Ancient Images

by Ramsey Campbell

  "Had you some reason to suspect that he would?"

  "Before I saw him up there? No." It was beginning to seem even more unreal. "What could have made him do it? I had a drink with him at lunchtime and he couldn't have been happier."

  "Happy enough to be reckless?"

  "He wasn't like that at all."

  He continued to question her until he appeared satisfied that she couldn't help further, which only made her more convinced that she had failed Graham. "Let's hope his son can shed some light," the policeman said.

  "Which son?"

  "Wasn't that his son with him down there?"

  "Toby?" Her keeping their secret might make him suspicious. "They lived together."

  "Ah." He stared toward the projection booth, where he had already noted the disarray. "What kind of films did you make together?"

  It was less the question or its implication than his innocent delivery of it that infuriated her, but losing her temper wouldn't help Toby. "We didn't. Graham was the film researcher at the station. He used to find lost films. He'd invited me tonight for a private viewing."

  "What sort of film would that be?"

  "An old horror film with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi."

  "Is that all? Why, I'd let my daughters watch that." He sounded relieved on Sandy's behalf. "So the two of you were purely professionally involved."

  "No, we were good friends."

  "I'm sorry if this is painful for you," he said in the tone of a rebuke. "And where was his young friend while all this happened?"

  She cleared Toby as best she could, while the policeman looked increasingly unhappy. "Think carefully if you will," he said. "Could you have seen anything at all that might suggest why Nolan behaved as he did?"

  She tried to drag her mind away from the memory of Graham's fall, but it was reluctant as a fascinated child. "I can't think of anything."

  "He could hardly have been running away from an old horror film."

  "He wasn't running away," she said, and found herself wishing that her response hadn't been quite so immediate: it seemed to cut short her ability to think. As she strained to imagine what Graham had been up to, Toby came in.

  He stared blankly at the kitchen and the lingering smell of charred pastry, stared at Sandy and her interviewer. He stepped into the projector beam, rubbing his upper arms as though it might warm him, and stumbled into the booth. Minutes seemed to pass before he gave a cry of outrage and grief.

  The snub-nosed policeman, who had brought him upstairs, grimaced as he kept an eye on him and made a fluttering gesture to tell his colleague what Toby was. "There's nothing wrong with people showing their emotions," Sandy said, her voice pinched.

  "Depends what kind you mean." The policeman wrinkled his nose. "There are some we can do without, that are best locked up."

  "Maybe you've forgotten someone's just been killed. If you can't leave your prejudices outside, at least show some compassion," Sandy said between her teeth, and told herself to stop: she might be making them even more hostile to Toby. It was Toby who interrupted her by appearing in the doorway, knuckling his eyes. "Who did this?" he demanded. "Where's the film?"

  "It was like that in there when I first came, Toby. I didn't see any film."

  "But he'd set it up. He was lining it up when I stepped out," he cried. "The can's still there on the floor."

  Both policemen scowled as if he were talking in code to her. When Sandy explained, the mustached one said, "How rare was this film?"

  "V. It took Graham years to track it down."

  "Have you any idea how much it's worth?"

  "A great deal to a collector, I should think. Are you suggesting-was

  "That he might have caught a thief red-handed? Would that have made him act as he did?"

  Toby sucked in a breath so fierce it seemed to dry his eyes. "He'd have chased the swine all right."

  "You're not telling us he'd have chased someone across the roofs at his age," snub nose said.

  "You'd be surprised. You don't have to be straight to win prizes at athletics."

  It was news to Sandy if Graham had, but Toby fetched a photograph album from a bookcase and flung it on the couch. "Try believing these."

  They were photographs of a young Graham in singlet and shorts. In one he was snapping a tape with his chest, his full lips pouting with the effort. Sandy found the photographs heartbreaking, but the policemen looked unimpressed. Eventually snub nose said "How do you reckon a thief could have got in?"

  "I left our door on the latch," Toby said, his eyes brimming. "He said to, and I thought it would be safe while he was home."

