New Writings in SF 6 - [Anthology]

by Ed By John Carnell

  Steady. Get an impression of the room, might be something there.

  The dance floor was low-lit, the boards shining amber. There was a shuffling of feet, just audible under the band. Mirror bowl was working, making the brown people dancing look like animals caught undersea in a jewelled net. The girl was sitting on her own. Get the picture. Colour of hair. Its brownness, the way the light caught it, Little black dress. That little black dress.... The glass of Chartreuse in front of her. Colour? Clear light green. Like her eyes.

  They danced, just a little. Then drove. She had a little MG. Model TF, colour maroon. Slight blow in exhaust, get all details right.... They circled the valley, as if running on the rim of a wheel. It was a fine night, cloudless and with a high moon. They stopped up in the hills to hear things chirring in the air, the calling of owls. He remembered the girl-smell of her. Not the scent. She had no scent, but something from her still filled the car, marking the cockpit as a special place.

  The woods in the valley were like moonlit hessian. He watched down at them, mouth drying. Hearing her moving, little scraping sounds of fabric. “You can have me if you want,” she said. “I’m very good, and I do like you....” One breast was uncovered already and she was wriggling, trying to work the dress farther down....

  He stubbed the cigarette and got up, prowled back to the window. He said “Oh, no.... Oh, no no no...” Too easy, the schoolboy’s dream of home. She’d been so ... nice about it, everybody was so bloody nice about everything, the world was just too smooth. He pulled a face at the distant view of hills. What was her name ? Liz, Liz Baron.... Like the dog, like the chess player, she’d just edged into his life when needed and he hadn’t seen her since. She came, she made herself bare for him, she slipped quietly away. No yelling, no recriminations. There was a flow, like the bridges flowing past the train....

  He rubbed his hand across his face, in the high hotel room. One day, one hour, he’d crack the smooth skin of Warwell, see a little of the brightness that lay beneath. Something would happen, some time, some where, that wasn’t nice. And then he’d have his key, the first piece of the puzzle. He said to himself, this could be important. This could matter very much. He picked his jacket up, slung it across his shoulder and went out to find a bar.

  * * * *

  Three

  Next day he bought a car.

  She was blue and low and nearly new and he fell in love with the cobby line of her, and when he’d done he had exactly eleven thousand and sixty-five quid left to his name, but it was worth it. The insurance shocked and upset him, but he could afford it; he signed forms and wrote cheques, and by lunchtime the thing was done. He drove away from the showroom and circuited the town, then over the river bridge and up the dual carriageway beyond, pushing the ton, feeling the world was a sweet place. And back to the George to park the glitter temporarily in the hotel yard. (Virginia creeper hung down from the roofs, setting off the icy car beautifully, but there was no key there.) He thought, maybe if I keep piling perfection on perfection all the blacks will turn to white and positive to negative, there’ll be one whacking big imperfection to sink my teeth in, or one that’ll sink its teeth in me....

  Imperfection....

  He took the Triumph out of town that evening, up West Street and the hill beyond. The hill she flung away behind her, away and down. He drove across Sanford Common to Gallowridge, turned off through the little village there, left a crackle of exhaust behind him, climbing again to How Beacon. Five or six miles out from Warwell, on the rim of the Whee—shut up, dammit—was a little pub, the Goat and Compasses. (God Encompasseth Us ... we hope.) Sixteenth century, so old it was nothing to look at. Stone-flagged floors, great fireplace with the ingle-nooks set each side, fireback glinting with blacking, decorated with cast shelves of corn. No bars, just white-scrubbed tables set about and they bring the beer in from the kitchen, beer comes from the woo...Girl, running...Beer from the wood...

  Foot clamped to brake pedal and the TR4 swinging and throwing up gravel, lane too narrow, hedges spinning past, she was running head down to meet him and he was moving too quick he couldn’t stop. God please...

  The thud, solid and hard. Then quiet. His hands holding the wheel, vibrating with shock. Then letting go the rim, having to make himself let go. Finding the catch, opening the door, no sensation of metal under the fingers. Throat dry like a sandy tube, unswallowing. Wasn’t walking, it was just his feet. He floated.

