Thieving Fear

by Ramsey Campbell

  'If a customer called us that we'd have security on them.'

  Hugh thought they'd found a different way to tease him until he saw that their faces were stolidly blank. Beyond them his supervisor had come into view and perhaps into earshot across the wider aisle. 'I thought we were having a bit of fun,' Hugh protested.

  'What kind of fun were you after?' said Mishel. 'Yes, you may well blush, Hugh Lucas.'

  'You've got plenty to blush about,' Tamara said.

  Justin pressed his small mouth thin as if to purge it of cuteness as he stalked across the aisle to plant his hands on his thick hips. 'Exactly what do you think you're doing, Hugh?'

  'Being rude to us,' Tamara said.

  'We were just joking and I was defending myself.'

  'Oh, poor Hugh, having to defend himself from girls,' Mishel cried.

  'You'd think we'd been assaulting him. Go on, Hugh, show us on the security tape.'

  'There's verbal assault,' Hugh blurted. 'You just said.'

  'It looked more like flirtation to me,' Justin said without approving. 'Does anybody want to report anybody here?'

  He stared at Hugh as the girls did, and Hugh's face grew hotter still. 'Not if nobody else is,' he said.

  'Ladies?'

  They turned their heads towards each other and eventually shook them. 'Maybe not this time,' Tamara said.

  'If he behaves himself,' said Mishel.

  'Better control yourself,' Justin warned as Hugh opened his mouth – indeed, gaped. To the girls he said 'You'll have some work to do, will you?'

  'We're on our break,' Tamara told him.

  'Better take it somewhere else, then.'

  As they ambled away the girls stuck their pink tongues out at Justin, so lingeringly that Hugh wondered if they were challenging him to draw the supervisor's attention to them. He was close to giving them what they apparently wanted, on the assumption that for once he'd understood a girl, when Justin said 'I'll ask you again. Just what do you imagine you're doing?'

  'What you said to.' When Justin pursed his lips tinier, Hugh tried 'Clearing the shelves.'

  'Go on.'

  'I would be if you weren't distracting me,' Hugh mouthed, grabbing cans of kumquats.

  He deposited them and was reaching for the next when Justin demanded 'What do you think you're doing now?'

  Hugh raised his empty hands, which made him feel arrested with no idea of his offence. 'What you said again.'

  'How stupid are you trying to be? I told you to tell me what you're doing.'

  Hugh felt as if the interrogation had become a cramped maze with no light to show the way out. 'Clearing the shelves,' he repeated, attempting to laugh. 'I said.'

  'I didn't realise I was so amusing.' Justin's gaze felt like a burning glass on Hugh's face, and stayed relentless as he said 'Which?'

  Hugh jabbed his hands at the shelves, to no avail. 'And which are you trying to tell me those are?' Justin said. 'Don't do that, it's unhygienic.'

  Hugh lowered his hand instead of passing it once more over his scalp. 'Fruit,' he felt ridiculed for having to say, 'and at the other end –'

  'Have you really forgotten what you were told to do?'

  'Clear the left side of aisle thirteen.'

  'And what are you telling me this is?'

  For a moment Hugh didn't know which way to turn, and then he peered along the aisle at the number of the checkout desk framed by the shelves. 'It's thirteen.'

  'You're not having a laugh, are you? What side?'

  'Left. I said.'

  Justin unfolded his arms, puffing out a scent of Conqueror deodorant, and stretched his plump fingers towards the emptied shelves. 'And what do you call this?'

  Hugh felt as if the aisle had been added to the dark maze that was his brain. 'Left,' he said doggedly.

  'Well, it's not. It's right, which is wrong.'

  Hugh gazed in dismay at the thousands of cans on the floor and complained 'It depends which way you're facing.'

  'You keep your back to the front of the store. You face the back.'

  Hugh had the unpleasant impression that Justin's words were turning around and around in his brain. He was close to accusing Justin of wanting to confuse him when the supervisor said 'You tell me what clearing them was going to achieve if you can.'

  'I've no idea. You never told me why I was moving the stock.'

  'You could have asked, or don't you care enough about your section?'