  The policemen exchanged resigned glances that said this was all too familiar. "You saw Mr. Nolan jump," the mustached policeman said to Sandy. "You actually saw him jump."

  Why must he repeat it? "I said so."

  "Of his own accord, you're certain."

  "There was nothing-nobody else on the roof."

  "There isn't now," snub nose said, gazing into the bedroom, and Sandy felt reality shiver, for she could see figures up there. Of course, she thought as he gave them a thumbs-up sign, they were police. "Well?" he said.

  "Well?" said his colleague.

  He jerked his head at Sandy. "The doctor said the same as her."

  So Sandy needn't have felt nearly as harassed, she realized, too exhausted to be angry. "The place will have to be dusted," the mustached policeman said, "but Fingerprints may not be here until the morning." He put on his cap and tugged the peak down. "I'm sorry about your friend. We do tell the public not to get involved if they come across a crime in progress."

  He went out slowly after his colleague, as if he might think of something else to add. His slowness seemed to linger in the room, turning the air sluggish. The room was too bright, the darkness that buried the windows too black; the chafing of light and dark scraped Sandy's nerves. "Would you like to stay with me tonight?" she asked Toby.

  "You're sweet for asking, but I have to wait here for the law. If I didn't I'd want to be with Graham. You stay by all means if you don't want to be by yourself."

  "I'd better go home. My cats…" she said, feeling awkward and inadequate. She didn't move until the doctor came upstairs and offered her and Toby tranquilizers. "I'll stay with him," the doctor promised.

  ***

  Outside the night air settled on Sandy's face like a chill mask that felt distant. She hailed a taxi and climbed in and hugged herself. Streets the color of a dying fire swept cheerlessly by. When the taxi drew up in front of her house she paid automatically and trudged along the path. She climbed the stairs as the timer switch counted the seconds of light, she let herself into her hall and screamed as claws clutched at her out of the dark. The cat fled as she switched on the light and burst into tears. If she hadn't had to tell Metropolitan what had befallen Graham, she thought she might have wept until dawn.

  She couldn't sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes Graham launched himself toward her, and she clenched her fists as the hands of her mind tried to grab him. Worst of all was the look in his eyes, reassuring her that she couldn't have saved him. Even as he fell he had tried to be kind to her.

  She sat on the bed and stroked the cats and stared out of her window until the sight of the dark filled her with vague panic. She brewed herself coffee and sat on the window seat. While she waited for the mug in her hand to cool enough for sipping, she felt gusts of wind at her back, the night snatching at her through the glass. She sat on the couch and stared at the wrinkling skin of the coffee, and the gables loomed at the edge of her vision, hemming in her thoughts. Why had she said that Graham had been killed instead of that he'd died? It was only in detective stories that the police pursued that kind of detail, she told herself; in reality they had more important tasks, such as making life unpleasant for people whose lifestyle they disapproved of. They should save their unpleasantness for whoever had stolen the film. Graham plunged toward her from the roof, and she put down the mug for fear of cr
ushing it in her fist. She couldn't sit here all night in this state.

  She called the Metropolitan newsroom and spoke to Phyl. "Will you be putting out a report about Graham?"

  "We hope to if we can fit it in. We'll have some kind of tribute going out tomorrow."

  "I thought I might come in now and help select the material."

  "Absolutely, love, if you want to. We can always use expert help."

  The streets into the West End were almost deserted. Lonely walkers tried to head off their own shadows under the streetlamps, but the absence of activity in the bare glaring streets felt like her absence of reaction, her reaction delayed. "What's the big news?" the taxi driver asked her, and kept quiet once she shook her head.

  When she rang the bell at Metropolitan, Phyl let her in. Phyl was broad and over six feet tall, and seemed always both amused and regretful that most men found her daunting. She took Sandy's arm as they walked to the lift. "Listen, love, I hadn't realized you were with him when it happened. Are you sure you want to do this now? Wouldn't you rather just sit and talk to me while I haven't too much work?"

