MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH is a British novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published eighty short stories and five novels: Only Forward, Spares, One of Us, The Servants, and Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, winning the Philip K. Dick, International Horror Guild, and August Derleth awards, along with the Prix Bob Morane in France. He has also won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction four times, more than any other author.
Writing as “Michael Marshall” he has published seven international best-selling thrillers, including The Straw Men series, The Intruders (recently a BBC-TV series starring John Simm and Mira Sorvino), Killer Move, and We Are Here.
He lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife, son, and two cats.
Dear Alison
Michael Marshall Smith
As the darkness spreads, it touches many innocent lives . . .
It is Friday the 25th of October, and beginning to turn cold. In the street outside my study window an eddy of leaves turns hectically, flecks of green and brown lively against the tarmac. Earlier this afternoon the sky was clear and blue, bright white clouds periodically changing the light which fell into the room; but now that light is fading, painting everything with a layer of gray dust. Smaller, browner leaves are falling on the other side of the street, collecting in a drift around the metal fence in front of the house opposite. I’ll remember this. I remember most things. Everything goes in, and stays there, not tarnishing but bright like freshly-cut glass. A warehouse of experience which will never fade away, but stays there to remind me what it is I’ve lost.
I’m leaving in about half an hour. I’ll post the keys back through the door, so you’ll know there is no need to look for me. And a spare set’s always useful. I’ve been building up to it all day, telling myself that I’d leave any minute now and spend the day waiting in the airport. But I always knew that I’d wait until this time, until the light was going. London is at its best in the autumn, and four o’clock is the autumn time. I’ll put the heating on before I go.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this letter. I could print it out and put it somewhere, or take it with me and post it later. Or perhaps I should just leave it on the computer, hidden deep in a sub-folder, leaving it to chance whether it will ever be discovered. But if I do that then one of the children will find it first, and it’s you I should be explaining this to, not Richard or Maddy; you to whom the primary apology is due.
I can’t explain in person, because there wouldn’t be any point. Either you wouldn’t believe me, or you would: neither would change the facts or make them any better. In your heart of hearts, buried too firmly to ever reach conscious thought, you may already have begun to suspect. You’ve given no sign, but we’ve stopped communicating on those subtler levels and I can’t really tell what you think any more. Telling you what you in some sense already know would just make you reject it, and me. And where would we go from there?
My desk is tidy. All of my outstanding work has been completed. All the bills are paid.
I’m going to walk. Not all the way—just our part. Down to Oxford Street. I’ll cross the road in front of the house, then turn down that alley you’ve always been scared of. (I can never remember what it’s called; but I do remember an evening when you forgot your fear long enough for it to be rather interesting). Then off down Kentish Town Road, past the Woolworth’s and the Vulture’s Perch pub, the mediocre sandwich bars and that shop the size of a football pitch which is filled only with spectacles. I remember ranting against the waste of space when you and I first met, and you finding it funny. I suppose the joke’s grown old.
It’s not an especially lovely area, and Falkland Road is hardly Bel Air. But we’ve lived here fifteen years, and we’ve always liked it, haven’t we? At least until the last couple of years, when it started to curdle, when our love slowly froze; when I realized what was going to happen. Before that Kentish Town suited us well enough. We liked Café Renoir, where you could get a reasonable breakfast when the staff weren’t feeling too cool to serve it to you. The Assembly House, wall-to-wall Victorian mirrors and a comprehensive selection of Irish folk on the jukebox. The corner store, where they always know what we want before we ask for it. All of that.
It was our place.
I couldn’t talk to you about it when it started, because of how it happened. Even if it had come about some other way, I would probably have kept silent: by the time I realized what it meant there wasn’t much I could do. I hope I’m right in thinking it’s only the last two years which have been strained, that you were happy until then. I’ve covered my tracks as well as I could, kept it hidden. So many little lies, all of them unsaid.
It was actually ten years ago, when we had only been in this house a few years and the children were still young and ours. I’m sure you remember John and Suzy’s party—the one just after they’d moved into the new house? Or maybe not: it was just one of many, after all, and perhaps it is only my mind in which it retains a peculiar luminosity. You’d just started working at Elders & Peterson, and weren’t very keen on going out. You wanted a weekend with a clear head, to tidy up the house, do some shopping, to hang out without a hangover. But we decided we ought to go, and I promised I wouldn’t get too drunk, and you gave me that sweet, affectionate smile which said you believed I’d try but that you’d still move the aspirin to beside the bed. We engaged our dippy babysitter, spruced ourselves up and went out hand in hand, feeling for once as if we were in our twenties again. I think we even splashed out on a cab.
Nice house, in its way, though we both thought it was rather big for just the two of them. John was just getting successful around then, and the size of the property looked like a bit of a statement. We arrived early, having agreed we wouldn’t stay too late, and stood talking in the kitchen with Suzy as she chopped vegetables for the dips. She was wearing the Whistles dress which you both owned, and you and I winked secretly to each other: after much deliberation you were wearing something different. The brown Jigsaw suit, with earrings from Monsoon that looked like little leaves. I remember them clearly, as I remember everything now. Do you still have those earrings somewhere? I suppose you must, though I haven’t seen you wearing them in a while. I looked for them this morning, thinking that you wouldn’t miss them and I might take them with me. But they’re buried somewhere, and I couldn’t find them.
