As she waited for the kettle to boil she stood by the kitchen window, looking out over the meadow. Tall grass rolled gently in swathes, rich in the growing light. It was going to be a beautiful day, which was good. She had a long way to walk and the sun was nice for walking in. When the kettle flicked itself off she reached over to the cupboard and rootled around until she found a teabag. After so many years of living in one place, she still hadn’t really got used to her new kitchen, and seemed to discover it anew every morning.
She sat in the living room while she drank her cuppa, telling herself she was summoning up the energy to start. But really she was squaring herself mentally to the day’s business, readying herself for it. She felt a little apprehensive, as if preparing to attend to something that didn’t mean as much as it once had, but which nevertheless needed to be tidied away.
Her tea finished, she padded back into the kitchen, peering suspiciously down at the floor. Her kitchen in Belden Road had been covered with cheerful lino which she’d kept spotlessly clean. The stone slabs here seemed perpetually on die verge of being dusty, no matter how often she swept them. She had to admit they were nice, though. Very traditional. She knew she’d come to like them as much as she did the rest of the cottage, and in time she’d worry less about keeping them clean. Perhaps.
After swilling her cup with cold water and setting it by the sink to dry, she packed a few things together for lunch. She put a large piece of cheese, a tomato and some bread in a bag, and as an afterthought added a green apple and a knife to cut it with. Chances were she wouldn’t need any of it, of course, but would find somewhere to stop along the way. She hadn’t explored the area well enough yet, though, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
In the hallway she smiled at her coat once more, this time because of the memories it stirred. Cyril had bought it for her, many years ago. They’d been on holiday by the sea, and the weather had turned so cold after lunch on the first day that they’d gone into the little town to buy some warmer clothes. She’d seen the coat in the window of one of the two tiny shops, and, after some thought, rejected it as too expensive. Then later, as she’d sat drinking tea in the empty teashop by the dark and windy quay, Cyril had run back and bought it for her.
That had been sweet of him, but what she really remembered was when she tried it on. The coat was thick and black, and as soon she had it on they both laughed with the same thought, hooting until Cyril had started to cough wildly and she had to thump him on the back with a cushion. It was a granny coat, the kind old ladies wore, the first such that she’d ever owned. They were laughing because what else was there to do on the day you first realised that you were finally getting old?
Well, there was one other thing - and they’d gone straight back to the boarding house and done it for most of the afternoon. They hadn’t felt so very old, that day: but three years later Cyril was dead.
On the doorstep she pulled the door shut behind her. She didn’t bother to lock it. After living in London for so long, she forgot that things were different here. She would probably still have locked it if there’d been anything inside worth stealing, but when she’d moved she’d looked at all the things she’d accumulated over the years and realised very few were important enough to bring all this way. Apart from a few sets of clothes and a couple of odds and ends, she’d dispersed everything amongst friends and relatives, which had been nice to do. Her granddaughter Jane, for instance, had always loved looking through the old photographs May kept in a wooden chest. Giving them to her meant she would always have something to remember her by.
That, and their joke, which they’d shared since Jane was small. ‘Why do gypsies walk lop-sided?’ May would ask, and Jane, though she knew the answer, would always pretend she didn’t. ‘Because they’ve got crystal balls,’ May would cackle, and the two of them would laugh.
It was a bit of a rude joke, May supposed, but a little bit of rudeness never did anyone any harm. If people didn’t get a little bit rude with each other every now and then, there’d be no new people, would there?
She hesitated for a moment, looking up her path, and then set off. The road at the bottom turned gradually away across the fields, surrounded by green and waving gold as far as you could see. It was a long road, and May paced herself carefully. There was no hurry.
By late morning she judged she had travelled about three miles - not bad going for an old goat, she thought. It was so easy walking here, listening to the birds in the hedges and banks of trees. It reminded her of other holidays with Cyril, when they used to get out of the smoke and head out for the countryside somewhere, to walk together down lanes and stop at tiny pubs for lunch. It was a shame that he could not be with her now she could walk like this whenever she chose, but it didn’t do to regret things like that. Cyril always said that regrets are for people with nothing to look forward to, and he was right.
About half a mile later she rounded a bend to find a little clearing by the side of the road, and saw there was a small pub back up against the trees. Always a believer in signs, May decided that it was time for lunch.
The inside of the pub was cosy, the landlord and his wife as friendly as everybody else seemed to be in these parts, but it was too nice a day to sit inside. May bought a small sherry and a slice of pie to add to the lunch she had brought and took it outside to sit at one of the wooden tables. As she contentedly munched her way through the food she thought of other pubs and other times, thought of them with a calm detachment that had nothing of loss within it. You have what you have, and that’s it. There’s no point in wishing otherwise. If something was good enough to miss, then you were lucky to have had it in the first place.
After a while she saw a figure walking down the road towards the pub. It was a young man, and he sat at her table to chat and eat his lunch. He was a little glum. He had moved away from his family a year before, and was just back from visiting them. Though most of them were reconciled to his having moved on, his mother was not taking it well. May recognised the feeling she had about today’s business, of having to look back and remember things that seemed past, like recalling as an adult what it was like to take exams and tests, so as to be able to sympathise with a child who was only now going through that particular form of hell.
