by Rick Adams
‘Hasn’t anyone talked to her?’
‘We’ve tried, Matthew, but she’s shut us all out.’ He looked keenly at me. ‘She’s alright, she’s happy to sit on the lottery kiosk all day, and as long as she does her job there Carol doesn’t bother asking any questions.’
‘Well maybe she should.’
I studied him, then resumed curtly, ‘We haven’t got the time. No one has these days. The shop’s not doing brilliantly, and we just have to concentrate on our own responsibilities.’ I opened the door to the staff room. ‘Well, there’s the tour. I don’t think we’ve missed anything.’
‘But we’ve hardly spoken.’
My jaw dropped wide open.
‘There must be more you can tell me about working here.’
You know those moments you get when all your thoughts and feelings seem gilt-edged, rosy and warm, and by extension the world itself appears to be the most loving, caring home imaginable, well take that sense of inconceivable joy, roll all its loveliness and contentment into one adamantine ball of euphoria, and then throw the damned thing straight through the window of the honeymoon suite you’ve made in your mind so it smashes to smithereens on the cold reality of the outside ground you’ve trodden on in your head a thousand times before.
That’s how I felt when Matthew said he wanted to speak to me, and that’s how I felt when I realised it was just about work.
And then Carol stormed through the door.
‘Emily,’ she barked at me, ‘we’re having a meeting.’
‘What, now?’
‘Yes, now! Hello, Matthew.’
‘Hi, Carol.’
I stared at them, one to the other.
‘Well what are you gawping at, Tranter?’ she bellowed, ‘get the room set up.’
‘But the shop’s open. I’m meant to be on front till.’
‘No it’s not. I’ve closed it.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘It’s lunch time. We won’t lose many customers. Come on now, get to it!’
Slowly, I walked out of the staff room and upstairs to the meeting room.
It wasn’t until I arrived there that I realised the futility of Carol’s behest.
What the heck was there to set up?
There was a large table as ever, and a number of chairs around it, as ever.
All we needed were the people, and here they came, one after the other, trooping in like the flotsam and jetsam we’d all been crushed into by the weight of years in retail, Tabatha, Ginger, Sarah, me, and of course Matthew and Carol.
There were a couple of others, I was sure, who’d been on duty this morning, new girls, occasional staff, what had happened to them I asked our Manager.
‘I’ve sent them home for the day.’
I looked at Tabatha who shrugged her shoulders.
‘Why are we here, Carol?’ asked Ginger, who somehow made it manage to sound like the ultimate question even though that kind of thinking was way beyond her narrow intelligence.
‘Sit down!’ screamed the Manager in response. ‘All of you. Now!’
She watched us like Alan Sugar as we took our seats.
‘Right,’ she continued, only slightly more calmly, ‘this is important. I’ve come in on my day off to tell you all, so listen up.’
We craned our necks forward, eager to hear what piece of news could be worth closing the shop and losing sales for, but in the short run we were deprived because suddenly Carol burst into floods of tears, great heaving groans that had us all rushing to her side, eager to give comfort and support right up until the moment she fixed us with a stare of fear and contempt and screamed in a voice that chilled me to the very bone, ‘FUCK OFF!’
It didn’t even sound like her.
Tabatha was the first to react. ‘Carol,’ she said, ‘that’s enough.’
‘Is it you?’ whined the Manager like someone releasing the spirit of possession from its soul imprisonment, ‘are you the thief?’
‘Now you know I’m not,’ said Tabatha, ‘we’ve been through this already.’
‘Then which one of them is the culprit?’
I couldn’t make eye contact with her.
She was terrifying me.
I knew she’d been under pressure recently but this was something else.
‘Has someone been stealing the champagne again then?’ asked Ginger casually.
I shot her a look.
We all knew the bubbly had been going walkabout but we didn’t want the bloody Manager to know we knew.
I feared Carol would explode.
Instead, she answered surprisingly serenely.
‘Yes, Ginger, someone has been stealing the champagne again. And do you know why that, fucking well matters?’
‘Because it’s theft,’ I piped up, hating her language.
‘Yes, Emily, thank you. It’s theft.’ She studied us all. ‘And this is my shop, which means somebody, is stealing, from me.’
Ginger didn’t hesitate to twist the knife. ‘Again?’
It had, of course, happened before.
Case unsolved then, case probably unsolved now.
Then, it had stopped.
Now, it would probably cease again.
But there was a difference.
‘Do you know how this shop operates, Ginger?’ asked the Manager.
‘Of course I do,’ she replied. ‘We’re a supermarket, we sell food.’
‘And we run the Lottery,’ said Sarah.
We all looked her way with astonishment.
‘That’s right, Sarah,’ said Carol gently, ‘there are constituent parts to the business. Do you know, for example what revenue is?’
‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Tabatha.
‘Any of you.’
‘Is this pertinent?’
‘Is your impertinence?’
I looked at the floor.
Tabatha wouldn’t take another slight like that.
‘Revenue,’ continued Carol. ‘Profits,’ she said somewhat oddly. ‘Profit margin,’ she said as though the thought had just struck her. ‘Assets,’ she hissed, ‘equity, market value,’ quicker now, ‘earnings per share, return to investors. Are you with me?’
