by Gary McMahon
Dedicated to Dennis Etchison
and Ramsey Campbell,
who led a young reader into
The Dark Country,
and keep him there still,
Needing Ghosts…
One
All Alone Together
1
The timing is unfortunate.
Just two weeks after we move into the new house I am called away on business. New York. The Big Apple. Across The Pond. Adi is aghast when I agree to go; she fails to see why a succession of dull business meetings is more urgent than helping to settle my family into the new place. I appreciate her opinion, but the way she goes about communicating it seems pointlessly selfish.
Adi fails to see a lot of things, and can never quite grasp the importance of my job in the grand scheme of life. Sometimes I’m sure she believes I pull money out of the air, like dead leaves falling from an autumn tree.
I watch her as she crosses the small living room and stands by the open window. Pale light scars her face with dull yellow abrasions, making her features look sharper than they actually are. She winces as the sunlight catches her in the eyes, screwing up her face like a child demonstrating distaste. I swallow hard, counting to ten. Adi is…fragile. The pills she’s been prescribed are messing with her head, making her seem vague and disconnected and slightly less than real. I don’t think she has been real for a long time, and my own reality shifts constantly, like a series of slides overlaid on a picture board, each one depicting a slightly different version of the same scene.
“This is an important time in Max’s life,” she tells me, still looking through the glass, her eyes narrow and unfocused, unable to lock onto anything for longer than a few seconds at a time. As if she’s gazing at ghosts. “He’s three-and-a-half, just beginning to form his proper personality. His character is peeking through the tangle of babyish needs.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
This is not a lie: I am almost painfully aware of how, at Max’s age, a few days away from him can feel like a week. A week can feel like a month. The changes a child undergoes in a limited period of time during these early formative years are nothing short of phenomenal, as if they are discarding beta versions of the final product.
“When do you leave?”
I pause before answering; I know how much it will hurt her, how she’ll feel it like a knife between the ribs. “Tomorrow night.”
Adi bows her head, clenches her fists, making the already prominent veins on her skinny forearms bulge. I almost expect her to scream, but she doesn’t. She just cries, silently, and shakes her tousled head as if someone has died and no one told her until now, when it’s far too late to matter.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to Max…and to you.”
At last she turns her head, looks me directly in the eye. Her irises are tiny, like little black dots drawn on the front of a vast white mask: I can see things moving in there but I can’t make out what they are. Black bugs. Insects. Sorrow. Regret. A bunch of stuff like that.
“I know you will.”
I have no response. I can’t even fake one. So I smile, but the expression hangs off my lips like a flap of loose flesh from an open wound. It’s about as convincing as a deal made in a dark room between naked strangers: the promises we make each other when our relationship is new and the whole wide world stretches before us.
But Adi seems calmer here, in the country. The city was bad for her, especially after the attack. She is afraid of empty urban spaces; tube stations bring her out in a cold sweat; underground car parks drive her to distraction. She jumps at the arterial spray of darkness on a concrete wall when night falls, the way city shadows are all spikes and sharp edges. The rigorous regime of exercise she puts her body through at the gym is designed to anneal her to further physical harm: to make her capable of fighting off any assailant. Sometimes she frightens me, but most of the time she simply leaves me cold.
Not long after my wife has gone upstairs, I pour myself a whisky. The room is growing dark; late afternoon is turning into early evening and the nightbirds are waking in the garden, singing their odd discordant songs – or am I the only one who finds no apparent tune in their idle whistling? I close the curtains and sit in an armchair, sipping at my drink and trying not to weep. It’s all becoming too much to bear.
Something brushes against the outside of the main window, perhaps a bird or a bat taking to the air. I think about going to see what might have caused the noise but can’t seem to move my legs. So I sit in the chair and I drink, listening to Adi as she sings softly to Max, bathing him in the undecorated bathroom – another chore I’ll put off for months, making increasingly weak excuses not to finish the job until Adi finally stops reminding me. She sounds like one of those birds: shrill and alien to my ears.
He laughs lightly, my son. His knee or elbow knocks gently against the side of the tub and makes a dull, loud sound which echoes strangely down the stairwell, like a recording turned up too loud. He laughs again, but this time it seems closer to tears.
My heart is a stone lodged inside my chest, pressing against the bones and the gristle, grinding into my ribcage and flaking away little calcium deposits to infect my bloodstream. The pain is beloved to me, like a forced kiss, and I close my eyes to savour it. I am alive and I hurt: the love that I have for my family causes me an exquisite agony.
The sensation subsides; my heartbeat returns to normal. Once again there is a muscle beating in my chest, shifting blood around my system and helping to keep me alive and in full working order, like a busy little machine chugging away towards extinction.
I drink more whisky. I cannot open my eyes, so I stare backwards, into the dark that lives inside me, under the skin, and try to identify patterns in the void.
2
I’m on the plane before I know it, staring out at the runway at JFK. I have no recollection of the flight, nor can I remember saying goodbye to Adi and Max. They are just an absence, an open wound at my centre, sucking away all feeling. But they must have waved me off, like a good little nuclear family. Surely they wouldn’t let me go without wishing me a safe journey.
