The Face That Must Die

by Ramsey Campbell

  The Face That Must Die

  Ramsey Campbell

  The Face That Must Die

  Ramsey Campbell

  ***

  I Am It And It Is I

  There can’t have been much stuff in that cake. Or else it must have been all seeds. I must have had the best of it last night.

  I don’t want to think about last night. Maybe I should listen to some sounds.

  So why shouldn’t I think about last night? I’m not going to be stoned on this stuff. There were some nice sounds going, and I was listening to them, and that must have been when everyone went out for a walk. Sylvia went to crash with Den and Heather. She’ll be back. It was just a temporary thing. I wish I could remember exactly what happened. She wanted to turn the sounds down, that’s right, because the gays upstairs were banging on the floor, and we had an argument. I forget what I said. I know I told her to fuck off, and she went out crying with Den and Heather. They’re not on the phone, or I could tell her I’m sorry. I mean, I am, but it was weird because at the time I felt bad about it yet something told me I had to be on my own for a while. Weird.

  I can’t suss why I’m not stoned now. It’s nearly two hours since I ate that cake. It was the last piece, right enough, and I know it was full of seeds because we didn’t spread them out properly. But last night, I mean, wow, that was cake. Den had brought along some Debussy. I said shit when I saw it, but they were really some sounds when he put it on. That’s right, I had my eyes shut, and I was sailing down out of space through the clouds into this ruined temple, and just as the sounds were really freaking out there was light, brighter and brighter. Had Sylvia gone by then? No, she couldn’t have, because Den didn’t leave the sounds. I can’t remember.

  But that was good dope. A friend of Den’s was growing it in Sefton Park, right in the middle of all those streets. I mean, all those straights in the streets never knew, that was the incredible part. Just beautiful. And he was making it to Amsterdam, so he sold his plot. Plot of pot. Wow, must remember that. He sold it, half to Den and half to me. Last night was the first crop. Said he scored the seeds in some little village with a ruined temple in the background. It sounds like William Burroughs, I know, he said.

  It sounds like William Burroughs, I know he said.

  My God, I’m slowing down. It’s coming on.

  Right. I’m going to listen to some sounds. See if it’s as fantastic as last night.

  This room’s too purple. Look at those velvet curtains. It’s like your spit thickens when you’re sick, they’re thickening the sunlight. So are those cars in Lodge Lane. Grinding away and throbbing and rattling – they’re interfering with the sunlight. No, they can’t be. Who said that? Come on, come out wherever you are.

  I’m going to hear some sounds.

  Look where the records are. I’ll never get over there. It’ll be a miracle if I can stand up. Jesus, look at that! My purple shadow! It’s turning to look at me! You’re turning to look at yourself, you mean. Who’s saying these things?

  Oh Christ, there’s Sylvia. I just flashed her. In the doorway with tears running down her face. Trembling like she wants to shake herself to pieces and never be put together again. Oh I’m sorry, love. I didn’t want you to go. It was the shit talking. I never wanted you to go.

  – Why do they call it shit?

  – Who’s there? Oh Jesus, it’s not Sylvia who came apart, it’s me. My mind’s splitting down the middle like a cleaver’s gone through it.

  – Of course. There’s a calm side and a paranoid side. You’re on the paranoid side now, man.

  – I’ve had this before. Like my mind’s a battleground between the strong and the weak. Vietnam in the head. Like that book by someone, Aldiss, Barry was reading us last week. All right, I can play it. What did you say back there?

  – What? What did I say? Oh, I was wondering why they call dope shit.

  – Weird question. The colour, maybe, I don’t know. Listen, however many of me there are, we’re famished. Let’s make it to the kitchen. You take this leg and I’ll get the other.

  – Go on! You can do it! Listen, you aren’t turned on to this scene at all. You’ve got to become me, man, you’ve got to become the strong calm side of this mind we’ve got, then there’ll be no more paranoia, no more weakness. Merge, man, merge.

