A student was using the microfilm reader. Tony went back to the Observer building. A pear-shaped red-faced man leaned against the wall, chatting to the receptionist; he wore a tweedy pork-pie hat, a blue shirt and waistcoat, tweed trousers. ‘Watch out, here’s trouble,’ he said as Tony entered.
‘Has he come in yet?’ Tony asked the girl. ‘The man who knows about Ploughman’s Path?’
‘What’s your interest?’ the red-faced man demanded.
‘I’m staying in the cottage near there. I’ve been hearing odd things. Cries.’
‘Have you now.’ The man pondered, frowning. ‘Well, you’re looking at the man who knows,’ he decided to say, thumping his chest. ‘Roy Burley. Burly Roy, that’s me. Don’t you know me’ Don’t you read our paper’ Time you did, then.’ He snatched an Observer from a rack and stuffed it into Tony’s hand.
‘You want to know about the path, eh’ It’s all up here.’ He tapped his hat. ‘I’ll tell you what, though, it’s a hot day for talking. Do you fancy a drink’ Tell old Puddle I’ll be back soon,’ he told the girl.
He thumped on the door of The Wheatsheaf. ‘They’ll open up. They know me here.’ At last a man reluctantly opened the door, glancing discouragingly at Tony. ‘It’s all right, Bill, don’t look so bloody glum,’ Roy Burley said. ‘He’s a friend of mine.’
A girl set out beer mats; her radio sang that everything was beautiful, in its own way. Roy Burley bought two pints and vainly tried to persuade Bill to join them. ‘Get that down you,’ he told Tony. ‘The only way to start work. You’d think they could do without me over the road, the way some of the buggers act. But they soon start screaming if they think my copy’s going to be late. They’d like to see me out, some of them. Unfortunately for them, I’ve got friends. There I am,’ he said, poking a thick finger into the newspaper: The Countryside This Week, by Countryman. ‘And there, and there.’ Social Notes, by A. Guest. Entertainments, by D. Plainman. ‘What’s your line of business?’ he demanded.
‘I’m an artist, a painter.’
‘Ah, the painters always come down here. And the advertising people. I’ll tell you, the other week we had a photographer ?’
By the time it was his round Tony began to suspect he was just an excuse for beers. ‘You were going to tell me about the screams,’ he said when he returned to the table.
The man’s eyes narrowed warily. ‘You’ve heard them. What do you think they are?’
‘I was reading about the place earlier,’ Tony said, anxious to win his confidence. ‘I’m sure all those tragedies must have left an imprint somehow. A kind of recording. If there are ghosts, I think that’s what they are.’
‘That’s right.’ Roy Burley’s eyes relaxed. ‘I’ve always thought that. There’s a bit of science in that, it makes sense. Not like some of the things these spiritualists try to sell.’
Tony opened his mouth to head him off from the next anecdote: too late. ‘We had one of them down here, trying to tell us about Ploughman’s Path. A spiritualist or a medium, same thing. Came expecting us all to be yokels, I shouldn’t wonder. The police weren’t having any, so he tried it on us. Murder brings these mediums swarming like flies, so I’ve heard tell.’
‘What murder?’ Tony said, confused.
‘I thought you read about it.’ His eyes had narrowed again. ‘Oh, you read the book. No, it wouldn’t be in there, too recent.’ He gulped beer; everything is beautiful, the radio sang. ‘Why, it was just about the worst thing that ever happened at Ploughman’s Path. I’ve seen pictures of what Jack the Ripper did, but this was worse. They talk about people being flayed alive, but ‘ Christ. Put another in here, Bill.’
He half-emptied the refilled glass. ‘They never caught him. I’d have stopped him, I can tell you,’ he said in vague impotent fury. ‘The police didn’t think he was a local man, because there wasn’t any repetitions. He left no clues, nobody saw him. At least, not what he looked like. There was a family picnicking in the field the day before the murder, they said they kept feeling there was someone watching. He must have been waiting to catch someone alone.
