The House On Nazareth Hill

by Ramsey Campbell

  Her father had restored the keys to his pocket and was advancing on her, hands outstretched. ‘Calm yourself now,’ he said. ‘You see you cannot beat me. Come to your room.’

  Amy ran around the table, placing it between them. Once again she had the impression that she and her father were doomed to keep repeating the same actions, the same words. ‘I’m not staying anywhere in here,’ she cried. ‘Can’t you see it’s making me worse? You let me out or take me out, I don’t care which, or you’ll see what I do.’

  He backed to the doorway and folded his arms. ‘You can do nothing that will turn me aside from my duty,’ he said.

  Amy felt her hands distort themselves into claws, eager to find something they could rip apart or smash. The furniture, the hi-fi, the television or the videorecorder—and then she saw what must surely affect him if she could bring herself to do it. She went to the bookcase along the wall which contained the door. Whispering ‘Sorry’ so quietly she scarcely heard herself, she made herself trap between her hands a clump of the books her mother had bound and hurl them to the floor.

  Not even his face moved. Amy dug one hand behind the next book on the shelf and stared accusingly at him. Dismay was gathering in layers on her consciousness: dismay at her own actions, at his unresponsiveness, at her mother for having abandoned her for ever—worst of all, at the realisation that the lovingly bound books meant as little to her now as their banal contents did. In a rage that made her forehead feel swollen and throbbing she pulled the book off the shelf and wrenching back the leather covers, held them creaking in her left hand while she gripped the wad of pages with the other. ‘You take me to the doctor or I’ll rip this to bits,’ she cried.

  She didn’t know if it was the threat or her stare which reached him. She saw his hands fumble at his cheeks, and the gesture put her off guard, so that too much of her attention was concentrated on the book in her hands when he flew at her, covering the distance between them as she gasped out a breath. ‘You devil,’ he said in a low cold monotone. ‘You’re mad, and you’re staying here in Nazarill.’

  He grasped her shoulders, bruising them, but his words had already caught her. She’d heard him say them once before, in her nightmare after he had raised her up like a sacrifice in front of Nazarill, and she felt as small and helpless as she had been then. Before she could make up her mind to struggle he’d dragged her across the hall.

  To her bewilderment, he didn’t throw her into her room. Instead he pushed her relatively gently across the threshold and slackened his grip on her shoulders, resting his hands on them while he gazed blankly at her forehead. She was about to duck free and dodge around him when he spoke. ‘Whatever must be done,’ he said, and drawing back his right fist, drove it into her face.

  22 - Preparing for the worst

  As the girl’s face fell away from Oswald’s knuckles, its intolerable eyes turning up their whites to meet their sagging lids, he experienced such a surge of relief that he crossed himself in gratitude. He had time to complete the gesture as the backs of the girl’s legs struck the end of the bed. The body encased in black swayed as if it was about to execute a staggering dance, and then it toppled backwards onto the quilt and was still.

  He had to make himself advance into the room. He didn’t like the clutter—didn’t care to think what might be breeding underneath the heaps of clothes and books and cassettes and schoolwork and unwashed plates, breeding like the maggots that infested her mind. He dreaded to think what he would have smelled had it not been for the scent of unholy incense. He might have kicked himself a way to her except for his fear of disturbing something alive. He picked his way across the stepping-stones of bare carpet until he was beside the bed.

  For the moment her face was peaceful, unless that was a trick. The book she had threatened to destroy lay next to her as though she’d fallen asleep reading it—as though she was enacting a wicked parody of the child she used to be. His fist clenched at the notion, but he mustn’t let himself be overcome by wrath, however righteous. He should do no more than had to be done, and he had no reason to be distressed by the print of his heel on her forehead: her face bore far worse that she’d done to herself. Perhaps that had been the start of her madness—perhaps all the metal she’d inserted in herself had poisoned her. No sooner had this occurred to him than he was stooping to twist the rings out of her ears and nose and shy them, seven unwholesomely warm bits of metal, out of the door. He felt as though he was casting out evil, or rather beginning to learn how to do so. As the last ring clinked against the glass of the picture opposite her room, leaving a red speck above her nostril, he wiped his hand fastidiously on his sleeve and took hold of her wrist.

