The Overnight

by Ramsey Campbell

  "And what do you think we're recommending to customers today?" Woody cries. "Nothing but Dressing Up, Dressing Down."

  "Two minds with just a thought between them, eh?" the man says in a Scottish accent thicker than Wilf is sure is genuine. "Whose was that, then?"

  He's jabbing a stubby thumb at Jill's window display, which largely consists of a bunch of his face. "She's not here right now," Woody says without letting his smile down. "Can I give her a message?"

  "Shall I bring the colour to her cheeks, Fiona?" says Brodie Oates. "Fiona's my personal girl from the publishers."

  Wilf is glad Agnes isn't there, especially since Fiona is eyeing the author as a mother might regard a brilliant but wilful child she can't resist indulging. "You won't upset her like you did the lady in the shop in Norwich, will you?" she appeals to him.

  "She shouldn't have let the wine run out." As Woody stiffens almost imperceptibly at that, Oates grants the display another glance. "Saw me as three persons, did she? I won't argue with that. Tell her, how do you Yanks put it? Tell her she done good."

  Woody's smile widens like a split in a tree about to fall. Before he can respond aloud, if indeed the expression would allow it, Oates says "Is that supposed to do me?"

  He's gazing across the shop at a table piled with copies of his novel. "Your publishers didn't tell us you needed anything else," Woody apologises for them or the shop.

  "Bad Fiona. What do you deserve?" Oates watches her blush while he says to Woody "You'll be keeping the alcohol behind the scenes, then."

  "I just have to scoot over to the supermarket for it."

  "They'll have stuff worth drinking there, will they? Chateauneuf will pass at a pinch." Oates stares at the space in front of the table of books. "Don't be stingy with my audience either," he says. "Nothing beats a few glasses to put them in a buying mood."

  Wilf can only imagine why Woody's smile is stretching even wider. "I'll take you up to the VIP lounge till they arrive," Woody says, covering the plaque on the wall with his badge. "Sesame. Sesame," he mutters, shoving at the door.

  He leads the way, leaving Wilf to trail after Fiona behind Oates. Wilf is on the lowest stair when the author says "So what did you make of my wee tale?"

  "I'm looking forward to reading a signed copy," Woody says at once.

  "Just so you'll be paying for it."

  "Sure I am. The store's entitled to expect it and so are your publishers. I don't believe in taking any gravy. I'm just a member of the team. The guy below you, now, he's read your book."

  "Aye?" Oates says and turns to Wilf. "What's the verdict, then?"

  Everyone has halted. Even Fiona is gazing at Wilf. In books people often wish the ground would swallow them, but he has always thought that was an exaggeration until now. "Truthfully …" he instantly wishes he hadn't said.

  "That's what we're waiting for fine right. Nothing less."

  "It gave me a migraine."

  Woody emits a startled laugh that doesn't quite go with his smile. "Och, the poor bairn's brain," wails Oates.

  Wilf tells himself that Oates isn't like Freddy Slater, however mocking he sounds. It had to have been Slater's fault that Wilf couldn't read the ending of the novel when he was under so much pressure to finish it, just as Slater gave him problems with War and Peace, which he was subsequently able to read with no trouble at home. Perhaps Slater has found someone else to torment or grown bored with it; Wilf hasn't seen him since. "Will you tell us what gave you the head?" says Oates.

  Woody looks so taken aback he almost drops his smile. Perhaps the question has a different significance for Americans. "The ending," Wilf admits.

  "Which was that?"

  Perhaps Oates isn't so unlike Slater as Wilf wanted to believe. Certainly he's making Wilf feel the way the final pages of the book did: incapable of reading or of understanding what he'd struggled to read. Wilf is grateful to Woody for saying "Shall we continue upstairs? Our events manager is anxious to meet you."

  Once he has held the staffroom door wide for Oates and Fiona he darts to call into the office "Connie, here's your celebrity."

  As she hurries out to offer her hand and spread her pink lips, Oates says "Is it you that's responsible for my show in the window?"

  "Would you like it to be?" When he bows over her hand and kisses it she says "Then I'm happy to be."

