Thieving Fear

Rory widened his eyes once he was sure he would say only 'What's he been doing?'

'Behaving completely inappropriately for a Frugo employee. I'm not interested in what other people may get up to, but it won't do for anyone who wants to hold down a real job.'

Rory succeeded in maintaining restraint for Hugh's sake. 'You've not told me what he did yet.'

'I'm afraid I can't discuss it with you. I wouldn't want my employers to be sued for alleged slander. Some people seem happy to claim payment however they can. Of course I'm not referring to anyone specific.' As Rory tried to visualise the supervisor's fat smug face Justin said 'I take it you'll be visiting your brother. I hope you'll devote your efforts to helping him in any way you can.'

'I don't need you to tell me that,' Rory declared and rang off before he could say anything else. As long as the job was Hugh's choice he shouldn't jeopardise it any further. His fury grew as he listened yet again to the message, and he could scarcely wait for it to finish droning so that he could say 'Can't you answer, for Christ's bloody sake? I know you're not at work. It's me. It's your brother. Whatever's up, you can talk to me.'

His ignorance of the situation felt like a lump of nothingness at the centre of his brain, and capable of blotting out his thoughts. Suppose Hugh was indeed unable to answer? From the little Justin had implied, Rory suspected that Hugh might have given way beneath the accumulated pressures of the job or, to judge by Rory's solitary experience with them, of his workmates. When teaching had almost broken him down he hadn't wanted to admit it or even to speak to his family for weeks. Charlotte had sent him encouragement, Ellen had kept assuring him how much they all cared about him and would look after him, but Rory believed it had been his own roughness that had dragged Hugh out of the dark lonely pit he'd become. That sort of conversation, more like a monologue, was best conducted face to face, and Rory was already dressing. He shoved his feet into a pair of trainers that were muddy from the moors and hurried down the corridor to slam the door behind him.

The lift was a grey box for eight people, seven of them represented by space. Without its control panel and the midget door to the emergency phone it would have been entirely featureless. Well before it descended twelve floors Rory found the sight of little more than nothingness unwelcome. His mind must be narrowed down to worrying about his brother, because when he stepped out of the tower block the car park and the queues of vehicles on the main road seemed flattened by the sunlight, insufficiently present. He rubbed his eyes and blinked stickily as he headed for the van.

How hot was the interior? As he drove to the road he lowered the window, but wasn't sure if that made any difference. A Volvo almost blinded him with its high beams to indicate that it was making way for him. The traffic was reduced to pacing the pedestrians by roadworks that had occupied a lane. Rory closed the window, even though he couldn't smell the gathering fumes, and laid his mobile on the seat beside him as the traffic halted ahead.

A lorry that blocked most of his forward view crawled a yard before stopping with a muted flare of brake lights – grimy, they must be. Its next effort covered half the distance, and the eventual one after that even less. When Rory saw a gap alongside he swerved into it, only just ahead of a Rover, which flashed a blank patch into his eyes. Presumably its horn wasn't working, but the driver compensated with a vigorous mime. Now the traffic in the inner lane was overtaking Rory, and the length of the lorry kept him out, forging forwards beside him but never far enough to let him dodge behind. His fists were clenched so fiercely on the wheel that he'd ceased to feel them. A Peugeot in front of him surged ahead several yards, but not enough to overtake the lorry so that Rory might be able to. His frustration seemed to swell behind his eyes, clogging his senses, and for too many seconds he imagined he was hearing his own voice only in his head. 'Ring ring. Ring ring,' he said, or rather the phone did.

The speed of the traffic gave him time to glance at the display. Hugh was calling at last, and Rory was about to speak to him when the Peugeot advanced another few yards. The headlights of the Rover glared at once. He switched the mobile to loudspeaker mode and drove forwards, blinking his smudged eyes so fiercely that it felt like nervousness. 'You can hear me, can you?' he demanded.

'I think so.'

'Of course you bloody can or you wouldn't be answering.' Rory tilted his head towards the phone as he braked to a halt, and felt as if he were shouting down a well to his brother. 'How long does it take to return a call?'

'I couldn't find it.'

'Which?'

'This.' As Rory lost patience with being unable to see what was meant, Hugh said 'My phone.'

'All right, no panic. We're talking now. What's up?'

'I just told you.'

If that was enough to distress Hugh so much, worse must be wrong with him. 'Well, you've found it now,' Rory said. 'Hang onto it till I get there and keep talking if you want.'

'Not just the phone.'

'Christ, you're in a bad way, aren't you?' Rory said in case a dose of bluff humour might help. 'What else, then?'

'Everything.'

'Buggeration, that's a lot,' Rory said, though he suspected his attempts to buck Hugh up were falling short. 'Eh, don't you try to tell me what to do. I'll go where I want when it suits me.'

'Who's there? Who are you speaking to?'

'Just some twat in a flash car that thinks nobody's good enough to get in his way.' As the Peugeot had drawn alongside the cab of the lorry, the Rover had instantly glared in response. 'I'm on the road,' Rory said. 'I'll be with you when I can, but don't panic if I'm a while. It's a nightmare here.'

The Peugeot sprinted ahead of the lorry, but not as far as the length of his van. 'What did you say?' Hugh seemed less than anxious to learn.

Was his voice growing faint with emotion? 'Driving right now, it's a nightmare,' Rory said and closed the gap.

'What kind?'

'The kind that gets on your nerves.' In case this sounded like an accusation Rory said 'It's just a figure of speech.'

'It isn't. I'm in one now.'

The Peugeot gathered speed as the lorry did, and Rory saw that the roadworks had come to an end, opening the outer lane on the approach to a large busy roundabout. 'I'm out of mine,' he said. 'I should be with you very soon.'

'Are you certain?'

The Rover veered into the third lane, and Rory bade it a mute but expressive good riddance, which failed to revive much sensation in his hand as he returned it to the wheel. 'I don't know what'd stop me,' he said.

'I didn't mean that.'

The Rover sped onto the roundabout, and the lorry and the Peugeot were at the edge when Rory saw a gap in the circling traffic large enough to admit both the car ahead and the van. 'Let's leave it till I see you,' he said.

'Just answer me one thing first.'

The lorry and the Peugeot braved the roundabout, and Rory floored the accelerator. He needed the first exit, for which he was in the correct lane, but the lorry wasn't taking that route. As it blocked the exit at length Hugh said not quite faintly enough to be inaudible 'Nightmares.'

'Right, them.' Rory was going to have to circumnavigate the entire crowded roundabout. He would have welcomed a break from Hugh's commentary, but as he set about overtaking the lorry in the midst of the headlong traffic he was provoked to add 'What about them?'

'Have you started remembering any? Because –'

For a heartbeat Rory managed to believe that only the mobile had failed, and then he realised that he couldn't hear the vehicles all around him or even the van. At least he was more or less able to see, despite a blur unpleasantly suggestive of the notion that his eyeballs had grown an extra skin. He tried to blink them clear as he accelerated desperately past the next exit. At the second blink his vision was extinguished like an image on a television that had been switched off.