Dark Companions

by Ramsey Campbell

  I slammed the guard into place and fled. I had to gulp to breathe. I ran onto the landing, trying to catch my breath so as to cry for help. Downstairs my mother was nervously asking whether she should pack another of my father’s shirts. “Yes, if you like,” he said irritably.

  No, I mustn’t cry out. I’d vowed not to upset her. But how could I go back into my room? Suddenly I had a thought that seemed to help. At school we’d learned how sweeps had used to send small boys up chimneys; there had hardly been room for the boys to climb. How could a large man fit in there?

  He couldn’t. Gradually I managed to persuade myself. At last I opened the door of my room. The chimney was silent; there was no wind. I tried not to think that he was holding himself still, waiting to squeeze out stealthily, waiting for the dark. Later, lying in the steady glow from my plastic lantern, I tried to hold on to the silence, tried to believe there was nothing near me to shatter it. There was nothing except, eventually, sleep.

  Perhaps if I’d cried out on the landing I would have been saved from my fear. But I was happy with my rationality. Only once, nearly asleep, I wished the fire were lit, because it would burn anything that might be hiding in the chimney; that had never occurred to me before. But it didn’t matter, for the next day we went on holiday.

  My parents liked to sleep in the sunlight, beneath newspaper masks; in the evenings they liked to stroll along the wide sandy streets. I didn’t, and befriended Nigel, the son of another family who were staying in the boarding-house. My mother encouraged the friendship: such a nice boy, two years older than me; he’d look after me. He had money, and the hope of a moustache shadowing his pimply upper lip. One evening he took me to the fairground, where we met two girls; he and the older girl went to buy ice creams while her young friend and I stared at each other timidly. I couldn’t believe the young girl didn’t like jigsaws. Later, while I was contradicting her, Nigel and his companion disappeared behind the Ghost Train—but Nigel reappeared almost at once, red-faced, his left cheek redder. “Where’s Rose?” I asked, bewildered.

  “She had to go.” He seemed furious that I’d asked.

  “Isn’t she coming back?”

  “No.” He was glancing irritably about for a change of subject. “What a super bike,” he said, pointing as it glided between the stalls. ‘Have you got a bike?”

  “No,” I said. “I keep asking Father Christmas, but—”

  I wished that hadn’t got past me, for he was staring at me, winking at the young girl.“Do you still believe in him?” he demanded scornfully.

  “No, of course I don’t. I was only kidding.” Did he believe me? He was edging towards the young girl now, putting his arm around her; soon she excused herself, and didn’t come back—I never knew her name. I was annoyed he’d made her run away. “Where did Rose go?” I said persistently.

  He didn’t tell me. But perhaps he resented my insistence, for as the family left the boarding-house I heard him say loudly to his mother “He still believes in Father Christmas.” My mother heard that too, and glanced anxiously at me.

  Well, I didn’t. There was nobody in the chimney, waiting for me to come home. I didn’t care that we were going home the next day. That night I pulled away the fireguard and saw a fat pale face hanging down into the fireplace, like an underbelly, upside down and smiling. But I managed to wake, and eventually the sea lulled me back to sleep.

  As soon as we reached home I ran upstairs. I uncovered the fireplace and stood staring, to discover what I felt. Gradually I filled with the scorn Nigel would have felt, had he known of my fear. How could I have been so childish? The chimney was only a passage for smoke, a hole into which the wind wandered sometimes. That night, exhausted by the journey home, I slept at once.

  The nights darkened into October; the darkness behind the mesh grew thicker. I’d used to feel, as summer waned, that the chimney was insinuating its darkness into my room. Now the sight only reminded me I’d have a fire soon. The fire would be comforting.

  It was October when my father’s Christmas cards arrived, on a Saturday; I was working in the shop. It annoyed him to have to anticipate Christmas so much, to compete with the supermarket. I hardly noticed the cards: my head felt muffled, my body cold—perhaps it was the weather’s sudden hint of winter.

  My mother came to the shop that afternoon. I watched her pretend not to have seen the cards. When I looked away she began to pick them up timidly, as if they were unfaithful letters, glancing anxiously at me. I didn’t know what was in her mind. My head was throbbing. I wasn’t going home sick; I earned pocket money in the shop. Besides, I didn’t want my father to think I was still weak.

