The New Uncanny

by Priest, Christopher

  She grabbed it and without a thought of what she was doing she struck with revulsion at the book, like someone trying to kill a snake or a rat. The wooden ruler thumped hard against the book, dashing it to the ground. It fell in a violent flurry of pages, spine upwards, pages curled beneath it.

  The curtain shook, swung, fell back against the window. She had expected a cry of pain as the book was dashed away.

  Using the ruler, she parted the curtain.

  No one was there. Just the black oblong of night-darkened window. She saw her reflection dimly in the pane. Her hair was wild, disarrayed, as if in fright. She smoothed it down without thinking why. The half-light window at the top of the frame was open, admitting a breeze, a breath of night air. She felt the cooling flow, but now she wanted the house to be secure, sealed. She balanced herself precariously on her office chair and closed the window.

  The solitary car was still parked outside, under the streetlamp. It looked like Hike’s, but he was more than an hour away. It could not be him – although mobile phones, wireless broadband, could be accessed from a car. Because of the light shining down from above, the car’s interior was shadowed and she could not make out details – was there someone inside?

  She stared, but nothing moved.

  Stepping down from her chair she picked up the book that had given her such a fright. It was John Donne’s Collected Poetry, a hardback she had owned since she was at university. She clutched it with the relief of recognition, closed the pages, checked that none of them had been folded back when she knocked it to the floor. There was a dent at the top of the front cover where she had brought down the ruler. The spine, the rest of the binding, the pages, looked none the worse for the incident, but as she turned to put the book on the shelf where it belonged she discovered that there was a large patch of sticky stuff on the back board. She tapped her finger against it and was surprised at the strength of the glue that had been smeared there.

  She sat at her desk, despairing, and holding the damaged book. Why this one? She dabbed at the sticky stuff with a paper tissue, but it only made a mess, made the problem worse.

  She put the book aside and closed down the computer. She wanted no more incoming emails. At last the room was silent – no whirring sound of the cooling fan, or of the wind from outside, or of anyone or anything moving inside the house. No footsteps or moving objects, no one breathing around her, no suggestion there was anyone near her, or hidden somewhere in a corner she had forgotten to search.

  Tiredness was finally sweeping over her, as the physical exertion of the day’s travels and the trauma of arriving home combined against her. But still she could not end the day without being sure.

  She moved swiftly from her study, walked straight to the front door, pulled back the bolt and went outside. At once she was in the wind, the sound of trees and foliage moving, the night-time cleansing of the air.

  She headed directly for the car parked beneath the streetlamp.

  No one was inside, or no one appeared to be inside. She went forward, suddenly alarmed that there might in fact be someone hiding, who had ducked down as she left her house. In her haste she had not thought to bring a torch. She reached the passenger door of the car, braced herself, leaned forward, looked in through the window.

  A parallelogram of light fell in from the streetlamp. There was a laptop computer on the front passenger seat, its screen opened up, and lying next to it was a mobile phone. Both revealed by their tiny green LED signals that they were in use, or at least were on standby. There was no sign of anyone hiding in the car. She tried the door, but it was locked. She went to the other side, tried the door there too.

  When she turned to go back to her house she realized she had made no attempt to close the front door behind her. In a disturbing reprise of the first sign she had seen of the intrusion, it was swinging to and fro in the wind, a seeming invitation. She hurried back, rushed inside, pushed the door into place and slid the bolt closed.

  She stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, listening for sounds from any of the rooms downstairs. The books beside the door, which she had not examined closely before, were still on the shelf where she had thrust them in haste.

  Melvina picked them up with a feeling of dread certainty, and looked at the authors’ names: Disraeli, Dickinson, Dickens, Dick, DeLillo, De La Mare...

  Once again, full of fear, she toured the house. She checked all the doors and windows, she looked in every room and made sure that no one could be in any conceivable place of concealment. Then, at last, she began to relax.

  It was past one o’clock, and although she felt tired she was not yet sleepy. She went back to her cup of drinking chocolate, now lukewarm, and finished it. Then she climbed up the stairs to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and took a shower.

