Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (31 page)

 
          
Ranjit
made a face; so did
she,
and he laughed. He was
gaining confidence. “Now you copy me,” she said. As soon as she’d woken this
morning she had remembered what she’d done. She could hardly believe she had
been so idiotic. What must poor Chris have thought, finding his flat burgled,
his poster torn?

 
          
She
smiled encouragement at Ranjit as he joined the others. They were being trees
dying of pollution: their own idea. Pollution was the term project. She watched
them, glad to relax for a while. During the night she had seen someone lying
under a sheet. As she’d approached, the feet—or what she had taken to be
feet—stirred and scuttled out from beneath the sheet, leaving a spreading stain
at the ends of the legs.

 
          
The
children improvised in groups, dropping litter, lecturing each other. John was
trying to turn his group into a fight. Earlier he had been sobbing. “They’ve
taken his
granma
away,” Hilary had told her. Clare
joined the group and began to drop litter, so that John had to shout at her and
exhaust some of his feelings.

 
          
She
only wished Chris would ring, so that she could tell him how sorry she was. Not
over the phone; she’d arrange to meet him. Margery’s group improvised, then
Tommy’s. “English people always pick up litter,” Tommy told Ranjit. A phone was
ringing.

 
          
Clare
glanced uneasily at Ranjit, but he retorted, “You have more litter to pick up.”

 
          
He
grinned when everyone else laughed. The phone had stopped. Someone was hurrying
toward the hall. Clare gazed at the door, but the deputy head had hurried by.
Oh, why didn’t Chris phone? Had her burglary made him feel so vulnerable that
he didn’t trust anyone? Was he sitting in his flat, brooding?

 
          
She
gasped. Sandra’s group faltered, glancing at her. “No, it’s all right,” she
said, flustered. “Go on.” She had just realized how much of a fool she was.
Chris knew she had been the intruder. The girl in the
kaftan
must have described her to him. Clare’s letter must have read like a deception,
a trick. That was why he wouldn’t phone.

 
          
Sandra
had spontaneously become a piece of litter, fluttering around on the floor. If
Chris wouldn’t phone, she must phone him, insist on meeting him. He mustn’t
think she was trying to trick him. Sandra was rolling at people’s legs, showing
off. “Now, Sandra,” Clare said, “that was good. Don’t spoil it.” Hurry up,
twelve o’clock, hurry up.

 
          
Mrs.
Allen, the deputy head, was in her office. “Of course you may use the phone,
dear. Is everything all right?”

 
          
“Yes,
I think so.” But Chris wasn’t at the Arts Centre; no, he hadn’t been for days.
“Thank you,” Clare said
,
cutting her off hastily; she
hadn’t much time. “If anyone wants me I’ll be back after lunch,” she told Mrs.
Allen.

 
          
“All right, dear.
Off to see your boyfriend?”

 
          
Despite
everything, Clare found herself smiling. “Yes, that’s right,” she said.

 
          
They
couldn’t find Chris’s name among the doorbells; a wire sprouted from an unnamed
socket. “Let’s see if he’s upstairs,” Edmund said, nudging the front door
further open.

 
          
George
pulled his sleeve impatiently back from his watch.
Nearly
quarter to one.
They’d had to wait an hour for someone to arrive at the
Arts Centre. He wanted to get back to the
Newsham
;
next week’s posters were supposed to arrive on Wednesday now, so that he could
check them. But he didn’t want Edmund exploiting the boy’s good nature. He
followed.

 
          
A
door on the first floor was ajar. Glancing in, George saw a torn poster for
Bonnie and Clyde. “That might be him,” he said. “He liked that film.”

 
          
Edmund
strode in. “He’s probably only gone out for a minute,” he said. “We’ll wait.”

 
          
He
strolled about. “That’s stolen,” he said, kicking a DANGER sign. “I don’t
understand his kind at all. They don’t care. They’re all criminals.” He pointed
to a pair of patchwork trousers lying on a heap of clothes: “This is him all
right. God, look at all this. Could you live in this?”

 
          
He
seemed furious with the disorder. George disliked it too, but not so
vehemently; it was up to Chris how he lived, after all. “He’s got a bloody
wardrobe, for God’s sake,” Edmund said. “Why the devil can’t he use it?”

 
          
He
tugged at the wardrobe door; something rolled, something bumped. “I’ll bet it’s
nearly empty. Here you are, George, give me a hand.”

 
          
“No,
I don’t think I will. Leave the man’s wardrobe alone.”

 
          
“This
mess annoys me. I’ll tell him so when I see him. It’s typical of him.” He
wrenched at the door; the wardrobe rocked back, and the door burst open.
Something rolled out onto the floor—a metal rod for hanging hangers.

 
          
George
hoped that was worth Edmund’s trouble. But Edmund had stooped into the
wardrobe. “My God,” he said, muffled.

 
          
The
tone of his voice penetrated the wood. George turned apprehensively to watch
what he was lifting out. It was a framed photograph. Two of the faces were
blotted out by stars of smashed glass, but between them was the face of
Christopher Kelly’s mother.

 
          
Edmund
sat back on his bent feet, as if he couldn’t feel their aching. He gazed at the
poster on the wardrobe. “Barrow,” he said. “Chris Barrow.
My
God.
With all his fat gone—yes, I should have seen it. And he did need
glasses, after all. He’s a good actor, I’ll give him that. He nearly fooled
me.”