  "I want to be sure we do the best we can for him."

  "I understand," Phyl said, with the faintest implication that she was choosing not to feel insulted. "You knew him better than most of us did. You might want to draft a script for us. We've the interview he gave last year that wasn't broadcast because of the technicians' strike, and we need two minutes maximum."

  She gave Sandy the tape and stayed with her while she watched the opening. "I'm only down the corridor," she said eventually, and tiptoed out. Sandy had braced herself for the sight of Graham on the monitor, but it seemed she had been unduly apprehensive. At least she would be keeping Graham alive in the world for a little while longer.

  The tape was of an episode of Meet Metropolitan, the show on which viewers could question television personalities. Graham had been surprised and delighted to be asked for. He chatted to the viewer as if the camera weren't there, his enthusiasm rejuvenating him before her eyes. He began by enthusing about Metropolitan. "They let me take however long and however much cash it takes, and they know I won't give them any film until I can swear it's complete. Only they can edit this out if they want to, but I wish we weren't in this display case for shrunken heads. I wish we were in any of the cinemas I grew up in and fell in love with. This is never the place to watch a film."

  Sandy wouldn't use any of that, but here was an answer worth considering:

  "You care and I do, but there need to be more of us who won't sit still for what's done to films. Films get squeezed into this fishtank where they can hardly breathe, or projectionists show them out of focus or don't bother lining them up properly, or the screen's the color my handkerchief was when I was a snotty six-year-old, and if a film's missing a few bits, so what? Even if the censor hasn't had his way with it we can expect to lose a few seconds at the end of a reel because of how it's handled-I really think projectionists grow their nails specially to scratch films with-and when some television stations get hold of a film, well, saints preserve us. If it's been on before they'll make room for a few more ads-it's only Cary Grant hanging about in the desert, nothing's happening, forget the rhythm of the film, it's not Art like music is. Vandalism? Why, they're just giving the public what they want, most people don't write in to complain and that must mean they're satisfied. I'll bet you wish you hadn't asked the question, if you even recall what it was after all that."

  The young woman who'd requested him smiled forgivingly. "Can we know what films you're looking for this year?"

  "It doesn't go by years, my dear, it's a continuing process. Let's see if this whets your appetite. Can you believe that Karloff and Lugosi made a film together here in Britain that no one has ever seen? The Victorian ghost story it was based on seems to have disappeared, and the film was being condemned even before it was completed. That was in the thirties, when we were supposed to have had enough of horror films, but I've a feeling this one particularly upset some people in high places. I hope soon we'll have the chance to judge it for ourselves."

  He held out his hands as if he were offering a treasure to the camera, and the tape ended. Sandy rewound it and watched it again. Best to let him speak for himself and give the newsreader as little to say as possible. There wouldn't be time to mention how he'd lived with his parents in the apartment above the Thames, how he'd been given the worst report of his school year when he'd left to work on Covent Garden market with them, how he'd spent nearly all his wages on film going, how his life had changed the day he'd found cans of film piled high on a market stall… $ She used half of his comments on the way film was derided, and most of his answer about the horror film. "It was the last film he revived," she wrote, "but it was stolen before he could watch it. Anyone with any information should contact the police."

  Did that fit? The film ought to be found, as a memorial to him. She went out of the editing room, down the corridor to consult Phyl, and felt as if her feet were failing to touch the carpet. Dawn was shuttering the window at the end of the corridor. A cloud muffled the sun, and she saw the long drop beyond the glass, heard the thud as Graham struck the concrete. "Phyl," she called, and as soon as she heard her voice, the rest of her began to shake too.

  The next time she saw Graham, he might almost have been asleep. His eyes were closed, his lashes two delicate silvery crescents. His full lips looked satisfied, though untypically prim. His long cheeks were faintly powdered, as if he had no further reason to conceal his femaleness. He was wearing his favorite blue suit. His hands were folded on his chest, no longer reaching out desperately. "Thanks, Toby," she murmured, and left him beside the coffin, where she could tell he was ready to weep.

