The Count of Eleven

by Ramsey Campbell

  The ladder fell one way, Andy the other. The ladder tipped over the banister, clanged against the edge of the next landing and thudded into the hall, where it teetered upside down before falling over. Andy fell on his feet, bending his knees to lessen the impact, and immediately went sprawling as the carpet slithered from beneath him. He sat down hard and stayed there, looking shaken and irate. As he fell Mrs. Merrybale had emitted a shriek which no parrot would have been ashamed of, and now she began to climb towards him, kicking the carpet into place. Are you all right, Mr. Jamister Andy? Can I do anything for you?"

  Andy nodded and stretched out his hands. "What about the parrot?"

  "Why, he died years ago," she said, and stared at Andy as he threw himself onto his back and lay hooting and pummelling the floor. "Some tea, that's what you need. I'll be seeing to a pot," she said, retreating.

  When Andy had recovered from his outburst he and Jack secured the carpet and carried the ladder upstairs. Andy was game to climb it again, but Jack insisted on taking his place; that was the least he could do after having put Andy at risk. Still, he'd learned not to take his luck for granted, not to squander it when he himself was able to improve a situation. He was glad to finish painting the ceiling around the skylight leaning back made him feel as though the ladder was about to sway over the stairwell. "It's a good job you were only eleven rungs up when it went," he told Andy.

  At the end of the day less than a day's worth of decorating remained. Andy suggested that he could cope by himself, but Jack wouldn't hear of it; he would still be in plenty of time for the library interview. In the morning he donned his old clothes which smelled faintly of paint and sat at the breakfast table, counting silently in elevens, until Andy honked the horn outside. "Wish me no, don't wish me luck," he told Julia and Laura. "Keep it for yourselves."

  FIFTEEN

  It was some weeks later when Laura cycled down to the stretch of promenade that faced the bay. Heavy evening sunlight lazed on a mercury sea. All along the promenade cars were saying L to one another. She sat on a bench and watched the learner drivers braving roundabouts, attempting three-point turns which often gained extra points, flashing both direction indicators as if they didn't know which way to turn, screeching to a halt in the face of invisible obstacles. A rusty Skoda came to a juddering stop a few yards from her, and an enraged couple changed places in the front seats before the woman put her foot down and the car roared off. When its oily fumes trailed towards her, Laura cycled once around the roundabouts and made for home.

  She was passing the International Experience where the colours of the lit sign, which were faded by the sky, put her in mind of sweets when she met Jackie Pether. Jackie and another girl were sitting on the chained-up swings in the little fairground and sharing a cigarette, which might have been why Jackie went on the offensive at once. She folded her arms as if to show she couldn't have touched the cigarette, and smirked. "No you haven't," she said.

  Her friend giggled, though she clearly had no more idea of what Jackie meant than Laura had. "Who says?" Laura demanded.

  "Everyone who knows you, Laura Orchard."

  "Well, that doesn't include you, Jackie Pether, so don't you go letting your friend think it does."

  "People know more about you than you'd like them to know," Jackie said.

  The sight of Jackie's friend's broad dull face growing smug infuriated Laura as Jackie meant to do. "You don't know anything worth knowing, Jackie Pether."

  "I know that's a lie, for a start," Jackie said and pointed at Laura's budding breasts.

  So that had been her original theme: Laura's T-shirt which announced I'VE BEEN TO KNOSSOS. "It was a present Jody brought me. Anyway, you don't know I'm not going."

  "I know you won't be when your dad can't get a job."

  The girl with the cigarette spluttered as though Jackie had confounded Laura with her wit, and then she started coughing. By the time the girl had regained control of herself Laura had discarded the retort she'd first thought of in favour of something she wanted to know. "Was it you who went about saying my dad meant to set fire to his shop, Jackie Pether?"

  "Lots of people did."

  "Like your mum and dad, for instance?"

  Jackie opened her mouth and then turned mute and furious. "My dad could sue them for losing him that job at school," Laura said. "Your dad's supposed to be a policeman. If my dad took him to court he'd have to tell the truth."