  She was kneeling in front of the bonnet holding her arm. Her hair was hanging and never was there such a still silent road, and her breath was scraping in the silence like a file on wood.

  The car was nosed into the bank, there were scorings, grass and clods thrown up. He’d steered into the bank. No, his hands had steered into the bank. But he hadn’t hit her. He’d stopped just... so, an arm’s breadth. The thud hadn’t been ... her. He told himself, the bank. The bank not ... her....

  He was trying to lift her, turn her wrist. Expecting gravel-rash, not what he saw. The skin furrowed, curling back at the elbow from startled sheet-white flesh that grew pinpoints of red. The brightness coalesced, ran together in thickening trickles; the arm wept blood silently, fast. She pulled it away like she was ashamed of it. Her knee was hurt too, grit sticking to the graze. He put his arm down to pull her up and she was wet. Thin jumper, wet across the back. “Running,” she said. “I ... sorry....”

  “Here,” he said. “Here....” (Moment of seeing and knowing he’d killed her, sitting before his lazy foot would move, they called it r-e-a-c-t-i-o-n t-i-m-e....) The car engine was ticking as it cooled.

  She was leaning on the bonnet and gasping, propping herself by her behind, blood ran across her leg and somehow he knew brilliantly just how she was feeling. Sort of dumb pain in the knee and stiffness spreading up to the shoulder from where she’d torn her elbow.. He was asking where he could take her and she was shaking her head, trying to push hair back from her eyes, No, no....

  “You’re wet,” he said absurdly. “Look, all wet...here....” He was opening the car door. (Imperfection.... Who runs themselves wet on a still summer night... ?)

  She tried to push away, brightness splashed his shoe. Jeeze, he thought, Jeeze, there just can’t be an Awkward Pause, not now.... The thought galvanized him, he made her sit in, slide across from the wheel. Awkwardly, everything awkward.... Was a towel, he’d shopped in the afternoon, hadn’t taken the things out of the car. Couple of shirts, hand towel. God, her arm.... Put the towel in her hand, helped her wrap loosely. “For your skirt,” he said. Skirt was a pretty little denim hipster, marked already.... He got in the car, started up, pulled the bonnet out of the muck. Moment of panic, something would clank down there and he wouldn’t be able to drive.... But the Triumph was OK.

  Back the way he’d come, moving fast. He had to find a place to turn then he really motored with the girl lying, looking white. The hospital sign, he remembered seeing it.... Place was off the road, stood back a hundred yards behind trees. Little old house, new low wing built on, he’d have called it a cottage hospital, but it probably wasn’t called that now, probably was some Unit or other. He swung up to the front of it, ran round to lean on the porch bell. They were very good. Accident... yes, yes, of course, take her arm.... No it’s all right now, have a seat Mr. ... er....

  “Strong,” he said. Croaked. And I hope to God there isn’t dirt on my nearside front.... No, she’s with me, it’s all right.... No, it didn’t happen on the road, she fell.... Why the need to cover for myself and her? Because he told himself with terrible clarity, because of the Wheel. Because then for a moment it showed itself, just the rim filthy and shrieking, shoving up out of the soil. Until it ground back into the quiet....

  Twenty yards away from him through a pair of open doors six perky men were being given supper, cheeking at the nurse with the trolley. The scene was brightly lit, a vignette set against the softly blueing dusk of the corridor. When the lights came on he saw other vignettes. A tall vase of red flow
ers on an occasional table. A copper jug in an alcove. A stack of magazines, Field and Lady. The whole of experience was for him now a series of glowing unconnected pictures against a dark backdrop. Like the images he had always imagined filtering through the compound eye of an insect.