I’ll tell you the one clever suggestion this medium had. These picnickers heard the scream, what you called the recording. He thought maybe the screams were what attracted the maniac there.’
Attracted him there. That reminded Tony of something, but the beer was heavy on his mind. ‘What else did the medium have to say?’
‘Oh, all sorts of rubbish. You know, this mystical stuff. Seeing patterns everywhere, saying everything is a pattern.’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh yes,’ Roy Burley said irritably. ‘He didn’t get that one past me, though, If everything’s a pattern it has to include all the horror in the world, doesn’t it’ Things like this murder’ That shut him up for a bit. Then he tried to say things like that may be necessary too, to make up the pattern. These people,’ he said with a gesture of disgust, ‘you can’t talk to them.’
Tony bought him another pint, restraining himself to a half. ‘Did he have any ideas about the screams?’
‘God, I can’t remember. Do you really want to hear that rubbish’ You wouldn’t have liked what he said, let me tell you. He didn’t believe in your recording idea.’ He wiped his frothy lips sloppily. ‘He came here a couple of years after the murder,’ he reluctantly answered Tony’s encouraging gaze. ‘He’d read about the tragedies. He held a three-day vigil at Ploughman’s Path, or something. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that much time to waste’ He heard the screams, but ‘ this is what I said you wouldn’t like ‘ he said he couldn’t feel any trace of the tragedies at all.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you know these people are shupposed to be senshitive to sush things.’ When he’d finished laughing at himself he said, ‘Oh, he had an explanation, he was full of them. He tried to tell the police and me that the real tragedy hadn’t happened yet. He wanted us to believe he could see it in the future. Of course he couldn’t say what or when. Do you know what he tried to make out’ That there was something so awful in the future it was echoing back somehow, a sort of ghost in reverse. All the tragedies were just echoes, you see. He even made out the place was trying to make this final thing happen, so it could get rid of it at last. It had to make the worst thing possible happen, to purge itself. That was where the traces of the tragedies had gone ‘ the psychic energy, he called it. The place had converted all that energy, to help it make the thing happen. Oh, he was a real comedian.’
‘But what about the screams?’
‘Same kind of echo. Haven’t you ever heard an echo on a record before you hear the sound’ He tried to say the screams were like that, coming back from the future. He was entertaining, I’ll give him that. He had all sorts of charts, he’d worked out some kind of numerical pattern, the frequency of the tragedies or something. Didn’t impress me. They’re like statistics, those things, you can make them mean anything.’ His eyes had narrowed, gazing inward. ‘I ended up laughing at him. He went off very upset. Well, I had to get rid of him, I’d better things to do than listen to him. It wasn’t my fault he was killed,’ he said angrily, ‘whatever some people may say.’
‘Why, how was he killed?’
‘Oh, he went back to Ploughman’s Path. If he was so upset he shouldn’t have been driving. There were some children playing near the path. He must have meant to chase them away, but he lost control of the car, crashed at the end of the path. His legs were trapped and he caught fire. Of course he could have fitted that into his pattern,’ he mused. ‘I suppose he’d have said that was what the third scream meant.’
Tony started. He fought back the shadows of beer, of the pub. ‘How do you mean, the third scream?’
‘That was to do with his charts. He’d heard three screams in his vigil. He’d worked out that three screams meant it was time for a tragedy. He tried to show me, but I wasn’t looking. What’s the matter’ Don’t be going yet, it’s my round. What’s up, how many screams
have you heard?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tony blurted. ‘Maybe I dreamt one.’ As he hurried out he saw Roy Burley picking up his abandoned beer, saying, ‘Aren’t you going to finish this?’
It was all right. There was nothing to worry about, he’d just better be getting back to the cottage. The key groped clumsily for the ignition. The rusty yellow of Camside rolled back, rushed by green. Tony felt as if he were floating in a stationary car, as the road wheeled by beneath him ‘ as if he were sitting in the front stalls before a cinema screen, as the road poured through the screen, as the blank of a curve hurtled at him: look out! Nearly. He slowed. No need to take risks. But his mind was full of the memory of someone watching from the trees, perhaps drawn there by the screams.
