Collected Stories (17 page)

Then she looked up and for three seconds their eyes met. It seemed to Andrew’s inflamed imagination that there was a flicker of recognition. Then she lowered her head and he was left in a limbo of pain.

Andrew went back to toying with his own meal, mentally listing a number of unpalatable truths. ‘You are forty-five,’ he told himself, ‘ugly, balding and probably impotent. Suppose the impossible were to happen and she offered herself to you - what would you do with her? ’

The answer was simple, of course. Nothing. But his madness lay beyond the realms of reason. He wanted to touch, look and own. Then he looked up and a great surge of relief made him want to laugh out aloud. She was gone. A half-empty plate and an abandoned knife and fork were the only evidence that she had ever existed. Andrew Nesbitt was like a man who has walked to the gallows, then at the last minute, been reprieved.

‘Thank God,’ he muttered. ‘I am still free.’

* * *

The evening had surrendered its grey body into the dark arms of night, when Andrew Nesbitt made his way towards the church.

He was not a religious man - his faith had died long ago - but the midnight service on Christmas Eve still held for him the magic of childhood. The stained-glass windows, the subdued lights, the swelling organ music, the singing voices - again he would be truly alone in a crowd; a member of a congregation, yet not of it.

People sat in groups, occasionally exchanging low whispers as though somewhere - probably behind the candle-lit altar - there was a sleeping deity who must not be wakened. Andrew slid into an empty pew and allowed the warm, burnt candle atmosphere to close in around him. The ghosts of the long dead must surely haunt old churches. The world outside might be an alien, frightening place, but here was a pocket of time, where only those memories which were comforting, need be preserved. He was playing with this fantasy when the organ began its melodious music and the choir filed out of the vestry. He did not join in the responses, but he did sing those carols which he knew; the prayers he ignored, merely bowing his head and lapsing into thought.

A sound disturbed him. It was low, not more than a choking sigh, but at once his attention was alerted and he jerked his head round in sudden alarm. The girl from the restaurant was sitting on the far end of the pew and she appeared to be crying. Anger and a fierce joy made his heart beat faster; they were followed almost at once by a sense of frustration, Sad or happy she could do no more than disturb his peace of mind. The isolation which cut him off from the rest of his fellow creatures, would not - could not - exclude her. He watched the slight trembling of her shoulders and was relieved that the mane of auburn hair hid her face. When they rose to sing the next carol, he was only too aware that she was not singing, and suddenly the urge to look sideways could not be resisted.

His eyes came round, then froze into a shocked star She was watching him. The beautiful, tear-filled eyes looked straight into his and they seemed to flash an appeal - a plea for help that frightened and confused him. Then she abruptly turned and left the pew, pausing once to look back at him over her shoulder, and walked quickly towards the main door.

The remainder of the service was a period of exquisite torture. He should have followed her out. Now he would never know why, and live the rest of his life under the shadow of a giant question mark.

The congregation filed out of church and dispersed, leaving Andrew to walk his lonely way across the square. It was when he reached the narrow dark passage leading to the main street, that the girl came out from the shadows and said: ‘Please, help me.’

At that moment he knew his life would never be the same again. Up till then the world had been populated by two kinds of people - him and them. Now someone had broken the barrier. He said: ‘What can I do? ’

She came close to him and the beautiful grey eyes searched his face.

‘You must know.’

For an awful moment he wondered if she was a prostitute who had the originality to procure her clients from a church, and a sick joke flashed across his brain, ‘Lust after righteousness.’ He dismissed the thought as ridiculous. There was a terrible fear in those eyes, he could almost taste the terror. ‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘But - you’re one of us.’

He shook his head in bewilderment.

‘I still don’t understand ...’

She repeated the statement with more emphasis.

‘You are one of us. Please - you must help me.’

She gripped his arm and began to pull him into the passage. ‘You know ... Come quickly ...’

He was led - pulled like a half-reluctant mule - along the passage and out into a narrow street. Presently the girl began to speak.

‘I only went out for an hour. He seemed all right and I had to get away for a while. I’ve had to watch him for three weeks - you know how it is. Then when I got back . . .’