‘We don’t have any investors,’ said Ginger, ‘what you see is what you get.’
‘If the champagne continues to disappear, Miss Starr, then consideration of all of the above means I will be forced to downsize our staff.’
There was silence.
Ginger, of course, looked to number 1 straightaway.
‘Well the temps can go first.’
‘That won’t be enough.’
That shut her up.
For a few moments more, anyway.
‘I’m not going anywhere, she said at last, ‘I’ve been here the longest.’
‘After me,’ said Tabatha.
‘Oh thanks,’ I said, ‘so Sarah and I get the heave-ho.’
‘And him,’ sniffed Ginger.
‘He’s just joined,’ I protested, ‘and besides, we need a guy round the place.’
‘You need a guy round any place, Tranter.’
‘That’s enough, Ginger,’ snapped Tabatha, ‘this isn’t helping matters.’
I chanced a glance at Carol again.
She really looked like a woman on the edge.
‘Who’s stealing the champagne?’ she seethed, ‘who the fuck is it?’
Tabatha tried to take control.
‘Nobody knows,’ she said, ‘we didn’t find out last time and chances are we won’t now. It’ll stop soon enough. Just like your profanities, I hope.’
‘Well you’re right,’ said Ginger seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room, ‘it must be one of us. That much is evident. They’ve put in CCTV,’ she continued when we looked strangely at her, ‘to spy on us. We’ve got our very own Big Brother, haven’t we Carol, right here in Sheila’s? Who needs to waste time watching a load of bozos talking crap round some Jacuzzi when you can have it all here for yourself, w
ithout wasting the licence fee?’
‘It’s not on the BBC,’ I corrected her, ‘and anyway, Big Brother is an Orwellian concept, not the brain child of some TV executive. Get your facts right, Ginger.’
She leaned forward and growled, ‘You’re going to fail that journalism course, Tranter, just like you have everything else in your life. Now back to point - I’m with Carol, who’s nabbing the stuff, for Christ’s sake?’
I noticed Matthew twitch.
Then there was silence as we all looked at each other.
I thought about the monitor I’d seen Tabatha look away from when I entered the office earlier that morning.
Then Carol finally fired all guns at her, and the next turn of events shocked even Ginger.
‘It is you,’ the Manager had at her Deputy, ‘you’re stealing it.’
‘No, Carol,’ she sighed, ‘I am not.’
‘Of course you are. You’ve just tried to throw everyone off the scent. You’re guilty as sin, you thieving cow!’
Tabatha stood up.
‘I’m not taking any more of this nonsense. We both know who’s behind this, and instead of doing the honourable thing you’re bringing these poor girls into your mess.’
‘Get out!’ screamed the Manager exploding with rage, ‘get the hell out of my shop!’ She leaped across the table and was halfway to Tabatha with nails bared and fangs ready to bite when Matthew seemingly came out of nowhere and tackled her into the side table.
The printer and lamp that had been sitting on it both smashed onto the floor and Ginger and I looked panic stricken at each other.
Only Sarah hadn’t budged an inch, completely encased in her own world.
Tabatha grabbed hold of my shoulders.
‘Look after her,’ she said, ‘don’t let her out of your sight.’
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘You’re fired!’ yelled Carol at Tabatha from under Matthew, ‘employment terminated! Get out of my shop!’
‘I’ve already resigned,’ Tabatha responded coldly, ‘twenty years of service and this is how you repay me. You need help, you’re not fit for purpose.’
I couldn’t cope.
I had never heard either of them talk like this.
Tabatha turned on her heel and walked out of the room leaving Carol’s anger to melt into tears, great moans of torment that seemed to come from the darkest parts of her soul.
I looked desperately at Matthew.
‘It’s alright,’ he said, ‘she’s been like this before.’
I couldn’t process what he was saying.
‘Where’s Sarah?’ he said. ‘Ginger, where did Sarah go?’
But Ginger was out of it too, staring dumbfounded at her Manager who had collapsed into so total a mess that she, like me, simply couldn’t compute the information unfolding before her eyes.
‘She was here,’ I said lamely, ‘she was just here.’
‘Find her,’ he said, rocking Carol to and fro, ‘you must find her.’
‘Why,’ I stammered, ‘what the hell’s going on, Matthew?’
‘Just find her. And take her to the staff room. I’ll meet you there. Go on.’
I ran from the room, my mind racing as fast as my legs, trying to make sense of what had just happened in the meeting room but completely unable to square it with any experience I’d had with any of these people before.
I checked the staff room, the office, the whole floor of the shop but I couldn’t find Sarah anywhere at all.
Where on earth had she disappeared to?
And why had both Tabatha and Matthew seemed so certain for her not to be left alone?
Then the answer came to me when I saw the door to the store was open.
I rushed over there.
I looked both ways down the street.
Then I glanced up.
Sarah was perching precariously on the first floor ledge of the shop opposite.
Chapter 3
LEAFY HOLLOW
‘No,’ I yelled, charging into our competitor’s premises, ‘Sarah, stop!’