  "Don't you say things about my dad," Jackie shrilled. "Yours is mad, everyone says so. He runs round New Brighton with one shoe on."

  Laura felt her face grow hot. "I'll tell you one thing, he doesn't spread lies about people. And I'll tell you another, he's just got a better job than the one at school."

  "Where, in a nuthouse?"

  "In Ellesmere Port library, if you must know," Laura said, and cycled away without looking back.

  If she had lingered it might have seemed that she was trying to convince them. Her father had heard only this week that he'd been chosen for the job. It didn't matter whether Jackie and her friend believed it but yes, it did. They had spoiled Laura's evening, and she didn't want to go home while it might be apparent to her parents that something had.

  She cycled past the bowling alley, past Adventureland where people on machines were screaming, past the bollards which barred cars from the rest of the promenade. She rode so fast that all she could hear was the wind. By the time she slowed she was halfway to Seacombe Ferry, on a stretch of promenade with nothing but a half-mile curve of high brick wall for company. She sat on a solitary bench and watched windows light up like sparks in the ashen blur of streets across the river.

  If her father had really been seen wearing only one shoe he must have meant it as a joke. He was worth a dozen dads like Jackie's, who never seemed to smile unless the joke was at someone else's expense. He would be starting work in Ellesmere Port next week, and then if Jackie Pether said he hadn't she would just be making herself look foolish. Laura let these thoughts establish themselves in her mind until she felt it was time to go home.

  She was no longer alone on the stretch of promenade. A thin boy whose scalp looked encrusted with sand had climbed the nearest set of steps from the beach and was leaning against the railings opposite the corner of the wall which cut off the view of this stretch from the route back to New Brighton. His spine was propped against the highest rail, one foot resting on the lowest. As Laura mounted her bicycle and pedalled towards him he pushed himself away from the railing, his boot striking the pavement loudly and metallically as a horseshoe. "That's like my cousin's bike," he said.

  He was several years older than Laura. He stepped off the pavement into the road, lowering his head as though displaying the sandy stubble which didn't quite hide raw patches of his scalp. She gave him a polite smile, but his lips -the only part of his mottled face which seemed to have much flesh beneath the skin twitched like a dog's as he sidled into her path. "I said that looks like my fucking cousin's bike."

  "Well, it isn't. My parents bought it for me for Christmas."

  "You pair-rents? What's a pair-rent?" He was advancing on her, kicking his feet outwards as though he was dancing. "Looks like her fucking pair-rents gave her our Germaine's bike that someone stole," he said.

  Laura glanced back, so hastily that pain stabbed the side of her neck. Two more boys had come up the steps from the beach, quietly despite their boots. One looked older and stupider than the boy in front of Laura, and bore half a dozen blackened scabs under his greyish chin, while the youngest was about Laura's age and seemed to have thought of a joke he was bursting to share. All three had versions of the same flat face which looked as though it had been thumped into shape. As the newcomers moved towards Laura she swung the front wheel and trod hard on the higher pedal. The bicycle veered around her interrogator, but he danced backwards and seized the handlebars. "Where you fucking off to? Where's your fucking manners?"

  "Please don't touch my bicycle," Laura said, fightin
g not to let him see that her mouth was growing almost unmanageably stiff. "I'm sorry if your cousin's bicycle was stolen, but this isn't hers."

  "Well, someone stole her by-sickle," he said, wagging his head like a puppet's. His brothers burst out laughing close behind her she didn't realise how close until one of them grabbed the back wheel. "Clint nicked it for her," the youngest crowed.

  "Shut up, you little fucker." The raw-scalped boy raised his upper lip, exposing an incomplete set of stained teeth. He looked like a dog preparing to attack. Laura's mouth was about to start trembling, her heart was hammering, she could hardly distinguish her hands from the rubber grips they were trying to keep hold of. She twisted the handlebars, so suddenly and violently that they were wrenched out of his hands, and kicked him on the shin as her other foot tramped on the pedal.