  For the first time since she had bought the house, she found being inside the shower frightening: the closing of the cubicle door and the noise of the rushing water cut her off from the rest of the house and made her feel isolated and vulnerable. She wanted to extend sensors throughout the house, detect the first sign of intrusion at the earliest opportunity. She turned off the water almost as soon as she had started, even before it had become warm enough, and stepped out of the shower feeling wet but unwashed. She towelled herself down, still on edge, nervous again.

  In the bedroom, she collected the books that had been stacked on the end of her bed, took them down to her reading room. Most of them belonged there, and she would put the others back in her study in the morning. She went downstairs, found the other books, all with authors whose names began with ‘D’. Why?

  She turned on the central light in her reading room, and once again she had the unmistakable feeling that something was different, something had changed.

  The books on the shelves looked tidier than usual: no books rested face-up on the tops of others. No books leaned to one side. None stuck out.

  She looked at the shelf nearest her. Rossetti, Rosenberg, Roberts, Reynolds, Remarque, Rand, Rabelais, Quiller-Couch, Pudney, Proust... All sorted into alphabetical order. By author. In reverse, Z to A.

  She put down the pile of ‘D’ authors she was carrying, and turned to the shelves by the window. On the top shelf, to the left, were Thérèse Raquin, Nana, Germinal, La Débâcle, a volume of letters, all by Émile Zola. Next to him, Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot and his novel Children of the Ghetto. Next –

  She went to the other end of the shelves, by the door. Here was the copy of Douglas Dunn’s Elegies, where she had hurriedly stacked it with the three review copies, after she found it in the spare room cupboard. She now realized she had pressed it in beside Le Guin and Kundera.

  She took it down, added it to the pile of ‘D’ authors.

  One of the hardcovers close at hand was her treasured copy of Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. She removed it from the shelf carefully, with her hand shaking again. When she opened the book she found that it was upside-down inside its paper dust-jacket.

  Carrying the ‘D’ authors, Melvina went downstairs again to her study. The first book at the top left-hand end of the main shelf was Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, and several more of his novels. Next to those, Koestler. Next to him –

  Immediately beside her desk was a long gap in the sequence, which began after Dunstan and the sequence resumed with Defoe. The books she was carrying in both hands, a tall heap of mixed paperbacks and hardcovers, fitted loosely in the space.

  She put them back, instinctively sorting them into the reverse sequence – she could not help it.

  At the far end of her study, where there was another kind of gap, a space for new acquisitions, the last title was Inter Ice Age IV, by Kobo Abe.

  Melvina went around the house one last time. She double-checked that every window was closed and curtained, that the front and back doors were securely closed, and that every light in the house was on. At last, she went to bed.

  She read for a while, she listened to music on he
r MP3 player and she turned on the 2:00am BBC news. She lay in the half-dark, with a reading lamp on but turned away towards the wall, and with light spilling into the room from the hall. She turned, she fluffed pillows, she tried to cool down and then to warm up. Eventually she drifted into a state of half-sleep: lying still with her eyes closed, but with her thoughts circling and repeating. Time passed slowly.

  She must eventually have fallen into a light sleep, because she was awakened suddenly by a blow to her face. Something hard and heavy, and with a sharp corner, landed painfully on her cheekbone and temple. It rested there inexplicably. Instantly she was awake, and moving. Whatever it was slid off her face, landed on the mattress beside her and fell to the floor.

  She sat up, and swung her legs out of the bed so that she could sit upright. She swivelled her reading lamp around, and in its glare she picked up the book that had fallen on her. It was Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. It was her old paperback annotated edition, purchased years before, one of those many titles she was intending to read all the way through. One of these days.

  From outside the house she heard the starter-motor of a car, followed by an engine being revved. Still naked from the bed she went quickly to her sewing room next door, pulled aside the curtain, and looked down at the street. The car that had been parked outside her house was accelerating away. She could not see who was driving.