  Finding her pulse was a more unpleasant task than clearing her face of its disfigurements had been. The mindless stirring in the bony wrist felt too much like an infestation of her flesh, some parasite which her unhealthiness had encouraged to breed. The moment he was sure of the pulse he flung the arm away from him, and her fingers rapped the wall before her hand dropped to the pillow. If her unconsciousness had been a pretence, the pain would have caused her to betray herself. She could be left while he ensured she stayed where she would do no more harm.

  He rescued the book before retracing his steps out of the room. He switched off the light and closed the door, and having laid the book on the shelf, hurried to the airing cupboard opposite the bathroom. He grabbed the topmost pair of the pile of her sheets—God alone knew when she’d last changed the ones on her bed—and tied them together with all his strength. He knotted one end of the improvised rope around her doorknob and hauled it taut while he tied the far end to the bathroom doorknob. That must hold her if she regained consciousness before he prayed she would.

  ‘I shan’t be long,’ he said aloud, and refusing himself the luxury of a grimace at the litter strewn about the hall, stepped out of the apartment. He turned the key in the mortise-lock and ran downstairs. Halfway down he thought he heard a door creep shut, but since it couldn’t possibly be his, it didn’t matter. He hurried past the six locked-up apartments of the ground floor and let the night in.

  The security lights pointed his shadow along the drive, and he had the impression that Nazarill was urging him onward, undertaking to keep his charge locked up until he returned to her. That would be as soon as possible, not least because he felt unprotected with only the black ice of the sky cracked by stars overhead. When he took refuge in the car its roof seemed flimsy and a good deal too close to his skull. His hands and feet saw to their tasks, swerving the vehicle across the empty car park and sending it in pursuit of its shadow tattered by gravel.

  No traffic was moving on Nazareth Row, and so his foot stayed off the brake. The car sped straight across into Little Hope Way, towards the scrolled iron gateway beyond the few shops before the marketplace. Then a uniformed guard stepped into the path of the vehicle and held up one hand. ‘No further if you don’t mind, sir.’

  Oswald reminded himself of the location and use of the brakes before he clambered out of the machine. ‘That was never my intention, Shaun.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Priestley. I didn’t…’ The youth glanced away from whatever had confused him and discovered another excuse to do his job. ‘Don’t you want to switch your lights off?’

  Oswald had apparently been distracted by his yearning to return to Nazarill. He leaned into the car, and as he identified the switch he heard the rattle of a shutter being pulled down on a shop-front. ‘Not too late,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Which shop are you after?’

  ‘Joinery. Carpentry,’ Oswald said, and nearly called it the Lord’s work. ‘Work about the home,’ he said with some vehemence.

  ‘Die,’ Pickles seemed to advise him, not least by explaining ‘Do it yourself. I’ll ask them to keep it open if you’re quick,’ he then said, and marched across the concrete scoured by spotlights, glancing back to encourage Oswald to keep in step. ‘And house…’

  Oswald thought he was being offered some furt
her advice until he grasped what he was being asked. ‘She is receiving treatment,’ he said, and overtook the guard beneath the sky, which was no more reassuring for having been squeezed smaller overhead; the pallor it derived from the glow of the market suggested it was about to shatter. He was first through the entrance of the Handypersons’ Haven, but it was Pickles who spoke. ‘We’ve a gentleman here who needs help.’

  The eldest of three men in yellow overalls on which two letters H were supporting each other indicated with a tilt of his head that he might be persuaded to glance up from the paperwork at which he was frowning. ‘Tell us what and we’ll fetch it.’

  More than the profusion of skeletal shelves, the metallic smell of the large room was confusing Oswald, reminiscent as it was of the smell of blood, and so he named items as they occurred to him. ‘A hammer by all means. Nails, I think not. A chisel might prove useful, and of course a screwdriver. They come to a point these days, do they not?’

  The youngest of the overalled assistants was ranging about the shop on his behalf. He halted, having added a pointed screwdriver to his handful, and regarded Oswald with a patience so visible it was its own contradiction. ‘There is what I most need,’ Oswald said, and took it off the shelf.