  Hugh remembered Justin giving him the task before hurrying away to chat to a manager. 'You're moving right fourteen to left thirteen and vicey versa,' Justin said. 'See the sense now?'

  'I think so.'

  'Try being sure. Go and have your break and come back with your ideas sorted. There's enough of this in your family without you.'

  'Enough of what?'

  'People playing silly buggers with cans.' Justin paused not quite long enough to give Hugh time to respond. 'And you'll need to get a move on with this,' he said. 'We can't have anybody sleeping on the job.'

  For some reason this unnerved Hugh. He turned away to hide his aggravated confusion and hurried along the aisle. He'd just realised that his haste was taking him away from the staffroom when his mobile rang. Staff were forbidden to use their phones in the public area and the storeroom – indeed, mobiles weren't supposed to be switched on. Hugh spun around to see that Justin had left the aisle, but which way should he head to elude the supervisor? The ringtone – the theme from Sesame Street – seemed to be leaving his thoughts no chance to cohere. He needed to be outside the supermarket, and so he dashed towards the checkouts. He sidled past two heaped trolleys beside the thirteenth desk and dodged a security guard, who gave him an unnecessarily suspicious blink.

  Beyond the car park the sullen brows of the moor were crowned with a puffy strip of white clouds beneath a thinner sky. Hugh quelled the ringtone and read the named number. 'Ellen,' he said.

  'Is that Hugh?' Before he could ask who else she expected to encounter on his phone she said 'What have you been saying about me?'

  He couldn't help his defensiveness. 'What have you been hearing?'

  'I only rang up yesterday to see how people were. I wasn't looking for anyone to bail me out. I said after the funeral I had money in the bank.'

  'You thought you'd be able to find another job, though, didn't you?'

  'I've got one. Charlotte's getting my book bought and the one I'll write next too.'

  'A proper job, I meant.'

  'This is a proper job. It's every day. I'm even working now, on Sunday.'

  'Well, so am I,' Hugh was provoked to retort. 'Someone has to, and the ones with families like to spend Sundays with them.'

  'Oh, are you? I was going to ask if you'd seen Rory lately.'

  'Not since we all met.'

  'We shouldn't keep losing touch. If you weren't working I'd have liked you to check up on him.'

  'Why, what's wrong?'

  'Probably nothing. Most likely just me stuck in my caring mode. It was only that he offered me his grant, and when I said he mustn't be so silly he tried to give me half.'

  'I'm not sure why that's bad.'

  'I expect you're right. He was only being generous even if he doesn't want anyone to think he is. I just wondered –'

  Hugh thought he heard his name or one like his beneath the rumble of traffic on the motorway. If he was being paged, the store would have to wait. 'What?' he urged.

  'If he'd given me his grant, what was he going to live on? Do you think he's in a bad way somehow?'

  'I didn't when I spoke to him. Maybe he knew you'd have to turn him down and so you'd find it harder not to accept half. Or maybe he's got money in the bank like you.'

  'I'm sure that's it, one of them. Thanks, Hugh. You've helped,' Ellen said. 'So what did you actually say to him about me?'

  'Just what you said about how we should all look out for each other.'

  All at once Hugh wondered if she was hoping he'd said more or would now.
He could tell her that he cared about her most of anyone he knew. The thought of admitting it kindled his face, but if he ever meant to risk it, shouldn't he try while she couldn't see him? He was struggling to part his nervous lips when Ellen said 'You should have known if I wouldn't take your money I wouldn't take his either.'

  Hugh hadn't told his brother about offering a loan. It didn't seem worth establishing the truth now that he'd lost the opportunity to tell her how he felt. 'Is there anything else I can do to help?' he said.

  'Not that I can think of. Should you be getting back to work?'

  'I've a few minutes yet of my break. It's a pity you aren't closer,' Hugh said before his daring deserted him. 'Rory could have a go at taking your photo. Will Charlotte?'

  After quite a silence Ellen said 'Why would anyone want to do that?'

  'Why wouldn't they?' Much more loudly Hugh said 'To put on your book.'

  'I hadn't thought of that. Some books don't have a picture of the author.'