  Nor did I want my mother to worry. That night I lay slumped in a chair, pretending to read. Words trickled down the page; I felt like dirty clothes someone had thrown on the chair. My father was at the shop taking stock. My mother sat gazing at me. I pretended harder; the words waltzed slowly. At last she said “Are you listening?”

  I was now, though I didn’t look up. “Yes,” I said hoarsely, unplugging my throat with a roar.

  “Do you remember when you were a baby? There was a film you saw, of Father Christmas coming out of the chimney.” Her voice sounded bravely careless, falsely light, as if she were determined to make some awful revelation. I couldn’t look up. “Yes,” I said.

  Her silence made me glance up. She looked as she had on my first day at school: full of loss, of despair. Perhaps she was realising I had to grow up, but to my throbbing head her look suggested only terror—as if she were about to deliver me up as a sacrifice. “I couldn’t tell you the truth then,” she said. “You were too young.”

  The truth was terror; her expression promised that. “Father Christmas isn’t really like that,” she said.

  My illness must have shown by then. She gazed at me; her lips trembled. “I can’t,” she said, turning her face away. “Your father must tell you.”

  But that left me poised on the edge of terror. I felt unnerved, rustily tense. I wanted very much to lie down. “I’m going to my room,” I said. I stumbled upstairs, hardly aware of doing so. As much as anything I was fleeing her unease. The stairs swayed a little, they felt unnaturally soft underfoot. I hurried dully into my room. I slapped the light switch and missed. I was walking uncontrollably forward into blinding dark. A figure came to meet me, soft and huge in the dark of my room.

  I cried out. I managed to stagger back onto the landing, grabbing the light switch as I went. The lighted room was empty: My mother came running upstairs, almost falling. “What is it, what is it?” she cried.

  I mustn’t say. “I’m ill. I feel sick.” I did, and a minute later I was. She patted my back as I knelt by the toilet. When she’d put me to bed she made to go next door for the doctor. “Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. The walls of the room swayed as if tugged by firelight; the fireplace was huge and very dark. As soon as my father opened the front door she ran downstairs, crying “He’s ill, he’s ill! Go for the doctor!”

  The doctor came and prescribed for my fever. My mother sat up beside me. Eventually my father came to suggest it was time she went to bed. They were going to leave me alone in my room. “Make a fire,” I pleaded.

  My mother touched my forehead. “But you’re burning,” she said.

  “No, I’m cold! I want a fire! Please!” So she made one, tired as she was. I saw my father’s disgust as he watched me use her worry against her to get what I wanted, his disgust with her for letting herself be used.

  I didn’t care. My mother’s halting words had overgrown my mind. What had she been unable to tell me? Had it to do with the sounds I’d heard in the chimney? The room lolled around me; nothing was sure. But the fire would make sure for me. Nothing in the chimney could survive it.

  I made my mother stay until the fire was blazing. Suppose a huge shape burst forth from the hearth, dripping fire? When at last I let her go I lay lapped by the firelight and meshy shadows, which seemed lulling now, in my warm room.

>   I felt feverish, but not unpleasantly. I was content to voyage on my rocking bed; the ceiling swayed past above me. While I slept the fire went out. My fever kept me warm; I slid out of bed and, pulling away the fireguard, reached up the chimney. At the length of my arms I touched something heavy, hanging down in the dark; it yielded, then soft fat fingers groped down and closed on my wrist. My mother was holding my wrist as she washed my hands. “You mustn’t get out of bed,” she said when she realised I was awake.

  I stared stupidly at her. “You’d got out of bed. You were sleepwalking,” she explained. “You had your hands right up the chimney.” I saw now that she was washing caked soot from my hands; tracks of ash led towards the bed.

  It had been only a dream. One moment the fat hand had been gripping my wrist, the next it was my mother’s cool slim fingers. My mother played word games and timid chess with me while I stayed in bed, that day and the next.

  The third night I felt better. The fire fluttered gently; I felt comfortably warm. Tomorrow I’d get up. I should have to go back to school soon, but I didn’t mind that unduly. I lay and listened to the breathing of the wind in the chimney.