I check through customs without incident and wait for my luggage to come around on the slow-moving carousel. There are too many bags to count, and as more are added to the shifting procession, I begin to fear I’ll be stuck here forever, watching the conveyor belt go round and round, but never quite able to pick up my belongings.
A huge plaid bag passes me for the second time, split down one side and with its insides bulging out. The entire package is wrapped in strips and bandages of transparent plastic – baggage control must have opened it and then failed to properly seal it up. There is a strong smell of rotten fish in the air, and as the bag draws level with me, I see something with an open mouth and black squinty eyes squirming eagerly through the rent, groping towards me. When I look again the movement has stopped; the creature is no longer there.
I wait for the bag to come around again, intent on solving the mystery, but it doesn’t. Someone must have picked it up, yet I see nobody dragging its awkward bulk away from the carousel. The smell of dead fish hangs in the air like a strange perfume, sticking in the back of my throat.
My bag finally trundles towards me. I grab it and head for Arrivals, relieved that I can escape the oppressive confines of the waiting room.
There’s a well-groomed man in a tight-fitting blue suit waiting for me when I emerge into the terminal. He is holding up a little cardboard placard with INSCENT written on it in lengthy strokes. It is the name of the company I work for; we manufacture body scents and other toiletry products. I am in charge of foreign sales.
I approach the man with my hand held up in the
air. He smiles. Nods his head and blinks his large, wet brown eyes. Turns about-face, lickety-split, and leads me outside to a waiting limo. He does not speak to me during the journey, which unnerves me more than it should; even when I attempt to start a conversation, he nods or grunts or simply stares straight ahead through the windscreen. When we reach the hotel I thank him as he hands me my bags, but still he does not speak: he smiles, nods, and climbs back inside the car. Perhaps he is mute; I never find out because I never see him again. His eyes were huge, like fisheye lenses on a camera. Logging every tiny detail; missing nothing.
It is my first time in New York – I usually send a delegate; one of my small Foreign Sales team – and the heady atmosphere disturbs me. Everyone is rushing to be somewhere with no time for pause. Unknown destinations loom on imaginary horizons, forever out of sight.
The plastic young woman who checks me into my room shows me a smile that looks painted onto her ghastly too-smooth face. Her eyes glitter, but not with anything approaching vitality. She hands me a key and I am afraid to touch her perfect fingers. They are too long, too thin, and the nails are utterly transparent, slips of rigid polythene wedged into the fingertips.
My room is on the fifth floor; it is large and there are fresh flowers on the bed, scattered across the clean white bed linen. The pillows are fluffed and I find a packet of condoms tucked discreetly into the top of the sheets, under the immaculate fold. I place them in a bedside drawer and try to forget about them. I haven’t had sex in months, perhaps even as long as a year. Adi’s newly-honed body has become a no-go zone, and whenever I approach her I feel like a trespasser.
I look at the clock and am surprised to find that it is just 10:30am. Adjusting my wristwatch to local time, I wonder what to do with the rest of my day. My first meeting is not until tomorrow. I lied to my wife, just to get away a day early. I could easily have sent one of my able sales staff, but I decided to come here personally. There was no need for this kind of special attention; this is just another business trip, and the meetings involve yet another group of medium-sized U.S. retailers with wet smiles and eager handshakes.
I wince at the pressure of the truth: I wanted to be away from my wife.
Moving to the side of the bed, I pick up the telephone. The receiver is warm in my hands, as if someone has just put it down. Only when I sit do I notice the bedclothes are slightly creased, like a body has just vacated the space. The air smells of jasmine but my nostrils still hold the repugnant tang of fish. I can hear no dial tone, only dead air.
I replace the receiver in its cradle and put my head in my hands, but I do not cry. I cannot summon a single tear. There is no reason to weep, but I feel as if I should, even if it is nothing more than an act, an illusion. It would at least be something to fill the time.
When at last I am able to move again, it is almost noon.
I take a long shower but do not look at my naked body in the bathroom mirror. I examine my testicles for lumps with my eyes closed. They feel too soft, like uncooked dough balls. Resisting the urge to vomit, I put on my casual clothes and then I leave the room.
It is now 1:30pm; time has once more become fluid. I am hungry but unsure whether I can actually stomach solid food.
When I leave the room it feels as if someone is still in there, hiding, waiting until I am gone before emerging from under the bed or behind the curtains.
I eat alone in the hotel restaurant and drink several large whiskies with my club sandwich. The waiters eye me with suspicion, hovering at my side like giant bluebottle flies. The food tastes of nothing in my mouth, like dust. Like plastic. Like the rumour of sustenance.
I imagine that I am eating air.
After lunch I drift into the hotel bar. Business is slow this late in the afternoon, catching the lull between the daytime and evening crowds. A couple of men in suits talk animatedly in one corner. An old man in cream slacks and a plain black T-shirt eats stuffed green olives from a white bowl at the end of the long mahogany bar, his hand pulling out two or three at a time. A striking older woman looks dressed for a party – she is wearing the classic little black dress, narrow stilettos, those black stockings with the seam that describes a line along the length of the calf and the back of the thigh. Her sun-kissed blonde hair is long but pulled up into a kind of billowy nest on top of her head. Her lips are painted red and there is a subtle layer of make-up dusted around her pale blue eyes, doing its best to hide the shallow wrinkles carved into her skin.
