Shadows 3

by Charles L. Grant

  “I don’t have any money, Mr. Silone. I just came here to give—”

  “Step aside, Fatso, I’ve got business to transact.”

  “But won’t you at least look at it?”

  “Okay, okay, let’s see the stupid thing.”

  Because of her handicap, she had difficulty removing the wrapping, so I helped her. When her painting was unveiled, I saw that it was a portrait of Orlando. It was not a work of genius, nor even of professional caliber, but it had been done with some skill, great care, and profound devotion. Her draughtsmanship was superior to anything Silone had ever achieved Working apparently from photographs, the girl had painstakingly developed a picture that looked exactly like him—and didn’t look like him at all. His features had been precisely rendered; technically, nothing was awry; but she had left out Orlando’s character. Imbuing the face, instead, with her own misplaced love, she had depicted him as a saint, glowing with kindness and benediction. It was Orlando, and it wasn’t Orlando. It was Orlando’s shell, emptied of ugliness and filled with beauty. It was Orlando as he might have looked if he hadn’t been such a thoroughly rotten human being. “Why, honey,” I said, “this is very good.”

  “Like a Corelli sonata!” Dr. Challenge declared.

  But it wasn’t our praise that the girl craved. She turned to Silone with a beseeching light in her eyes. Silently, I said: This is your chance, Silone. Maybe your last chance to save your maggoty soul. Don’t blow it. Say something nice to her.

  He said something, all right—not to her, but to me: “Good? Did you call this good? How the hell do you know what’s good? You want to know what this is? This is garbage.” He flung a slice of pizza at the portrait.

  Even the assembled worshippers were shocked. Dr. Challenge gasped. A silence settled over the gallery like a suddenly overcast sky. The pizza began to slide down the painting, leaving a trail of cheese and tomato sauce, with occasional bits of anchovy and sausage clinging to the gluey mess.

  “You bastard!” I yelled.

  The girl was in tears—she was destroyed—it was as if God had spit in her face. I put my arm around her shoulders. “Don’t cry, sweetie,” I said. “The painting will clean up easily. It’ll be good as new, you’ll see.”

  “But it’s for him! I did it for him!” She tried to hide her face in her hand. It was hard to do with only one. Gently, I coaxed her to a secluded comer at the rear of the gallery and gave her my handkerchief.

  Silone had meanwhile regained the loyalty of his other fans by starting the sale of the photocopies. They went briskly, some for ten dollars, most for twenty-five and the promise of a signature, a few for fifty and the even more glowing prospect of a personal dedication. “Cash, no checks!” he insisted as he passed out the copies and pocketed the money. In minutes, the sale was over. Then he sold the empty wine bottle for twelve dollars. “Okay, troops, get the hell outa my way. I’m late for another appointment.” He started toward the door, pushing the kids aside and calling over his shoulder to me, “Hey, you—tapeworm! Let’s make tracks!”

  A disappointed murmur was rising from the faithful. “You didn’t sign my copy!” … “You didn’t dedicate it to me!” … “I paid you twenty-five dollars, Orlando!” … “I paid you fifty!” …

  “No time now,” he said. “In a big rush. Catch me later.” He walked out to the curb where my Volkswagen was parked. I followed him into the blazing midday sun. Marty was already standing at the car.

  “Here’s the agenda, guys,” Silone said to us. “You drive me back to my place and drop me off. Then come back again at six, snap some pictures of me inside the house, and take me out to dinner. We can wrap up the interview over a Chateaubriand steak. Right? Right Let’s go.”

  “Call a cab!” I shouted, anger choking me. “I’m not chauffeuring you anywhere!”

  “What’s with him?” he asked Marty.

  “You cheated those poor kids,” I said. “You stole their money and didn’t even take the time to scrawl your name and a few lying words on their copies. Fifty dollars for a nickel Xerox! They saved up their money all year …”

  “Aw, put a sock in it willya? When the Orlando spell is on them thar lantern-jawed morons, I can make “em do anything I please—and if those gnat-brains are dumb enough to shell out legal tender for a lousy Xerox, they deserve everything they get.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Silone, they’re children! And as for deserving—I hope you get everything you deserve. In spades!” I uttered it like a prayer.