  – Maybe, but how long have we been walking towards that door? The purple’s pulling us back. We aren’t going to make it. Anyway, listen, we don’t even know what’s on the other side of the door. Let’s just lie down and maybe hear some sounds.

  – You crawling cowardly bastard. I could show you things that’d make your experiences look like shit, if you had the courage.

  – All right. All right! We’re out. Don’t ask me how I got through that shadow. Felt like cobwebs. My God, is that the bedroom over there? All that way? Oh wow, that orange door is my scene, though. This whole hall, it’s like those comics Barry had last night, what were they, Marvel Comics.

  – We aren’t going over there. Just in the kitchen. There, you made it. Fantastic.

  – Look at those pans hanging up. What are they, mouths? Mouths on sticks! Sylvia used to feed those mouths. She loved having her own kitchen.

  – Forget that. Forage, man. What’s this? Duck pate. A duck made into paste. Don’t know how you could think of eating that, even if you weren’t stoned. Sylvia bought it, don’t forget. She bought it and you were supposed to eat it.

  – Don’t you say that. I used to walk around the block sometimes when I was stoned and think of coming home to Sylvia when we were old and we could just sit together.

  – She stuffed a crushed duck down your throat. She didn’t care.

  – Don’t you put her down, you fucker! I want to see her! I want to tell her I’m sorry!

  – All right. There’s nothing good here, anyway. Let’s take a walk.

  – See Sylvia?

  – If you want.

  – Just so you know who’s running things here. Clump. That door sounded satisfied. It wanted me to come out for a walk. There you are, Croxteth Grove. That means all these trees and look, on that wall, that cat sitting like a gargoyle. All its fur with the sun running off like water. Summer is to sit with Sylvia, like that kids’ book I was reading.

  – Maybe so, but look: Lodge Lane. Main roads aren’t good for the summer.

  – For once I think you’re right. There’s something bad about those cars. It’s like the cars are using people for parts, you know, cogs or valves. My God, look at all those cars sitting at the side of the road waiting to catch someone! That’s right, they draw off energy somehow and drive about on it.

  – But what about all these people walking around?

  – Well, what about them? Look, look at them jerking about! There’s that guy tapping his umbrella, there’s a woman brushing her hair back from her face, look, she’s doing it again, there’s some kids kicking a can. “Yes, that’s right, they’ve been thrown out by the cars because they’ve got too much excess energy. But the cars will get them again. Am I walking along Lodge Lane talking to myself?”

  – “Yes, I think you probably are. We are.”

  – “I thought that guy with the umbrella was looking at us weird. Fuck off, cog! Listen” – listen, the cars won’t get us on the way to Sylvia, will they?

  – Those cars waiting at the lights look pretty bad. If we run we can make it across the lights and into Sefton Park.

  – “But we’re going away from Sylvia.”

  – “That’s true. Well, it’s your scene, but I can tell you I don’t like those cars. Half an hour in the park and I’ll take anything, but not right now. And remember this, man: you need me.”

  – “Fair enough, I sup
pose. Run!”

  – We’re across. Don’t slow down. Did you see that car straining to get at us past the lights, those eyes? Blind but they could see us.

  – Right, but I like these trees. The leaves are talking about summer. Listen, we won’t get too far away from Sylvia, will we? I can feel my mind stretching. I don’t want it to snap. Christ, that would be painful, all my thoughts snapping back together.

  – Don’t hassle. We want to get away from those tenements on Lodge Lane. You can feel everyone weighing on everyone else. Think of having twenty floors on top of you. All that sweat and flesh.

  – Bad scene. But this going in the park to get it together seems like a kind of a return to the womb thing.

  – Feel all the life growing around us, the grass and the flowers and the trees. Taking their own time.

  – Beautiful. But let’s not forget Sylvia. She’s beautiful too, and we hurt her.

  – Nobody’s forgetting. Now just feel your foot crossing over from the pavement into the park. Feel the grass accept you.

