Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (7 page)

 
          
It
was all right. He hadn’t hurt anyone, after all. The crash hadn’t been his
fault. He had been preoccupied. What he had done afterward hurt nobody. He
walked past shuttered corner shops, past the dark open mouths of a launderette,
their lids ajar.
Beneath the flat hats of the lampposts hung
conical drops of cold white light.

 
          
This
was no good. He was simply becoming more restless. His mind was shifting
uneasily, snatching feebly at passing thoughts, vainly searching the deserted
street for something to grasp. He hurried into one of the side terraces of
little two-
bedroomed
houses. The houses were closer;
he might feel less isolated. They must have outside toilets, like his childhood
home.

 
          
Beneath
the white glare of the streetlamps, curtains hung faded, dead. Between the
lamps the houses lay under shadow like dusty glass. The icy light stood close
to him; he felt all the more isolated. His footsteps tapped on the still
houses.

 
          
He
emerged onto High Park Street. It was wider, and emptier. Even the sodium glow
of Princes Road at the end seemed more welcoming. He hurried toward the orange
carriageway. Beyond the trees he saw a disused church, its blackened rose
window like a fossilized plant behind barbed wire.

 
          
To
his right, beyond the locked gates of Princes Park, ducks squawked amid the mud
and litter of the lake. Otherwise, everything was silent, even the carriageway.
He stood on the pavement of Princes Road. Opposite him, across the reservation,
Princes Avenue led out of the city; the two halves of the dual carriageway bore
different names. Somehow it reminded him of
himself
.
He laughed, almost snarling.

 
          
He
walked along the reservation, back toward his flat. The trees creaked
stealthily in a breeze. He would have to pass
Mulgrave
Street again. During the day it didn’t matter, but at this hour it made him
feel helpless. Already it was pulling at him.

 
          
He
couldn’t stand the silence,
nor
the trees, whispering
around him like visitors at a sick-bed. He began to kick at the gravel and to
roar wordlessly. He hoped he was waking people up; if someone looked out to
protest, he would be less alone. No, nothing less than a crash or a car theft
would bring them to their windows. If they were listening, no doubt they
thought he was drunk.

 
          
He
was a block from
Mulgrave
Street when he saw the face
at the ground-floor window.

 
          
It
was laughing at him. It had come to the window to jeer. The wide mouth in the
flat, drooping, almost
noseless
face hung open; the
pink tongue lolled out, shaking; the small eyes stared at him. He had to cross
to the pavement before he made out that it was a bulldog.

 
          
He
stared at it, over the garden into which someone had hurled a stray brick at a
flower. The dog panted at him, dribbling; its claws scraped in the crack
beneath the just-open sash. He felt a rush of pure cold hatred. The flat
dripping face and wobbling fat body were unbearable. It shouldn’t be there in
the window, jeering at him.

 
          
He
opened the gate slowly, minutely. Then he began to creep toward the window,
hardly moving at all. He no longer felt the pull toward
Mulgrave
Street. It took him minutes to stoop to the flowerbed. As he straightened up
the dog growled softly.

 
          
He
crept across the lawn, placing his feet delicately, silently. The dog kept
glancing away from his gaze, shaking its head. Its low growl grew louder, never
faltering. It was gathering itself to bark as he threw up the sash and smashed
its face with the brick.

 
          
He
gazed down over the sill. His actions already felt like a memory. The dog lay
twitching on the Persian carpet, fat and raw; its blood added to the pattern.
When it had died he glanced behind him. Trees and orange lamps queued both ways
along the deserted carriageway. Quickly he climbed into the room.

 
          
He
heard the old woman almost at once.

 
          
“Rex?”
she was calling. “Rex?” She was just beyond the door ahead of him. He heard a
bed creak as she stood up.
Slippered
feet shuffled
toward the door. He had heard how her voice wavered. There was no need for him
to run.

 
          
When
she switched on the light it seemed to freeze her, like a flashbulb. She stared
at him, her mouth and eyes gaping. Then she stumbled forward, one hand clawing
viciously toward him. She gave a wordless furious shriek. She had taken two
steps when her face squeezed tight with pain and she doubled over as if a hook
had caught her heart. He gazed at her as she fell. He might have spoken, but
his mouth was full.

 
          
He
listened to the silence of the house. Then he went over to her. She was dead,
no doubt of that; he could tell by the way her arm flopped on the carpet when
he let it go, the way her head rolled when he pushed at her cheeks. He squatted
beside her, pondering the way the wrinkles of her face seemed looser now.

 
          
He
stepped over the dog and peered out of the window. Still there was no sound or
movement on the carriageway. He thought of switching off the light. No:
fingerprints. He had one foot on the sill when he turned and stared at the old
woman’s body. After a moment he reached out and drew the curtains tight. Then
he went back across the room.

 
          
Thursday, September 4

 
          
“
There’s
a Mr. Edmund Hall and a lady to see you,” Mrs. Freeman
said.

 
          
“All
right, all right,” George Pugh said irritably. “Tell them I’m coming in a
minute, will you?”

 
          
He
gazed over the stalls at the screen. Ryan O’Neal and the girl with the boxer’s
name gazed at each other, in love; a long hair danced between them, trying to
get out of their way. A giant purple thumb groped along the bottom of the
screen, trying to tweak away the hair; faint cheers from the front stalls urged
it on. The lovers gazed, oblivious of the struggle. The hair leapt off the
screen; its tip waved a defiant farewell from the edge. Its fans in the front
stalls applauded.