  "Jill made the window up, didn't she?" Wilf can't help blurting.

  "You don't know what Jill and I say to each other."

  Connie has forgotten to smile, but Woody turns his up. "Are you with us yet, Wilf?"

  Presumably he's asking if Wilf's working. Since it will reassure him that he can and remove him from present company, Wilf doesn't mind. "May as well be," he says, running his card along the slot beneath the clock.

  "Okay, take some chairs down and set them up. Connie, I'm just driving over to Frugo so we can be hospitable."

  Wilf props the staffroom door open with a chair and stacks five more on it and lumbers downstairs with them. He's halfway when the door shuts behind Woody and six chairs. "Something wrong with the elevator?" Woody says with no smile in his voice.

  "I thought this would be quicker."

  "So long as you're thinking of the store. Can we take it you're fully recovered?"

  "From the migraine, you mean."

  "Is anything else wrong with you?"

  He's descending faster than Wilf, who mumbles "Nothing to speak of."

  "First time you've suffered?"

  "I've never been that bad before," Wilf says, which at least is true enough.

  "So make sure you see Ray and fill in a sick form. Are we waiting for something?"

  The top chair jerks nervously close to Wilf's eyes at each step down, but he reaches the exit to the sales floor without dropping the chairs or tripping over them. As soon as Wilf hauls the door open Woody darts past, leaving him to struggle through the dwindling gap, beyond which he almost collides with the chairs Woody has abandoned. "Okay, you set these up," Woody says rapidly. "That's one thing I need to order in for occasions like this, more chairs. If anyone needs to stand this time they'll have to not mind."

  Wilf wonders how determined Woody is to hope. Just now the shop has fewer customers than chairs. "As long as we've got all night tonight," Woody murmurs, "why don't you stick around when you've finished setting up. It'll be good for him to know there's someone here from the store who's read his work. You can fill in with questions if you need to."

  Wilf can think of hardly anything he needs less; the situation brings an unidentifiable stale taste into his mouth. He takes his time over unstacking the chairs, as though this may somehow postpone the author's appearance. He has finished arranging them in rows of four in front of the table when two men with pates scraped almost bald, who have been sitting as still as their armchairs, drag those over to swell the back row. They resume their seats and revert to staring at the covers of the picture books each has propped on his lap. He's wondering whether they'll feel patronised if he tells them what the other chairs are for when the voice he would least like to hear accosts him from behind. "Have they promoted you already?"

  Wilf turns as slowly as he can, though it's childish to assume that will make Slater vanish. More than ever Slater's face resembles a moist translucent mask stuck on a wider lump of ruddy flesh. His mouth droops open as if encouraging Wilf to catch the joke or miming how cloddish he thinks Wilf is to miss it. "What do you mean?" Wilf almost manages not to ask.

  "Looks like they've made you chairman."

  He follows this with several times the mirth the joke deserves while he stands so close Wilf feels the laughter is being thrust in his face. He can't breathe until Slater has finished, by which point Wilf's mouth tastes clogged with fog. "Want to look something up for me?" Slater says then.

  "You'll have to ask at Information. I'm busy here."

  Slater lets his mouth fall open in such contemptuous disbelief that Wilf sets about rearranging the books on the tabl
e to prove him wrong. "That looks like the job for you all right," says Slater. "Shouldn't think even you could get those out of order."

  "I thought you wanted information. This is where people are coming to hear an author talk."

  "That's why I'm here. I was sure you'd be pleased I'm supporting your shop." Once he has left his mouth open for a while Slater adds "Your boss ought to be."

  Wilf's hands have begun to tingle and draw into fists as his mouth turns sourer. He fumbles with the books, but his fingers are so unwieldy that one copy sprawls off the table onto the floor. When he retrieves it, the open pages are smeared with mud. It will have to go to Nigel as a damaged copy. Wilf is staring at Slater to place the blame when people start to converge on the chairs.