  – Fantastic. It kind of breathes in so I don’t hurt it.

  – It’s more than that. It’s welcoming you.

  – This is incredible. There’s nobody about except the grass and the trees. Where are we going, down to the lake to see the ducks?

  – I shouldn’t think you’d feel too good about ducks right now. Let’s go and see where your dope is planted.

  – That’s a great idea. Maybe it’ll talk to us. Like those trees aren’t moving but they’re talking about the sun.

  – They’re talking about life. You aren’t there yet, though – the dope has been talking to you since you came on.

  – I’m with you. Look how the shadows of the trees are lying down on the path to be in the shade. But they are the shade.

  – Identity is a weird thing.

  – Right. Those shrubberies, I mean, the sunlight just lies there like honey. I could eat it. But what I meant to say was, the dope is just behind them.

  – That’s where I have to go.

  – We don’t have to anything, man. We’re free. We can just let the sunlight splash over us.

  – We have to go there. Don’t you want to visit it? Aren’t you grateful for what it’s giving you?

  – Shit, you’re right, I am ungrateful. Come on, I’m going to thank it. The shrubberies are caressing us. Like -

  – There are shoots there if you look. They’re quiet now, but when they grow someone’s going to eat them or smoke them. Then they’ll tell him everything.

  – Right. Shoots, thank you, you’re beautiful. But I was going to say, those shrubberies were caressing us like Sylvia. I was just wondering if she’s still at Den and Heather’s. She might have come back to ours. I mean, if someone told me to fuck off while I was stoned I mightn’t be able to get it together either. But I do love her. She knows that.

  – I can feel the shoots growing. Birth, that’s what life is for.

  – Right. You know, Sylvia wants a baby, I can tell. Maybe we weren’t into getting married before, you know, the whole straight scene. But if she wants it, it’s my scene. “If this is you telling me this, shoots of dope, we’ll both come and thank you.”

  – I could be reborn.

  – That’s fantastic, man. How?

  – Just think how a seed must feel.

  – Don’t stop! I mean, too much!

  – Thrusting down through the earth, feeling the soil hug you, the trees meditating.

  – Digging in the earth?

  – That’s right.

  – Like this?

  – Right, but stay cool. Not so fast. No need to break your nails. Time’s stopped.

  – Look at all these stones, been down there nobody knows how long without anything to hassle them. That worm’s going to fuck the earth. Think of all the straights living round this scene and never knowing. Sylvia would love this. We ought to show her.

  – We will, but don’t worry about time. She’ll come to see you. You can talk to her then.

  – Man, this hole is deep. I’d never have thought I could do it.

  – Don’t stop now. Don’t think about it.

  – If we’re going any deeper I’ll have to stand in it.

  – Stand in it. I mean, straights wouldn’t even think about it, never mind do it.

  – I ought to get a job in the country if I can dig like this. Jesus, I can’t even see over the top of the hole. I never realised earth was so warm. Protective, kind of. Feels familiar.

  – This is where I was born.

  – Come on, man.

  – This is only the beginning. Wait till you feel yourself pouring through someone, touching their being and speaking to it. It might be Sylvia.

  – That’s amazing. Just imagine. I’d like her to feel – Christ! I can feel something growing up from my stomach like a shoot!

  – You know who that is.

  – Shit, man, it isn’t you!

  – Yes, but now I’m you as well.

  – What’s that? Rain? Look, the soil’s raining on us.

  – It’s giving itself to us. Stand still. Let me feel it for you. It’ll be easier.

  – Clods of earth! Christ, it’s hailing!

  – Pull your hands in now. Think of what you’ll have to tell Sylvia.

  ***

  Chapter I

  Perhaps he should stay on the bus, and avoid the tail end of Christmas.

  In Lodge Lane, shops had broken out in fairy lights. Tiny coloured bulbs spelt Merry Christmas. The shoppers on the narrow pavements looked as though they all had hangovers. The window of a wine store glided by, glittering with an oval of frost false as a carol singer’s smile.