  It had been his idea that she should visit Graham before the funeral; she hadn't realized how much it would help her. The tranquilizers had only postponed her reaction further. Phyl had sat with her while she watched the broadcast about Graham, in which even her own script seemed to have nothing to do with her. Graham's fall had followed her home and back to Metropolitan, where she was able to work, though her head and her hands and the world had felt brittle. She'd agreed to Toby's suggestion so as not to upset him. She hadn't realized how renewing it would be for her to see Graham at peace.

  He would want her to be at peace too. Allowing her failure to save him to grow cancerous in her was no way to preserve his memory, it was simply unfair to him. She lifted her face toward the sun as she came out of the undertaker's. A plane too high to hear was chalking the cloudless sky. A wave of birds rose from a grassy square, a football beat like a heart on a schoolyard wall. The world was coming back to life for her. "You can still be proud of me," she whispered, happy to imagine that Graham could hear.

  By the time she rose from the Underground at Marble Arch she was remembering Graham introducing her as if she was the brightest talent at his soiree, Graham in the Metropolitan lobby performing a dance routine with her and refusing to stop until she identified the musical, Graham buying her and Toby dinner at a hotel on Park Lane and solemnly producing a magnifying glass to pore over his portion of cuisine minceur: "That's what I call a minute steak," he'd said… The thought of his fall made her wince and brought tears to her eyes, but so it should. She went into Metropolitan and worked on a tape of children being rescued from a crashed school bus.

  She was rounding it off with the image of two of the survivors embracing so hard that they had to be helped into the ambulance together when Lezli came over, smiling tightly. "Can you see the improvement? I've just got disengaged."

  "Lezh, I m sorry."

  "Don't be. Best decision I've made this year. Let's have a coffee to celebrate."

  They took the lift to the staff restaurant on the top floor. "Here's to trusting in ourselves," Lezli said, raising her cup.

  "Did you feel you hadn't been?"

  "That's what men want, isn't it? Men basically just want one thing."

  "Sometimes we do too, don't we?
"

  "I don't mean horizontal dancing. I mean they want to undermine our confidence and make us dependent on them."

  "Let them try."

  "This one nearly did until I savaged his view of life. He kept going on about security as if it was me who should need more of it instead of him that did. He started barking and snarling when I asked him if he knew where all the money his firm invests comes from, though. Pop goes my Christmas on his family's estate that daddy runs like a little kingdom, so that's a relief."

  "I see he's left his mark on you."

  "Only till I get to a sunlamp," Lezli said, making a face at the ghost of his ring on her finger. "Do you know the kind of shit he'd been storing up for me? He would have wanted me to promise not to make any more films in case they drew attention to him as well. That came up because of Graham Nolan."

  "Did he know Graham?"

  "No better than anyone else who reads about him in the paper."

  "Which paper?"

  "Last night's." She seemed to regret having mentioned it, especially when Sandy said "I'd like to see it."

  Lezli went reluctantly down to the newsroom and produced a copy of the Daily Friend. SUSSEX SAYS STAY OUT, SPONGERS, said a headline above the tabloid's version of the progress of Enoch's Army. She turned to the film column by Leonard Stilwell, who Sandy gathered was the kind of reviewer who emerged from film shows bearing flaws like trophies. Lezli flicked the last paragraph with her fingernail and gave Sandy the comment to read.

  "Another film world death to mourn, though Graham Nolan never made a film. Film buffs will be grateful to him as the perfectionist film buyer for Metropolitan TV. Pity his last months were wasted on a wild-goose chase after a fictitious film. Now he's with his idols where he deserves to be, and all of us film buffs will miss him."

  Sandy wondered if the writer had a special key that typed the word "film." She read the paragraph twice in case she had missed something. "His remark about the wild-goose chase, is that what you meant, Lezli? Shows he doesn't know as much about films as he pretends to."