She began to cry again and Andrew, not knowing the cause of her grief, could only pat her hand and make sympathetic noises. Presently she was able to continue.

‘I never expected to see you in church. I only went there in desperation - you know. The vibrations are sometimes pretty strong in those places. Then I recognized you from the hotel dining-room. Did you get my message? ’

'Message? ’ he repeated the word dully.

She gave him a quick glance. ‘You’re a non-receptive, aren’t you? Must be, or you would have followed me out. But I knew I couldn’t be mistaken - I picked up your mental image. You are one of the few. What’s your name?’

Andrew had not parted with his Christian name for over twenty years and now it seemed he was committing some kind of sacrilege. ‘Nesbitt - Andrew - Andrew Nesbitt.’

‘I am Janet Gurney. Have you got a cocoon-knife on you?’ ‘Knife!’

‘No, I don’t suppose you have. Non-receps never seem to carry anything useful. How you manage in an emergency, I don’t know. Never mind, I’ve sharpened up some carvers at home. Can you walk a bit faster? ’

Andrew obediently lengthened his stride until they were walking a little too fast for comfort. But the girl did not appear in the least distressed and continued to talk in a normal tone.

‘He looked awful when I got back from the restaurant - all blown up and surface-hardening had taken place. You know what I mean. But he was still able to speak - there were no air-bubbles in the windpipe - and he said: “Try to find one of us, you’ll never be able to handle this on your own.” It was then I thought of you. Wasn’t I lucky I found you in that church? ’

He said, ‘Yes,’ not knowing what else to say, and uncomfortably aware that they were moving swiftly through streets that looked neither respectable nor healthy. At last she stopped at a door to the right of a dilapidated bookshop, and, fumbling in her coat pocket, produced a Yale key.

‘It’s only two flights up,’ she said as they trudged up a dimly lit staircase. ‘The change-over hit him on the first landing. I had an awful job getting him up to our rooms. Thanks be to All-Power, no one saw him.’

The second landing was an evil place with a single green- painted door, lit by a twenty-five watt bulb. Janet Gurney opened the door and hurried into the room beyond. Andrew followed and watched the girl as she slipped out of her coat, allowing it to fall to the floor.

‘Go into the bedroom,’ she nodded towards another door, ‘and I will put some water on to boil. See what you think of him. We have about three hours before he strangles.’

She went into what was presumably the kitchen and left Andrew staring at the closed bedroom door. Questions reared up like venomous snakes and demanded answers. Every instinct ordered him to leave that awful room and run back to the world he understood. But he knew he was at the mercy of the demon with a blank face. Curiosity. He must know what lay behind the bedroom door, even if that knowledge meant madness.

The door with its cracked paint and dented brass handle, seemed to deny that it would hide anything that could shock or horrify. It might be disgusting, possibly, even revolting. Andrew could imagine a room with faded wallpaper, a bed with soiled sheets and curtains that hung in tattered drapes. But not something that required a knife before it strangled. He closed his eyes, opened them, took a deep breath, then opened the door and went in.

The room did justice to his imagination. The pink wallpaper was faded, the green curtains were dusty and moth-eaten and the sheets, which were flung back over the end of the bed, were most certainly soiled. Like a reluctant snail, he crept towards the bed and whatever lay naked upon it. He tried not to believe the evidence of his dilated eyes. His paralysed brain was numb with horror. What was it? He remembered, with that curious memory reflex that sometimes operates in moments of stress, an advertisement for car tyres that depicted a grotesque rubber man. The thing on the bed could well have been a duplicate. The skin - if indeed the dark grey, flaccid substance could be so called - was ridged in deep, rounded folds from bulging head to bloated foot. The eyes and mouth were buried in six-inch deep pits; the fingers and toes merely ridged stumps. The continuous, obscene movement sent Andrew screaming to the door. Every ridge pulsated, and at regular intervals rippled; a weird twittering sound came from the deeply buried mouth-hole.

The girl came in with three large knives clasped in one hand and two rubber aprons slung over one arm. She laid the knives down on an old-fashioned wash-stand, then handed him an apron.

‘Put this on,’ she ordered. ‘As you know, this is a messy job.’