  Someone screamed behind her, and the bicycle jerked to a halt, having travelled only a few inches. Two of the youngest boy's fingers were jammed between the frame and a spoke of the back wheel. "You cunt, you hurt my fucking brother," shouted the boy she had kicked. "You're dead meat, bitch."

  The youngest boy had fallen to his knees and was trying to pry his fingers out of the trap. "Get away or I'll hurt him worse," Laura said, biting her lip. "Both of you go right down to the beach and then I'll let him loose."

  That had to work, she thought: it made sense. Then the oldest boy plodded forwards and leaned on the rear mudguard, apparently oblivious to the pain he was inflicting on his brother. "You're not going anywhere," he said, slow and thick.

  "You'd better let me go," Laura said at the top of her voice. At the far end of the wall, where the promenade rose before sloping to Seacombe, a man and a cavorting puppy were crossing the tarmac. Though they were several hundred yards away, surely the man must have heard her. Perhaps he was too intent on the dog as it bounded down a slipway to the beach. Laura sucked in a shaky breath and shouted "Help!"

  At least, she almost did. She had just breathed out the first letter when the oldest boy reached for her as though his mind was on something else entirely and punched her in the throat. It felt as if she was choking on a hard sweet which she couldn't swallow and which was growing bigger in her windpipe. The man with the dog took three quick strides, and Laura saw his head bob down, down, down, and vanish below the edge of the promenade. "Get off the fucking bike, bitch," the sandy boy said.

  SIXTEEN

  Harpo had dressed up as Groucho and was trying to convince him that he was Groucho's reflection. Though it was Jack's favourite Marx Brothers scene, he was nodding after the dinner Julia had made to celebrate his success in Ellesmere Port. Momentary dreams kept interrupting the antics of the two bespectacled moustached men in nightshirts and nightcaps, and Jack found that he was gazing into a mirror. He leaned his head gingerly around the edge, and a clown's grinning face craned around to meet him. "Do you know what I'd like to do?" someone said.

  "Yes." The night shirted figures were hopping in unison across a frame which had contained a full-length mirror. The clown winked at Jack, who felt his own eyelid droop. "What?" the voice said.

  "What," Jack agreed, and the clown nodded too, the head swaying up and down so extravagantly it seemed the neck must snap. The head would topple out of the mirror for Jack to catch, and how would that affect him? "I said, do you know what I'd like to do?" Julia said.

  Now Chico appeared disguised as Groucho beside Harpo, destroying the illusion of the mirror. "Sorry," Jack mumbled, shaking his head to waken himself. "What would you like?"

  "To go and meet Laura and then have a drink in a beer garden."

  "Go ahead."

  "I was thinking we could take the van and put her cycle in the back."

  "We'll both go, of course," Jack said, struggling awake. "Maybe not the van."

  "It's running, isn't it?"

  "Not too happily. I'll have it looked at before I start work. Just let me rewind the tape and we can stroll down to the prom."

  He watched the digits on the counter racing backwards. For a moment they seemed to stop at thirteen, but he must be looking at the number twelve, because it was immediately transformed into eleven; then the digits arrived at zero with a loud click. He withdrew the cassette from the machine and put it with the comedy tapes, and followed Julia out of the house.

  They crossed the Crazy Golf course, where a seagull was dwarfing a windmill on a concrete mound, and gazed along the promenade. The evening light lent the road and its users a muted precision, but there was no sign of anyone on a bicycle. "She said she was going where it's open to traffic," Julia said.

  When they walked as far as the first roundabout, from which they had a view of the rest of that end of the promenade, Laura was nowhere to be seen. "She must have gone home along the top road," Jack said.

  "I expect so." Julia sounded a little uneasy. An ashen pair of headlamps sprang alight beyond the second roundabout, dazzling Jack and leaving on his eyes a charred patch which first expanded then shrank. Was that Laura near the bowling alley? If so, where was her bicycle? The blackness shrank, and he saw that neither of the girls sitting on the wall was Laura. "There's someone from her class at school," Julia said.

  It was Jackie Pether, whose grandfather had helped cause the fire at Fine Films. The memory of fire unnerved Jack momentarily as Julia headed for the girls. Jackie whispered to her friend, and both girls shrieked with laughter. "I have that effect on people," Jack said.