Puffy clouds lazed above the hills. As the Farmer’s Rest whipped by Tony glimpsed the cottage and the field, laid out minutely below; the trees at Ploughman’s Path were a tight band of green. He skidded into the side road, fighting the wheel; the road seemed absurdly narrow. Scents of blossoms billowed thickly at him. A few birds sang elaborately, otherwise the passing countryside was silent, deserted, weighed down by heat.
The trunks of the trees at the end of Ploughman’s Path were twitching nervously, incessantly. He squeezed his eyes shut. Only heat-haze. Slow down. Nearly home now.
He slammed the car door, which sprang open. Never mind. He ran up the path and thrust the gate back, breaking its latch. The door of the cottage was ajar. He halted in the front room. The cottage seemed full of his harsh panting.
Di’s typescript was scattered over the carpet. The dark chairs sat fatly; one lay on its side, its fake leather ripped. Beside it a small object glistened red. He picked it up, staining his fingers. Though it was thick with blood he recognised Di’s wedding ring.
When he rushed out after searching the cottage he saw the trail at once. As he forced his way through the fence, sobbing dryly, barbed wire clawed at him. He ran across the field, stumbling and falling, towards Ploughman’s Path. The discoloured grass of the trail painted his trouser-cuffs and hands red. The trees of Ploughman's Path shook violently, with terror or with eagerness. The trail touched their trunks, leading him beneath the foliage to what lay on the path.
It was huge. More than anything else it looked like a tattered cut-out silhouette of a woman’s body. It gleamed red beneath the trees; its torso was perhaps three feet wide. On the width of the silhouette’s head two eyes were arranged neatly.
The scream ripped the silence of the path, an outraged cry of horror beyond words. It startled him into stumbling forward. He felt numb and dull. His mind refused to grasp what he was seeing; it was like nothing he’d ever seen. There was most of the head, in the crotch of a tree. Other things dangled from branches.
His lips seemed glued together. Since reaching the path he had made no sound. He hadn’t screamed, but he’d heard himself scream. At last he recognised that all the screams had been his voice.
He began to turn about rapidly, staring dull-eyed, seeking a direction in which he could look without being confronted with horror. There was none. He stood aimlessly, staring down near his feet, at a reddened gag.
As all the trees quivered like columns of water he heard movement behind him.
Though he had no will to live, it took him a long time to turn. He knew the pattern had reached its completion, and he was afraid. He had to close his eyes before he could turn, for he could still hear the scream he was about to utter.
Baby (1976)
When the old woman reached the shops Dutton began to lag further behind. Though his hands were as deep in his pockets as they could go, they were shaking. It's all right, he told himself, stay behind. The last thing you want is for her to notice you now. But he knew he'd fallen behind because he was losing his nerve.
The November wind blundered out of the side streets and shook him. As he hurried across each intersection, head trembling deep in his collar, he couldn't help searching the doorways for Tommy, Maud, even old Frank, anyone with a bottle. But nobody sat against the dull paint of the doors, beneath the bricked-up windows; nothing moved except tangles of sodden paper and leaves. No, he thought, trying to seize his mind before it began to shake like his body. He hadn't stayed sober for so long to lapse now, when he was so close to what he'd stayed sober for.
She'd drawn ahead; he was four blocks behind now. Not far enough behind. He'd better dodge into the next side street before she looked back and saw him. But then one of the shopkeepers might see him hiding and call the police. Or she might turn somewhere while he was hiding, and he would lose her. The stubble on his cheeks crawled with sweat, which clung to the whole of his body; he couldn't tell if it was boiling or frozen. For a couple of steps he limped rapidly to catch up with the old woman, then he held himself back. She was about to look at him.
Fear flashed through him as if his sweat were charged. He made himself gaze at the shops, at the stalls outside: water chestnuts, capsicums, aubergines, dhal—the little notices on sticks said so, but they were alien to him; they didn't help him hold on to his mind. Their price-flags fluttered, tiny and nerve-racking as the prickling of his cheeks.