  'Well, yours definitely should. Don't you want people to know you? You want to get all the publicity you can. Make sure people see a lot of you.'

  'There's too much of that, I'm afraid.'

  She must mean she already felt visible – because of the business with the care home, of course. Hugh closed his eyes to help him dare to murmur 'There's nothing wrong with you, anything but. You're just how you ought to be.'

  Perhaps she didn't hear. His eyes jerked open, because he'd begun to feel as if he were dreaming of being watched. 'Were you ready to get back to your writing?' he belatedly wondered. 'You don't need me in the way.'

  'Don't underrate yourself, Hugh. We all admire you for doing what you can. I know I do.' Before he could at least return the compliment if not strive to improve on it Ellen said 'Maybe you should have another go at teaching now you're more mature.'

  'Once was enough. I'd rather not feel like that ever again, not knowing what I was doing and not wanting anyone to know. I'm best off staying where I know my way around.' To head off any further impractical advice he blurted 'Aren't you going to tell me what your other book's about?'

  'Four people spend a night somewhere, I'm not sure where yet, and something magic gets inside them.'

  'That sounds like –'

  Three words sufficed to let him hear that he was addressing a silence so hollow it seemed to gape beneath him. Had Ellen's phone run out of power, or could she have rung off because she didn't think he was creative enough to help? He pocketed the mobile, having switched it off, and glanced at his watch to see black scraps of digits form themselves into the next minute. He hadn't time for a coffee, and his useless labour was waiting to be reversed. He tramped past the vista of checkouts rendered more identical by dozens of overalls as yellow as a Frugo sign, and succeeded in feeling decisive by the time he reached the empty shelves and the floor piled with stock.

  'Back you go,' he muttered as he handed items forwards. At least this restrained his frustration, so that he didn't slam cans into place. Long before he'd finished, the whole of him was as hot as the girls had made his face, not to mention as prickly as the pear Tamara had accused him of resembling. It took him most of an hour to restore the shelves to their earlier state. He stood back at last and closed his eyes, and thought he'd done so for at most a few moments when Justin said 'Do you know what you're doing now?'

  Hugh opened his eyes to find he didn't know which side of the aisle he had been working. The discordant colours of the tins seemed to clamour in his head. He felt as if his stomach had given way, or the ground beneath him had. Perhaps his confusion was evident, unless Justin lost all patience. 'Clear this,' he said, snatching a can of spaghetti off a shelf behind Hugh and planting it on the floor, 'and bring everything round from the back.'

  That couldn't go wrong, Hugh vowed, and set about emptying the shelf. He didn't notice when he was left alone, perhaps because he still felt watched. Surely that was only a symptom of his fear of making another mistake. The girls had confused him, and then Ellen had distracted him – some aspect of her call had. He mustn't think about that now; he had to concentrate on his task. All that mattered was not to forget which shelves he was turning back to front. There was no room for anything else, especially imagination, in his mind. Just now the job was his life.

  NINE

  As the doors of the lift drew shut a hand stayed them. It was Glen's. 'More coming,' he said as he stepped in. 'Make room.'

  He wasn't speaking to Charlotte. He seemed not to have noticed her at the back. She would have thought the lift was full, despite the notice claiming that it held twelve people. Two secretaries dutifully retreated, backing her into a corner, and a pair of editors joined the crowd. The lift was unquestionably packed now; what was it waiting for? If it was overloaded she wouldn't mind taking the next one. Then the doors lumbered together, so sluggishly that they could have been admitting someone else.