 
          
He
pointed to the photograph, speaking to George now. “You can see him when you
look, can’t you? There, in her face.”

 
          
Still
hoping he hadn’t understood Edmund, George began to see Chris almost hidden in
the outlines of the woman’s face. Oh God. “I’ve got to phone my wife,” he
blurted.

 
          
“Go
ahead. I won’t be going anywhere.” Edmund was poking through a heap of clothes;
his growing eagerness seemed almost hysterical. “My God!” he said. “Do you
realize, we might have wasted our time in
Mulgrave
Street!
” He was laughing.

 
          
At
the phone, George thought for a giddy moment that he had no change. After a
long time Alice answered. “Just when I’m making dinner,” she rebuked. “Did you
go to the house?”

 
          
“It
was awful. There was a girl trying to feed her baby in that place. But there’s
something worse. We’ve found out who killed my mother. It was Chris Barrow, the
boy who came to our house.”

 
          
After
a silence she said, “Oh, George,” in what might have been sadness or disbelief.

 
          
“It
was!” he said, his voice cracking with bewilderment. “We’ve found a photograph
he stole from his grandmother!”

 
          
“All
right, George. Thank God, at least they’ll catch him now. Come home now,
George. Don’t stay there, please.”

 
          
“I’ve
got to see what Edmund’s going to do.” She didn’t seem to understand why he had
phoned. “Don’t you realize,” he shouted, “he knows where we live!”

 
          
“Yes,
that’s true. But I don’t think he’d hurt us. I’m sure he wouldn’t.” She was
silent for a long time. “There’s one good thing,” she said.

 
          
“Good!”
he shouted angrily. “What’s so good?”

 
          
“Well,
I was just thinking. Clare will be at school. At least she’s out of this.”

 
          
Twenty
past twelve. She was wasting her time sitting here. Clare got out of the car.
She didn’t dare go into the house, but she couldn’t wait all day in the hope
that Chris would look out and see her. She picked up a handful of gravel from
the reservation and, venturing into the garden, pelted his window. She was glad
there was no response; she retreated hastily to the car.

 
          
There
was one more place he might be. She drove to a gap in the reservation, drove
back to
Mulgrave
Street. Boys were playing outside
St. Joseph’s; footballs rang on stone, over the loud whirring of her car.

 
          
John
Strong’s house stood sharply grey against the blue sky. She and Chris must have
driven past it several times; it seemed incredible that they hadn’t noticed.
But of course there were other houses isolated by the desolation. She halted
Ringo outside the house; the echoes of the engine faded across the waste. The
sun blinked dully in cramped attic windows.

 
          
She
pulled her emergency torch from its nest beneath the dashboard. Was the house
occupied? Curtains drooped behind grimy panes, behind boards. If Chris wasn’t
inside she would come out quickly. At least the front door was ajar. The
blistered paint crumbled beneath her fingers as she pushed the door.

 
          
The
sunlight failed almost as soon as she entered the hall; dimness came at her;
she stumbled over something. The dankness that had closed around her didn’t
fall back as she switched on her torch.

 
          
An
iron bar was propped against the wall at her feet. That was stupid, dangerous.
It might have hurt someone. She carried it out and dropped it clanking into the
gutter, near her car.

 
          
She
probed her way into the hall with her torch-beam. If she hadn’t been worried
that the house was occupied she would have called to Chris. Shadows burst from
swellings in the wallpaper; green spots glimmered. Shadows slid out from the
posts of the banister, a rank of them swaying down the moist wall above the
stairs. Beneath the stairs a door swung further open, moved by shadow.

 
          
The basement.
That was where John Strong had taken his
victims. It was dark; Chris couldn’t be down there. She shone her torch through
the doorway. Bare plaster glistened on the wide walls beneath the bellied
ceiling. A spade, a new spade, stood in the earth of the floor. Hanging from
the handle by a drawstring was the purse from which Chris had bought her lunch.
He must have left the purse as a sign that he’d be back soon. She would wait
outside.

 
          
She
stood by Ringo. How could Chris have left her a sign when he didn’t know she
was coming to the house? Maybe he’d meant it for George and Edmund. If they
were here, she would have to make sure of seeing Chris alone.

 
          
She
gazed about. A burly man in
discoloured
overalls was
plodding away across the waste. Cars hastened along the bared roads, but otherwise
there were no people. On the exposed wall of
a demolished
house wallpaper lolled, feebly stirring. The basement windows of the nearest
street were choked with rubble; the front steps of the houses were thick with
shattered slate. The sun hung brightly above the waste. Boys shouted in the
school playground. She glanced toward them.

 
          
God!
She stumbled hastily around the house. She was all right; he hadn’t seen her.
She would have to stay hidden as long as she waited for Chris. The master she
had tricked was on playground duty. He would be there all lunch-hour.

 
          
She
surveyed the area beside the house. The surrounding earth was a network of
bulldozer tracks. If anyone lived in the house, he must have sat in it to
prevent demolition. Why would anyone want to protect it? Because he had nowhere
else to go, she supposed.

 
          
Rubble
scraped beneath her feet. In the remnants of a room of the adjoining house,
flies gathered over fallen brick. She touched the bricks with her foot,
then
drew back. She gazed at the side of John Strong’s
house.