Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (27 page)

 
          
“But
the truly great man is always at bay. Perhaps the mass may claim a petty
victory in robbing me of my intended pupil; though it shall come to pass that
my power rescinds that theft. Yet I shall set my knowledge down, in the
certainty that it speaks to none save him who will dare to test it. Perhaps,
among the mass that fumble over these pages, one may read who, glimpsing my way
dimly, will set himself to follow.

 
          
“My
age spans many generations. The loud incredulity of my beholders cannot shout
down that calm truth. Of my birth I shall say nothing. Does a man reminisce
fondly of the dung-smeared apes that were his forebears?”

 
          
God,
was it all like this? Clare turned pages impatiently. To think he’d written
this in the 1950’s.
Incredible.
Artistic skills come
readily to the man whose aim is absolute power. She flipped through occult
terms. The true relation of all things in the Universe—
That
caught her eye, but its context read like gabble. Sometimes, in its evolution,
the Universe bears a mind that will grasp and wield its unity; such a mind is
mine. Clare clucked her tongue. Tut
tut
tut
, the dome said. Pages later, her gaze snagged on what
looked like narrative.

 
          
“Once,
on a whim, I allowed a few of them to pit themselves against my power. I
displayed myself to them, engorged thick and stiffly
raised
as a club, and challenged them to move me. Some turned their eyes timidly
aside, and shrank back when I granted them permission to touch me. Yet at the
last all had worked upon me, upon themselves and upon each other, and lay
exhausted while I stood laughing and unmoved. Some seemed cast down, and
perhaps they glimpsed themselves as I had seen them,
grovelling
upon the earth in their eagerness to please me. All understood my meaning well
when I spoke of the wand of my power.”

 
          
So
that was what it was all about; oh dear. Clare couldn’t see how his
fantasies—surely they were only that—related to Christopher Kelly. There was no
terror here; the book was just dull and repulsive. A cough reverberated under
the dome, sharp as a blow.

 
          
“Before
snuffing out the life she carried—”

 
          
That
image plucked at Clare; she turned back. The paper rustled loudly, dryly, like
an insect; its echoes rustled as she tried to hush it; it rustled.

 
          
“Before
snuffing out the life she carried, it occurred to me to see her dance. I am
sure even her fellows must have been amused, in their dull way. With her
swollen belly she looked like nothing so much as a boil essaying the waltz.”

 
          
Clare
stared about, to free herself of the book. The library looked distant,
unnaturally bright; it offered her no support at all. Whispers drifted close
around her; a cough clapped together like hands. Sounds nagged at her,
insistent and intolerably sharp, as if she had fever. If what she’d just read
was a fantasy, he had infected others with it; Dr. Miller had told it to
George. The man had had the power to impose his nastiness on others, after all.

 
          
She
riffled the pages, glancing warily. They fluttered dryly, rustling. She was
searching only for references to Kelly. But images rose from the thick style as
if swelling up from a marsh, dragging down her gaze.

 
          
“At
first she pressed her lips together, and choked and sobbed. But shortly she was
imitating her doll perfectly, and enjoying the sweetmeat as if it were drugged.
One of her fellows puked and gazed at me in fear, knowing that her response had
singled her out to be next.”

 
          
The
words clung oppressively to her, like feverish heat. She made to turn to the
previous page, to discover what the passage was about,
then
she shuddered and riffled on. Iron clanked, footsteps thumped softly, whispers
sibilated.

 
          
“But
she knew that nothing could take back her promise, not even death.”

 
          
Clare
started. She was back in the flickering orange room; Mrs. Kelly was speaking
almost the same words. Her heart thudded in her ears, cut off from the echoes.
Get it over with. She read.

 
          
“—not
even death. She knew that should she take her own life she would feel, beneath
the ebbing of her spirit, the movements of the promised child within her,
preparing to cheat her cheating and make its way to me.”

 
          
Clare
glared before her.
Bright sunlight and echoes.
She
could see the dying woman in the cave, could feel her engulfing terror as she
remembered John Strong’s words. In a world where a man could believe he was
achieving such horror, anything was possible. She could see the woman gazing
down at herself in feeble helpless incredulity.

 
          
Abruptly
she pushed back her chair. A suite of them clattered under the dome. She strode
across the carpet, filling the dome with footsteps, and threw the book on the
counter. “You should burn that,” she said. On the green stairs she had to close
her eyes for a while, for the flecks of
colour
were
crawling on the stone.

 
          
The
porter gave back her bag in exchange for the plastic tab, but she’d left her
tally in the
Picton
. “You can’t leave without handing
in your tally,” he said.

 
          
“You
just watch me.” When she reached Ringo she slowed, resting one hand on his hot
roof. Should she abandon the search? She wanted no more of John Strong. But
after all, his words were him; his house was only where he’d lived. It wasn’t
as if it would be haunted; he’d died in his bed. Besides, it was an excuse to
see Chris. Stupid, she thought: she’d no reason to be frightened of the house.
After all, she would be with Chris.

 
          
At
the Arts Centre Clare met the actress who had wanted to be invited to Chris’s
flat. She was making a long-fanged green monster, man-size. Once she’d stared
at Clare her eyes ignored her. Her footsteps resounded loudly on the
floorboards, claiming them as her stage. No, Chris hadn’t been in today. No,
she didn’t know where he was. Yes, she knew his address. Clare had to ask
before she would release it.

