Part 20 (2/2)
”Wasn't it the one where he's in his vest all the time? And you nearly had us believing that wasn't your kind of thing.”
Greg's face stiffens and grows mottled, and Mad finds herself wis.h.i.+ng for an interruption; even Woody calling for more smiles might do. All the altercations have made the air feel thickened, p.r.i.c.kly, close to suffocating. She 250 can't judge whether the shop is hot as rage or cold as loathing. Once Greg ends the confrontation by planting a book on a shelf with a sound like a blow with a club, Mad sets about putting her chaotic books in order. She's hoping everyone is preoccupied enough with work to gain some inner calm when Ross complains ”Hang on, don't put anything on my shelves. I've got no room.”
”I need s.p.a.ce too,” Angus protests. ”Anyway, they aren't your shelves or mine. They're Gavin's when he comes back to work.”
”Don't say that's an angry Angus,” Ray calls, apparently to Nigel. ”We're never going to have a bit of mindless violence, are we? Seriously, now, you lads want to shake and make up.”
Ross pretends to ignore him, only to seem provoked by him. ”If you don't give me some room,” he mutters at Angus, ”I'll have to move books all the way to the end of the aisle.”
”Same here if you start crowding me. Sorry, you've got to stay out of my patch.”
”Children,” Jill says, raising her head above her shelves to shake it at the pair. ”It can't be worth falling out over, can it? Shall I help one of you and somebody else help the other?”
The sole immediate response is Connie's. ”You're awfully fond of telling people they're like children, aren't you, Jill.”
”Maybe it takes someone that's had one to see it,” says Ray.
At first Nigel confines himself to eyeing him, and then he lets his thought out. ”The rest of us are blind, is that it? Those of us who wish we could have one and can't must be the worst.”
”I don't know why you had to share that with us, Nigel? It's the first any of us heard you had a problem, am I right?”
Mad hears a wordless grunt, not necessarily of 251 agreement, that she can't locate. ”In that case I'd better apologise to anyone I've upset, had I?” says Nigel. ”Lock our home lives up at home, that's how we work at Texts.”
”It ought to be, shouldn't it?” Greg somewhat more than murmurs.
”Give it a rest, Greg,” Ray says. ”We don't need to hear from you every other b.l.o.o.d.y minute.”
A ma.s.s of unspoken agreement seems to clot the air and turn it as uncomfortably warm as Mad imagines Greg's face if not the whole of him has grown. Rather than glance at him, she continues pulling books off the messy shelf. ”My offer's still on if someone else would like to match it,” says Jill.
”Just let me put these right and I will.”
”Never mind, Mad. We know your section has to be perfect before you'll help anyone else.”
She's the last person on the staff Mad would have expected to fall out with her. Is she really saying what everyone thinks? If Mad swung around, would she see all of them resenting her before they could don their false smiles? As she crouches on her knees, she feels as if she's both hiding from scrutiny and being dragged down by it; she's certain she is being watched. It must be Woody at his monitor. Perhaps he's about to enquire what the latest problem is, in which case Mad wouldn't be surprised if whoever answers blames her--but it's Jake who brings the pause that feels silenced by fog to a finish. ”I'll give you a hand. Where do you want it, Angus?”
”You could start at the far end and give me all the s.p.a.ce you can.”
”I bet you're not the only man here who'd prefer that. Don't fret, I'll do my best to open up your end.”
Greg clears his throat so fiercely it's little short of spitang, and then the shop fills with a clamour of handfuls of volumes being reshelved. The resonance seems to extend under Mad's knees; she could imagine that the floor is being shaken by an enormous knocking from beneath. Either 252 the coffee has failed to wake her as much as she hoped or the wakefulness is affecting her nerves. She tries to ignore the staccato uproar as she pushes the last of her books into place. They only just fit; indeed, they're so snug that she wonders if little children would have the strength to remove them. She's reaching for the first book on the shelf to move it to the one above when she's distracted by the shadow at the foot of the bookcase.
It reminds her of the stain Jake found, except that it's moving. It's spreading, because it isn't a shadow but moisture that's seeping off the lowest shelf. She drags half a dozen books free to reveal that the moisture is underneath them. It's under all the books--no, it's been squeezed out of them. She opens the topmost of the books she has stacked on the floor, and a clown's face meets her with a grin as wide as its baggy mottled cheeks. Its colours are starting to run, its outline is melting, and the first two letters of the solitary word for it on the left-hand page have merged into a single character like an illiterate capital D.
She leafs through the rest of the book and a scattering of the others. All the pictures are even further on the way to shapelessness. She wobbles to her feet, brandis.h.i.+ng the first volume, though she doesn't like touching any of them; they feel softened by the furtive damp, close to disintegrating in her grasp. n.o.body spares her a glance as she straightens up. The inside of her skull seems to grow jagged with the incessant clatter of handfuls of books, and there's a stale taste in her mouth. She's trying to decide whom she would least dislike to approach--who is least likely to react as though she's indulging her finicky self-- when Woody's swollen buzzing voice is added to the din, which sinks beneath it. ”Can a couple of you bring your muscles up here? Something's wrong with my door.” 253
RAY.
