The Claw

by Ramsey Campbell

  For a while Liz sat in the long room with the telephone by her side and wished that Alan would call. She didn't blame him any more and would have hated him to feel that he couldn't come home. She would have called him if she'd known where he was. Eventually she moved the phone into the hall and made herself watch television, though she hardly knew what she was watching. Here were television cops, beating up someone as usual; here was a play that might be a horror story or a comedy, she couldn't tell which.

  She'd moved the phone into the hall, yet she kept glimpsing red at the edge of her vision. As she glanced at the empty space on the mantelpiece, she realized that that was why the house felt empty – because she'd lost the claw. The sound of the sea made it feel even emptier, the sea that separated her from Alan, the sea that she could never cross.

  Eventually she called her parents. Her father said he was glad of the rest – just what the doctor ordered; she could only pray that it was the line that made his voice so weak. Then she went to bed. Anna was asleep, otherwise she might have drawn away from her mother. Liz could hug the small warm body to her, purge her mind of other feelings, believe that they would be friends again tomorrow, reach inward to the untroubled centre of herself and sleep.

  She'd forgotten her strange feelings of the night before until she switched off the bedside lamp. It was as though she'd wakened something in the dark by switching off the lamp – as though she'd wakened the dark itself. It was crouching by the bed, watching her, licking its lips. How could waves sound so much like slobbery breathing? She hugged Anna to her, to cling to reality, but the child was hot and restless. Liz inched away for fear of waking her, and felt as if she were trying to be inconspicuous. She lay stiffly on her back, trying to think of nothing.

  She must have slept, for she woke in the night, halfway through a dream of lying in wait for someone. There was a taste in her mouth, so unpleasant that she stumbled to the bathroom without thinking of the dark, and gargled with cold water. The taste was gone before she had a chance to decide what it was. She switched off the bathroom light and groped back to her room.

  The dark was darker after the bright room. She was tiptoeing barefoot through the dark, and she wouldn't see the crouching figure until she fell over it, or until her bare foot touched its face… She stumbled loudly back to the door and grabbed the light-switch.

  The room was empty but for Anna, and the light had wakened her. 'What's wrong, mummy?' she whimpered, half-asleep. 'Where did you go?'

  'Just for a drink. I'm coming back now. Snuggle down and go to sleep.'

  'I want a drink too.'

  'You would.' Liz brought her a glass of water, which she drained in two gulps. In bed Liz hugged the child until Anna pushed her away, complaining she was too hot. Liz lay awake as the child tossed and turned restlessly, and tried to control her thoughts – forced herself not to tell Anna to be still. Why should Anna's restlessness matter when there was nothing in the dark?

  At last Liz slept, only to dream that something was dragging her down into darkness – darkness that was hot and sticky and capable of suffocating her with its stench. She hacked and sliced at her captor, but the small fingers wouldn't let go. At last she woke, still in the grip of the dream, and found that Anna was staring at her along the pillow. For a moment Liz thought the child knew what she'd dreamed. But at least it was daylight now, and they could get up.

  After such a restless night, no doubt arguments were inevitable. When they sat down to breakfast Anna said, 'I want to go to the shop today.'

  'No, not today. You were there all yesterday morning.'

  'Rebecca doesn't mind. She says I can go every day if I want to.'

  'Does she indeed. Well, I don't want you to. Not for a while at least.'

  'But I want to go. I like being with her.'

  'But you don't like being with me.'

  'Of course I do,' Anna said – too quickly, Liz thought. 'But I like making things in the shop.'

  'You just try staying at home with me for a while instead of running off all the time.'

  'I don't want to. There's nothing to do.'

  'So you have to go to Rebecca's to make things, do you?' Liz was losing her temper. 'I'm sure you'll find plenty to do if you put your mind to it. If you can't, it's your own fault.'

  Anna sulked for a few minutes, clanking her spoon against her eggcup until Liz was ready to grab it from her.

  'But I want to go to the shop,' Anna said at last. 'Why can't I go?'