The young man cheered up a little as they talked. After all, he said, he didn’t want to go back, and if it took a little time for his mother to get over his leaving, then that was the way it was. This might have sounded harsh to anyone else, but not to May. She knew well enough that nothing would have dragged her back to London now that she was here.
Before she could get too comfortable, she got to her feet and started out again, armed with a recommended spot to look for later from the young man, who was going the other way.
The afternoon was even warmer than the morning, but not too much so, and as she walked May felt her heart lift with happiness. It really was very nice here, as nice as you could want.
By four the quality of the light began to change, and afternoon began to shade towards evening. The landscape either side of the road started to change too, becoming wilder, like a moor. As she kept walking May felt heavy with anticipation, wondering how her business was going to go, and hoping it would be more conclusive than the young man’s had been. It wasn’t that she minded having to go through it, not at all, but she would feel happier if today could be the end of it.
She kept an eye out for the landmarks the young man had mentioned, looking for the spot he had recommended. She felt that soon it would be time.
Half an hour later she passed a gnarled old tree by the side of the road and knew that she was close. Soon she found the little path which led off the road and followed it as it wound between small bushes and out onto the moor. She stopped once and looked back, across the green, and as far as she could see everything looked the same: a limitless expanse of country under a rich blue sky. How anyone could live anywhere else she couldn’t imagine. If anything, she wished she’d com
e here sooner.
Then the path broadened into a kind of circular grassy patch, and May knew this was the spot the man had mentioned. Not only was it the ideal place to sit, but there was no path out the other side. She lowered herself gently to the warm grass and prepared to wait. The air was slightly cooler now, almost exactly body temperature, and as she sat May felt the first hint of a breeze.
She felt calm, and relaxed, and soon another breeze ran by her, no colder than the air but brisk enough to make the grass bend. Then another breeze came, and another, and soon the grass was swaying in patterns around her, leaning this way and that in lines and shapes that changed into something else as soon as you noticed them. The wind grew stronger, and stronger, until every blade of grass seemed to be moving in a different direction and May’s hair was lifted up around her face in a whirl.
Then suddenly all was still.
May had a vague sense that someone was thinking of her. It became stronger, a definite tugging. She let her mind go as quiet as possible, giving herself up to it. Though she could still feel the grass beneath her hands, her mind seemed to go elsewhere, to broaden - and when she opened her eyes the world inside her head seemed as big as the one all around her.
‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’
Immediately she felt warm, and knew that the message had been received.
A moment later a voice came towards her out of the air; at first very weak, then more strongly.
‘Who are you here for?’ it said.
May’s heart leapt. ‘Jane,’ she said. ‘I’m here for Jane.’
She heard the voice ask if there was a Janet, and corrected it, repeating Jane’s name, enunciating it clearly.
After a pause she heard the voice again. ‘There is a Jane here,’ it said, ‘Who is speaking?’
‘May,’ she said strongly, ‘It’s May.’
The voice addressed the people she could not see. ‘Does the name “May” mean anything to you?’ it said, and May waited to see if she could hear the answer. She couldn’t. It was too far away.
But then the voice spoke to her again. ‘Your name seems to mean something,’ it said. ‘Jane is crying.’
May felt her heart go out to her granddaughter, and wished that she could see her, reach out and touch her. Jane had always been the one who had visited her when her other grandchildren or even children were too busy. Jane had come at the end too, when May had been in the home. Even when May’s mind had been confused and dark and she hadn’t been very nice to talk to, Jane had always come, and May wanted very much for her to know that she remembered her too. Most of all she wanted to show her that the words she’d spoken near the end were not her own, but the random jumbles of a mind that was too old to accurately reflect what was still inside.
‘Tell her,’ she said, and then cleared he throat and tried again, ‘tell her “crystal balls”.’
‘If you say so,’ said the voice, and there was a pause.
Then suddenly May felt warm again, warmer than she ever had before. Her cheeks sparkled as if flushed, and eyes flew wide open, and she felt Jane’s life inside her, and she knew that her business was over.
Jane had received the message. She would be able to forgive May for not saying goodbye as herself, and to let her go. She would know that it was all right to move on.
‘Did you get that?’ asked the medium.
‘Yes,’ said May, ‘I got that. Thank you.’
As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The connection was broken and May was left sitting on the grass alone.
She stood up and looked towards the path, and wasn’t surprised to see that it wasn’t there any more. On the other side of the clearing the bushes had cleared, and the way now led in that direction.
She walked into the growing darkness, knowing that there would be light at the end of it. She would miss her little cottage, she thought, but not for long. It had only been a temporary measure, somewhere to stay until she was ready to go.
She was ready now, and she saw in the distance that someone was waiting for her, and she walked more quickly because she wanted very much to see him again. She didn’t think he’d mind that she’d left the coat behind. She wouldn’t need it again.
If anything could keep her warm for ever, it would be him.