  When I awoke the fire had gone out. The room was full of darkness. The wind still breathed, but it seemed somehow closer. It was above me. Someone was standing over me. It couldn’t be either of my parents, not in the sightless darkness.

  I lay rigid. Most of all I wished that I hadn’t let Nigel’s imagined contempt persuade me to do without a nightlight. The breathing was slow, irregular; it sounded clogged and feeble. As I tried to inch silently towards the far side of the bed, the source of the breathing stooped towards me. I felt its breath waver on my face, and the breath sprinkled me with something like dry rain.

  When I had lain paralysed for what felt like blind hours, the breathing went away. It was in the chimney, dislodging soot; it might be the wind. But I knew it had come out to let me know that whatever the fire had done to it, it hadn’t been killed. It had emerged to tell me it would come for me on Christmas Eve. I began to scream.

  I wouldn’t tell my mother why. She washed my face, which was freckled with soot. “You’ve been sleepwalking again,” she tried to reassure me, but I wouldn’t let her leave me until daylight. When she’d gone I saw the ashy tracks leading from the chimney to the bed.

  Perhaps I had been sleepwalking and dreaming. I searched vainly for my nightlight. I would have been ashamed to ask for a new one, and that helped me to feel I could do without. At dinner I felt secure enough to say I didn’t know why I had screamed.

  “But you must remember. You sounded so frightened. You upset me.”

  My father was folding the evening paper into a thick wad the size of a pocketbook, which he could read beside his plate. “Leave the boy alone,” he said. “You imagine all sorts of things when you’re feverish. I did when I was his age.”

  It was the first time he’d admitted anything like weakness to me. If he’d managed to survive his nightmares, why should mine disturb me more? Tired out by the demands of my fever, I slept soundly that night. The chimney was silent except for the flapping of flames.

  But my father didn’t help me again. One November afternoon I was standing behind the counter, hoping for customers. My father pottered, grumpily fingering packets of nylons, tins of pet food, Dinky toys, baby’s rattles, cards, searching for signs of theft. Suddenly he snatched a Christmas card and strode to the counter. “Sit down,” he said grimly.

  He was waving the card at me, like evidence. I sat down on a shelf, but then a lady came into the shop; the bell thumped. I stood up to sell her nylons. When she’d gone I gazed at my father, anxious to hear the worst. “Just sit down,” he said.

  He couldn’t stand my being taller than he was. His size embarrassed him, but he wouldn’t let me see that; he pretended I had to sit down out of respect. “Your mother says she tried to tell you about Father Christmas,” he said.

  She must have told him that weeks earlier. He’d put off talking to me—because we’d never been close, and now we were growing further apart. “I don’t know why she couldn’t tell you,” he said.

  But he wasn’t telling me either. He was looking at me as if I were a stranger he had to chat to. I felt uneasy, unsure now that I wanted to hear what he had to say. A man was approaching the shop. I stood up, hoping he’d interrupt.

  He did, and I served him. Then, to delay my father’s revelation, I adjusted stacks of tins. My father stared at me in disgust. “If you don’t watch out you’ll be as bad as your mother.”

  I found the idea of being like my mother strange, indefinably disturbing. But he wouldn’t let me be like him, wouldn’t let me near. All right, I’d be brave, I’d listen to what he had to say. But he said “Oh, it’s not worth me trying to tell you. You’ll find out.”

  He meant I must find out for myself that Father Christmas was a childish fantasy. He didn’t mean he wanted the thing from the chimney to come for me, the disgust in his eyes didn’t mean that, it didn’t. He meant that I had to behave like a man.

  And I could. I’d show him. The chimney was silent. I needn’t worry until Christmas Eve. Nor then. There was nothing to come out.

  One evening as I walked home I saw Dr Flynn in his front room. He was standing before a mirror, gazing at his red fur-trimmed hooded suit; he stooped to pick up his beard. My mother told me that he was going to act Father Christmas at the children’s hospital. She seemed on the whole glad that I’d seen. So was I: it proved the pretence was only for children.