  'Because I say so, and you're not too big to have your bottom smacked if you can't do as you're told.' In the past she always used to explain things to Anna; what had happened to their closeness? 'Because I think Rebecca has used you as an unpaid worker long enough,' she said, 'and because I want you near me.'

  She hadn't known until she said h how true that was. She remembered how she'd felt when she saw that Anna was going to run across Haven Bridge, she remembered the anonymous phone call, and there were other reasons, too deep in her mind to define. She couldn't help it if she was being irrational: she didn't want Anna to be out of her sight again.

  'I don't like staying at home,' Anna was complaining. 'There's nobody to play with. You never have the time.'

  'My God, I spend half my life making time to be with you.'

  'We never go to the nursery any more. I used to be able to play there and look after the babies.'

  'All right,' Liz cried, 'we'll go there today.' For a moment it seemed like the answer: Anna would be kept busy, Liz would be able to keep watch unobtrusively.

  They hadn't been to the hotel since the night Anna had fled there. At first there'd seemed to be too much to explain, and then each day Liz had stayed away had made it harder for her to go back. Now Liz realized that by staying away she was only helping the rumours to thrive. It was about time she put in an appearance, if only to show that nothing was wrong.

  They walked along the beach to the hotel. The morning haze subdued the heat and gilded the sunlight on the waves. Families were already staking their claims on the beach; children were digging eagerly as terriers, spraying sand all around them. Anna chased ahead over the clattering stones, and Liz grew tight inside. Must the child be forever making her feel this way?

  She left Anna in the nursery while she went to tell Gail they were here. Joseph's father was reinforcing the posts that held up the wire netting around the tennis court. He stared out at Liz through the wire. Surely it must be the sun in his eyes that made him look so fierce?

  Gail was calculating bills in the office behind the reception desk, her pocket calculator chirping each time she touched its keys. 'Hello, Liz,' she said with an abstracted smile. 'What brings you here?'

  'I just came to tell you we'll be in the nursery today.'

  'Oh, are you coming back?' All at once Gail's face was blank. 'I thought you'd given up.'

  'Things have been a bit complicated lately. I'd like to come back, and Anna would, if you still want us.'

  'You know we're always glad to see you.' Suddenly Gail was sounding more like a manageress than a friend. 'I'm always here if you want to talk. I just have to finish my sums first.'

  'Go ahead, don't let me disturb you.' Liz went out of the hotel, the relentlessly cheerful chirps of Gail's calculator slowly fading behind her.

  Anna was waiting by the gate of the nursery playground. 'They won't let me help.'

  Were they going to make life difficult for Anna too? Liz's fist clenched on the gate as she dragged it open. 'Who won't, darling?'

  'The big girls. They say they're looking after the link ones.'

  'Well, let's see if we can't sort it out.' Dismayed by her own paranoia, she made to take Anna's arm as they headed for the nursery, then her fingers shrank back from the bruise.

  There was nothing for Anna to do. The few children who were younger than her were being looked after by their older sisters, Vanessa and Thelma and Germaine and Kate. Kate, an eleven-year-old with large unrestrained breasts, was driving away a
nyone who tried to play with her baby brother Simon, and the other girls wouldn't let anyone touch their little sisters when they fell down or cried for mummy or wet themselves. 'They've been like that with us too,' Maggie confided to Liz. 'You'd think they'd prefer to go in the pool or look for boys or something.'

  Perhaps they did want to, and that was why they kept picking on Anna, pushing in front of her at the slide, ignoring her when she tried to talk to them. Eventually Maggie let her help sort paints and building toys, but Liz knew how useless and frustrated she must feel; that was how she felt herself.

  When the children were called in for lunch, Anna went out to the slide and Liz took refuge in the bar. Jimmy was polishing glasses. 'Isn't this your day off?' Liz said.

  'Trish rang to say she'd be late.' He was already pulling a lager for Liz. 'I don't mind filling in,' he said. 'Better than being on my own.'

  'Your girlfriend?'

  'They fined her. Could have been worse. But the college principal had her in – said he'll have to let the schools know about it wherever she applies to teach. I don't know why he didn't just kick her out of college. It'd be a quicker way of ending her career.'

  'Perhaps by the time she starts teaching it won't matter so much.'

