Thieving Fear

'That's perfectly fine. I have myself. Need a taxi? Want me to walk you to the station?'

'You get your reading out of the way, Glen. Maybe I can work on Ellen's idea while I'm walking.'

'Ever the professional,' he said and ushered her to the street. As she turned to say good night he clasped her hands and dealt her a kiss more lingering than she was quite prepared for. When she flexed her fingers he released her and backed down a step.

'Thanks for everything, Glen. See you on Monday,' Charlotte said and managed not to rub her hands on her skirt until she was hundreds of yards away. She wasn't trying to rub away Glen's touch, nor was she fleeing the sight of his jerky descent. She was simply anxious to leave behind the image of a figure reaching up to draw her into the dark.

EIGHT

Hugh had almost finished stripping the left side of aisle thirteen of tins when Tamara and Mishel sauntered out of the cosmetics section. At first they seemed content to pose at the end of his aisle, so that any passing customers might have taken them to be promoting dietary aids and blondeness, and then Tamara said 'You're being very fruity, Hugh.'

He was able to believe she had the contents of the tins in mind until Mishel enquired 'Are you fond of fruits, Hugh?'

'Some.' When the girls pouted to prompt him he admitted 'I like pears.'

Tamara unleashed a delighted squeal. 'I'll bet.'

'Not in tins. Too sweet for me.'

'He likes them out in the open with nothing on,' Mishel declared.

Hugh felt his cheeks begin to flare red. 'It's the syrup I don't like,' he tried saying.

'He doesn't like that slimy gooey stuff,' Tamara spluttered.

'You haven't told us pairs of what, Hugh.'

'I'm talking about fruit.' The heat spread over his face as he grabbed cans in both hands to add them to the stacks on the floor. 'I thought you were,' he mumbled.

'Oh, we are,' Tamara said. 'Don't you like dates?'

'Only at Christmas.'

'That's too long to wait for one, isn't it, Tam? You must like passion fruit, Hugh.'

'I've never had it.'

Even before they greeted this with cries of sympathy Hugh realised he could have phrased it better. He turned his blazing face to the shelves and lifted down tin after chilly tin, which didn't prevent Mishel from asking 'Don't you like a nice juicy melon?'

He had the impression that she was aiming her prominent breasts at him, but nothing could happen if he stared straight ahead. 'No,' he muttered.

'Now you're sounding like a lemon, Hugh.'

'An old prune, more like,' said Mishel.

'I think he's being a prickly pear.'

Hugh thought he saw a way to join in. 'At least I'm not an ugli fruit.'

There was silence while he shifted two armfuls of cans, and then Mishel said 'That's verbal abuse, that.'

'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.'