I print the wordLeprazineacross the top of the paper, clear and legible. At the bottom, in the lower right corner, I add a small circle in which I print two dots and a curved, smiling mouth. I don’t try to hide it. There’s no point. One way or another, he’ll see it.
“You’d better hurry,” I tell him as I hand it over. “You want to get back before it starts to snow.”
He sees the smiley face. “Cute.”
It’s all he says. I almost don’t believe it, watching him pocket that receipt. I felt sure he would sense something wrong or feel the crumpled texture of the paper that would give me away. Even as he turns away and trudges back up the stairs, I can’t relax, not quite. Panic is still burrowing into me, a sharp-toothed little mammal. I don’t know if it will ever stop.
21
There’s a man waiting outside the doors when Suzie gets to work that morning. He appears brittle and agitated, pacing back and forth. Her first thought is that he’s waiting on the methadone clinic, but that’s been moved eleven miles away to the next town. Teddy says that Idless needs cleaning up, but Suzie knows it’s just what happens when towns get bigger. It’s economic. Where there is poverty, there are drugs. She feels sorry for the man in the big overcoat and scruffy boots, the way his eyes shift when he sees her.
She gives him one of her patented Suzie White hundred-watt smiles. “Be open in a few minutes. You okay to wait? It’s pretty cold.”
“Sure.”
“If you’re desperate, the pharmacy in the shopping center is twenty-four hours. There’s also the addiction clinic in Truro, if that’s what you need.”
“I’m okay, I’ll wait.” He gives her a grin of his own, revealing crooked yellow teeth. Not an addict, then, she thinks, but he looks like he hasn’t showered in a few days, his eyes pouched with fatigue.
Inside, Suzie flicks on the lights from the bank of switches onthe wall and starts counting out the float for the till, one eye on the clock above the door. She’d missed her jog that morning, opting instead to lie a little longer in bed, but now she feels cranky and out of sorts, her joints stiff. The radio had warned that snow was sweeping in, which means there will be queues at the supermarket this evening. Suzie doesn’t know what’s got into people these days. Ever since the pandemic, it seems like people want to panic-buy at the first sign of a crisis. When the Idless River flooded its banks last year, there had been signs up in the windows of the mini-mart:ONLY ONE PACK OF BREAD PER CUSTOMER!
The world’s gone nuts, she thinks, glancing back to the door. There’s no rain, but there is a fine mist snaking over the pines. It’s cold too. She can see that just by looking at the waiting man with his collar up and his hands dug deep in his pockets. His shoulders are hunched, head down. Poor guy, she thinks. Suzie is soft-hearted. Teddy is always telling her so. She switches on the radio and lifts the hatch that separates the counter from the shop floor so she can walk through, pulling her keys from her pocket and sorting through them.
“Can’t leave you out there like a wet dog.” She smiles as she opens the door to allow him in. There is no one else outside at this time, just a few pigeons sheltering beneath the raised flower beds on the precinct. “Come on in where it’s warm.”
“Thanks.”
Suzie takes another look at him as he brushes past her. She wishes she hadn’t made the comment about wet dogs, because that’s exactly how he smells. Damp and muddy, as if he has been sleeping in the earth. He doesn’t lower his hood or remove his cap, and when she smiles, he does not return it. Suzie walks quickly back behind the counter. There’s a panic button back there, and an automatic grille which rolls down from the ceiling if there’strouble. Suzie had always thought it was for her protection, but Teddy had pointed out it was to prevent access to the valuable prescription drugs that were kept back there.They’re not protecting you, Teddy had laughed, ruffling her hair,it’s the profits, silly!
Now, why am I thinking about that right this moment?Suzie asks herself, shaking her head a little. She doesn’t usually mind being in here alone—she enjoys the silence and the feeling of getting ready for the day, a quiet sort of productivity—but now her stomach flutters anxiously and she moves a little closer to that panic button as the man approaches the counter.
“Hey.” He plants both hands on the counter and leans forward a little. “Can you help me out with a medication? I’m looking for, uh, Leprazine.”
Suzie frowns. “Leprazine? Do you know what it’s used for?”
He laughs softly, and she’s struck again by that strange sensation that she can’t quite put her finger on, like déjà vu.
“I’m not entirely sure. It’s for my fiancée, who spent some time in hospital recently. It’s almost certainly something for her head.”
“Like an injury? Is it a painkiller?”
Another laugh. But it has no depth, Suzie thinks. It’s just a sound he’s making out of his mouth, that’s all.
“No, she—uh, she went a little crazy back in the summer and wound up in hospital.”
“Okay. Leprazine. Can you spell it for me?”
The man rummages in his big pocket and pulls out a crumpled note. It’s small, no bigger than the palm of his hand, and as he begins smoothing it out on the counter, Suzie’s heart sinks. His hands are dirty and so is that paper by the looks of it—soft with damp and slightly curled at the edges. Without thinking about it, she gets out the hand sanitizer and squirts it into her palms.
“There.” He stabs a finger at the shaky writing at the top of the page. “Leprazine. You heard of it?”
Suzie can only stare, a sound like a long, high whistle ringing in her ears. It’s not the word itself—which she’s pretty sure isn’t something the pharmacy carries in their precious stock out back—but at that little smiley face drawn in the lower right corner.
“No.” Her voice is slightly strangled as she reaches for the paper and pulls it toward her. “But I’ll go take a look. You mind if I take this?”
“Be my guest.”
Some memories are like bullets, Suzie knows. The impact of them can lift you off your feet. This memory is one of those, taking her right out of the pharmacy and into a cramped school toilet cubicle, trying not to breathe in the rancid perfume of ammonia and limescale, the sickly yellow gels the cleaners pour into the toilets. Hazel and Abigail are with her, the three of them gathered tightly together like a coven, voices low and husky. Hazel pulls out a candle stump from her pocket and sets it on top of the cistern. Her eyes are bright and luminous, her tongue coated red with cherry Wonderland.