  Melvina waited at the window, resting her hands on the sill, leaning her forehead against the cool glass. She watched until the car had driven away, out of sight, and could no longer be heard.

  Pre-dawn quietude began to spread around her – in the east there was a grey lightening of the sky, a mottled paleness, unspectacular but steady. The trees across the road from her house gradually took on clarity and shape. She returned briefly to her bedroom, pulled on her robe, then she went back to the window. Almost imperceptibly, the world was sliding into visibility and colour around her – the trees, the curving road, the closed sheds of the council cleaning depot at the end of her street, the roofs of her nearest neighbours’ houses down the hill, the flowers in her overgrown garden. Melvina opened the window fully, leaned out into the air, relishing the cool atmosphere. She had not been awake at sunrise for many years. Now she could hear the sea, away behind her on the far side of the house, making a constant shushing on the shingle beach. Calmness spread through her. She waited until the sun had fully risen, but almost as soon as it became visible it disappeared behind a bank of grey cloud. A bird, hidden somewhere, began to sing. The daylight spread inexorably but gently.

  Fully awake, Melvina returned to her bedroom and dressed in her oldest work clothes.

  She went to the spare room and began to carry Hike’s stuff downstairs. It took her an hour to collect up and move everything, and at the end of that time she was sweaty, tired and in need of a bath, but when she had finished Hike’s belongings, all his photographs and paintings, including the two that had been hung in her entrance hall, all his art materials, his photo equipment, his papers, magazines, records, broken scanner, bags of cables and clothes in need of recycling lay in a heap outside. But not anywhere near her own house. Two of the houses a short way from hers were due to be let to visitors in two days’ time, and she knew someone would clear away all the junk that had inexplicably appeared outside them.

  It was going to be another warm day. Melvina opened every window, and settled down to work.

  Ped-o-Matique

  Jane Rogers

  THE BOOTS TIGHTENED their clasp around Karen’s ankles. They began to vibrate. Karen tensed for a moment against the unfamiliar sensation, finding it oddly intimate. She half-tried to remove her feet, but they were firmly clamped in position. Relax. She drew a deep breath and settled back into the squashy comfort of the leatherette chair. She had a full half hour before she needed to be at the Gate. Spoil Yourself, the instructions urged. Enjoy Ped-o-Matique Free Foot Massage. Time to relax.

  She began to review her list. She had forgotten to change her dollars into euros, but there would be time for that in Paris. It was surprising how much there had been to do. At first, a six hour connection lag between flights had seemed intolerable, and she had scoured the net for something better. But direct out of Adelaide, Quantas and Malaysian Airlines were equally bad. Once the wait in Changi Airport had become inevitable, it began to acquire a dreamily elastic nature, in her mind. She might go for a swim in the airport pool, after visiting the fully-equipped gym. She might take the free bus tour of Singapore, laid on for transit passengers. She might take the opportunity to ‘be enchanted by our themed gardens from the serene Bamboo Garden to the ancient Fern Garden.’ Or even visit the cinema.

  In the event, this yawning gulf of time had been all too easily filled. Leaning forward in her seat, she studied the buttons on the machine and switched VIBRATE to Fast. The vibration sent tremors all the way up her legs to her thighs. Embarrassed, she glanced at the other passengers gliding past on the travellator, and at the group further down near the Palm Tree internet access site. It felt almost indecent, to be sitting here in public receiving such sensations.

  Since landing she had phoned home to check that Zac was happily tucked up in bed; picked up her e mails and sent a message to all her students reminding them that she would be absent this week; found a chemist that sold melatonin, for the jet lag; found a quiet seat in a restaurant and spent two hours re-revising her paper for Monday afternoon; bought an irresistible shell mobile for Zac, a length of batik cloth for Faye, and a green silk blouse which she hoped would look smarter than her turquoise shirt. Finally she had selected a postcard of a smiling lion and posted it to Zac with lots of kisses. He was too young to understand, but Faye could tell him Mummy had sent it. And now she was treating herself to a foot massage, which, according to the notice, entailed the benefits not only of stress relief and improved circulation, but also reduced the likelihood of deep vein thrombosis on long haul flights.