  Julia stood and looked at them until they stopped laughing. "Have you seen Laura by any chance, Jackie?"

  "She went off that way."

  "About how long ago?"

  "Twenty minutes," Jackie said, shrugging.

  "Thank you. Shall we see if we can meet her?" Julia said to Jack. "I expect she's on her way back. It'll be dark soon."

  Beyond the bollards which put an end to traffic the promenade ran straight for several hundred yards before curving inland to Vale Park and gradually outwards again. From the beginning of the curve one could see to the end, and at once Jack saw a cyclist just beyond the park. "Is that her?"

  "It might be," Julia admitted, waving tentatively as she quickened her pace. Apparently in response to her wave, the cyclist dismounted and sat in a shelter. It was impossible to see into the shelter from more than a few yards away, but when they came abreast of it the Orchards found that neither the cyclist nor her machine was at all familiar. "She could be home by now and wondering where we are," Jack said.

  "Shall we just go to where we can see the rest of the prom?"

  "We may as well."

  When a bell jingled behind them Jack turned smiling, but it was the cyclist from the shelter. She rode away up a sloping street beside Mother Redcap's rest home as he and Julia turned the corner to the next stretch of the promenade. The bell rang again as he saw what was there, and allowed him to feel momentarily that he was seeing an illusion. A bicycle was hanging from the railings above the beach.

  Both wheels had been kicked or stamped on. Most of the spokes were missing, and the rims were twisted wildly out of shape. The frame was bent in the middle as though someone had done their utmost to snap the bicycle in half. "It isn't Laura's, is it?" Jack wished aloud.

  As Julia went to the bicycle at a run which looked crippled by anxiety, a dog came bounding towards her along the promenade, yapping. "Come back here, Ruff," its owner shouted.

  He was several hundred yards away, and had been stooping over a bench against the wall. Someone was lying on the bench, Jack saw. At that distance, in the twilight and the shadow of the wall, it was impossible to make out the face, but when he narrowed his eyes he was able to distinguish that the still figure had long red hair like Laura's, dangling over the edge of the seat, and was wearing dungarees patterned like hers. A sour taste of panic flooded his mouth as he ran past Julia, who was leaning over the railings to peer down at the beach. He wanted to see what had happened before she did.

  He would have except for the dog. It romped at him and almost tripped hi
m up, and when he bent to pat it and push it away it kept leaping to lick his face. By the time its owner had persuaded the puppy to sit, Julia was at the bench. "It's all right, love," she said in a voice so nearly calm that the hint of anguish she couldn't suppress pierced Jack like a physical pain. Whatever he was afraid to see as he went forwards, what he saw was worse.

  Laura was sitting up gradually, trying to pretend it didn't hurt to do so. Her T-shirt was torn almost to her waist, and she was holding it shut with one hand. She seemed to be having difficulty both in breathing and swallowing. Her face was on the way to becoming unrecognisable; her lips were split and puffed up, her left eye was hidden by a blackened swelling. At first Jack thought her nose was broken, then he saw that it was only bleeding, as if that wasn't bad enough. Julia sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders as gently as she could, though even that caused Laura to flinch. "What happened, love? Who did this to you?"

  "Boys," Laura said, and a tear crept out of her swollen eye as though the bruise had burst.

  "How could they?"

  Laura swallowed painfully. "They tried to steal my bike."

  Julia clenched her free hand and punched the wall. "Oh, Laura, why didn't you let them?"

  "Because you and Dad gave it to me."

  "Don't hurt yourself," Jack pleaded, taking Julia's hand and kissing the scraped knuckles. "How do you feel, Laura?"

  "How in God's name do you think she feels?"

  Jack had known the question sounded inane but hadn't known how else to phrase it. "I only I meant, can she walk?"

  "I think so," Laura said, her open eye turning towards the wreck of her bicycle.

  The dog's owner had been crouching and patting the dog so as not to seem intrusive; now he stood up. "If you can help her as far as the corner I'll run you to the hospital."