  Of course they hadn't. There were just eleven people – no, twelve including Charlotte. It cost her some seconds to count the immobile backs of heads and the equally inexpressive profiles beside her, but apparently that wasn't long enough to stir the lift. Was it stuck? Should she ask, since everybody else seemed to be ignoring its paralysis? No, it was sinking at last, and in a few seconds – more precisely, twenty or so – she would be out of the windowless cage, out of the surreptitious light as grey as the walls. Meanwhile she was reduced to watching the secretive heads, which she could have fancied were determined to overlook some intruder, staring resolutely forwards while he wormed across the floor. The notion was so grotesque that she refused to look down, to establish that no face was grimacing up at her. Nobody was there, either in the lift or under it – nobody was dragging it downwards so lethargically that the air befogged by the light would be used up before they ever reached the basement. Her companions hadn't stopped moving because they were unable to breathe; they weren't about to topple against her, pinning her in the corner. They were swaying only because the lift had shuddered to a halt, although the doors weren't opening. Was it between the floors? Charlotte took a shallow effortful breath so as to wonder aloud, and then the doors crept apart, revealing the underground corridor. The foremost rank of passengers stepped forwards, and as she succeeded in drawing more breath the people in front of her gave her some room. By the time they reached the doors she was almost treading on their heels.

  She had never been so conscious of how much the lockers narrowed the corridor. Even the extensive office felt pressed smaller by the ceiling, and once she was seated the partitions that surrounded the desks took away more spaciousness. She was trying to concentrate on opening the day's envelopes and packages as she saw Glen return to his compartment. 'Morning, Glen,' she said and turned her wave into fanning herself. When he looked at best puzzled she said 'Too many of us in a box.'

  'Everyone's important here. We all have to get to work. I don't believe anyone else had a problem.'

  'I won't again,' Charlotte promised herself more than him. 'I wouldn't mind a bit more elbow room on our way upstairs, though.'

  'Not much chance we'll be alone in there,' he said and wheeled his chair over. 'We'd better talk now.' As she turned her chair towards him in the flimsy alcove he murmured 'I'd have called you if I had your number.'

  'Shall I give it to you now?'

  'You can if you like,' he said and rested a hand on her arm, but only for a moment. 'You may not want to. Let me tell you first of all you've got a knack for pitching projects.'

  'Well, thank you.'

  'I've seen you do it upstairs but I guess I never appreciated just how good you were.'

  'Thank you twice.'

  'But I've been thinking over the weekend, I don't believe even you can sell your cousin's book upstairs by yourself.'

  'Then it's a good job I won't be trying, yes?'

  'You won't.' This was close to a question, and so was 'You've decided to wait till she sends us some rewrites.'

  'No, I mean I'm glad I'll have
your support up there today.'

  Glen inched his chair towards Charlotte. 'What did you say to her?' he said in a low voice. 'You didn't tell her it's bought.'

  'I wouldn't before it is.' Charlotte was starting to feel penned in. 'I might have implied that with both of us behind it we shouldn't have much of a problem,' she admitted.

  'Yeah, well, that could be one.'

  'I don't think I follow.'

  Glen clamped his hands to his thighs and leaned so close that Charlotte smelled harsh coffee on his breath. 'Are you trying to make this as hard as you can?'

  She didn't retreat, not least since there was very little room. 'No, I'm trying to be pleasant,' she said.

  'Hey, me too. OK, let's be professional as well.'

  'I thought I was.'

  'Maybe I wasn't on Friday, so I apologise.'

  'Glen, you've nothing to apologise for. I had a good time and I hope you did.'

  'Sure, but remind me never to talk terms after an evening like that. Like I said, you're great at firing people up, but I've had the weekend to think it over. Call me unprofessional, only maybe you were too if you told your cousin she could expect a contract ahead of the pitch.'

  'I already said I didn't say that. What are you saying I should have said?'

  'You're going to need to tell her to show us some rewrites before we can make a decision.'

  'We agreed that wasn't necessary. You can't have changed your mind that much.' Charlotte's voice had begun to sound as boxed in as she felt. 'Is this about Friday night?' she said so quietly that she almost didn't hear herself.

  'What about it?'

  'Wasn't I as friendly as you wanted? I really did have work to finish. You were saying that's the attitude we need to have. If you think supporting Ellen's book is doing me a favour –'

  However she might have continued, Glen cut her off. 'I won't be,' he said. 'That's all that matters here.'

  'I won't ask you, then. I'll see if I'm as good at pitching as you say.'

  'Let me tell you as a friend, that's not a good idea.'

  'Why isn't it?'

  'Because if you try I'll block you. I have to look out for my imprint, and that book isn't ready for us.'