Part 22 (1/2)
”Don't say you never heard him. He wants one of us to go down to the fuses.”
Nigel feels as if the dark almost managed to crowd the memory out of his head, along with most of his ability to think. ”Would you mind?”
”I might. I've worn myself out for a while.”
Nigel's shoulder is still aching from colliding with the wall rather than the door, but he rests it against the wood in case that helps him feel less threatened by losing himself in the blackness. ”To be honest, I don't know if I can.”
”Had I better go?” says Angus.
”No, you better hadn't. It's just as hard for you as Nigel, or have you got a special problem, Nigel?”
”Perhaps I have.”
”Go on, share it with us.”
”I wish I could give it to you, believe me,” Nigel mutters as Woody shouts ”Has anybody gone yet?”
Nigel's feelings speak up without giving him time to think. ”Ray is.”
”You're trying to order me about now, are you, Nigel?”
”No, I'm saying I won't be going. I'm no use in this.”
”Glad there's one thing we can agree about.”
The next moment Angus b.u.mps against Nigel and recoils. Has Ray deliberately pushed him at Nigel? Nigel's stance wavers as if he's about to be sent floundering helplessly into the blackness, and he glances down at the feet he can't see as he plants them apart to steady himselfThough he doesn't immediately understand what's there or why it should matter, he blurts ”Ray, wait.”
”Changed your mind? Don't you want to be left alone with Angus?”
”Of course not. I do, that is, I don't mind. Only what am I seeing?”
”Can't imagine, can you, Angus?” 267 ”Look,” Nigel insists and feels idiotic for pointing.
”Look down.”
When they're silent he begins to grow afraid that he isn't really seeing the faintest trace of grey underlining the door until Ray grumbles ”So Woody's got some kind of a light. What b.l.o.o.d.y use is that to the rest of us?”
”I think we may be able to get some out here too.”
”How do you reckon we' 11 do that, Nigel? Is he going to poke it under the door?”
”Is it the security thing?” Angus blurts as if he hopes to stop the argument.
”That's it exactly, the monitor. It must be on a different circuit, and the computers will be too. If we switch them all on we'll have plenty of light in here.”
”That'll solve everything, then,” Ray scoffs.
”It certainly should help, wouldn't you agree?”
”Won't help me see the fuses.”
Nigel is well on the way to feeling Ray is as mindlessly immovable as the dark. ”Maybe once we're able to see what we're doing,” he says just short of losing his temper, ”we can plug some of the computers in nearer the stairs.”
”Good on you, Nigel. You've convinced us. Go ahead.”
”You aren't expecting me to do all that by myself”
”Did I say that, Angus? We just want you to switch one on, Nigel, so we can see to do the rest. No point in us all falling over each other and b.u.g.g.e.r knows what else in the dark. If I'm dealing with the fuses, the light's your job.”
”What's the holdup now?” Woody shouts and deals some item of furniture a thump.
”Nigel's going to switch on a computer.”
”What in Christ for?”
”To light up the place,” Nigel feels slowed down almost to inertia by having to explain.
”So do it, then. What are you waiting for?” Yes, what are you, Nigel?” Ray murmurs. ”You heard the boss.”
The heat that floods over Nigel is anger, and the chill 268 that follows it is apprehension, which he tries to convince himself makes no sense. He relinquishes the handle and slides his right hand off the door, over the shallow frame, onto the wall. He inches his hand over the slippery surface and shuffles to keep up with it, but doesn't care at all for the sensation of offering his face to the dark. Instead he turns towards the wall and presses both hands against it on either side of him. He begins to sidle along it, though its presence so close to his face makes him feel walled in with very little air. His hands progress over it with a series of halting sticky creaks irregularly echoed by the dragging of his feet across the linoleum. He a.s.sumes the noises are apparent only to him, since he can barely hear them for his short harsh breaths and the thudding of his heart, until Ray enquires ”Are you really going as slow as you sound?”