  When they brought her back to him she was chalk-pale. Sister was lined and bucktoothed and very lovable right now. “Best take her straight home,” she said. “Straight home....” And Jimmy agreed. Yes, of course, tetanus, of course one couldn’t be too careful, she’d had a shot, now she must be taken straight home.... The arm was bandaged, neatly and whitely, the leg they hadn’t bothered with, it was just wiped. He put his arm round her waist. She was still wet, he could smell the sweat now mixed with the otherworld tang of the dressing. Leave it a couple of days he was told, and straight to her doctor if anything goes wrong...”Yes,” he said. “Yes. I’ll see to her, she’ll be all right. And thank you, Sister, very much indeed ... Yes, yes of course....” And finally he could drive away into the night.

  She said, “I’m awfully sorry....” They were on the road, her hair was moving in the breeze, he was driving back to Warwell gently, mind busy. “I must have put you about,” she said. “It was very kind....”

  He was just beginning to realize again that he hadn’t killed her. “I wasn’t going anywhere,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “... Anne Nielson.” First the pause, then she didn’t ask him his.

  “What were you doing, Anne? You came so quick, I couldn’t do a thing....”

  “I was running.” She shuddered. “You hit the bank, if you hadn’t hit the bank..

  Leave it, leave it.... “Where do you live?”

  “In Warwell.’

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “It doesn’t matter....”

  “Oh, now really,” he said. “Please...”

  She’s nearly blonde. Older than she looks. Running. Warwell. Six miles, seven.... Not from Warwell, couldn’t have run from Warwell. . . .

  “Please,” she said. “Something silly. I’d like a drink....”

  “What?”

  She said “Nice long double Scotch. That’s all....” Her hand was on his sleeve.

  He whipped the TR4 on to the hard standing outside the Dog and Badger. Nice little pub, he’d been there once before. “Anne,” he said. “This is all wrong.”

  “Please. That is if you d-don’t mind. I’m all right now, it was just the shock.”

  So women are tougher than men. He opened the door, helped her out. She flicked her hair. “God, I’m a mess....”

  Conventional remarks the order of the day. The fear had gone, she was female again. Had been a frightened child. So had he.... He ordered the Scotch, with misgivings. Waited for her. She’d excused herself to get tidy. He thought, she’s tall. Taller than I realized. The saloon was empty, he stood looking at the sporting prints on the walls. The pub was quiet; once a car passed, moving fast, then there was silence again while she didn’t come and didn’t come and didn’t come.

  He went to the side door, looked out. Lamp in the road showed him a wicket gate swinging. He walked back into the bar, closing the door behind him. Waited half an hour before he admitted he’d been taken for a sucker. He realized then the true direction of the misgivings and felt nearly happy. Obscurely, he seemed to be back on familiar ground. “Ah,” Roley used to say, “The thrust and parry of Sex; the feint, the quick riposte ... the posturings, the lunges. . . .” Jimmy knew all about sex. (He was seventeen and feeling the cold, she was all of twenty and the more she took off the fatter she got, get stripped she said, and he said I am stripped and she giggled and did something that made him screech, sex, pshaw....) He poured the Scotch into a potted palm. He simply wasn’t inventive enough; Dali once cut his finger on a glass and filled the glass with the blood and put in one real and one imitation cherry, set the apparatus on a table and asked everybody to watch it then stole quietly away, but all he could do with his Scotch was pour it into a potted palm. Jimmy recognized the fact that he was becoming too cynical, finished the beer, got into the TR4 and drove home.

  He paced the little hotel room, from sink to bed and back. An hour, two, telling himself of all things she’s just twelve months too old to wear a hipster, but isn’t she sweet; then he became aware, oddly, of the quietness in the town, the one oblong of light showing from under the tall eaves. He put the light off, pulled collar and tie und...

  Down in the square a car engine started, wound up high in second. He ran back to the window, saw the bulk of the motor and the white fan of headlights swinging out the top of Station Road. Listened to the noise fade in the night.

  No connection, he told himself. None. He pulled collar and tie undone, lay on the bed, lit a cigarette. Watched the pink reflection of it on the ceiling. All problems were soluble, including the present one. And he had a name to work on, presuming the name was correct.