I move to the bar and order another whisky. My head is spinning; I am drunk already.
The barman smiles at me and I return his gesture. He scratches his head and then turns away, watching me in the shiny glass tiles covering the back wall, creating a mirror-mosaic.
Someone slides onto the stool next to me. It is the woman in the black dress. She crosses her legs and I hear the whisper of silk on silk.
“Buy a lonely girl a drink?” her voice is deep, almost husky, and slightly masculine. She licks her lips after every second word, her pointed tongue poking out at me as if testing the atmosphere in the room, or tasting me.
“What’ll you have?”
“Vodka. Ice.”
I nod at the barman, who has already picked up a glass. He knows the score: the two of them exchange a brief glance and I realise that I am being set up, but I don’t care. I am not concerned. The woman is beautiful. She might help me get rid of the headache that eats my brain from the inside; she might make me forget myself for a while.
“What’s your name?
“Dan. I’m here on business.”
“Aren’t they all?” she asks, and laughs. Her teeth are pointed and very white. I imagine that she is a vampire and I am confused to discover I rather like the idea of being bled dry.
“You?” I point at her with a nod of my head and attempt to take another sip of whisky, but my glass is empty. Another one appears in front of me, courtesy of the friendly barman pimp.
“My name… my name is Destiny.” She laughs again, and I do too, but I’m not quite sure why. Our laughter has the shrill, brittle quality of a scream.
Minutes or hours later, we are upstairs in my room. There is a sheaf of bank notes on the bed and she is taking off her clothes with the bored, practiced air of a stripper. The air is dusty; the lights are turned off. Her chest is blatantly prosthetic; I can see the white surgery scars along the underside of those weirdly rigid breasts. She has a lean, muscular build, as if she works out a lot, and a deep fake tan. I am suddenly ashamed of my small beer belly and my skinny white arms and legs.
“Come on, baby. I’ll get you in the mood.” Her voice has changed, become less sultry, and taken on a higher pitch. I notice for the first time that she has a Brooklyn accent. Everything about this scenario is false, and I wonder if it is just part of a long, weird dream.
In another beat I am lying naked on the bed, staring down between my legs. Her hand works like a piston, pumping the flesh machine. Her head goes down and her lips feel cold against the sides of my slow-rising cock; when she lifts her head again I see that she has rolled on a condom with her teeth. The sheer professionalism of the procedure makes me go soft again, but she teases me back into action with her spiny fingers.
I ride her with all the passion of a man working at a job he doesn’t care for, wishing that I wasn’t here, terrified that if I don’t finish quickly she may stay forever. I fake an orgasm and roll off her, removing the empty condom and sliding it beneath the rumpled sheets.
I lie on my front and stare at the headboard, not wanting to turn and face her. A cold draft of air wafts across my bare buttocks. I can hear her getting dressed; if I pretend to be dozing she might leave in silence
No such luck: she speaks before heading for the door. “Thanks, doll. You were great.” The words hold the same amount of feeling as the fucking. The door eases shut and she is no longer there. Her absence makes more sense than her presence ever did. She was only here so that she might go away.
; The thought confuses me.
I crawl into bed and pull the sheets up over my eyes, willing blackness to enter me and take me down, then feel afraid in case it does. When at last it comes for me, I smile. Then I know nothing at all. Darkness crawls through the windows and up onto the bed, but I am too numb to fight it so it gains entry with ease.
*
I miss the meeting the following day. A few hasty phone calls sort out the situation and I am soon sitting across a table from a fat man with a tiny pointy beard glued to the tip of his chin. He laughs at everything I say, forcing big bellowing noises up from the bottom of his gargantuan stomach. His shirt buttons are straining at the pressure exerted by his mighty physique and he smells of old bacon fat.
Similar meetings with facsimiles of this man take up most of the rest of the week. In the afternoons these clients, or their bright and pretty female assistants, take me to tourist traps that I recognise from countless movies. This just makes me feel as if I am an extra in a sequel to a film I’ve never even seen.
Grand Central Station. (The Untouchables)
Central Park. (When Harry Met Sally)
The Statue of Liberty. (Planet of the Apes)
The Empire State Building. (King Kong)
The site of the planned memorial, Ground Zero, at the foot of the tragic Twin Towers. (This will undoubtedly feature in a hundred movies not yet made.)
9/11. I remember watching the planes hit on my computer screen at work. The office was hushed, my colleagues awed into an uneasy silence by the drama and sense of occasion. The water cooler bubbled. A pencil rolled off a desk and hit the floor. Someone began to cry, muffling the sobs with their hands. Even the traffic sounds outside the plate glass windows were muted. I fail to connect the solemn construction sight before me with the insane chain of events I witnessed that day. Instead of a sense of loss and futility at the waste of so many lives, I feel the urge for a hot dog from the vendor we passed on the street five minutes ago. I wonder if they taste better than the ones we have England.
