Thieving Fear

They were passing the checkout desks. Hugh might have terminated the interrogation by taking a longer route to the staff quarters, but the ground floor seemed bewilderingly crowded, not least with children for some reason out of school. He couldn't escape Mishel's contribution to the survey. 'Don't you want her knowing you care?'

'She'd know how he feels just from looking at his face. Ooh, I don't know what kind of feeling that's supposed to be, though.'

Was it betraying more nervousness than he preferred to understand? He trailed the girls to the Staff Only door beside the shelves of Frugogo energy drinks. Beyond it a concrete passage almost featureless except for staff notices all entitled GO FRUGO! led past the staffroom to the toilets. As she pushed open the door marked female, Mishel turned on Hugh. 'Why are you following us now?'

'I have to go as well.'

'Not in here you don't,' she said while Tamara retorted 'That's right, away from us.'

As they stalked into female he hurried past to male. Opposite the door a concrete wall sported oval urinals, out of sight from the corridor, while the wall at right angles was occupied by cubicles green-eyed with vacant signs. The urinals faced a row of sinks beneath a mirror, and Hugh glimpsed his reflection as he crossed the room. That must be why he had to overcome an impression that someone was there with him or at any rate uncomfortably close, unless it was his awareness that the girls were next door. He couldn't hear them, and surely they couldn't overhear his trickling in the porcelain. The fluorescent lights hummed as if trying to display nonchalance on his behalf. He zipped up his flies, although he felt nervous enough for the action to seem premature, and headed for the sinks. He saw his reflection turn to face him, and at once he had no idea which way either of them had turned.

He was straight ahead, but that was no help. The exit was to the left or right, whichever contained most of the maddeningly monotonous hum, although how could that be true in the mirror as well? He could see the door twice, and he only wished that were twice as helpful. He snatched his hands back from a gush of aggressively hot water and sidled alongside his distressed reflection to rub them under the snout of the hand dryer. The machine was still exhaling without having stopped for breath when he heard the girls emerge into the corridor. At once, in a panic that felt as if a hole had opened under his guts, he realised that only the girls' banter had prevented him from grasping that unless he'd followed them into the staff quarters he wouldn't have known which way to go.

He lurched towards their voices and into the corridor. Mishel emitted more of a gasp than he quite believed was genuine, and Tamara said 'Don't bother trying to scare us.'

'Nobody needs to be scared,' Hugh did his utmost to believe.

'Why are you wandering after us now?' Mishel demanded.

'I have to go to work too, haven't I?'

So long as he stayed behind them they would lead him to his section next to theirs. They emerged among the bottled drinks, where a younger man whom Hugh couldn't have named without reading his badge was restocking the shelves. If Justin had left Hugh in charge of them he mightn't be at such a loss. Were the girls trying to lose him? Was this another of their sly games? As he dodged shoppers and their equally sluggish trolleys Tamara veered into a side aisle, Mishel into another. He nearly cried out to them to stop, but he mustn't betray his condition. He struggled past two double-parked trolleys and dashed after Mishel, who turned on him. 'What do you think you're playing at, Hugh Lucas?' she said loud enough for customers to hear.

'Nothing.' Since this seemed feebly defensive, he tried retorting 'I was going to ask you that. Can't we just walk along like workmates?'

'You know what, I think you're a bit sick in the head.'

'More than a bit,' Tamara said, having arrived at his back.

He had to deny it before he was out of another job. As he twisted around to keep both girls in view, however, he saw what he'd been in too much of a hurry to notice: he was faced by shelves of feminine necessities that couldn't have been any more intimate. His face blazed, and he would have fled if he'd known which way to turn. A straggle of schoolchildren appeared behind Tamara, visibly attracted by the prospect of an argument, and Hugh was about to retreat when Justin blocked the other end of the aisle. 'What on earth are you doing there?' he said well before reaching Hugh.

'I was with them.'

'You were no such thing,' Tamara declared.

'He was harassing us again.'

'You keep doing it to me,' Hugh complained. 'You've got me so I can't think.'

Justin glanced at each of the girls in turn before waving Hugh away with a regal gesture that smelled of the latest deodorant. 'Get where you belong and be quick about it. I'll be having a word with you later.'

As Hugh blundered past Tamara he had an oppressive sense that someone was delighting in his situation, which was why he couldn't help blurting 'Aren't you supposed to be at school?'

'They're here at the invitation of your manager.'

This information was provided by an at least middle-aged woman as severe as her grey suit. Too late Hugh noticed that the children had clipboards, though nobody was writing on them. 'Thinking of getting a job here when you grow up?' he blustered, which was less than placatory, since he was gazing at the teacher while he struggled to remember which way he ought to turn. The ranks upon ranks of merchandise seemed to be arranged with no logic he could grasp, and he couldn't see the sign for his section, never mind the aisles themselves. In desperation he swerved away from Justin as the supervisor caught up with him. He'd taken several paces before Justin said 'Where are you gadding off to now?'

Hugh spun around and marched in the opposite direction. Justin waited for him to be well past and then said 'Not that way either. Having a joke? I don't see anybody laughing.'

Somebody was, however silently. Hugh felt almost suffocated by their secret glee. When he heard a stifled giggle he rounded on it and saw a boy covering his mouth. He and two companions were skulking at the back of the school group and up, Hugh was sure, to no good. In a moment he realised – the clearest thought in his mind, the only clear one – that they already had been. 'I know you,' he warned them. 'You were on the bus.'

More than one of them wanted to be told 'Who says?'

'You know you were. You know I know.'

This suggested he was clinging to the only knowledge he had, and he was about to remind them what else he knew when the teacher addressed Justin. 'Excuse me, is this the way you usually treat your visitors?'

'It isn't, and it can stop right now. What are you waiting for, Hugh?'

Hugh felt as if the secret glee were pinning him to the spot, surrounding him with his aggravated confusion. 'They were smoking,' he informed the teacher. 'Not just smoking smoking either.'

'We never, Hugh,' the boy with the giggle said.

'William,' the teacher said, but then, more reprovingly to Hugh 'Excuse me, if you have something to say –'

'Cannabis.'

'I beg your pardon?'

She might almost have taken him to be offering, given her tone. 'That's what they were smoking,' Hugh insisted.

'And may I ask how you're so sure?'

'Yes,' Justin said quite as heavily. 'I'd like to know that too.'

'Oh, come on. You'd both have been able to tell. Everyone can these days.'

'I most certainly can't, and I hope none of you can.' Having been rewarded by various demonstrations of innocence from her charges, the teacher stared hard at Hugh. 'I'm afraid,' she said, 'I think there's only one way anyone would know.'

'Which way?' Hugh pleaded, inflaming his panic. 'What are you trying to say about me?'

'He's a druggie,' someone whispered.

'I'm nothing of the sort. Who said that? Too scared to own up? Can't you keep your children under control? Isn't that your job?'