 
          
George
Pugh mopped his forehead. The new projectionist, Bill Williams, was worse than
his predecessor: no experience, and slow to learn. The experienced men went to
the theatres that were secured by distribution chains. Independents such as the
Newsham
had to make do with what they could get.

 
          
And
we will, George thought. His mother had, with worse staff, in their second
cinema. All her days had been as hectic as the one he’d had today. He shook his
head, admiring her. Today—first he’d had the list of all the confectionery
prices that should have been increased on Monday. He’d had to calm down Mrs.
Freeman and work out the increases with her; she still wasn’t happy with decimal
coinage. Then next week’s posters had come in, misprinted. He’d been half the
afternoon trying to convince someone at the printer’s, a dimwit he’d never
spoken to before. “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,” he thought,
remembering Hamlet.

 
          
This
fellow Edmund Hall had rung up that morning. He was a writer in need of help
for his new book. “I’d prefer not to say more until I see you.” If he was
really a salesman he’d get a kick where it would do the most good. George would
have put him off once the woes had started treading, but hadn’t known where to
reach him. He supposed he’d best see what the fellow wanted. The girl on the
screen was dying prettily; he’d be able to lock up soon. There seemed to be
nothing but death in the last few films he’d shown.

 
          
Mrs.
Freeman was chatting to a friend as she counted the confectionery takings. No
wonder she had to do her sums again so often. “He just bit my head off,” she
was saying. “That’s nothing new. I think he’s just using his mother’s death as
an excuse.”

 
          
She
was talking about him. “When you’ve finished that,” he said coldly, “tell Mr.
Williams to come in at eleven tomorrow so I can talk to him.” She gazed at him,
horrified that he’d heard, as he strode toward the man and woman waiting by the
doors.

 
          
The
man was tall, broad,
red
-haired; he looked very sure
of himself. She was a young woman, about twenty-five, five feet tall or so,
rather petite. Her legs were a little short, but shapely. She wore a smart blue
cardigan over a faded summer dress, as if she’d determined to be smart at the
last moment, too late. Her brown hair was cut very close, as if she’d wanted to
forget about it; her small face looked timidly mischievous, rather afraid of
being itself. It reminded George of his daughter Olivia in her first days at
school. If she was applying for a job he’d be disposed in her
favour
so far. Now they were turning toward him.

 
          
“Mr.
Pugh?” the man said. “I’m Edmund Hall. This is Clare. She’s helping me.”

 
          
Mr.
Pugh’s dark suit was sharply pressed but paler than when new; one button on his
shirt pretended to be like the others. Clare could imagine him as a schoolboy,
his loose-limbed frame squeezed awkwardly into a desk, his shock of hastily
parted auburn hair standing among the heads, his long, somewhat horsy face
gazing up at her, not down as now. He blinked through his horn-rimmed
spectacles, squinting impatiently at Edmund as he might have squinted at a
blackboard. The lines of strain which overlaid his young face were fifty years
old, maybe more.

 
          
“What
can I do for you?” he asked Edmund.

 
          
He
glanced at Edmund’s card as if it were an unnecessary distraction. “Shall we
talk in your office?” Edmund said.

 
          
“I’ve
got to see the building cleared. What did you want?”

 
          
“Two things.
I want to write a book, with your help. And I
want to help catch the man who caused your mother’s death.”

 
          
Girls
were emerging from the stalls, dabbing
selfconsciously
at their eye makeup. “Did you enjoy the show? Good night,” Mr. Pugh said. “You
want to write about the man who killed my mother, do you? Killed her,” he
repeated savagely. “Not ‘caused her death.’”

 
          
“It
was a terrible business, Mr. Pugh, I agree. But I don’t think he actually
murdered her, did he? I understood she died of heart failure.”

 
          
“Then
you know more than the coroner. The inquest isn’t until tomorrow.”

 
          
Several
young girls with fingernails like spatulas of silver plastic ran out of the
stalls, pursued by a waft of the national anthem. “You’ve got an urgent date,
have you?” Mr. Pugh said.
“Betty and Anne and Linda.
And I’m surprised at you, Andrea. Have a bit more respect next time, or you
don’t come in here again.”

 
          
Edmund
said, “I understood there weren’t any marks of fatal violence on the lady.
Please don’t think I’m trying to defend the man in any way. I’m as anxious to
see him caught as you are.”

 
          
“Good
night, Mrs. Dodd. No, I agree that word wasn’t necessary, but of course we
can’t interfere with the films. Did you enjoy it, Mrs. Kearney? Better than
last week’s? Good. Good night.” Clare was expecting the rest of the crowd when
the front doors swung back squeaking behind the last. “Why?” Mr. Pugh demanded
of Edmund.

 
          
“Why—”

 
          
“You
know what I mean well enough. Why do you want him caught?”

 
          
“Because
I believe society must be protected. I say so in all my books. We must consider
the victims first, not the criminals.
And even more
important, the potential victims.”

 
          
Mr.
Pugh was heading for the stalls; they hurried to follow him. “Bring that to the
office when you’ve finished,” he said to the lady counting money in the kiosk,
and straightened her tiers of chocolate bars—unnecessarily, Clare thought. He
held the stalls door open with one foot for the duration of a stride; Edmund
had to run to take advantage.