Michael Marshall Smith is a novelist and screenwriter. His debut novel, Only Forward, won the Philip K. Dick and August Derleth awards; Spares was optioned by Stephen Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG and translated in seventeen countries around the world, and One of Us is under option by Warner Brothers. He is a four-time winner of the British Fantasy Award. A collection of his short fiction, What You Make It, was published by HarperCollins in the UK; a fourth novel, The Straw Men, was published in 2002 (with a very nice cover quote by Stephen King). He lives in north London with his wife Paula and two cats. ‘This story came out of a conversation I had quite a few years ago with someone who admitted to having some experience as a medium,’ Smith recalls. ‘I use the word “admitted” because normally this kind of thing is “claimed”, and rather unconvincingly; in this case the woman was keen to play it down, or at least be matter-of-fact about it. This, along with an unusual feeling about her - very calm, relaxed, unassuming - made me take the idea quite seriously. She also mentioned there being some kind of school for mediums somewhere in London, an idea I was fascinated by, though I’ve never been able to find any information about it: perhaps you can only find the address via a message from the other side, as a kind of entry requirement…?’
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The Two Sams
GLEN HIRSHBERG
What wakes me isn’t a sound. At first, I have no idea what it is, an earthquake, maybe, a vibration in the ground, a 2 am truck shuddering along the switchback road that snakes up from the beach, past the ruins of the Baths, past the Cliff House and the automatons and coin-machines chattering in the Musée Mécanique and our apartment building until it reaches the flatter stretch of the Great Highway, which will return it to the saner neighbourhoods of San Francisco. the still, holding my breath without knowing why. With the moon gone, the watery light rippling over the chipping bas-relief curlicues on our wall and the scuffed, tilted hardwood floor makes the room seem insubstantial, a projected reflection from the camera obscura perched on the cliffs a quarter-mile away.
Then I feel it again, and I realise it’s in the bed, not the ground. Right beside me. Instantly, I’m smiling. I can’t help it. You’re playing on your own, aren’t you? That’s what I’m thinking. Our first game. He sticks up a tiny fist, a twitching foot, a butt cheek, pressing against the soft roof and walls of his world, and I lay my palm against him, and he shoots off across the womb, curls in a far corner, waits. Sticks out a foot again.
The game terrified me at first. I kept thinking about signs in aquariums warning against tapping on glass, giving fish heart attacks. But he kept playing. And tonight, the thrum of his life is like magic fingers in the mattress, shooting straight up my spine into my shoulders, settling me, squeezing the terror out. Shifting the sheets softly, wanting Lizzie to sleep, I lean closer, and know, all at once, that this isn’t what woke me.
For a split second, I’m frozen. I want to whip my arms around my head, ward them off like mosquitoes or bees, but I can’t hear anything, not this time. There’s just that creeping damp, the heaviness in the air, like a fogbank forming. Abruptly, I dive forward, drop my head against the hot, round dome of Lizzie’s stomach. Maybe I’m wrong, I think. I could be wrong. I press my ear against her skin, hold my breath, and for one horrible moment, I hear nothing at all, a sea of silent, amniotic fluid. I’m thinking about that couple, the Super Jews from our Bradley class who started coming when they were already seven months along. They came five straight weeks, and the woman would reach out, sometimes, tug her husband’s prayer-curls, and we all smiled, imagining their daughter doing that, and then they weren’t there any more. The woman woke up one day and felt strange, empty; she walked around for
hours that way and finally just got in her car and drove to the hospital and had her child, knowing it was dead.
But under my ear, something is moving now. I can hear it inside my wife. Faint, unconcerned, unmistakable. Beat. Beat.
‘ “Get out Tom’s old records…”‘ I sing, so softly, into Lizzie’s skin. It isn’t the song I used to use. Before, I mean. It’s a new song. We do everything new, now. ‘“And he’ll come dance around.’” It occurs to me that this song might not be the best choice, either. There are lines in it that could come back to haunt me, just the way the others have, the ones I never want to hear again, never even used to notice when I sang that song. They come creeping into my ears now, as though they’re playing very quietly in a neighbour’s room, ‘ “I dreamed I held you. In my arms. When I awoke dear. I was mistaken. And so I hung my head and I cried.’” But then, I’ve found, that’s the first great lesson of pregnancy: it all comes back to haunt you.
I haven’t thought of this song, though, since the last time, I realise. Maybe they bring it with them.
Amidst the riot of thoughts in my head, a new one spins to the surface. Was it there the very first time? Did I feel the damp then? Hear the song? Because if I did, and I’m wrong …
I can’t remember. I remember Lizzie screaming. The bathtub, and Lizzie screaming.
Sliding slowly back, I ease away towards my edge of the bed, then sit up, holding my breath. Lizzie doesn’t stir, just lies there like the gutshot creature she is, arms wrapped tight and low around her stomach, as though she could hold this one in, hold herself in, just a few days more. Her chin is tucked tight to her chest, dark hair wild on the pillow, bloated legs clamped around the giant, blue pillow between them. Tip her upright, I think, and she’d look like a little girl on a hoppity horse. Then her kindergarten students would laugh at her again, clap and laugh when they saw her, the way they used to. Before.
Dark Terrors 6 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 28
