Free The Overnight by Ramsey Campbell Page B

eyelashes until Sean flicks it away with a fingertip. "I'll make sure I am."
    Angus is behind the counter and not quite watching them, but muffled embarrassment seems to be his natural state. Mad's could be tidying the children's section, and as she heads back to it from finding a car-repair manual for a customer, she flashes Jake and Sean a smile. Otherwise the only people to be seen are two men in the armchairs by Erotica, their heads so nearly bald they might almost be monks meditating on how little of the world they've time for. Lorraine slaps the plaque by the door up to the staffroom with her badge and then takes enough time on the stairs for Jake to feel dragged down by the chill the bare walls have trapped. There are voices beyond the door at the top, and Ray is at the head of the staffroom table. "Morning, both," he says as Lorraine opens the door. "Now my team's complete."
    That comes with a grin as untidy as his reddish neck-length variously curly hair, but Lorraine won't be charmed. "We aren't on for two minutes."
    "No harm in getting started as soon as we can, is there?" When she removes her card from the Out rack but only holds it, Ray sucks his mouth small and wry while he twitches his eyebrows up and down before the vaguely amiable expression returns to his jowly pinkish face. "I hope we all saw the match at the weekend," he says.
    "Which was that?" says Wilf.
    "Only one it could be, isn't there?" Ray practically shouts, perhaps not realising that Wilf is more polite than interested. "Manchester United giving Liverpool the boot two-nil."
    Wilf, Jill and Agnes deliver a muted dutiful cheer, and Ross counters with a boo faint enough to be comical. "Now, now, let's be sporting," Nigel calls from his desk in the office while Greg contents himself with a reproving blink at Gavin's latest yawn. "Aren't you two taking sides?" Ray asks the newcomers.
    "Not between men," says Lorraine and slides her card under the clock. "I don't see much difference, I'm afraid."
    Jake waits until he's clocking on to say "Why would I want to watch a lot of boys with bare thighs chasing one another?"
    Nearly everyone laughs, though he isn't sure how many feel forced into it. Lorraine takes the seat Ross kept for her, and Greg slides his behind slightly away from Jake, who sits between him and Wilf as Ray passes out the Woody's Wheedles sheets. "Looks as if the boss has been putting the old brain to work," Ray comments.
    "That's what it's for," Woody says as he strides out of his office. "Okay, let me do the talking. Faster that way."
    "Want my seat?"
    "I'll stand. Want to hear the bad news first?"
    "You're in charge," says Ray.
    "There is no good news. First month's sales, the worst for any branch of Texts."
    "That'll be because people are still finding out we're here, do you think?"
    "Swung on and missed, Ray. Worst sales for anybody's opening month."
    "Christmas has to help, won't it?"
    "Pre-Christmas sales growth, worst for any store. Figures for last weekend, guess what? The worst." His narrowed eyes might be searching for culprits until he says "Okay, that's what we have to fix. Who has ideas?"
    Ray has had enough of playing straight man, and nobody else wants the job. Woody tilts his gaze up as if searching for ideas beneath the flattened black turf of his hair and rubs his face almost expressionless. "Anyone. Anything," he says. "Make me feel we're a team."
    To Jake it feels more like being back at school—like being asked a question nobody wants to be the first to answer, especially since Ray seems to think he's entitled to wait on Woody's behalf. At last Lorraine says "Could it be where we are?"
    "You need to give me more than that."
    "Fenny Meadows. Would anybody want to come here if they didn't work here?"
    Several mouths are opening when Woody says "You'll tell me why not."
    "Maybe they don't see it till it's too late."
    "You're making me do a whole lot of work. Too late for what?"
    "I mean, maybe they don't see the signs.