‘Oh,’ mumbled the woman on their front till, barely looking up from the book she was reading, ‘it’s you again. Check the prices all you want, I don’t care anymore.’
‘I’m not here for that,’ I gasped, grabbing hold of the counter, ‘how do I get up to the, the second floor?’
That got her attention.
She looked over the top of her glasses, page-marked what I could now see was a romance novel, placed it on the table top before her and studied me intently.
‘Nobody,’ she said with immense seriousness, ‘goes up to the second floor.’
‘Well I’m going to, whether you help me or not.’
I started off with purpose, then realised I had no idea where I was heading. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘it’s my friend.’
And when I told her, she didn’t hesitate at all.
I’d been on the ground floor of Adrian’s countless times before.
Carol always sent me in to check their promotions so we could undercut as many of them as possible back over at Sheila’s.
I’d even been on the first floor once, nosing round the more exclusive stock until Leafy Hollow caught me and then bunged me out of his premises.
But the second floor, I’d never reached that far, and when we got there the atmosphere was chilled, charged and utterly haunting.
It was dark and dank, and there were large wooden crates stacked on top of each other right across the room.
I couldn’t see any sign of a window at all.
‘Sarah,’ I whispered, stumbling into one of the crates and hearing the sound of clinking glass, ‘where are you?’
Nothing. Not a murmur.
I tried again, but as I breathed her name the air caught and suffocated it with its inky shroud of darkness.
Then I stopped, looking desperately at my competitor. ‘We have got the right floor, haven’t we?’
‘The attic room, yes.’
On the first floor?’
‘No, second. You said second.’
‘I said first!’ I yelled at her, ‘for the love of God, she must be downstairs.’
‘You said second,’ the protesting voice came behind me as I raced out of the room, ‘nothing about the first.’
I don’t care, I thought, I don’t care about you and your stupid romance novel and your patronising stare over your glasses and your boss and your shop and my boss and my shop and my job and my life, I have to save Sarah.
I tore down the corridor on the first floor and barged my way into what I thought must be the staff room.
Only it wasn’t, it was Leafy Hollow’s office, and he was in there, and so was Sarah still balancing precariously on the window ledge.
‘Thank the Lord,’ I gushed, ‘you’re alright.’
‘Nice of you to spare a thought,’ he said, ‘but I really won’t be fine until this woman leaves my office.’
‘That woman,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘is Sarah Strumsum, and she’s my colleague. Sarah, please, come back inside.’
‘Yes, do. Then maybe we could all have a cup of tea, to calm yourselves down. Marvilyn, would you be so kind?’
Marvilyn bowed. ‘As you wish, my lord.’
My lord? If I hadn’t had my attention and concern fixed on Sarah, I think I would have burst into laughter.
My lord?
Who the hell did he think he was?
‘Sarah,’ I said, ‘please come inside.’
Marvilyn withdrew.
‘Why are you out there,’ said the Manager, ‘what’s your problem?’
‘Do you mind?’ I protested, ‘can’t you see the sensitivity of…’
But Sarah suddenly broke in.
‘What do you know about sensitivity? Half an hour ago you were telling that guy not to bother to talk to me.’
‘Oh,’ said Leafy Hollow, ‘and why was that?’
‘They hate me,’ continued my colleague,
‘every last one of them loathes and detests me. They’re pinning the blame on me, and I won’t have it anymore.’
‘If you just come in, Sarah,’ I said, ‘we can work it out.’
‘I’d stay out there if I were you,’ he scoffed, ‘you’re obviously not valued in the least by any of them.’
‘How can you be so callous?’ I seethed, ‘can’t you see she’s teetering on the edge?’
‘Yes I can,’ he replied loudly looking at his watch, ‘and she’s already cost me ten minutes of my time. Look here,’ he continued brashly to her, ‘there are two ways you can leave my shop, down there or in here. Make your mind up, and then get on with it.’
He sat down and consulted the screen of his computer on the desk before him.
I glared at him with hate.
He remained unmoved.
I edged past his desk and got myself to the ledge where I once again implored Sarah to come back inside.
‘I know who it is,’ she said, ‘I’ve got the proof.’
‘The thief?’
‘It’s a horrible thing. Why did they have to blame me?’
‘No one’s blaming you, Sarah, we’ll go back over the road and I’m sure we can sort the whole thing out.’
‘I’m not going back there. It’s a coven of witches!’
I couldn’t protest otherwise.
‘I thought you were different Emily, but now I know you’re just like the rest of them. You don’t care at all. No one does.’ She edged out a little nearer to the drop.
‘I do,’ I protested, moving closer to her myself. ‘I do care. Honestly, Sarah.’
‘No you don’t. You’ve changed. When I joined you were the friendliest girl there, but the place has worked its bad magic on you, just like everyone else. You won’t be far behind me, Emily Tranter, despair is a one-way street. Those bullies, I despise them.’
And with that she lost her balance, tipping out over the edge until I just managed to grab the cuff of her right wrist.
But she was heavy, and I couldn’t hold on for long.
‘Unmask the culprit,’ she implored me, no hint of fear in her eyes now, ‘and make sure I wasn’t in vain.’
She swiped away my hand and fell the short distance to the pavement below.