He shrank back, pointing a shaking hand at the bed.

‘In the name of sanity - what is it? ’

For a moment the smooth flawless face assumed an expression of dawning surprise, then it changed to one of alarm.

‘Don’t tell me - Oh, God, don’t tell me - you haven’t matured.’

He shook his head slowly, not wanting to understand.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Her look of horrified despair was that of a bewildered child. Her choking whisper said: ‘A nurseling. I had to find a nurseling . . .’

Terror became diluted with pity; and pity turned into a warm flood of tenderness, so that Andrew wanted to take her slim body into his arms and promise to do anything she asked. Anything at all. His fear and repugnance retreated and he said: ‘I don’t understand. I don’t think I want to, but if I can help . .

She seized his words as though they were lifelines and clasped his hands in a surprisingly firm grip.

‘You will help? You’ll do anything I ask? You promise?’

There was only a slight hesitation, then he nodded. ‘Tell me what I must do.’

‘First, I’ll fetch hot water. We must soak the outer pelt - soften it, you understand, otherwise it will blunt the knives. Put the apron on.’

When she had left the room, he put the apron on, examining the ridged horror with something like interest now. It was at least human-shaped. There was no neck worth mentioning, nor any trace of arm or leg joints, but - Andrew tried to ignore an ominous heave in his stomach - a few short black hairs stood up from the ridged skull. He tried to think logically. It was as though the skin had risen up and left all but the longest strands of hair behind. Also, when he peered down into the eyepits, he could see a little fringe of black lashes sprouting round tiny pools of blue.

The girl came back carrying a bowl of steaming water and a pile of towels slung over her left shoulder. She put the bowl down, then proceeded to soak a towel, which she handed to Andrew.

‘Lay it across his chest, then push it well down so the water! gets into the ridges.’

Andrew did what he was told. When he pressed the thing billowed out on both sides and the arms assumed the proportions of giant sausages. The girl handed him another! I towel.

‘Knead,’ she instructed. ‘Don’t be afraid to put the pressure on. He won’t burst’

As Andrew obeyed, the head inflated and became a monstrous, humped bulge; the eye and mouth holes disappeared and the twittering sound merged into a shrill whistle.

‘Harder,’ the girl ordered with something like impatience. ‘We must soften the outer casing, otherwise you won’t get I through.’

With perspiration pouring down his face, Andrew kneaded, punched, pressed and heaved, while the thing under his hands, bulged, squirmed, rippled, expanded and deflated. He felt like a baker trying to make a misshapen loaf.

‘I think that will do,’ she said after a while. ‘Give me the towels, I’ll put them back in the bowl, just in case. Do you want a rest before cutting?’

Andrew wiped his brow. ‘If I have time to think, I’ll never I start. Let’s get on with it.’

‘Right.’ She picked up the largest knife. ‘Now, listen carefully. I’ll sit on his legs and that will make your job a little easier, because then his chest will blow up and stretch the skin. You must make the first cut just under his throat, then slit downwards. I should stand back as far as you can - I otherwise you’ll get soaked. Have you got all that? ’

Andrew tried to nod but gurgled instead.

Without further words, the girl lowered herself down on to I the legs and instantly the chest assumed the proportions of an embryo mountain.

‘Now,’ she shouted, ‘stick the knife in.’

Andrew placed the knife point just under the ridged chin and pressed down. The skin bulged on either side, one quarter of the knife disappeared, but the razor-sharp point refused to penetrate.

‘Press harder,’ the girl ordered. ‘Use all your weight.’ Andrew did his best. He even jumped and pressed down at the same time, but the tough skin would not give and at length he sank down on a chair.

‘It’s no use, I can’t get through.’ He mopped his streaming brow and tried to regain his breath. ‘It’s like trying to cut through granite.’

Janet wriggled as though to make herself more comfortable on the grotesque legs, then wiped away a solitary tear.

‘Won’t you try again? Once you’ve got through, the rest shouldn’t be too difficult.’

It is in the depths of despair that the best ideas are found. Andrew sat up.

‘Have you got a hammer?’

She frowned. ‘Yes, I think so. Why?'