  'Sure, they'll all be smoking in the staffroom.' 'I meant she might find somewhere with a liberal head teacher.'

  'They'd have to be pretty damn liberal. And there's the governors too.' He glanced toward the windows. 'Here we are, Anna,' he called. 'Come and cheer me up.'

  Liz didn't want the child to stray, but all the same, couldn't she have even a moment to herself? Anna was stepping in through the open windows. 'Why don't you make the most of the playground while the other children aren't there?' Liz said. 'I don't want to. Someone's watching me.' 'Who?' Liz shoved her chair back. 'Where?' 'I know he's there, but you won't be able to see him.' 'Oh, Anna, if you start that again…' Well, what would she do? There were marks to show what she'd already done. 'Can't you just play by yourself for a while and let me have a rest?'

  'Hang on a moment,' Jimmy said, as Anna trudged morosely toward the windows. 'Here's Trish now. I'll give you a game of something if you like, Anna. Is it all right if I take her along to the Space Invaders?'

  It sounded fine to Liz. Now that she thought about it, he was just about the only person here whom she felt like trusting with Anna. Plump denimed Trish took his place behind the bar, and gave Liz another lager as. he and Anna headed for the seaward end of the village. Thank God there was someone to take Anna off her hands for a while! She only hoped they didn't meet anyone she knew. She wished she had dressed the child in long sleeves. Someone was bound to wonder about the marks on the child's arms.

  Thirty-one

  As soon as the train stopped, the jungle began to close in. It towered over the railway line and the makeshift station, a platform without a signboard. Perhaps it had never had one, or perhaps the board was being put to use in a village somewhere. In the distance the jungle was being cleared for a road, and Alan could see the yellow machines lumbering about, caterpillar treads churning the earth; he could even hear the faint scream of giant saws over the noise of the crowd on the train. But the jungle felt even closer than the crowd: a dark, relentlessly green profusion that glistened in the steamy sunlight and overhung the railway, its unrelieved luxuriance matting the landscape all the way to the horizon, where it swallowed or was swallowed by the low thick clouds. The jungle surrounded him, it blotted out everything familiar; he felt as if it had overgrown his mind. He was trapped by the jungle and the dawdling train, in a crowd of people who spoke languages he didn't understand. It was no good telling himself that Isaac understood them. Isaac had no more idea than he had if anyone had followed them from Port Harcourt.

  He would rather have been in the jeep, jouncing over the potholed roads. At least then they would have been alone, except for the occasional battered flashy car that roared like a mad beast through the jungle.

  He and Isaac had driven from village to village, following every stage of Marlowe's route that Isaac knew or could deduce. In one village they'd had to spend all day participating in a funeral ceremony where the corpse lay in state on a shaky four-poster bed; in another they'd waited overnight to consult the chief, whose only emblem of chieftainship had seemed to be a battered portable radio.

  They had learned nothing anywhere. Marlowe had had to visit all these places, Isaac kept saying; eventually they would find what he had found. But Marlowe hadn't found a man with his face sewn up. Alan tried not to think about what else might be waiting.

  Now it seemed that Marlowe had taken the train to places where there were no roads, and so they'd caught this ageing train, whose carriages announced they'd been Made In Sheffield. Even though they had reservations, they had to bribe their way aboard the train, and bribe their way into this carriage packed with people and livestock. The carriage smelled of cheese and goats and chickens and sweat, a mass of smells that gathered in Alan's throat and thickened in his stomach. He was facing a fat man who held a goat between his knees, his own legs were shoved against Isaac's by a basket of live chickens, which the enormous woman next to him was using as a shelf for her breasts. The enormous woman kept grinning at him like a shark; the fat man had eyelids so heavy that Alan could never be sure if he was watching or asleep. The woman couldn't be a Leopard Man, but what about the man? Alan found, not for the first time even in this heat, that he was shivering. He tried to think of Liz and Anna, to cling to some memory that promised him a future, but all he could see in his mind was the face with the sewn-up mouth and eyes, inching towards him along the flashlight beam.