Then he heard the pram. Its sound was deep in the blustering of the wind, but it was unmistakable. He'd heard it too often, coming towards the house, fading into the room below his. It sounded like the start of a rusty metal yawn, abruptly interrupted by a brief squeal, over and over. It was the sound of his goal, of the reason why he'd stayed sober all night. He brought the pockets of his coat together, propping the iron bar more securely against his chest inside the coat.
She had reached the maze of marshy ground and broken houses beyond the shops. At last, Dutton thought, and began to run. The bar thumped his chest until it bruised. His trousers chafed his thighs like sandpaper, his calves throbbed, but he ran stumbling past the morose shoppers, the defiantly cheerful shopkeepers, the continuing almost ghostly trade of the street. As soon as she was out of sight of the shops, near one of the dilapidated houses, he would have her. At once he halted, drenched in sweat. He couldn't do it.
He stood laughing mirthlessly at himself as newspapers swooped at him. He was going to kill the old woman, was he? Him, who hadn't been able to keep a job for more than a week for years? Him, who had known he wasn't going to keep a job before he started working at it, until the social security had reluctantly agreed with him? Him, who could boast of nothing but the book he cashed weekly at the post office? He was going to kill her?
His mind sounded like his mother. Too much so to dishearten him entirely: it wasn't him, he could answer back. He remembered when he'd started drinking seriously. He'd felt then that if the social security took an interest in him he would be able to hold down a job; but they hadn't bothered to conceal their indifference, and soon after that they'd given him his book. But now it was different. He didn't need anyone's encouragement. He'd proved that by not touching a drink since yesterday afternoon. If he could do that, he could do anything.
He shoved past a woman wheeling a pramful of groceries, and ran faster to outdistance the trembling that spread through his body. His shoes crackled faintly with the plastic bags in which his feet were wrapped. He was going to kill her, because of the contemptuous way she'd looked at him in the hall, exactly as his mother had used to; because while he was suffering poverty, she had chosen worse and flaunted her happiness; because although her coat had acquired a thick hem of mud from trailing, though the coat gaped like frayed lips between her shoulders, she was always smiling secretly, unassailably. He let the thoughts seep through his mind, gathering darkly and heavily in the depths. He was going to kill her—because she looked too old for life, too ugly and wizened to live; because she walked as if to do so were a punishment; because her smile must be a paralysed grimace of pain, after all; because her tuneless crooning often kept him awake half the night, though he stamped on her ceiling; because he needed her secret wealth. She had turned and was coming back towards him, past the shops. His fac
e huddled into his collar as he stumbled away, across the road. That was enough. He'd tried, he couldn't do more. If circumstances hadn't saved him he would have failed. He would have been arrested, and for nothing. He shifted the bar uneasily within his coat, anxious to be rid of it. He gazed at the burst husk of a premature firework, lying trampled on the pavement. It reminded him of himself. He turned hastily as the old woman came opposite him, and stared in a toy-shop window.
An orange baby with fat wrinkled dusty joints stared back at him. Beside it, reflected in a dark gap among the early Christmas toys and fireworks for tomorrow night, he saw the old woman. She had pushed her pram alongside a greengrocer's stall; now she let it go. Dutton peered closer, frowning.
He was sure she hadn't pushed the pram before letting go. Yet it had sped away, past the greengrocer's stall, then halted suddenly. He was still peering when she wheeled it out of the reflection, into the depths full of toys. He began to follow her at once, hardly shaking. Even if he hadn't needed her wealth to give him a chance in life, he had to know what was in that pram.
What wealth? How did he know about it? He struggled to remember. Betty, no, Maud had told him, the day she hadn't drunk too much to recall. She'd read about the old woman in the paper, years ago: about how she'd been swindled by a man whom nobody could trace. She'd given the man her money, her jewels, her house, and her relatives had set the police on him. But then she had been in the paper herself, saying she hadn't been swindled at all, that it was none of their business what she'd gained from the trade; and Maud supposed they'd believed her, because that was the last she had seen of the woman in the paper.
The Collected Short Fiction Page 40