By ten the house was full and I was pretty drunk, talking hard and loud with John and Howard in the living room. I glanced around to check you were having a good enough time, and saw you leaning back against a table, a plastic cup of red wine hovering around your lips. You were listening to Jan bang on about something—her rubbish ex-boyfriend, probably. With your other hand you were fumbling in your bag for your cigarettes, wanting one pretty soon but trying not to let Jan see you weren’t giving her familiar tale of woe your full attention. You were wonderful like that. Always doing the right thing, and in the right way. Always eager to be good, and not just so that people would admire you.
You finally found your packet, and offered it to Jan, and she took a cigarette and lit it without even pausing for breath, a particular skill of hers. As you raised your Zippo to light your own you caught me looking at you. You gave a tiny wink, to let me know you’d seen me, and an infinitesimal roll of the eyes—but not enough to derail Jan. Your hand crept up to tuck your hair behind your ear—you’d just had it cut, and only I knew you weren’t sure about the shorter style. In that moment I loved you so much, felt both lucky and charmed.
And then, just behind you, she walked into the room, and everything went wrong.
Remember Auntie’s Kitchen, that West Indian café between Kentish Town and Camden? Whenever we passed it we’d peer inside at the cheerful checked tablecloths and say to each other that we must try it some day. We never did. We were always on the way somewhere else, usually to Camden market to munch on noodles and browse at furniture we couldn’t afford, and it never made sense to stop. I don’t
even know if it’s still there any more. After we started going everywhere by car we stopped noticing things like that. I’ll check tonight, on the way down into town, but either way it’s too late. We should have done everything, while we had the chance. You never know how much things may change.
Then, over the crossroads and down past the site where the big Sainsbury’s used to be. I remember the first time we shopped there together—Christ, must be twenty-five years ago—both of us discovering what the other liked to eat, giggling over the frozen goods, and getting home to discover that despite spending forty pounds we hadn’t really bought a single proper meal. It’s become a nest of bijou little shops now, of course, but we never really took to them: we’d liked the way things were when we started seeing each other, and there’s a limit to how many little ceramic pots anyone can buy.
By coincidence I ate my first new meal just round the back of Sainsbury’s, a week after the party. It was after midnight, and I knew you’d be wondering where I was, but I was desperate. Eight days of the chills, of half-delirious hungers. Of feeling nauseous every time I looked at food, yet knowing I needed something. A young girl in her early twenties, staggering slightly, having reeled out of the Electric Ballroom still rushing on Ecstasy. I knew because I could taste it. She noticed me in the empty street, and giggled, and I suddenly knew what I needed. She didn’t run away as I walked toward her.
I only took a little.
You and I went to Kentish Town library one morning, quite soon after we’d got the first flat together. You were interested in finding out a little more about the area, and found a couple of books by the Camden Historical Society. We discovered that no one was very interested in Kentish Town, despite the fact it’s actually older than Camden, and were grumpy about that, because we liked where we lived. But we found out some interesting snippets—like the fact that the area in front of Camden Town tube station, the bit which juts out into the crossroads, had once housed a tiny jail and a stocks. Today the derelicts and drunks still collect there, as if there is something in that patch of ground which draws society’s misfits and miscreants to it even now. I’ll cross that area on my way down, avoiding one of those tramps—who I think recognizes something in me—and head off down Camden Road toward Mornington Crescent.
I don’t understand why it happened. You and I loved each other, we had the kids, and had just finished redecorating. We were happy. There was no reason for what I did. No sense to it. No excuse, unless there was something about her which simply drew me. But why me, and not somebody else?
She was very tall, and extremely slim. She had short blonde hair and nothing in her head except cheekbones. She came into the room alone, and John immediately signaled to her. Drunkenly he introduced her to Howard and I, telling us her name was Vanessa, and that she worked in publishing. I caught you glancing over, and then looking away again, unconcerned. John burbled on at us for a while about some project or other he was working on, and then set off for more drinks, pulling Howard in his wake.
By then I was pretty drunk, but still able to function on a “What do you do, blah, this is what I do, blah,” kind of level. I talked with Vanessa for a while. She had very blue eyes, a little curl of hair in front of each ear, and the way her neck met her shoulders was pleasing. That was all I noticed. She wasn’t really my type.
After ten minutes she darted to one side to greet someone else, a noisy drama of squeals and cheek-kisses. No great loss: I’ve never found publishing interesting. I revolved slowly about the vertical plane until I saw someone I knew, and then went and talked to them. This person was an old friend I hadn’t seen in some time—Roger, the one who got divorced last year—and the conversation took a while and involved several drinks. As I was returning from fetching one of these I noticed the Vanessa woman standing in the corner, holding a bottle of wine by the neck and listening patiently to someone complaining about babysitters. I suffered a brief moment of disquiet about ours—we suspected her of knowing where our dope stash was—and then made myself forget about it. When you’re thirty all your friends can talk about are houses and marriage; by a few years later babies and their sitters become the talk of the town. It’s as if everyone collectively forgets that there’s a real world out there with interesting things in it, and becomes progressively more obsessed with what happens behind their own front doors.