  If he stayed on the bus he would reach the park more quickly – but he wanted his sweets. He’d loved them ever since he was a child: boiled sweets which bulged his cheeks, hard as fruity stones, while he sucked and sucked until it seemed they would never crack and yield up their sticky secret. Why should he deny himself? He hadn’t had much in his life.

  Ambushed by wind from the side streets, the bus shuddered. The brakes squealed as a bus stop flagged it down. If there were too many people upstairs, might the bus topple over? Horridge felt unsafe, for the lurches of the bus had set everyone nodding, as though agreeing with a whisper which he’d failed to hear.

  The bus had stopped. He limped rapidly to reach the doors before they closed. His hip bumped something. “That’s my hat!” a woman protested like an outraged parrot, patting the furry pink cap back into place. “That’s my hat!”

  “ I’m very sorry,” he said sweetly, cursing her for drawing attention to him, to his limp.

  He gripped the rusty bus stop for a few moments, like a crutch. People trudged by, greeting one another, laden with bags of anything but turkey. Nobody looked up beyond the shops, to the windows blank with dust, the jagged holes admitting weather to the deserted flats. Above a supermarket, bared nails spelt out the unreadable ghost of its name. Didn’t these people realise that all this could be used as an excuse to herd them into concrete prisons miles outside the city? So long as they had their pubs and betting shops, they didn’t care.

  He made for the sweet shop, slowly enough to conceal his limp. The shopkeeper was serving a customer: a packet of razor-blades lay between them on the spread of newspapers. Cupboards and racks made the shop even smaller. Magazines were pegged like printed towels hung up to dry. Framed by romances and toilet rolls, glossy women exposed huge chests.

  As he turned to the jars the shopkeeper said “They’d rather not work these days. They’re too well off.”

  Was she referring to him? He wasn’t one of the layabouts who drove new cars to collect their dole. Dole! Fortune, more like. It wasn’t for him; he was only partially incapacitated, the Social Security had decided after cross-questioning him like a common criminal. All they needed to live up to their initials were jackboots.

  “ I couldn’t agree more,” the other woman said.

&nbs
p; Oh, surely she could if she really tried. These days nobody could think for themselves.

  “ All these men walking the streets. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He wasn’t a streetwalker, and he never would be. Just let her watch whom she was calling abnormal! He rapped a lid with his knuckles. “A quarter of these, please,” he said to shut her up.

  As he started forward to grab the bag – a sweet was poking over its lip, ready to fall if she helped it a little – his leg gave way. His hand splayed a stack of newspapers across the counter, spreading headlines – New Murder Shock – and razor-blades. A dozen repetitions of the identikit drawing stared up at him, an unnatural family – as though the man had infected a dozen victims until they looked like him. Horridge snatched his hand away. “Bloody leg,” he muttered.

  The customer stared at him as he groped for his wallet. Her hair was full of plastic burrs, her eyes were sunk in mascara. “He’s got a lot in his pockets,” she said. “Been robbing a bank, have you?”

  Let her mind her own business. He thrust his documents deeper into his pocket: disability benefit order book, medical card, birth certificate. She stared at his overcoat as though it was an insult flung into a jumble sale. Yes, the pockets were discoloured with bulging. Let her try to live on the pittance they gave him!

  Once out of the shop he made for the park. He felt shabby. He could have turned his coat, which was a reversible – but he was no turncoat, and besides, the tartan was too bright; he preferred the unobtrusive grey.

  The sweet which he popped into his mouth tasted soapy. His hand was stigmatised by the newspapers. If the blur of ink was a word, it was indecipherable. He rubbed his skin clean with the sweet bag, but his hand still felt smeared.

  A twinge counted his steps as he quickened his pace. Street signs were obscured by incomprehensible graffiti, as though invaded by a foreign language. The villas of Sefton Park Road were spacious and grand, with deep porches. Trees, promises of the park, grew in the large gardens.