  His insistence on paying cash earned him a glance of disfavour from the manager, presumably for adding to the paperwork, but some instinct made Oswald reluctant to sign his name. ‘Call it thirteen,’ the manager said, saving Oswald a few pence and himself the necessity of disturbing the change in the drawer. His assistant bagged the purchases and preceded Oswald to the door, where he handed him the bags as a preamble to bolting the door after him.

  Pickles was outside, and tugged his peaked cap lower on his forehead by way of greeting. ‘All set? Don’t mind if I hurry you along, do you? It’s time for the gates.’

  Oswald needed no encouraging; indeed, he was wishing he could have stepped straight into Nazarill out of the shop. He was so intent on reaching his car that he’d unlocked it before he noticed that Pickles had followed him and was speaking to him. ‘What I meant, Mr Priestley, is I do all the fixing things round our house if you wanted a hand.’

  ‘You think you would have the chance to see the girl.’

  The guard’s face instantly doubled its blotches. ‘I wasn’t, that’s to say, if there was anything I could…’ He took a breath which only gave him more to babble. ‘I don’t mean to slip myself in, but seeing as the other feller, the one she was going round with…’

  ‘I want him nowhere near my property. There is no longer any cause for him to be.’ Oswald had fitted himself into the vehicle, and spoke over the lowered window. ‘You could bar him should it become necessary.’

  ‘Trust me, Mr Priestley,’ Pickles said with a vigour which immediately deserted him. ‘And she’s, is she…’

  ‘She is with a relative who knows how to handle her,’ said Oswald, and wound the window tight, only to have the guard crouch down to mouth ‘Will you tell her I was asking after her?’

  ‘Who knows when I shall have word from her,’ Oswald murmured, and swerved the car backwards to receive an urgent slap on the roof from the guard. A forward swerve came within an inch of scraping the bumper along a shop-front, and then the car was carrying him to safety. It sped across Nazareth Row in front of a homebound boxy vehicle whose angry flare of headlights meant infinitely less than the way Nazarill lit itself up to greet him. As he drove into the light he seemed to feel his eyes brighten all the way to the car park.

  It was no longer empty. Three cars had settled there, and one was disgorging a woman whom it didn’t take him much thought to identify as the magistrate. All that he had to do was lawful because necessary, and so he experienced no qualms at the sight of her waiting to walk with him. When he and his clanking bag arrived beside her at last, Oswald having turned back once he remembered that not all the light within his headlamps emanated from Nazarill, the question that passed over her shadow to him was unexpected. ‘Something amiss?’

  ‘What should be?’

  Though she looked taken aback by his curtness she answered civilly enough. ‘I assume you’re planning some kind of repairs.’

  He might have retorted that he assumed she was planning her customary inebriation, given the muffled colloquy of bottles in the carrier nuzzling her breasts. Instead he responded ‘Nothing that should disturb my fellow tenants. I imagine it will go unheard.’

  ‘I’m sure I shan’t be listening,’ the magistrate said, and panted after Oswald as he hurried to bring the entrance to Nazarill in view. ‘I expect you’ve your share of worries without anybody setting out to add to them,’ she said with an effort which fell short of the final consonant as Oswald reached the doors.

  He was already inside Nazarill, he saw. He turned one of his keys in the lock and pushed the glass away so that he could become the man he’d seen in the discreetly illuminated corridor. Once across the threshold he ceased to feel driven, and lingered to hold the door open for the magistrate. ‘What worries are we speaking of?’ he prompted as the doors glazed the night.

  ‘None, I suppose, if you feel you’ve none.’ The magistrate peered at him as though less than certain what she was seeing in the dimness. ‘I only wanted you to be aware I do know people who ought to be able to help you if you felt the need.’

  ‘What help do you imagine me to lack?’

  ‘Just tell me if I’m speaking out of turn.’ When Oswald kept his peace she said ‘My job brings me into contact with professionals who deal with, in your case would you call them mental problems?’

  ‘That would require me to identify the subject under discussion.’

  ‘Mr Priestley.’ The magistrate sounded so accusing Oswald thought she’d presumed to give him his answer until she said ‘Aren’t we talking about your daughter?’

  ‘Ah, I see the misunderstanding. She is no longer a problem.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do indeed.’ That ought to suffice, but he saw it made sense to do away with her inquisitiveness. ‘She is receiving the appropriate care,’ he said.