I muttered something to this effect to Roger, glancing back across at the corner as I did so. The woman was swigging wine straight from the bottle, her body curved into a swan’s neck of relaxed poise. I couldn’t help wondering why she was here alone. Someone like that had to have a boyfriend.
Then I noticed that she was looking at me, the mouth of the bottle an inch from her wet lips. I smiled, uncertainly.
We never really spent much time in Mornington Crescent. Nothing to take us there, I suppose, especially after the tube station shut down. Not even really a proper district as such, more a blur between Camden and the top of Tottenham Court Road. I remember once, when Maddy was small, telling her that the red two-storey building we were passing in the car had once been a station like Kentish Town’s, and that in fact there were many other disused stations, dotted over London. She didn’t believe me at first, but I showed her an old map, and after that was always fascinated by them. York Road, South Kentish Town, Down Street. Places which had once meant something to the people who lived there, and which were now nothing but scar tissue in a city which had moved forward in time.
Then down toward the Euston Road, the part of the walk you never liked. Fair enough, I suppose. It’s a bit boring. Nothing but towering council blocks and busy roads, and by then you’d be complaining about your feet. But I’ll walk it anyway. It’s part of the trip, and by the time I come back it will all have changed. Maybe it’ll be less boring. But it won’t be the same.
1:00 in the morning. The party was going strong—had, if anything, surged up to a new level. I saw that you were still okay, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room and happily arguing with Suzy about something.
By then I was very drunk, and on something like my seven billionth trip to the toilet. I passed you as I left the room, letting my hand fall, and you reached up and grabbed it for a moment before letting me pass. Then I flailed up two flights to the nearest unoccupied bathroom, cursing John for having so many stairs. The top floor of the house was darker than the rest, but I’d worn a channel in the new carpet by then and found my way easily enough.
Afterwards I washed my hands for a while with expensive soap, standing weaving in front of the mirror, giggling at my reflection and chuntering cheerfully at myself.
Back outside again and I seemed to have got drunker. I tripped down the small flight of steps which led to the landing, and reached out to steady myself. Suddenly my mouth was filled with saliva and I had a horrible suspicion I was about to christen the house, but a minute of deep breathing and compulsive swallowing convinced me I’d survive to drink another drink.
I heard a rustling sound, and turned to peer through a nearby doorway. I recognized the room—it was one John had shown us earlier, destined to become his study. “Where you’ll sit becoming more and more successful,” I’d thought churlishly to myself. At that stage it didn’t seem very likely he would commit suicide six years later.
“Hello,” she said.
Vanessa was standing in the empty room, over by the window. Cold moonlight made her features look as if they’d been molded in glass, but whoever’d done it must have been pretty good. Without really knowing why, I stumbled into the room, pulling the door shut behind me. As she walked toward me her dress rustled again, like the shiver of leaves outside my window.
We met in the middle. I don’t remember her pulling her dress up, just the long white stretch of her thighs. I don’t remember undoing my trousers, but someone must have done. All I remember is saying, “But you must have a boyfriend,” and her just smiling at me.
It was insane. Someone could have come in a
t any moment.
But it happened.
Tottenham Court Road. Home of cut-price technology, and recipient of many an impulse buy on my part. When we walked down it toward Oxford Street you used to grab my arm and try to pull me past the stores, or throw yourself in front of the window displays to hide them from me. Then later I’d end up standing in Marks & Spencer for hours, while you dithered over underwear. I moaned, and said it was unfair, but I didn’t really mind.
Past the Time Out building, where Howard used to work, and then the walk will be over. At the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road I’ll turn round and look back the way I’ve come, and say goodbye to it all. Sentimental, perhaps: but that walk means a lot to me.
Then I’ll walk down to Leicester Square tube and sit on the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow.
I have a ticket, my passport and some dollars, but not very many. I’m going to have to find a way of earning more sooner or later, so it may as well be sooner. I’ve left the rest of our money for you. If you’re stuck for a present for Maddy’s birthday, incidentally, I’ve heard her mention the new Asylum Fields album a couple of times. Though probably she’ll have bought it herself, I suppose. I keep forgetting how old they’ve got.
After those ten minutes in John’s study I came downstairs again, suddenly shocked into sobriety. You were still sitting where I had left you, but it felt like everything else in the world had changed. I was terrified that you’d read something from my face, realize what I had done, but you just reached up and yanked me down to sit next to you. Everybody smiled, apparently glad to see me. Howard passed a joint. My friends, and I felt like I didn’t deserve them. Or you.
Especially not you.
We left an hour later. I sat a little apart from you in the cab, convinced you’d smell Vanessa on me, but I clutched your hand and you seemed happy enough. We got home, and I had a shower while you clanked around in the kitchen making tea. Then we went to bed, and I held you tightly until you drifted off. I stared at the ceiling for an hour, chilled with self-loathing, and then surprised myself by falling asleep.
In the Footsteps of Dracula Page 52