  Don’t presume though. Not a thing. Work from the facts. Anne, running. Wet through. She hadn’t seen the car. Damn it to Hell, she hadn’t seen the road.... She was running or staggering along the road, head down. Where had she come from ? No way of telling. What was she running from? From nothing. Empty fields, sunlight.

  He imagined himself lacing up and projecting a mental film. The last few seconds when he already thought he’d killed her, the action recorded dispassionately by the camera of eyes and brain. He saw himself straining to hold the car, the girl stumbling at the bonnet....

  Two images melted. He’d been to a coursing meet, just once. Seen the hare hit the wire and bounce back squalling, right under the dogs. He remembered its movements. Disorganized, spastic almost. Anne, running. Yeah, something had been there. Something that could hurt her worse than her poor scraped arm....

  Queer to be thinking like this, in terms of Anne. Her pain, her fright. Everything in terms of Anne. It was like she fitted into a gap already there in his consciousness. But that was crazy, he’d only seen her a few minutes, she’d been sweating, scared half to death. Scared of him, he told himself. Why?

  Find her again then.

  How? Population of Warwell was six thousand, nearer seven with the new estates. And she didn’t live in Warwell, something told him she’d lied there, the answer had come too pat. Work in Warwell then maybe? What as, clerk, typist, shopgirl? Get a classified, start ringing the firms. “Excuse me, but do you have a Miss Nielson working for you?” Oh, go to Hell, and pick a few needles from haystacks on the way.... His mind turned slowly, tiring itself with thinking. The car that had passed the Dog and Badger. He knew it had picked her up, a hundred yards or so down the road. Just how in Hell had she fixed that runout? No answer. Never would be, till he found her again. The Wheel, the thing that ran this town. It wasn’t going to give itself away. It was too big, it was too subtle.... Above all look how it covered itself, it was too scared....

  He found he was sweating in the dark. He wondered if he was going crazy. He’d always been a little mad, it was the artist in him. All artists were mad, everybody knew that. So most of them went mad quietly to fit the image, at heart they were conformists.

  The car that had taken Anne away. The same car had circled back, mysterious and quiet, sat humped in Station Square watching up at his light...

  Strong, you’re rambling. There’s no proof of that, not even a basis for assumption. Your nerves are shot, you’re getting the jumps. All this talk of a Wheel. Hallucination, vision ... more like simple nuttiness. He told himself nobody has robbed a bank, nobody has done a murder, gunned their pal down in the street. All they’ve done is run a clean, quiet, friendly little town. And maybe make a girl bolt across a field....

  They? Who were they? The people who’d hunted Anne maybe, the people in the car....

  It was no use. They were there and the Wheel, grinding in his subconscious. He could feel it, it was almost like the building shook with it. What would it do, now he’d seen it move ? The Wheel was for grinding, grinding....


  Anne....

  He slept; and the dream came.

  Not like any dream he’d ever had. Not like the dreams of the Wheel. Their horror lay in their vagueness; this one was clear and bright and pitilessly precise. He was standing on a station platform. He looked round slowly, recognized Tanbridge. The little wooden footway over the tracks, the banks of roses. But the tracks were rusty now, they gleamed in the stark light orange-pink and shocking as dissected veins; and the roses were dying, they thrust out from their trellises like black spiky skeletons. The sun was shining, but it held no warmth, it was like the pale orb of a half eclipse. And the light was fading slowly from the sky.

  He became aware by degrees of a huge sense of desolation. It swamped him, bore down till it felt like a weight across his back. He could barely force his feet to move. He dragged himself across the platform, over the bridge. Wood broke and crumbled under his heels. He touched the flowers and they crumbled too, dropped into flakes that a wind picked up, tossed into the sky like black snow. There was a railbus waiting, and a ... sort of motorman. He made himself get aboard, fighting revulsion at every step; and the car was so old, the seats of it were blackened and brittle, its wood was dull, splotched over with mildew. Even the mirrors had grown continents of green and ginger spots. He heard the buzzer and the answer from the cab; he thought the coach would never move, but it did, creaking and moaning. Out past a dead signalbox, into the hopeless light.