  ‘Forgive me, you were ahead of me. Can I ask where…’

  ‘She is in a place where such problems are attended to.’

  ‘Oh dear. I’m sorry. I don’t think any of us realised the situation was quite that bad. When do you think we can look forward to seeing her again?’

  ‘Whenever she is fit to be seen,’ Oswald said, reflecting that he’d given Pickles a different version of events. It was unlikely that the versions would be compared, and in any case nobody had the right to demand the truth or to interfere. He stared at the magistrate to indicate that he wanted the subject dropped, and saw her withhold a further question. Instead she murmured ‘Let’s hope there are more people for her to come home to.’

  ‘By which you intend to imply…’

  ‘I thought she was bothered by all the empty rooms.’

  ‘I doubt they will concern her any further.’

  ‘That’s good.’ The magistrate sounded less than entirely convinced, but when Oswald didn’t deign to acknowledge this she said ‘Shall we go up?’

  ‘To what end?’ For a space between heartbeats Oswald thought she must be entitled as a magistrate to inspect the arrangements he was making, and then he saw that she was eager to be in her rooms. ‘Let us by all means,’ he said.

  Her bottles betrayed their presence all the way to her floor while the contents of his bag audibly anticipated being put to use, and he was ready with a pointed answer if she made any comment. She turned to him as she stepped into her corridor. ‘You could tell her when you see her, this is if you think she is, that she shouldn’t blame herself any more for my Pouncer. I’ve seen a kitten I like.’

  ‘I am glad that too has been resolved.’

  The magistrate frowned, and her mouth opened, but only to say ‘Good night.’

  ‘Indeed so,’ said Oswald, and strode purposefully upward, feeling both triumphant over her and encourag
ed by the desertion which met him. The top corridor was as quiet as any hospital should be—so quiet that the peace might almost have persuaded him that his task was done. Of course it was far from discharged, and he braced himself to be reminded as he unlocked his door.

  But the apartment was silent too until he sidled through as meagre an opening as would admit him, when his foot struck an object on the floor with a soft thump. His nervous glance showed him the Bible, which he’d kicked into the hall earlier, and his disrespect caught up with him. He’d let himself be manoeuvred, however briefly, into behaving as the girl might. He would be doubly alert for any more of her tricks. He eased the door closed and set the bag down soundlessly, and crept along the hall to her door.

  He could hear nothing beyond it, even when he leaned an ear against it. He hung up his coat and mounted his jacket on the back of a dining-chair and rolled up his sleeves in preparation for his task. As he picked at the knot on the girl’s doorknob with his fingernails he remembered trying to free the cat from the noose on the oak, and wondered if she might have hanged the animal as a first stage of her madness. He brought his bag of purchases to her door and poked the screwdriver into the convolutions of the knot, which gave at once.

  He cast the rope of sheets towards the bathroom, where the other knot would have to wait, and then he laid out his tools on the hall carpet. He took hold of the doorknob and lifted the hammer. Before he set to work he ought to satisfy himself that no interruption was being planned for him. He turned the handle so minutely it made not the faintest sound, and inched the door away from the frame until he could just distinguish a supine figure on the bed. When it didn’t stir he pushed the door wider—was about to throw it fully open when he saw the light from the hall spread across the floor. Before he was able to draw another breath he stumbled backwards, almost dropping the hammer as he dragged the door after him.

  He didn’t see much, but he couldn’t have borne to see more. Though the girl sprawled on the bed had changed her position since his last sight of her, she didn’t stir as the light touched her. Something did, however. He might have tried to believe that he was seeing shadows of the clutter on the floor, except that he heard the rustle of movement—of a great many small things no longer bothering to hide. As he heaved the door shut he saw darkness pursuing it, a darkness so solid he had to tell himself he couldn’t see it destroying the wallpaper and glistening like moisture on the brick it bared. The slam of the door put an end to these sights, but Oswald backed away until his heel struck the rest of his purchases, which emitted a clang like a bell summoning him to his duty. Now that the room was shut he could turn his mind away from whatever was within. Perhaps it might bring her to her senses. Or might she even welcome any infestation of her room? Was that why she had taken to living like some creature less than human in its lair? The thought made him scratch at the air in front of his face and then at his cheeks as they started to crawl.