Thieving Fear

FOURTEEN

The schoolchildren on the back seats of the bus found Hugh's ringtone hilarious. Even though they were sharing the kind of cigarette Rory had once offered him, they made him feel childish. Perhaps he ought to substitute the Frugo ringtone, the melody of 'We're cheap so you'll be cheerful'. As he cut the Sesame Street theme short Ellen said 'Can you talk?'

'What's going to stop me?'

'You aren't busy at work.'

'I won't be there for . . .' He peered at the two-storey houses packed together on either side of him. Surely he'd slept off his bout of disorientation, which must have been some kind of summer virus, even if he was glad that the bus stopped at the end of his road. 'We've got plenty of time,' he promised Ellen as well as himself.

'Can I ask you a question, then?'

'Anything,' Hugh said and held his breath.

'What do you remember about Thurstaston?'

This was so much less intimate than he'd hoped or feared that his breath emerged in a kind of tentative gasp if not exactly a sigh. 'What sort of thing?'

'I don't want to prompt you. Whatever comes into your mind.'

'Us all being together. I wish some of us could be more often.'

'Just some?'

'I see quite a lot of Rory. Not so much lately.' Hugh tried to detain his retreating pluck by admitting 'It'd be nice to see you.'

'Do you think so?' With a weightiness he didn't understand Ellen said 'You're kind.'

'I'm not. I mean, I hope I am, but I'm not being now.'

'Anyway, we're talking about Thurstaston.'

Hugh felt rebuffed if not rebuked. 'So what do you remember?'

'I said I didn't want to prompt you.'

'I expect we all remember Charlotte sleepwalking best,' he said and risked adding 'I wouldn't have minded if it had been me.'

'Why not?'

Her voice had grown sharp, and Hugh's was ready to falter. 'Never mind. Just a silly idea.'

'Tell me anyway.'

Hugh could see no way out except to speak. As his face continued reddening he mumbled 'I might have wandered into your tent. That'd have been my excuse.'

He didn't realise the schoolchildren were listening until they dawdled giggling past him and looked back from the stairs to aggravate his mortification. 'Go away,' he blurted. 'Leave me alone.'

'I'm sorry if you think I –'

'Not you,' he pleaded as the children piled downstairs. 'They've gone now.'

'Who? Are you sure?'

'I saw them go. Just kids being like kids are – well, we weren't, I don't think.'

'Listen, Hugh.' As he wondered what she was urging him to listen for she said 'I appreciate what you were saying before, truly I do, but this isn't the right time for me just now. I can't expect you to understand, but will you try and be patient with me?'

'Maybe if you told me what's –'

'Trust me, Hugh, it couldn't be wronger. Just let me say it's not your fault. It's nothing to do with you.'

He couldn't claim any right to feel excluded. As he uttered rather less than a word of agreement she said 'Any other memories?'

Hugh had no idea how she could use it, but he wasn't a writer. 'Just a dream I had when we were sleeping there.'

'You remember that.'

'I just did. I was in some house with no lights and I didn't know which way to go.'

'Where did you need to?'

'Out.' Even if this was for her book, he regretted having brought it up. 'Away,' he said.

His brusqueness failed to truncate the memory of knowing he wasn't alone in the darkness as thick as the clay it had smelled of. He'd sensed that any way he turned would deliver him into the clutches of whoever was waiting, so silently it seemed they'd given up the need to breathe. He was sure his outstretched hands would touch a face, if it was recognisable as such. Perhaps it would bare its teeth in delight, if they could be exposed any further, and widen its eyes as his fingertips groped at them, although that was assuming it still had – 'I'm there,' Hugh gasped.

'Where? Hugh, where are you?'

'My stop,' he said and struggled to laugh at the misunderstanding, not least to overcome the panic she seemed to have communicated to him. If this was how it felt to be as imaginative as his cousins and his brother, he should be glad that he ordinarily wasn't. He had never looked forward so much to his supermarket work, the more mechanical the better. He clattered downstairs just in time to halt the bus beside a shelter surrounded by the hailstorm of its glass. 'I'm off,' he said.

'Should I let you go?'

Beyond the concrete path into the retail park Frugo was visible across hundreds of emptied cars. 'Not unless you want to,' he said. 'I've got minutes yet.'

'I haven't upset you, have I? I wouldn't want to.'

'It's like you said, there'll be a better time. You can tell me when.'

'I meant about your bad dream.'

'Forget it,' Hugh said and glanced around to see that nobody was observing how mottled his face had grown as he struck out across the car park. 'I found out something for you,' he managed to admit.

'Will I like it?'

'I don't know.' He had the sudden wholly irrational notion that he should invent a discovery rather than tell her the real one, but of course he was incapable of any such invention. 'Where we all slept,' he said, 'it's the same.'

'I should think so, but I don't think Rory would.' He couldn't tell if she was disappointed in him or with the information as she added 'Does it make much difference either way?'

There was only one, Hugh thought, and that was straight ahead. The gaps between the cars didn't constitute a maze, or if they did he could see his route. He oughtn't to feel distracted by saying 'It's been like that for, I don't know, a hundred years?'

