Festival of Fear

by Graham Masterton

  The only decoration on the walls of the living room was a poster for The Smiths.

  Peter went through to the kitchen. It was in darkness, with Gemma’s white cotton bodies hanging up in the windows like ghosts. He opened the fridge because all men open the fridge as soon as they come home, but there was nothing in it except for last night’s pizza, its cheese turned to yellow plastic and its box spotted with grease.

  ‘Gemma?’ he called. He went into the bedroom. The bed was still unmade, the brown durry dragged to one side and the pillows on the floor.

  ‘Gemma?’

  ‘In here,’ she called, from the half-open bathroom door. There was a wet towel on the floor and he had to push the door hard to get in. Gemma was standing in the bathtub, behind the green plastic shower-curtain.

  ‘You’re early,’ she said.

  ‘Yes . . .’ he said, bending over to pick up the towel. ‘There was a fire alarm so they canceled the last lesson.’

  She turned off the water and drew back the curtain. She was a tall, thin girl, almost antelope-like, with a long oval face and enormous brown eyes. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she smelled of Body Shop mint shampoo. ‘Hand me that towel, will you?’

  ‘Didn’t you go to work?’ he asked her.

  ‘No . . . I had a headache. Besides, there’s never anything much to do on Fridays.’

  She wound the towel around her and went through to the bedroom, where she stood in front of the dressing-table mirror and brushed out her wet hair. He followed her and stood behind her, watching her. ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN TRUST HER, PETER?

  ‘So, what have you been doing all day?’

  ‘Nothing. Sleeping, mostly.’

  ‘I thought we could go for a Chinese tonight.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not really hungry.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get a takeaway then.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  He started to straighten the bed. ‘Who was that guy I saw downstairs?’

  ‘What guy?’

  ‘He was just coming out when I came in. Tall guy. Dark curly hair.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s just that he didn’t look like the sort of person that Mr Chowdery would have for a friend. Nor Mrs Wigmore, either.’

  Gemma shrugged, with hairgrips in her mouth.

  Peter went through to the kitchen again, and this time he switched on the light. Gemma’s keys were lying sprawled on the kitchen counter, next to her purse.

  ‘You went out?’ he asked her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just wondered if you went out at all.’

  She came into the kitchen, wearing her knee-length nightshirt. ‘No. I told you. I had a headache.’

  In the middle of the night, with the amber street light shining across the ceiling, he put his arm around her. She murmured irritably and pushed him away. After that he lay awake for hours, listening to the soft, ceaseless thunder of London at night, feeling as if his world had changed into somewhere that he didn’t recognize – somewhere anxious and threatening and insecure.

  On Saturday morning they went shopping along the North End Road market. Gemma was unusually distant, as if she had something on her mind, and she hardly ever seemed to look at him, or talk to him, or smile. Peter followed her through the clutter of newspaper and broken tomato boxes, and there was an ache in his throat that couldn’t be swallowed away.

  At lunchtime they went for a sandwich and a drink at The Colton Arms, and sat in the darkest corner at the back. Gemma was silhouetted against the window, and wreathed in cigarette smoke.

  ‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’ Peter asked her. ‘I thought we could go to Holland Park.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Nothing. Just for a walk.’

  ‘I don’t know. I was thinking of going to see Kelley and June.’

  ‘All right, then. We’ll go to see Kelley and June.’

  ‘Just me, I was thinking. I feel like a good old girlie natter.’

  ‘All right. What time will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll call you.’

  ‘What about supper?’

  ‘It’s only pork chops, isn’t it? I’ll do it when I get back.’

  Peter didn’t know what to say. With the light behind her, he couldn’t see her eyes. He laid his hand on top of hers, and although she didn’t move it away, he could feel how tense she was. No twining of fingers. Her hand just crouched there, underneath his, rigid, like a small animal waiting for its chance to escape.

  ‘I’m going for a leak,’ he told her, taking his hand away.

  The gents was cramped, and he had to wait while a white-haired old man with a cigarette in his mouth coughed and peed at the same time, and made an elaborate performance of waggling himself afterward, and grunting while he did up his buttons.

  When he stood in front of the urinal, Peter saw letters cut into the wall. They were so large that he couldn’t read them at first. They were nearly half an inch deep, and formed in the same scratchy style as the messages he had seen on the tube wall at Piccadilly, and on the side of the Seven Stars.

  DON’T YOU THINK SHE’S LYING TO YOU?

  He went back into the bar. Gemma was talking on her mobile phone, but as soon as she saw him she said, ‘No – I’ve got to go now. I’ll talk to you later,’ and quickly flipped it shut.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked her.

  ‘Who was what?’

  ‘Who were you just talking to?’

  ‘Erm, Tricia.’

  ‘Tricia? I thought Tricia was spending the weekend in Wales.’

  ‘She is. It is possible to talk on the phone to people in Wales, you know.’

  Peter said nothing. He was quite convinced now that the wall messages were meant for him. How anybody could know where he was going to be, and how they could cut the letters so deeply, he had no idea. But what disturbed him most of all was the questions they were asking him.