  Leaning forward again she switched off VIBRATE and selected MASSAGE. There commenced a slow rhythmic squeezing of her feet. She flicked the switch through Low and Medium to High. The squeezing intensified to an almost alarming level. It began by tightening over the toes, and moved swiftly upwards, tightening in turn over the arch of the foot, the heel, the ankle, the lower calf, clasping her so tightly it was almost painful, before repeating the sequence. She switched her choice back to Medium. It was almost like dancing, she thought. Passive dancing. The machine danced your feet for you. How did it know how much to tighten, considering the different shapes and sizes of everyone’s feet? Hers were small: if someone with big fat feet were as tightly squeezed as this, bones would be broken. It would be like Chinese foot-binding.

  Karen checked her watch. Fifteen minutes till she needed to be at the Gate. She had not really succeeded in relaxing yet. Her stomach was churning with anxiety, as it had been ever since she climbed into the taxi and waved goodbye to an oblivious Zac, wriggling in Faye’s arms. But it was ridiculous. He was nearly 8 months old. If she could leave him to return to work, as she had done when her maternity leave ran out, then she could certainly leave him for five days to go to a conference. Everyone thought so. She was fortunate, her Head of Department was really behind her career. He had encouraged her to submit an abstract for Paris, he had been more thrilled than she was when her paper was accepted. And Zac couldn’t be in safer hands. Faye was her favourite post-grad, quiet, responsible, thoughtful. Karen had it all. A baby and a career and no man to tell her what to do.

  She was tired, that was all. She had forgotten how to relax. She tried to remember the meditation instruction from her old yoga class. ‘Focus on the moment,’ the teacher had said. ‘Our minds are always running to the future or the past. Gently draw your attention back to this present moment in time. Try to live in this moment.’ The kindly Ped-o-Matique squeezed and caressed her feet, and she laid her head back on the head rest and closed her eyes, and told herself ‘I am living, I am living, I am living in
this moment.’ But what time was it now in Australia? Zac might be waking up and crying for her. He would be shocked when Faye picked him up. She hoped Faye would hear him from the next room. It had seemed rather much to ask her to sleep in Zac’s room, as Karen herself did. But it would be terrible if Faye were a heavy sleeper. Karen imagined Zac screaming, red hot with distress.

  Forcing her attention back to the machine, she glanced at the controls; she had not yet tried MASSAGE and VIBRATE together. Switching MASSAGE to Low, she pressed VIBRATE. Now that definitely was the best of all – the movements felt less mechanical and more random – she upped MASSAGE to Medium, oh yes, very nice. Her feet were tingling and fizzing with life; she imagined them sparkling with tiny champagne bubbles. The squeezing movement just below the ankle felt particularly good. There was something wonderfully soothing, almost caring, about it. She thought about P, whom she had loved and who was married, and the way he would clasp her ankles, gently and firmly, when she bent up her knees either side of his head. He used to hold her securely, manipulating her into another position when they were both ready, the movement continuous as a ballet. When things were good, they seemed effortless. She was dancing and being danced at the same time.

  Karen’s feet felt wonderful. She was already looking forward to using Ped-o-Matique on the way back. Briefly she allowed herself to imagine coming back. It was only five days. In five days time she would be coming back! It was no time at all to be away – Zac would probably hardly notice. She had agreed to go to Paris because they all said she must, and because it would have been childish and ungrateful not to. But it was a strange thing to have to do, to fly to the other side of the world to talk to people she didn’t know, when they could just as easily read what she thought in a journal. Of course, she knew academic dialogue was important. Conference attendance was essential, if she wanted to further her career. Networking, her Head of Department told her; networking is vital. But that meant hanging around at coffee time or in the bar before dinner, striking up conversations, trying to ask intelligent questions. When all she would be able to think of was running back to her room and ringing Faye to check on Zac. She was already eight hours flying time away from him. And there were another fourteen to go. How could she bear to be on the other side of the world?