  Snickering, he walked away, presumably in search of a cab. The sweat of rage and high-noon heat was rolling off me.

  Suddenly, I remembered the girl. I ran back into the cool gallery. Most of the fans had disbanded. I looked around for her. She had vanished. But she had left her painting behind. It was leaning against a rear wall, the face still blemished by coagulating pizza. I asked Dr. Challenge: “That one-armed girl, where did she go?” But the good doctor was still dazed by her whirlwind exposure to Silone, and merely shook her head. I picked up the painting and took it out to the car, where I locked it in the trunk. Then I dropped off Marty and drove home.

  The first thing I did was to clean the pizza from the painting. It came off easily, as I’d told the girl it would, but I was in for a heart-freezing surprise. I couldn’t believe what I saw. A tumult of images rushed over me. In my memory, I glimpsed that girl again, and felt her angelic aura. I heard Silone say, “They love me down under,” and now I wasn’t so sure he’d meant Australia. I heard my own unspoken words: This is your chance, Silone. Maybe your last chance to save your maggoty soul. Don’t blow it

  But he had.

  I’ve read Dorian Gray several times over the past year, hoping it might contain a clue, a hint; but the situation in Wilde’s novel is quite different from this one, and the book couldn’t help me. I never heard from Silone again after that terrible day. To my knowledge, nobody has. I tried to phone him, to tell him I wasn’t going ahead with the interview, but I kept getting his recorded voice on an answering gadget: “Orlando’s Hideaway. Just leave your name and number and I’ll catch you later, baby.” Day after day, I heard that recording. After a while, I gave up.

  There’s been a lot of speculation, of course. He’s on the lam from his creditors and/or the IRS, some say—fled the city, the state, the country. He’s changed his name, shaved his head, and formed a religious cult somewhere. His fans, tired of being treated like dirt, finally turned on him, as worms are proverbially reputed to do, and murdered him, cremated him, scattered his ashes to the winds or, more in the spirit of his work, flushed them down the toilet. Whatever, nobody seems to know where he is. But I think I do.

  I think he’s in my closet.

  When I cleaned off those pizza stains a year ago today, I saw that the painting had become subtly … different, somehow. My imagination? No; because Marty’s photos of the original portrait, snapped that day in the gallery, are available for objective comparison, and still show it as it was. A chemical reaction to the pizza sauce? I think not.

  The amateur painting had been transformed into a masterpiece that captured the character of Silone perfectly—and “captured” is the chillingly right word. It now resembles him to the life. The saintliness is gone, and in its place is the man’s true personality—loathsome, cruel, evil. He had been given his chance, but he had thrown it away. And in an awesome act of sanitation, some Force, some Power I can never hope to comprehend, had plucked him from this world and hurled him into Hell. His own special, terribly private Hell. Reserved exclusively for him.

  Hell is the shadow of a soul on fire, wrote Omar the tent-maker. In Dr. Faustus, Mephisto says, Where we are is Hell, and where Hell is, there must we ever be. Hell is underground, some believe; Hell is on earth, others say; Hell is on adifferent plane of existence, a different continuum, still others argue. Orlando Silone’s Hell, I suggest, is a layer of paint afraction of an inch thick. He’s screaming silently, trapped forever in the bright acrylic c
olors of his own portrait, painted by an innocent supplicant whose heart he had stepped on and mercilessly crushed as if it had been a cockroach. And that supplicant, that ray of purity, had then returned to … wherever it was she’d come from. Anyway, that’s my theory.

  Some day, I’m going to burn that painting. I wonder what will happen when I do?

  Introduction

  R. Chetwynd-Hayes is known in this country primarily for his stint as editor of the British-based Fontana BOOK OF HORROR series. His fiction, unfortunately, has until now been confined to the United Kingdom. The story below was included in his collection, THE NIGHT GHOULS, and appears in the United States for the first time here.