What 'so the matter with them all? Do they behave like this 'so the matter with them all? Do they behave like this whenever they've missed some sleep? It isn't even one in the morning yet, however much later it feels. G.o.d knows how they'll be acting by the time the sun comes up, if it can ever be said to do so round here. At least he has a reason to be edgy, having been up most of last night as well. Every time he cuddled the baby to sleep her teeth set her off like an alarm. He wanted to give Sandra a chance to rest because he knew she could be kept awake tonight, but then she started trying to take over and let him have some peace. By four o'clock they were arguing about that, and when Sheryl was quiet at last they had to kiss and make up, not something he fancies is likely to happen between anybody at Texts tonight. Now Sandra can't even get in touch for a chat if she's feeling isolated, because she knows the shop phones aren't for personal calls, and Agnes has disabled his. That wasn't an excuse for him to lose his temper with Greg, even if some people might think Greg was enough of one. All the staff have a right to expect managers to treat them fairly. Though Ray 254 wouldn't call what he said exactly unfair, it has left an unpleasant stale taste in his mouth. He's wondering if he should find an opportunity to apologise to Greg when Woody's voice subdues the thunder of books on shelves. ”Can a couple of you bring your muscles up here? Something's wrong with my door.”
His lips must be against the mouthpiece, he's so blurred. As a book drops into place with a sound like the fall of a lid, Greg says ”I'll be one.”
It could pa.s.s as nothing worse than eagerness if he weren't frowning at Jake, either as a challenge or to warn him off. ”Stay with your shelving, Greg,” Ray begins to tell him, and then there's no reason not to finish. ”Leave managing to management for once.”
He's allowed Greg to provoke him again. It seems best to remove himself from the situation, and he's heading for the exit to the staffroom when Mad moves to cut him off. She's holding a picture book between one finger and thumb. ”What's the trouble this time?” he has to ask.
”You can see for yourself.”
”I'll follow you up, Nigel,” Ray calls across the shop.
”I wasn't aware I was on my way.”
”Woody wanted two of us.”
Nigel stalks to the door and claps his badge against the plaque, actions that feel to Ray like an argument Nigel wants to have. ”Wretched thing,” he snarls, and is slapping the plaque again as Ray remarks ”Looks like there's some damaged goods for you, Nigel.”
Can Mad think Ray means her? Certainly she gives him a displeased blink. She has shaken the book open, and the discoloured pages droop like autumn leaves in a fog. The misshapen pictures on them remind him of the blots psychiatrists use as tests, though he wouldn't care to imagine what any of them resembles. ”Good G.o.d,” Nigel complains, ”how did that happen?”
”It was like that on the shelf,” Mad says more than defensively. 255 ”No need for that tone, is there? Just bring the book up and I'll deal with it.”
”It's all these. I think it may be the whole shelf.”
”Why didn't you notice before?” Nigel picks at the books Mad has piled on the floor, and then he lifts the others off the shelf, breathing furiously through his nose and blowing air out of his mouth and clucking his tongue. Once he has exhausted his methods of expressing disgust and the shelf is empty, he runs his hand over it and the wall behind it. ”There's no leak here,” he declares.
”I didn't say there was,” Mad points out.
”Then whatever's been happening must have taken a while, mustn't it? We might have expected you to notice when you're always so concerned about your section.”
”It didn't show up till I put the books in tight.”
”So you're admitting you're responsible.”
Her face tautens, stretching her lips even straighter than they were. As she glances at Agnes, Ray asks ”Are you sure it's just that shelf?”
Nigel scowls at him as though it has become Ray's fault. ”Leave the others,” he tells Mad. ”You can come back to them if there's time, or perhaps that should wait till after the visit. No need to make the place look bad if n.o.body's going to see there's a problem.”
Ray is about to suggest that it could be worse for her if the visitors discover anything she has been told to hide when Woody's voice escapes from upstairs with an amplified mutter of plastic. ”I don't see anybody on the way yet. Who's the rescue party?”
Ray points at himself and jerks a thumb at Nigel. ”Two solid guys,” says Woody. ”Okay, you should be up to it. How about right now?”
As Nigel gathers the spoiled books, Ray presses his badge to the plaque and can't help congratulating himself on a petty victory when the badge works first time. He holds the door open for Nigel, but doesn't mean him to 256 sprint upstairs and beat Ray to the office. ”Here's the calvary, the cavalry, I mean,” Nigel shouts.
”What kept you?” Woody's m.u.f.fled voice responds.
Nigel veers into the stockroom to dump the books. Ray glances at his watch as he heads for Woody's door but is unable to grasp how much time has elapsed since he last gave in to the temptation to check. ”We came straight up, didn't we?” he calls.
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