The Overnight (16 page)

Is she telling him so or that she would prefer it if he did? "Do you want me to?" he counters as the roundabout dredges itself up from the fog at the foot of the ramp.

"That has to be up to you, doesn't it, Angums?"

He's so intent on concealing his wince at the nickname he keeps hoping she will let him leave behind that he hasn't replied by the time they arrive at the roundabout. The motorway rears over them, exposing its wet greyish pockmarked underside above concrete pillars snared by graffiti like vegetation too primitive to have defined its species. "It isn't far," he says, feeling trapped in a conversational game where the loser is whoever makes an unqualified statement, which is how he feels most of the time with his parents. "I mean, I could give it a try."

"You'd like to be able to get yourself about, wouldn't you, though don't think for an instant your father and I mind bringing you and collecting you. You're on our route."

"Maybe I shouldn't risk driving in this."

"I'm sure that's sensible if you don't feel confident enough. I only thought you'll have to learn sooner or later to cope with conditions like these, and there shouldn't be much on the move in your car park."

When he doesn't respond she drives under the motorway again. The fog lumbers after them through the gloomy dripping passage while it disentangles itself from the graffiti ahead, and then it seems to stagnate in the retail park, replacing the sky and denying the mid-morning sun and reducing the buildings to pallid blocks of mould. The Vectra crosses the car park, passing random strips of turf guarded by lank trees fattened by the fog. Tyre marks gape like glistening mouths on either side of the tree Mad's car felled; they're already overgrown with new grass. Beyond them Texts heaves up from the murk that clings to the display window and obscures patches of the Brodie Oates promotion. "Your father will pick you up tonight then, Angums," says his mother.

"Thanks. I'll drive us to the motorway tomorrow if I can."

She tilts her head an inch away from him, and her eyes farther. "Don't be so anxious to please everyone or you'll end up pleasing nobody, especially yourself."

He feels as if he's being urged to turn on her—by a part of himself he would rather not acknowledge, not an audience that's skulking in the fog. He clenches his teeth to shut up his tongue while she pats his cheek, a gesture that suggests a yearning for all the kisses he couldn't avoid outside the school gates, and murmurs "Go on then, Angums, make us proud."

He clutches his packed lunch and waves to her as the car bears away the L-plate like a badge of every time he has stalled the engine or accelerated instead of braking or skinned a tyre against the kerb. At least he's not that bad at work, he thinks as the fog swallows a last tinge of red. He hurries into Texts, and Woody's giant voice goes off like an alarm. "Keep smiling. Nobody likes a grouch."

The comers of his mouth haul themselves to attention before he realises Woody is addressing Agnes. As she observes his reaction her blank expression twists into a scowl. "That's worse. We don't want to see that again," Woody's voice descends to say, and as she ducks behind the counter so fast she appears to have been seized by a cramp "Any time you'd like to join us, Angus, we can start."

Angus is glad she's too busy hiding her grimace to watch him scurry to obey. The only customers are two studiedly bald men who seem to have marked out a pair of armchairs as their territory. Perhaps they intend to buy presents for children; each of them is leafing through a book with very few words to a page. Their dull eyes barely flicker as Angus hastens past with a rattle of containers in his lunch box.

Everybody at the staffroom table does indeed appear to be waiting for him. Ross looks relieved he has appeared. Jill seems ready to defend herself, surely not against him. Gavin opens his mouth, but the nearest to a greeting he produces is a yawn he mostly swallows. Jake says "Here's the boy" more enthusiastically than Angus is certain he likes. He's saved from having to respond by Woody, who darts out of his office. "Okay, let's get you up to speed," he says not much more quietly than he sounded overhead. "I'll take this, Nigel. Maybe part of the problem is Brits managing Brits."

Nigel shrugs and meets nobody's eyes as he tramps into the stockroom. He doesn't hesitate or glance back when Gavin says "That's a bit racist, isn't it?"

"Hey, we don't need that word round here. We don't need anything that stirs up trouble. If we don't admit we're different we can't learn from whoever's got it more together, am I right? Take a seat whenever you're through there, Angus."