  He picked up his glass and swirled the last of his lager around and around. ‘You do still love me?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean? Of course I love you.’

  ‘If there was something wrong, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  He looked up at her. He still couldn’t see her eyes. DON’T YOU THINK SHE’S LYING TO YOU?

  He was dozing in front of Eurotrash when the phone rang on the table beside him. Frowning, he picked it up and pressed the mute button on the TV remote.

  ‘Peter? It’s Gemma. I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier but I lost track of the time.’

  He peered at his watch. ‘It’s five past twelve. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m still round at Kelley and June’s. I’m sorry. We had a couple of bottles of wine and . . . you know.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Gemma, you were supposed to come back for supper.’

  ‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I? It’s not like we’re married or anything.’

  ‘We’re supposed to be engaged, aren’t we? Come on, Gemma, think what you’d feel like if I did the same to you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if you wanted a night out with the boys. Why should I?’

  ‘So when are you coming back?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. I’m too pissed to drive.’

  ‘Call a minicab. We can go back and get your car in the morning.’

  ‘I want to stay here. We’re having a good time.’

  ‘Gemma—’

  But Gemma had hung up, and Peter was left with the dead receiver in his hand, and the flickering image on the TV screen of a Belgian orgy. A young blonde woman with bright red lips was gasping with ecstasy in the arms of a muscular naked man. The man turned around and looked directly into the camera, and gave a long, self-satisfied leer.

  Peter switched off the television and went to the bathroom. He saw it as soon as he opened the door, and he stood staring at it with a cold crawling sensation that worked its way slowly up his
back and into his scalp.

  In the mirror over the washbasin, eight scratchy words had been engraved right into the glass. DON’T YOU THINK SHE DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED?

  Peter approached the basin and traced the letters with his fingertips. How could anyone have cut letters as deep as these? They must have used an industrial diamond, or a glass cutter. But who was it, and how had they got in here, and when had they done it? He had been sleeping for nearly an hour, but only fitfully, and cutting letters as deep as this would have made an appalling scratching noise.

  He looked through the letters at his own face. Thin, beaky nosed, with dark rings under his eyes. A young Pete Townshend, from The Who. Hope I die before I get old. He heard a banging noise outside and he gave a silly, girlish jump, knocking his elbow against the washbasin. It was only Mr Chowdery slamming the lid back on his dustbin, but somehow nothing seemed the same any more. If people could walk through locked doors and cut your deepest anxieties into your bathroom mirror, then what else could happen?

  Peter slept badly that night. By the time the key turned in the lock at seven thirty-five, and Gemma came in, he was sitting on the couch drinking a large mug of instant coffee and eating a folded-over Kraft cheese sandwich without a plate.

  ‘Oh, you’re back, then,’ he said.

  She walked across the room and drew back the thin cotton curtains. It was a gloomy, gray day, and the window was speckled with rain.

  ‘You look terrible. You’re not getting one of your colds, are you?’

  ‘No. I just didn’t sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re not sulking, are you, just because I stayed out?’

  ‘Why should I? Like you keep on telling me, we’re not married yet. You can do what you like.’

  ‘Oh God, you are sulking.’

  She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He followed her and stood in the doorway watching her.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘You didn’t go to see Kelley and June, did you?’

  She took down her coffee mug and spooned coffee into it. She was betraying him, he was sure of it. The graffiti was right. She poured boiling water into her mug and stirred it, and he kept on watching her as if she was going to make some insignificant gesture that would give her away.

  As she tried to leave the kitchen he barred her way. ‘Come on, I want to know the truth. You didn’t go to see Kelley and June, did you?’

  ‘Peter, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I want to know his name, Gemma. I want to know what the hell you think you’re doing to me.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything to you. I just need some space, that’s all. You’re always there. I go into the living room and you’re there. I go into the bedroom and you follow me into the bedroom. I can’t even go to the toilet without you coming in.’

  ‘We live together, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can never go more than two inches away from each other. You give me claustrophobia, if you must know.’

  He stared at her. He didn’t know what to say. In the end she said, ‘Excuse me,’ and pushed past him into the living room. He didn’t know whether to follow her or not.

  At eleven o’clock she went out to the corner shop for milk and cigarettes.

  ‘You can come if you want to,’ she said, winding her red woolen scarf around her neck.

  ‘I’m watching the football,’ he said. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t want you to feel more claustrophobic than you do already.’

  ‘Oh, Peter.’

  She hadn’t been gone longer than three or four minutes when the phone rang. He picked it up and a man’s voice said, ‘Gem?’

  ‘Who wants her?’

  ‘Rick.’

  ‘Rick who?’

  ‘Look, man, is she there or not?’

  ‘She’s not, as a matter of fact. Rick who?’

  The man put the phone down without answering. Peter sat frowning at the receiver as if he couldn’t understand what it was.

  As they walked up North End Road toward the tube station, Peter said, ‘Who’s Rick?’

  ‘Rick?’ she said. She thought for a moment and then she shook her head. ‘I don’t know any Rick.’