  He would be grateful for the distraction if they weren't the writers' group he had to abandon. Before he can move away from Slater their spokeswoman, chosen or otherwise, marches over to him. Her grey hair is piled snakelike on top of her head, and she's wearing more colours than ever. "Have you made any sense of it?" she enquires.

  "What can't he make sense out of now?" Slater is avid to hear.

  "He has problems with the ending like the rest of us."

  She has taken an instinctive dislike to Slater, who turns his retort on Wilf. "Got the rest of it though, did you?"

  "I'd have said so."

  "What's it all about, then?"

  For once Wilf feels as if Slater's handing him punch lines. "You'll have to read it and decide for yourself." Wilf hesitates, but not long enough to resist saying "If you can."

  "Don't you be giving anybody the idea I'm the one that can't read, Wiffle."

  "You aren't suggesting this gentleman can't," the woman in the rainbow garb objects. "He wouldn't be working here."

  Slater is only starting to dangle his lower jaw when she presents him with her considerable back. Wilf doesn't know what Slater might be capable of calling after her about him or telling him for everyone to hear if there weren't an interruption. Woody has returned quicker than Wilf could have expected the fog to allow anyone to be. "Buying that? Good for you," he says of the book in Wilf's hand.

  Wilf is suddenly afraid that Slater will accuse him of damaging it, but Woody gives nobody a chance to speak. "Welcome to our first Fenny Meadows author appearance," he smiles as he clears a space on the table for six bottles of wine and a pillar of plastic cups. "Our famous guest will be with you momentarily," he says more jubilantly still, uncorking a red and a white. "Please have a drink on the store. That's everybody except staff."

  He keeps his smile towards the gathering until he's well on his way to the staffroom, but Wilf wonders if he's concealing disappointment at the size of the audience. Two more people—a man in a creaky yellow oilskin jacket and a woman in denim, even her feet—join it, perhaps attracted by the wine. Most of the writers approach the table for Wilf to serve them too. Slater grabs the red and fills a cup almost to the brim for himself, then sits on the front row as Connie ushers Oates and his publicist onto the sales floor. The author halts at once and jabs an upturned hand at the audience as though testing for rain. "Are they it?"

  "I think we may have to blame the fog," says Connie.

  "Fog's fault, is it?" he says and stares at Fiona. "Not the publicity by any chance."

  "We leafleted everywhere we could think of," Connie assures him.

  A murmur passes through the audience, making Wilf nervous for her sake in case anyone mentions the misprint. Perhaps it sounds to Oates as though the audience is supporting her. "Don't I rate a chair?" he growls at Wilf.

  As Wilf picks up the solitary unoccupied seat from the front row, Slater comments "You wouldn't expect him to know how to deal with a writer."

  Wilf plants the chair behind the table and retreats to hide as much of his embarrassment on the back row as he can while Connie stands next to Oates. When she describes him as the author of one of the year's most talked-about novels he gives her a dissatisfied scowl and himself a second cupful of wine that earns a scowl too. "Are we pissed enough for this yet? Dunno if I am," he says once she has finished, and empties the last of the bottle into his cup. "I hear some of you didn't get my ending."

  "Make that all," the rainbow woman says from the front row.

  "Well," Connie just about protests at her back, but Oates ignores both of them. He opens a copy of Dressing Up, Dressing Down and then another, and props the latter up in front of him. "Let's test if you've room in your wee heads for this."

  Wilf ought to be able to relax while being read to. No doubt Woody is addressing the rest of the afternoon shift, even if that should be Nigel's job. Surely Woody isn't spying on the sales floor from his office, and so Wilf has no reason to feel observed while hearing how a Victorian detective takes his clothes off to reveal he's a jewel thief who removes hers and proves to be an army sergeant, except that beneath her uniform she's a chanteuse who is really a detective or rather, once stripped, simply a naked man at a computer in a room overlooking Edinburgh. He lifts his gaze to his audience—he does, and so does Oates, if there's any difference—and indicates the various costumes. "Your turn now," he says. "Your choice. Try it on."

  He feeds himself more wine before Wilf can judge from his expression whether the last phrase is intended as a joke and if so on whom. When the writers start to mutter, Wilf takes them to be sharing his suspicion until the rainbow woman gives them more of a voice. "That's not what it says in the book."