'Watch where you're going, son,' a driver apparently felt entitled to protest as he backed a van almost too large for its parking space into Hugh's path.

By this time Ellen was repeating 'Like what, Hugh?'

'The cliff where we were, it was the same shape eighty years ago. All the rest has changed but it's still sticking out like there's something inside it. You'd wonder what's keeping it that way.'

The van hadn't made him late for work, but he kept an eye on the supermarket while he dodged around car after parked car. He was so intent on it that he had to make an effort to grasp Ellen's question. 'What are you suggesting?' she hardly seemed to want to know.

'Will the rock be harder? That's just me being unimaginative. I'm sure you can think of something, I don't know, more magical.'

'It isn't rock, it's clay.' Quite as sharply she said 'How do you know about it?'

'Found it on the Internet for you.' At last he was clear of the labyrinth of parked cars. 'I've got to go in now,' he said.

He sounded like a child summoned by a parent. Had Tamara and Mishel overheard him? They'd just emerged blonder than ever from Hair You Are. As they sauntered to the nearest Frugo entrance Ellen said 'Let's speak again soon. Shall I let you know how my book goes down with Charlotte?'

Hugh found her turn of phrase inexplicably ominous, but he said 'I'd love you to.'

The girls shared a glance about this and loitered as he made for the entrance, pocketing his mobile. 'Girlfriend, Hugh?' Tamara said.

If he hadn't been struggling to forget his dream he mightn't have mumbled 'Are you offering?'

The girls produced identical momentary frowns. 'Justin warned you about that,' said Mishel.

'Stop doing it to me, then.'

'She was asking if you'd got your girlfriend there.'

'Might be.'

'How long have you been with her, Hugh?' Tamara said.

'I haven't.' To fend off their instant sympathy he said 'I've known her a lot longer than I've known you.'

'Lucky her,' Tamara said without quite winking at Mishel. 'Have you told her how you feel about her, Hugh?'

They were passing the checkout desks. Hugh might have terminated the interrogation by taking a longer route to the staff quarters, but the ground floor seemed bewilderingly crowded, not least with children for some reason out of school. He couldn't escape Mishel's contribution to the survey. 'Don't you want her knowing you care?'

'She'd know how he feels just from looking at his face. Ooh, I don't know what kind of feeling that's supposed to be, though.'

Was it betraying more nervousness than he preferred to understand? He trailed the girls to the Staff Only door beside the shelves of Frugogo energy drinks. Beyond it a concrete passage almost featureless except for staff notices all entitled GO FRUGO! led past the staffroom to the toilets. As she pushed open the door marked female, Mishel turned on Hugh. 'Why are you following us now?'

'I have to go as well.'

'Not in here you don't,' she said while Tamara retorted 'That's right, away from us.'

As they stalked into female he hurried past to male. Opposite the door a concrete wall sported oval urinals, out of sight from the corridor, while the wall at right angles was occupied by cubicles green-eyed with vacant signs. The urinals faced a row of sinks beneath a mirror, and Hugh glimpsed his reflection as he crossed the room. That must be why he had to overcome an impression that someone was there with him or at any rate uncomfortably close, unless it was his awareness that the girls were next door. He couldn't hear them, and surely they couldn't overhear his trickling in the porcelain. The fluorescent lights hummed as if trying to display nonchalance on his behalf. He zipped up his flies, although he felt nervous enough for the action to seem premature, and headed for the sinks. He saw his reflection turn to face him, and at once he had no idea which way either of them had turned.

He was straight ahead, but that was no help. The exit was to the left or right, whichever contained most of the maddeningly monotonous hum, although how could that be true in the mirror as well? He could see the door twice, and he only wished that were twice as helpful. He snatched his hands back from a gush of aggressively hot water and sidled alongside his distressed reflection to rub them under the snout of the hand dryer. The machine was still exhaling without having stopped for breath when he heard the girls emerge into the corridor. At once, in a panic that felt as if a hole had opened under his guts, he realised that only the girls' banter had prevented him from grasping that unless he'd followed them into the staff quarters he wouldn't have known which way to go.

He lurched towards their voices and into the corridor. Mishel emitted more of a gasp than he quite believed was genuine, and Tamara said 'Don't bother trying to scare us.'

'Nobody needs to be scared,' Hugh did his utmost to believe.

'Why are you wandering after us now?' Mishel demanded.

'I have to go to work too, haven't I?'

So long as he stayed behind them they would lead him to his section next to theirs. They emerged among the bottled drinks, where a younger man whom Hugh couldn't have named without reading his badge was restocking the shelves. If Justin had left Hugh in charge of them he mightn't be at such a loss. Were the girls trying to lose him? Was this another of their sly games? As he dodged shoppers and their equally sluggish trolleys Tamara veered into a side aisle, Mishel into another. He nearly cried out to them to stop, but he mustn't betray his condition. He struggled past two double-parked trolleys and dashed after Mishel, who turned on him. 'What do you think you're playing at, Hugh Lucas?' she said loud enough for customers to hear.