  THE GHOST WHO LIMPED

  by R. Chetwynd-Hayes

  Mother said Brian was not to play with matches and of course he did, setting light to the old summerhouse, so that Father had to put the fire out with the garden hose.

  Father maintained that Brian should be spanked but Mother would not let him, stating with cool simplicity, that words were more powerful than blows.

  “That’s all very well,” Father grumbled, “but one day …”

  “He’s only seven,” Mother pointed out, “and we must reason with him. It’s not as though any real damage was done.”

  Julia went out to look at the summerhouse, and truly the damage was negligible. The doorsteps were slightly scorched, but this added to the old-world, time-beaten appearance of the ancient building.

  When she came back to the house, Mother was explaining to Brian the virtues and evils of fire.

  “The fire keeps us warm; it cooks our food and is nice to look at.”

  “Makes pretty pictures,” Brian stated, “lots of mountains and valleys.”

  “Yes,” Mother agreed, “and therefore fire is a good friend, but when you set light to the summerhouse, then it was a bad enemy. You—all of us could have been burned to death.”

  “Death … death,” Brian repeated the words with some satisfaction. “What is death?”

  Mother frowned, then proceeded to choose her words with care.

  “The body … your arms and legs become still, and you can’t use your body any more. You … become like Mr. Miss-One.”

  Brian grinned with impish delight.

  “I’d like to be Mr. Miss-One.”

  Mother took the small boy into her arms and shook her beautiful head, so that the fair curls danced like corn in sunlight.

  “No, my darling. No. You wouldn’t like being Mr. Miss-One.”

  Julia came down late for dinner for she had fallen asleep in her room, and dreamed a strange dream. It seemed that she had been in the drawing room when Mr. Miss-One entered. He had limped across the room and sunk down beside her on the sofa; and for the first time, he seemed to know she was present. He stared straight at her and looked so very, very sad, that when she awoke, tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  “You look pale,” Mother remarked, “and your eyes are red. I hope you aren’t sickening for something.”

  Julia said: “No,” then seated herself opposite Brian, who made a face and poked his tongue out.

  “Behave yourself,” Father warned, “and, Julia, you’re not to tease him.”

  “I didn’t …” Julia began to protest but Mother said, “You’re not to answer your father back.”

  She hung her head and fought back the scalding tears. The terrible injustice was a burning pain and she felt shut out—unwanted. Brian was a child, a doll for her parents to pet; she was sixteen, tall, awkward, not particularly pretty, which meant being unloved, isolated, scolded—who knows, perhaps hated.

  “Julia, sit up,” Mother continued with a sharp voice, “don’t slouch. Heavens above, when I was your age, I was as straight as a larch. Really, I can’t imagine who you take after.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Father ordered, smiling at Brian, whose mouth was smeared with custard “She is talking for your own good.”

  They might have been talking to a stranger or casting words at a statue. Her very presence, every action, provoked a series of stock phrases. She moved in her chair.

  “Don’t fidget,” Mother snapped.

  “For heaven’s sake, sit still,” said Father.

  Julia got up and ran from the room.

  “Oh, no,” Mother exclaimed, “not another fit of the sulks!”

  “She’ll get over it,” Father pronounced.

  The garden dozed under the afternoon sun, while bees and bluebottles hummed with contentment in the heat. Julia lay back in a deck chair and basked in a lake of misery, wallowing in the melancholy stream of her self-pity.

  “I wish I could die. Death is like a beautiful woman in a gray robe who closes our eyes with gentle fingers, then wipes the slate of memory clean.”

  She decided this was a noble thought, and really she was quite definitely a genius, which explained why everyone was so unkind.

  “I am different,” she told herself, and at once felt much more cheerful. “I think on a much higher plane. Mother is so stupid, afraid to smile in case she makes a line on her face, and as for Father … he’s an echo, a nothing. Brian is a horrible, spoiled little beast. But I’m—I’m a genius.”