  "It is in this one."

  She elevates her eyebrows until they resemble quotation marks framing a silent question. As Oates busies himself with uncorking another bottle of red wine, she asks almost loud enough to be heard upstairs "Are you telling us there's more than one ending?"

  "Different final pages, aye. The rest of the book won't show you which you've got. It's my belief you shouldn't know where you're bound till you arrive, any more than I did. I expect you agree, being writers."

  "Sounds more like you want to make people buy two copies."

  "Wouldn't you?"

  She's gazing at him as though she doesn't care for either meaning of his query when Slater peers over his shoulder at Wilf. "Which one have you got?"

  "I couldn't tell you offhand."

  "I'd be interested to hear," Oates says, draining his cup to make room for a refill. "Which is it?"

  Wilf feels as though the author is siding with Slater against him. He glances at the last page of the damaged copy and shuts the book. "The one you just read to us."

  "I've never seen you read that fast or anything like," Slater objects. "Are you sure you did?"

  "Of course he did," says Connie, and turns a puzzled smile to Wilf. "What's this about?"

  "Go on, Lowell, you show us. Show us all how you read."

  What's making him behave this way? Wilf wouldn't have believed he could at his age. He has a suffocating impression that by reverting Slater is forcing him to return to childhood too. He wills Connie to confront his tormentor, but she only looks bemused. "Nobody's come to hear me," Wilf succeeds in protesting. "I'm not the author."

  "Maybe the author would like to hear one of his readers do it," Slater says.

  "Now you mention it, I might," says Oates, raising his half-empty cup to encourage Wilf. "Go on, do me the favour. Let's hear what it means to you."

  Some of the writers, not to mention the denimed woman and the oilskinned man, are staring at Wilf by now, the rainbow woman hardest of all. It feels exactly like being forced to stand up in class, though he's crouching over the book as though it's a pain in his knotted guts. Are they the source of the unpleasant stagnant taste? As he lowers his eyes to the novel he finds himself praying that it will somehow offer him a refuge. He glares at the last page and tries to free himself from the sight of it by speaking. "I told you," he says, and as clearly as he's able "Your turn now. Your choice. Try it on."

  "That isn't the whole page, is it?" When Oates shakes his head so vigorously his jowls have trouble catching up, Slater says
"You could have memorised that, Lowell. Give us the rest."

  It's only because Wilf can't face the spectators that his gaze is dragged down to the page. The prospect is worse than ever. The paper is strewn with black marks, bunches of symbols that he tells himself are letters without being capable of naming even one. Isn't e the commonest? Perhaps if he spots which mark occurs most often, that will unlock his recognition of the others, the way cryptographers break codes—but he's still counting frantically under his breath when Connie says "I really think I need to know what's going on."

  "Let's see," says Slater, and sits next to Wilf before he can think of shutting the book. "Thought as much. Will you tell her, Lowell, or shall I?"

  His mouth sags wide as if this is his best joke, and Wilf can think of only one response. "I'm buying this," he informs whoever ought to know as he rips a handful of pages out of the novel and stuffs them in Slater's mouth.

  He wishes he'd thought of such a retort years ago, but it's worth having waited to see his enemy's eyes bulge with shock. Either that or Wilf's vehemence sends Slater over backwards. As he and the chair thump the floor Wilf follows him down and kneels on his chest. "Want the rest?" Wilf enquires with a smile he thinks Woody might be proud of. "My pleasure. Swallow this."

  He's surrounded by noises—gasps from women, Connie repeating his name increasingly loud and sharp, the men in the armchairs grunting with laughter or approval—but he's mostly aware of a choked sodden mumble, Slater's stopped-up words. He has even less to say for himself now than Wilf used to have in class, which is so satisfying that Wilf doesn't immediately relent when Woody's voice rushes out of the staffroom exit. "Stop that," he shouts more than once on the way to stooping close enough to confront Wilf with saliva glistening within his smile. "Enough," Woody urges. "Enough."