Angus is trying to clock on but has the impression that the card isn't registering; it feels as if the slot is clogged with mud, though when he peers in, it looks clear. He swipes the card once more and drops it in the In rack and hurries to sit down, not soon enough to prevent Woody from saying "There's a small example of the stuff we need to get rid of."

Angus feels Jill is transferring her defensiveness onto him by demanding "What is?"

"Some of you don't seem to be used to our routines yet. The more things you can do without having to think about them the better."

"I don't know if that's ever a good idea, doing things without thinking. I can't imagine telling my daughter to."

"Round here it's essential. Let's keep discussion for another time, shall we? I need what I have to tell you to sink in."

"God, that sounds masterful," says Jake.

Angus wonders if he's deliberately exaggerating himself, and hopes Woody is. Jill lets out a giggle, most of it chopped off by shock, and Gavin emits a laugh that's even shorter and more mirthless. "Any more comments anyone needs to get out of the way?" Woody asks and stares at them.

Angus can't help feeling forced to shake his head and offer what he hopes isn't too much of a smile or too little either, though everybody else keeps their response to themselves. "Okay, then," Woody says. "I wish I could take all of you to see how we do it back home."

"How do you?"

"Glad you asked, Angus. When you walk into a shop you want to feel the staff are eager to do everything they can for you, don't you? That's what I'm not always getting from some of you, and I don't only mean the ones around this table right now."

"Some of us Brits, you mean," says Gavin.

"That's exactly right. Maybe it's the British class thing, you feel serving is beneath you, but it isn't if you want to work for Texts. I'm starting to think it's one reason we aren't seeing enough customers. We need to make them feel this is the best bookstore they were ever in, which by God it is from what I've seen of the competition. We have to make sure they keep coming back and tell all their friends."

Angus doesn't want to feel delegated to ask, but the silence tugs his mouth open. "How do we?"

"I know why you guys are feeling blue, but we don't want the customers to be. For a start you smile whenever you see a customer. Remind yourself they're the people that are keeping you employed and maybe that'll help. Go ahead. Like this."

He jerks his fingers up on either side of his face as if to urge the corners of his mouth higher. His eyes are wide and ready to answer any question, his lips are parted to expose his gleaming teeth. All this might look more welcoming if his eyes weren't so red. His face puts Angus in mind of a clown's helpless mask, especially when it doesn't relent until everyone has attempted to match it. "You all need to work on that," Woody says as the expression sinks into his face. "Okay, let's try what goes with it. From now on we greet every customer. Will anyone be uncomfortable saying welcome to Texts?"

It's him Angus can't say he's comfortable with, and so he says nothing. Woody's either happy or determined to take the silence for general agreement; certainly his smile is close to surfacing again. "So I'm a customer," he declares. "Who's going to welcome me?"

He isn't gazing only at Angus, but Angus is unable to ignore the urgency that seems to be turning Woody's eyes even redder. He clears his throat, and the end of the noise catches on his first word. "Welcome to Texts."

"Couldn't hear you."

"Welcome to Texts," Angus nearly shouts as his hot face swells around his mouth.

"Hey, I'm in the store, not out there in the fog. That's more enthusiastic, anyway, but what am I not seeing?"

Failing to grasp what he means gives Angus the impression that his brain is steeped in fog. Woody's eyes widen like wounds, and he jabs a chewed thumbnail at his face. Instantly the smile is back and toothier than ever. "It's nothing without this," it hardly wavers while he tells Angus.

Angus stretches his eyes and mouth wide and hauls the comers of his lips so high they start to tremble. "Welcome to Texts," he says, but so much of it is caught by the smile that he feels like a ventriloquist's doll.

"Not too bad. Practice every chance you get. You can rehearse whenever you're not on the sales floor," Woody says not just to Angus. "Now who's going to try to top him?"

Angus wonders if he's expected to maintain the smile while everyone else competes. When nobody volunteers he lets it go, and feels his face shrink as Woody says "Hey, it won't mean we're any less of a team. Helping each other improve makes you more of one."

Jake stretches his arms wide as if he's about to embrace Woody. "Welcome to Texts," he says in a voice he might use to seduce or be seduced, and simpers enough for both.

"You may want to tone it down a shade, but it wasn't that funny, Gavin. Let's see yours."