  ‘Well, Rick knows you. In fact, Rick knows you well enough to call you “Gem”.’

  ‘Oh, that Rick. Little bald chap. I met him at one of our promotions at work.’

  They crossed the street. On the other side of the road a shop had been converted into a dentist’s surgery, its front window painted blue. Below the gilt letters that read I. Wartawa, Dental Surgeon, somebody had scratched the message YOU DON’T SERIOUSLY BELIEVE HER, DO YOU?

  Peter stopped and stared at it, while Gemma kept on walking. He felt so helpless and angry and jealous that he could have smashed the window with his fist. How could she think that he was going to swallow her explanation about Rick being a little bald chap she had met at work? A hundred to one Rick was the curly-headed guy in the leather jacket. A hundred to one.

  Somehow, Gemma’s betrayal of him must be so terrible that it had actually caused this graffiti to etch itself spontaneously, in the same way that the likenesses of dead people appeared on the walls of the rooms they had died in; or stigmata appeared on the hands and feet of people who experienced spasms of religious ecstasy.

  He caught up with her by the entrance to the tube station and she hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t walking beside her. ‘What?’ she asked, as he took hold of her arm.

  ‘I’m all right. I’m fine. So tell me about this Rick.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she said, as he bought their tickets. ‘He works for some computer company in Milton Keynes.’

  ‘You gave him your number at home?’

  ‘I don’t know. I must have done.’

  They went down the stairs to the eastbound platform. West Kensington station was open to the iron-gray afternoon clouds, and the tracks were shining with wet. There were only five or six other people on the platform with them, including a drunk in a torn, brown raincoat who was performing a mesmerizing one-man foxtrot just to stay upright.

  ‘Listen – what you said about space.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Peter. It’s just that I do like to have a few moments on my own, now and again. I’m sorry I called you claustrophobic.’

  He looked down at the concrete edging on the platform. There were fourteen letters chiseled into it, jagged and awry. PUNISH HER, PETER.

  In the distance, he heard the next train approaching. Soon he could see its headlights gleaming on the rails. He stood close to Gemma and put his arm around her waist. She glanced at him uncomfortably, but after what she had just said, she obviously didn’t feel that she could pull herself away.

  The train suddenly appeared from underneath the bridge. Peter didn’t even hesitate. He shouted out, ‘Be careful!’ and at the same time pushed Gemma forward as hard as he could.

  Gemma toppled, lost her balance, nearly caught it again, but then Peter pushed her again, gripping her coat collar so that it looked as if he was trying to save her. She tumbled over the edge of the platform right under the train’s front wheels.

  There was a deafening bang of emergency brakes, followed by a long, hideous screeching, like the grand finale to some cacophonous opera. The train seemed to take forever to come to a stop. Its wheels locked, so that Gemma was dragged almost thirty yards along the track.

  Then, for one long moment, there was quiet. Only the traffic from North End Road, and the sound of a 747 rumbling overhead, on its way to Heathrow.

  More like a wooden marionette than a man, Peter walked stiff legged to the front of the train. He felt shocked and breathless, but wildly exhilarated, too. The driver was just climbing out of his cab. He had left the rest of the doors closed, so that the train’s passengers were trapped inside, staring anxiously out to see what had happened. The drunk had lost his battle to stay upright, and was reclining on the platform on one elbow like a man at a picnic, say
ing, ‘Shit . . . I don’t believe it. Shit.’

  Peter went up to the driver. He was gray-faced, and his voice shook. ‘I’ve only just gone back to work after the last one,’ he blurted. ‘I’ve only just gone back.’

  Peter peered down on to the track. Gemma was lying underneath the front platform-side wheel. Her face was covered in red bruises and her dress was soaked in blood. She was staring up at the clouds with an expression of bewilderment, rather than terror. Her right arm had been torn off at the shoulder and the lower part of her right leg was missing.

  One of the station staff came running up. ‘Ambulance is on its way,’ he announced. Then, ‘You can’t stay here, sir. You’ll have to stand well back.’

  ‘That’s my fiancée,’ said Peter.

  ‘I’m really sorry, sir, but you’ll have to stand well back.’

  Peter retreated to the bench at the end of the platform while two more station staff appeared and then, at last, an ambulance crew. The power was switched off and they climbed down on to the tracks. Peter began to wish that he hadn’t given up smoking.

  As he sat on the bench waiting, he saw some words scratched into the side of the train. HAPPY NOW, PETER? And he began to think that, yes, in a way, he was.

  It suddenly started to rain very hard.

  Later that evening, after he had talked for two hours to a sympathetic, sandy-haired detective, he went back to Bramber Road and let himself into his flat. It was cold and dark, and the first thing he saw when he switched the light on was Gemma’s red angora sweater lying on the couch.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Anybody home?’

  He went into the kitchen. Gemma’s white bodies were still hanging in the windows where she had left them yesterday, and he systematically took them down, one after the other, and folded them up. Then he went through to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. It was crowded with jumpers and skirts and jeans and jackets, and the bottom was heaped with dozens of pairs of shoes from Shelley’s and Ravel.