  The train was making restless noises. A line of men was urinating over the edge of the rickety platform, since there were never any toilets. Now the men shook themselves off and ambled back towards their seats. Salesmen were still tramping the aisles of the carriages, shouting over the excited chatter of the crowd, the squawking of chickens and bleating of goats. Singers stood in the aisles, beggars grumbled past them; a leper thrust a fingerless hand at Alan for alms. He was almost used to sights like that by now and they hardly bothered him. It was the men who looked normal who made him uneasy.

  The train was groaning forward now. As it jerked suddenly, two men on the seat facing him leaned forward, coming at him and Isaac in a single movement. Alan managed not to flinch back, except inside himself, but Isaac must have sensed his fear. 'Be calm, be calm,' he murmured. 'Nobody here is any'hing to worry about.'

  'How can you tell just by looking at them?' Alan muttered. 'They must have gone unnoticed in Port Har-court, whoever they were.'

  'Exactly. None of the people here could have.'

  Alan had to accept that; Isaac should know. 'And it is my sincere belief that nobody has followed us,' Isaac said.

  'Not even the police?'

  'Especially not.'

  There was just a hint of sharpness in Isaac's voice. The man with the sewn-up face had died before their eyes in minutes; they'd had no time to help or to get help. Alan had backed away until he'd felt the rubbery darkness looming behind him. He'd felt like rubber himself, perished rubber. 'We mustn't go on,' he'd babbled, closing his eyes as though that could blot out the sight of the sewn-up face, the sewn lips that had sunken inwards because the jaw couldn't drop, even in death. 'I'll stay here in Africa. Anna will be safe then.'

  Isaac had led him out of the dark, out of the warehouse and back to Isaac's home. It wasn't until they were on the edge of Port Harcourt that Isaac had put in an anonymous call to the police, in a dialect that wasn't his. He'd done that for Alan, to make sure their search wasn't hindered. 'You mustn't give up,' he'd told Alan. 'You must fight their influence or it will destroy you. It will never wear off of its own accord.' That had been Alan's secret hope, so secret he hadn't admitted it to himself: that the influence would leave him in time, that he would be able to go home, himself again – but Isaac must know what was best, however unwelcome it was. Alan had been too stunne
d by Ogunbe's death in the warehouse to do anything but follow Isaac. He hadn't realized how shaken Isaac was until they were nearly home and Isaac had stumbled to a tree and held on, shaking and retching, getting it over with so that his wife and daughters wouldn't see.

  Looking back and watching the jungle swallow up the station, Alan remembered the first time he'd ridden a roller coaster, that moment when he'd realized that he couldn't get off, that he had to ride the nightmare all the way. This train ride felt like that – except that the station wouldn't have saved him from the nightmare. He looked away from the jungle as it thickened around him, trees shutting out the horizon and most of the sky. He looked at the goat which was gazing up at him with large moist scared eyes

  – but not for long; the sight reminded him too much of? Joseph, of what Joseph had done. Thinking of Liz and? Anna couldn't wipe out those memories; the memories? merged in ways he didn't dare to face. He could only think? of the days he'd spent at Isaac's home, the last time he had? felt at all peaceful.

  He'd stayed while Isaac pored over maps, planning their route. The house was bright and spotless, and the gentle waves and the yachts on the lagoon had soothed him. Isaac's pretty wife and their two bright-eyed teenage daughters had looked after him, though Isaac had told them nothing. It showed how deeply Isaac trusted him or believed he would be cured that he'd let him in the same house as his daughters. Yet all this had only filled him with grief that he couldn't go home, go back to his home that had once been like this. He'd yearned to phone Liz, but what could he have said? He could only gaze at the lagoon

  – that at least had spared him the agony of thinking.? One evening he'd been sitting on a garden chair, brooding, watching the water grow dark, when the younger daughter had taken his hand to lead him in to dinner, and all at once he'd started sobbing, wordlessly and uncontrollably. He couldn't tell how long the child had stayed with him, squeezing his hand, but eventually Isaac's wife had been gripping his shoulders too, and the two girls had held his hands while he wept there in the sudden night. That time had given him back some sense of worth. Someone had cared for him, even as he was now.