”I've got to find my way,” Nigel protests, or most of it before the fingertips of his left hand recoil from what they've encountered. It's the wall at right angles to the one he's tracing, and it must feel damp because his fingers are. There's certainly no excuse for him to imagine that anything moist has trailed over it to await him in the blackness. For quite a few seconds manoeuvring around the corner is enough to make him nervous--feeling the walls and the darkness they've trapped closing around his face. Then he has to grope along the second wall, moving yet more slowly for fear of sprawling over some item low on the floor. What would it be? A wastebin, of course, but the obstruction he meets in the blackness jabs his hip. He confines his reaction to a gasp, still enough to make Angus demand ”What's wrong?”
”Nothing. I'm at the desk,” says Nigel, though that's too grand a term for the shelf at which he and Ray and Connie work. He flattens his hands on it and reaches leftwards until his little finger b.u.mps against the edge of Connie's keyboard. He brushes his hand across the keys, which feel like stones unsteadily embedded in a medium as soft as 269 mud and emit an agitated plastic chatter. As the keys grow dormant his fingertips graze the computer monitor, dislodging an object like a dead insect. Just in time not to gasp again he remembers she has decorated the monitor with a metal b.u.t.terfly. He gropes farther left and knuckles the tower that houses the computer. He runs his hand over the front of the tower until he locates the power b.u.t.ton. With his shaky forefinger he presses the b.u.t.ton in as deep as it will sink.
There's a loud click, but the darkness doesn't even twitch. ”Was that it?” says Ray.
When Nigel peers towards the question he can no longer be sure that he's seeing a hint of a glow under Woody's door. ”Apparently,” he has to admit.
”It couldn't...” Angus pauses to think, unless he dislikes hearing his voice surrounded by the dark. ”It couldn't be switched off at the plug, could it?”
”It could. Thanks, Angus,” Nigel says, only to feel significantly less grateful as he realises he'll have to crawl under the desk. He grasps its edge with both hands and lowers himself to his knees on the cold linoleum. Rather than risk banging his forehead against the desk he ducks beneath it, though he has to fend off the idea that it's foreing him towards some presence lurking underneath. He feels as if he's thrusting his hand into a lair. There's danger enough; his fingertips almost dig into the holes of the wall socket. His fingers retreat to the linoleum and light upon the flex that straggles from the plug. He's attempting to line up its p.r.o.ngs with the holes in the socket when Ray says ”What's that?”
Nigel's nerves almost jerk the plug out of his grasp before he manages to relax. ”Just me trying to insert this.” Not you for a change. Is it Agnes, Anyes, whoever?”
Nigel can't hear her. When he lifts his head to try, the rough underside of the desk claws at the back of his neck, and he crouches lower and scrabbles at the socket with the p.r.o.ngs until they snag the triangle of holes. He thrusts 270 them home so hard his shoulder redoubles its throbbing. As he extends a finger to the switch he mouths ”Please” before pressing it down.
Dimness springs into view in front of him. Three wastebins stand guard near three plugs in sockets, while two further sockets are unattended even by plugs. He backs out from under the working surface, and a blurred distorted shape crawls after him: just his shadow. As he seizes the edge of the desk and hauls himself to his feet, Ray hurries across the lividly illuminated office to the stockroom door and opens it on blackness. ”Agnes,” he shouts, ”was that you?”
Nigel is about to conclude that it wasn't when she answers. Perhaps she was deciding whether to respond to the misp.r.o.nunciation of her name. ”I'm in the lift. It's stuck.”
Her shout is m.u.f.fled and shrunken by distance. If the lift stopped when the power failed, Nigel wonders why she's appealing so belatedly for help. ”I'll go to her while you see to the fuses, Ray,” he offers. ”Let's move the computers and spread some light around.”
”Someone's coming in a minute, Agnes,” Ray yells as Woody bellows ”What's the situation now?”
”We can see and we're getting some more light,” Angus tells him.
”That shouldn't take much time, should it?”