'Nothing.' Since this seemed feebly defensive, he tried retorting 'I was going to ask you that. Can't we just walk along like workmates?'

'You know what, I think you're a bit sick in the head.'

'More than a bit,' Tamara said, having arrived at his back.

He had to deny it before he was out of another job. As he twisted around to keep both girls in view, however, he saw what he'd been in too much of a hurry to notice: he was faced by shelves of feminine necessities that couldn't have been any more intimate. His face blazed, and he would have fled if he'd known which way to turn. A straggle of schoolchildren appeared behind Tamara, visibly attracted by the prospect of an argument, and Hugh was about to retreat when Justin blocked the other end of the aisle. 'What on earth are you doing there?' he said well before reaching Hugh.

'I was with them.'

'You were no such thing,' Tamara declared.

'He was harassing us again.'

'You keep doing it to me,' Hugh complained. 'You've got me so I can't think.'

Justin glanced at each of the girls in turn before waving Hugh away with a regal gesture that smelled of the latest deodorant. 'Get where you belong and be quick about it. I'll be having a word with you later.'

As Hugh blundered past Tamara he had an oppressive sense that someone was delighting in his situation, which was why he couldn't help blurting 'Aren't you supposed to be at school?'

'They're here at the invitation of your manager.'

This information was provided by an at least middle-aged woman as severe as her grey suit. Too late Hugh noticed that the children had clipboards, though nobody was writing on them. 'Thinking of getting a job here when you grow up?' he blustered, which was less than placatory, since he was gazing at the teacher while he struggled to remember which way he ought to turn. The ranks upon ranks of merchandise seemed to be arranged with no logic he could grasp, and he couldn't see the sign for his section, never mind the aisles themselves. In desperation he swerved away from Justin as the supervisor caught up with him. He'd taken several paces before Justin said 'Where are you gadding off to now?'

Hugh spun around and marched in the opposite direction. Justin waited for him to be well past and then said 'Not that way either. Having a joke? I don't see anybody laughing.'

Somebody was, however silently. Hugh felt almost suffocated by their secret glee. When he heard a stifled giggle he rounded on it and saw a boy covering his mouth. He and two companions were skulking at the back of the school group and up, Hugh was sure, to no good. In a moment he realised – the clearest thought in his mind, the only clear one – that they already had been. 'I know you,' he warned them. 'You were on the bus.'

More than one of them wanted to be told 'Who says?'

'You know you were. You know I know.'

This suggested he was clinging to the only knowledge he had, and he was about to remind them what else he knew when the teacher addressed Justin. 'Excuse me, is this the way you usually treat your visitors?'

'It isn't, and it can stop right now. What are you waiting for, Hugh?'

Hugh felt as if the secret glee were pinning him to the spot, surrounding him with his aggravated confusion. 'They were smoking,' he informed the teacher. 'Not just smoking smoking either.'

'We never, Hugh,' the boy with the giggle said.

'William,' the teacher said, but then, more reprovingly to Hugh 'Excuse me, if you have something to say –'

'Cannabis.'

'I beg your pardon?'

She might almost have taken him to be offering, given her tone. 'That's what they were smoking,' Hugh insisted.

'And may I ask how you're so sure?'

'Yes,' Justin said quite as heavily. 'I'd like to know that too.'

'Oh, come on. You'd both have been able to tell. Everyone can these days.'

'I most certainly can't, and I hope none of you can.' Having been rewarded by various demonstrations of innocence from her charges, the teacher stared hard at Hugh. 'I'm afraid,' she said, 'I think there's only one way anyone would know.'

'Which way?' Hugh pleaded, inflaming his panic. 'What are you trying to say about me?'

'He's a druggie,' someone whispered.

'I'm nothing of the sort. Who said that? Too scared to own up? Can't you keep your children under control? Isn't that your job?'

'That's it,' Justin said. 'Enough.'

'I'm not standing here to have people tell lies about me.'

'That's right, you aren't. You're not here.' Before this had finished exacerbating Hugh's disorientation Justin said 'You're suspended. Go home.'

'Will he be able to find his way?' the teacher said, and Hugh saw too late that his section was beyond the aisle at her back.

'He'll have to. We can't spare anyone to go with him,' Justin said while continuing to face Hugh. 'You'll be hearing from us. Better stop whatever you've been doing to yourself and sort yourself out unless you want to end up playing round with litter on the moors.'

Hugh might have searched for a retort to this, except that he could see the moors across the car park outside the window beyond the checkout desk at the far end of the aisle behind Tamara and Mishel. They were all in a straight line ahead, and once he was in the open he would be able to see the bus stop. He strode forwards like a robot with a rudimentary brain, hardly aware of the girls as they dodged aside. He blundered past the tills and followed a parade of laden trolleys out of the supermarket. The bus stop was almost as good as ahead between the parked cars, and he made for it at once, hoping that the relative openness would lift at least some of the confusion from his mind. Once he was home he would be free to think of ways to help Ellen if he could – and yet for a moment too fleeting to grasp, the ambition seemed so mistaken it was nightmarish.