 
          
Clare
drove away down
Mulgrave
Street. It wasn’t worth
feeling resentful. The girl had just been jealous. Clare and her kids could
have made a better monster. When she reached Princes Avenue she realized that
she must have driven past John Strong’s house, if it was still standing. Never
mind, she’d save it for when she went with Chris.

 
          
She
drove through a gap in the reservation and parked in North Hill Street, at the
end of the alley behind Princes Road. Above the carriageway the lamps were dull
hooks on the evening; beyond the ranks of trees Christ looked
shrivelled
.

 
          
Chris
lived in one of the three-storey Georgian houses. The front lawn was ragged;
chunks of brick crushed the grass. A girl in a
kaftan
emerged from the house as Clare reached it.
“The fair-haired
guy?
I don’t think he’s in.
Left on the first floor,
if he is.”
Clare looked for a bell-push, but it was missing from its
plastic socket.

 
          
Next
to the pay telephone on the hall wall was pinned a large advertisement for a
taxi firm—friends of the landlady, no doubt. A skinny strip of thick green
carpet trailed down the middle of the stairs; when Clare’s heels slipped from
it they knocked on wood. Otherwise the house was silent.

 
          
She
knocked at Chris’s door. She knocked again. Down the landing stood a dressing
table, one of its drawers splintered outward like the coffin in that television
film she hadn’t been able to switch off in time. She could just see herself in
the oval mirror, struggling feebly beneath grime. As she knocked, something
moved in the room—only the ghost of her knock. At last she walked downstairs,
dispirited. Well, she’d tried.

 
          
She
was cleaning
Ringo’s
offside window when she glanced
up and saw the alley doorway.

 
          
The
doorway from the backyard of the house into the alley was empty. Its rotten
door lay beside it in pieces. Clare gazed from the doorway to the fire escape,
climbing the back of the house outside Chris’s window. She stuffed her keys
back in her bag and hurried into the alley.

 
          
Outside
the doorway she halted, beside a crowd of fat plastic bags of garbage. She wasn’t
really going to do it; it was silly. But she only wanted to look through his
window. Suppose she were caught in the act! Then Chris would have to rescue
her, tell them who she was. What romantic nonsense. All she wanted was to see
his flat. She liked the way he hadn’t tried to entice her up there; it was part
of his appeal. But now she wanted to see. She remembered the way the actress
had stared at her. At once she strode into the yard.

 
          
It
was full of dustbins, overflowing with garbage; she slithered on a piece of
fish and almost knocked over the bins. The heat of the evening flooded her,
thudding. She must be
careful,
even though she was
sure the house was empty. The empty windows threatened to fill as she stepped
carefully to the fire escape.

 
          
She
tiptoed up. The iron creaked; the ground fell away through the mesh. At least
Chris’s was the only window she would encounter. The bricks of the house wall
jerked down in steps, close to her face. She reached Chris’s window and gasped.

 
          
She
had thought he was being polite when he’d implied his flat was untidier than
hers. But it looked like a burgled boutique. Clothes were heaped on the floor,
an overturned mug had dribbled coffee on the floorboards, part of a newspaper
poked out from beneath clothes, rolls of rug were unrolling near the walls. Oh,
Chris, she thought. He really needed looking after. Men!

 
          
FOUND
MUTILATED. That was all she could read of the newspaper. She frowned, peering,
gripping the windowsill through the gap beneath the sash. The newspaper was
yellowing. Why had he kept it? What did it say?

 
          
She
was pondering when she realized what she was holding on to. The sash was ajar.
She glanced about sharply. In the yard, dustbins glistened; opposite her above
the yards, windows were blank. Chris wouldn’t mind; it was just that he’d never
had the chance to invite her up. She only wanted to know what the newspaper
said. She wanted to know. She raised the sash and climbed over the sill.

 
          
CAT
FOUND MUTILATED. She should have known. No wonder she’d upset him. He was
sensitive about his cat, after all. He had been trying to hide that. But it was
morbid, keeping the newspaper. He needed a new companion, she thought, someone
he could trust.

 
          
She
glanced about the large room. Oh, what a mess. Next to an old record deck a
pile of records had toppled, slipping from their sleeves. Several yellowing
newspapers nested beneath the front window, beside a stolen DANGER sign. The
bed—she couldn’t control her giggles—the sheets looked like a burrow Chris must
slide out of in the mornings, a tunnel into darkness.

 
          
She
muzzled her giggles with her hand. She was sure she’d heard a door open
downstairs.

 
          
She
imagined someone standing in the hall, staring up toward the giggling they’d
heard. Her nose snorted painfully within her hand.
Silence.
Perhaps they were easing the door closed, to fool her. When she’d subsided she
let go of her face, and saw what she had been staring at for minutes.

 
          
Over
the end of the bed an old drab sweater and jeans were carefully laid. She frowned.
She’d seen Chris wearing them. When he was acting? No, that had been the
patchwork. She must be mistaken. It was just that they looked odd, laid there
so carefully among the scattered clothes. She suppressed a giggle. He must wear
them in the flat, to feel comfortable; that was why he treasured them. Just
like a man.

 
          
She
could tell that the wardrobe and couple of easy chairs came with the flat; the
whole place felt second-hand. The green flowers of the wallpaper had nothing to
do with Chris. A poster for Bonnie and Clyde was taped to one door of the
wardrobe. Didn’t he keep anything in the wardrobe? There was a second lock on
the door of the flat, and a chain. Although she’d sensed his vulnerability, she
hadn’t realized he was so insecure.