Gavin doesn't alter his smirk as he says "Welcome to Texts" with no emotion at all. Before Woody can comment, Jill says it as if she's offering a child a treat and follows it with an expectant smile she turns on Ross. She must want to encourage him, but when he repeats the formula his smile looks not too far from tears; Angus suspects he's remembering Lorraine. "Okay, it all needs work, especially the smiles," Woody says. "And once you've got it you need to have that attitude every moment of your day to every customer."

He searches their faces for it or mutiny before adding "I need one of you to take leaflets to all the stores. Who'll be fastest?"

Gavin opens his mouth, but Woody mustn't like his speed. "You can do it, Angus. Go now before we start losing people."

He means to the funeral. As Angus picks up a heap of leaflets from Connie's desk, Woody says "Why don't you leave them on the cars out there too. Okay, your time starts now."

Angus grabs his coat and struggles to struggle into it without putting down the leaflets. A notion that the smile is threatening to resurface on Woody's face makes him clumsier still. He drops the leaflets and dresses himself and gathers them again before fleeing to the stairs. He's emerging onto the sales floor when Agnes says from the ceiling "Assistance to counter, please. Assistance to counter."

She's issuing a gift voucher to a large woman with a small head balanced on several chins above the ruff of a chunky sweater. A man whose grey ponytail sprawls over the fur collar of his shabby astrakhan overcoat is waiting at Information. As Angus dodges behind the counter the man swings his wrinkled face to him, fingering the dimple in his chin. "Don't blame you wearing a coat in here, or were you getting out while the going's good?"

"Is it?" Angus says without knowing why.

"Fog's lifted a bit. Don't expect it's for long. Before you run, I'm Bob Sole. You've got a book for me at last."

As Angus ducks to the Customer Orders shelf he's aware of having forgotten to smile at Mr Sole, let alone welcome him. None of the tags the half a dozen books are sprouting bears Mr Sole's name. "Sorry, what was the book called?"

"It's
Commons and Canals of Cheshire.
Feller by the name of Bottomley wrote it. Adrian, if that's a help."

It doesn't seem to be. "Did someone say it was here?"

"You sent me a card." Mr Sole pulls it and a scattering of tobacco out of his pocket. "You won't mind me asking, but are you having a joke? This is the second time I've ordered it, and your mate I asked for it last time seemed to think something was a laugh."

Angus remembers Gavin saying in the staffroom that they had a customer called R. Sole. At once he hopes he won't smile after all or unleash a sound to go with it. He hides as much of his face as he can by leaning over the card Mr Sole deals with a snap onto the counter. Seizing the phone lets Angus keep his face averted. He's about to summon help when Woody says in his ear "Not on your mission yet? What's the problem?"

"We're supposed to have an order but I can't find it." Angus is suddenly terrified of how he may react if he's asked for the customer's name, until Woody says "I'm guessing it's
Commons and Canals of Cheshire."

"That's it, but how—"

"I have it here in my office. Tell the customer I'm bringing it right now."

Angus feels safe in hitching up his lips as he turns to Mr Sole. "The manager's on his way with it for you."

He has scarcely replaced the receiver when Woody darts out of the exit to the staffroom. Mr Sole swings around in the midst of a smell of stale astrakhan to peer at the thin drab book in Woody's hand. "Making sure it wouldn't stray this time, were you?"

"Just glancing through it while we had it," Woody smiles.

"Much about this neck of the woods?"

"Nothing I'd call important," Woody says and turns so fast that Angus is uncertain whether his smile had already begun to vanish. "I'm handling this. You shouldn't still be here."

"Oh, right, that's right," Angus gabbles, which brings to an end the sympathetic look Agnes was considering on his behalf. He fumbles the leaflets off the counter and clutches them to his bosom as he dashes out of the shop.

The sun has made no headway against the fog. If anything, a sourceless dazzle aggravates the blindness that has erased most of the retail park. Vague folds of it waver on the tarmac like the skirts of a vast sluggish dancer. They must be why Angus feels he's being paced when he leaves Woody's stare through the window behind. As he dodges into Happy Holidays, a sodden grey veil is drawn over the far end of Texts.