  Having reached this satisfactory conclusion, she was about to rise when Mr. Miss-One entered the garden. He was carrying a hoe and, walking over to one of the flower-beds, he began to turn the soil, or rather gave the appearance of doing so, for Julia knew that not even a single stone would be disturbed. She crept up to him like a puppy approaching its master, uncertain of its reception. She stopped some three feet from him and sank down on the grass, gazing up into his face.

  He was so beautiful. There was no other word to describe that kind, sensitive face. Mother was always a little frightened of Mr. Miss-One, saying that though he appeared harmless, nevertheless, he wasn’t natural. Father regarded him in much the same way, as if he were a stray cat that refused to be dislodged.

  “We must be mad to live in a house with a bally ghost,” he had once protested. “Never know when the damned thing is going to pop up.”

  This attitude, of course, only confirmed their mundane, unimaginative outlook, and showed up Julia’s exceptional powers of perception. Mr. Miss-One was beautiful, kind, and must have been, long ago, a remarkable person. Julia had no evidence to support this theory for Mr. Miss-One never spoke, was apparently oblivious of their presence, and only performed little, non-productive chores, strolling aimlessly through the house or garden. Furthermore, Mr. Miss-One was not young, possibly as old as Julia’s father, for his black hair was flecked with gray and there were tired lines around his eyes and mouth. But these signs of age enhanced his beauty, making him a strange, exciting figure, combining the attributes of father and lover. Now he stood upright, leaning upon the hoe, and stared thoughtfully back at the house.

  “Mr. Miss-One,” Julia whispered, “who are you? I want to know so much. How long ago did you live? When did you die? And why do you haunt the house and garden? Haunt! That’s a funny word. It sounds frightening, and you don’t frighten me at all.”

  Mr. Miss-One returned to his work and continued to turn soil that never moved.

  “Father says you don’t exist, but are only a time image of someone who lived here years and years ago. That’s nonsense. I could not fall in love with a shadow or dream about a patch of colored air.”

  “Julia.” Mother was standing in the doorway and her voice held an angry, fearful tone. “Julia, come here at once.”

  Reluctantly she rose and left Mr. Miss-One to his ghostly gardening, willing herself not to look back. Mother slapped her bare arm, a punishment that had been applied in childhood.

  “I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, you’re not to go near that—that thing. It’s not healthy. It ought to be exercised or something.”

  “Exorcised,” Julia corrected.

  “And don’t answer me back. I think sometimes, you’re a little mad. Go to your room and don’t come down u
ntil I say so.”

  From her bedroom window, Julia watched Mr. Miss-One. He was pushing a ghostly lawnmower over the lawn, limping laboriously in its wake, seemingly oblivious that no grass leaped into the box, that the whirling blades made no sound.

  “I expect he was killed in a war,” Julia thought as he disappeared behind a rhododendron bush. She waited for him to reappear but the garden remained empty, and when, presently, the setting sun sent long tree shadows across the grass, she knew, for the time being at least, the play was over.

  “I thought we might run down to the coast today,” Father announced over the breakfast table.

  “Good idea.” Mother nodded her agreement. “Julia, sit up, child, don’t slouch.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Father advised. “Yes, a breath of sea air will do us all good. Brian will enjoy it, won’t you old fellow?”

  “Yes.” Brian nodded vigorously. “Throw stones at seagulls.”

  Both fond parents laughed softly and Mother admonished gently, “You mustn’t throw stones at dickybirds.”

  “Why?”

  “Because …” For once Mother seemed lost for an explanation and it was left to Father to express an opinion.

  “Because it’s not nice.”

  “We won’t go,” Julia thought. “We never go. Something will happen to stop us.”

  But preparations went on after breakfast. Mother packed a hamper and Brian produced a colored bucket and wooden spade from the attic, while Julia was instructed to brighten up and look cheerful for a change.

  “Maybe we will go this time,” she whispered, putting on her best summer dress with polkadots. “Perhaps nothing will happen to stop us.”

  The feeling of optimism grew as the entire family walked around the house to the garage, Father carrying the hamper, Mother fanning herself with a silk handkerchief, and Brian kicking the loose gravel. Father opened the garage door, took one step forward, then stopped.

  “Damnation hell,” he swore. “This really is too much.”