couldn't just clone you and have a store of Gregs." 376 Greg lifts the next book--King, which is a step up from the previous author--and permits himself a humble smirk for as long as it takes him to rise halfway. "Hey, award yourself a smile or two," Woody urges so close to the phone that his huge voice grows blurred. "I wouldn't mind seeing a few."

Greg sends one in his general direction before concentrating on the ma.s.s of royalty that occupies three shelves. He hasn't identified where the thousand or more pages in his hand should go when Woody booms "Another, maybe? It's getting kind of lonely up here."

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 repet.i.tion 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 s.p.a.ce 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, 377 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 378 is going on around him; perhaps that's because he's unable to discern the order of the books he's pa.s.sing 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.