  Except that the glimpse reminded me how near Christmas was. As the nights closed on the days, and the days rushed by—the end-of-term party, the turkey, decorations in the house—I grew tense, trying to prepare myself. For what? For nothing, nothing at all. Well, I would know soon—for suddenly it was Christmas Eve.

  I was busy all day. I washed up as my mother prepared Christmas dinner. I brought her ingredients, and hurried to buy some she’d used up. I stuck the day’s cards to tapes above the mantelpiece. I carried home a tinsel tree which nobody had bought. But being busy only made the day move faster. Before I knew it the windows were full of night.

  Christmas Eve. Well, it didn’t worry me. I was too old for that sort of thing. The tinsel tree rustled when anyone passed it, light rolled in tinsel globes, streamers flinched back when doors opened. Swinging restlessly on tapes above the mantelpiece were half a dozen red-cheeked smiling bearded faces.

  The night piled against the windows. I chattered to my mother about her shouting father, her elder sisters, the time her sisters had locked her in a cellar. My father grunted occasionally—even when I’d run out of subjects to discuss with my mother, and tried to talk to him about the shop. At least he hadn’t noticed how late I was staying up. But he had. “It’s about time everyone was in bed,” he said with a kind of suppressed fury.

  “Can I have some more coal?” My mother would never let me have a coal scuttle in the bedroom—she didn’t want me going near the fire. “To put on now,” I said. Surely she must say yes. “It’ll be cold in the morning,” I said.

  “Yes, you take some. You don’t want to be cold when you’re looking at what Father—at your presents.”

  I hurried upstairs with the scuttle. Over its clatter I heard my father say “Are you still at that? Can’t you let him grow up?”

  I almost emptied the scuttle into the fire, which rose roaring and crackling. My father’s voice was an angry mumble, seeping through the floor. When I carried the scuttle down my mother’s eyes were red, my father looked furiously, determined. I’d always found their arguments frightening; I was glad to hurry to my room.

  It seemed welcoming. The fire was bright within the mesh. I heard my mother come upstairs. That was comforting too: she was nearer now. I heard my father go next door—to wish the doctor Happy Christmas, I supposed. I didn’t mind the reminder. There was nothing of Christmas Eve in my room, except the pillowcase waiting to be filled with presents on the floor at the foo
t of the bed. I pushed it aside with one foot, the better to ignore it.

  I slid into bed. My father came upstairs; I heard further mumblings of argument through the bedroom wall. At last they stopped, and I tried to relax. I lay, glad of the silence.

  A wind was rushing the house. It puffed down the chimney; smoke trickled through the fireguard. Now the wind was breathing brokenly. It was only the wind. It didn’t bother me.

  Perhaps I’d put too much coal on the fire. The room was hot; I was sweating. I felt almost feverish. The huge mesh flicked over the wall repeatedly, nervously, like a rapid net. Within the mirror the dimmer room danced.

  Suddenly I was a little afraid. Not that something would come out of the chimney, that was stupid: afraid that my feeling of fever would make me delirious again. It seemed years since I’d been disturbed by the sight of the room in the mirror, but I was disturbed now. There was something wrong with that dim jerking room.

  The wind breathed. Only the wind, I couldn’t hear it changing. A fat billow of smoke squeezed through the mesh. The room seemed more oppressive now, and smelled of smoke. It didn’t smell entirely like coal smoke, but I couldn’t tell what else was burning. I didn’t want to get up to find out.

  I must lie still. Otherwise I’d be writhing about trying to clutch at sleep, as I had the second night of my fever, and sometimes in summer. I must sleep before the room grew too hot. I must keep my eyes shut. I mustn’t be distracted by the faint trickling of soot, nor the panting of the wind, nor the shadows and orange light that snatched at my eyes through my eyelids.

  I woke in darkness. The fire had gone out. No, it was still there when I opened my eyes: subdued orange crawled on embers, a few weak flames leapt repetitively. The room was moving more slowly now. The dim room in the mirror, the face peering out at me, jerked faintly, as if almost dead.

  I couldn’t look at that. I slid farther down the bed, dragging the pillow into my nest. I was too hot, but at least beneath the sheets I felt safe. I began to relax. Then I realised what I’d seen. The light had been dim, but I was almost sure the fireguard was standing away from the hearth.