Incarnate

by Ramsey Campbell

  For a moment he panicked, thinking that she knew. The draft up the stairs made his soaked feet ache and his ankles tremble. Then he saw that she was only trying to probe his mind. “I don’t want to come here anymore,” he said.

  “Name your place. Anywhere at all if you think it’ll help.”

  “The Hercules,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He had an answer he knew she would like, and so he didn’t stammer. “Because you said the films he makes me show made me how I am. I want you to come and see.”

  “You think that may achieve something, do you?”

  His grin was almost too strong for him, but he managed to keep it inside himself. “I know it will,” he said.

  “Let’s both hope so. When?”

  He realized just in time that he would need to think of an excuse to stay out late. “Next week,” he said fiercely, to show he wasn’t losing confidence.

  “Monday?”

  “Tuesday.” Monday seemed dangerously close. “Tues—day night after he’s gone home. I’ll meet you outside. Don’t come before eleven.” As soon as she agreed, he stood up. “I’ve got to go now or I’ll be late.”

  Nevertheless he dawdled on the stairs once he had closed her door. Her question had got to him after all. Why did he keep coming here? It made him feel like his magazines did, excited by what was going to happen but always depressed afterward, disgusted with himself. This time that wouldn’t happen. At the Hercules they would be alone with nobody to hear.

  He stepped into the court and a flash of light blinded him. A. woman had photographed him. He was surrounded by women with prams and placards: “People Not Pornography,” “Save Our Soho,” “Would You Live Next Door to a Whore?” They must think he’d been to a sex shop or a prostitute. “You mustn’t take my picture,” he said as calmly as he could. “I haven’t been to one of those.”

  “Lost you way, did you?” said a woman with a baby strapped to her chest.

  “No, I come here to see a doctor.”

  The women began jeering at him. He was suddenly terrified that they would publish the photograph for his j mother to see. “I want my photograph,” he said loudly.

  “Go on, you dirty bugger.” The woman with the camera held it out of reach. “Lay a finger on me and I’ll call the police.”

  “I’ll bet that’s all he can lay,” Danny thought one of them said as he lurched at the camera. The woman stepped back, holding it above her head—stepped back onto a patch of ice. She fell with a thud that sounded to Danny like nothing so much as a bundle of newspapers, and the camera flew out of her hand, under the wheels of a car. The crunch of its destruction was the most satisfying sound he’d ever heard. He stared at her floundering on her back, he thought her face might sound like that if he stood on it, but there was no need to do that; the picture of him was destroyed and there was nothing they could do to him. He strode away, grinning at the threats and insults the woman shouted after him, grinning wider when one of them threw a piece of ice at him that missed and shattered on a passing car. As the driver halted and demanded what they thought they were playing at, Danny began to laugh softly as if he might never stop. The way he’d felt when the camera smashed was nothing to how he would feel next week, alone at last with Dr. Kent on his own ground.

  37

  THE GUARD marched away from Buckingham Palace. The men’s eyes were invisible beneath the furry bullets of their hats, their mouths were almost hidden by their chin straps, and Molly wondered how the band could see the tiny scores clipped to their golden instruments. Terry Mace steadied himself against the balustrade around the Queen Victoria Memorial, zoomed in on the face of a guard and began to film. “Tell me again,” he said.

  At least he wasn’t refusing. “What do you want to know?”

  “The whole thing.” As he pressed his eye against the camera, the badges on his creaking jacket scraped together. “I’ll tell you now, I don’t want any more trouble with the police.”

  Nor, she was sure, did he want to antagonize Gould, who had almost certainly assigned him to this work because he suspected Terry of having been involved in making the Bennett film.

  “I never thought I’d hear you say that, Terry,” she said.

  His shoulders stiffened. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do about the police.”

  “You needn’t make it sound as if I don’t know what they can be like. I’ve had trouble with them myself, remember.”

  “Yeah, but for the wrong reasons.”

  He was taking his resentment out on her. “That’s not for you to judge, Terry.”

  “Don’t kid me you didn’t try to shit on the police so that people would believe Martin Wallace.”

  “Would it do any good if I did?”

  “Not with me, princess.” To her surprise, he smiled. “Well, all right,” he said. “So remind me what happened then.”

  “I told you, I went to see them with Oliver Boycott and they proved I couldn’t have been arrested when I’d said I was. They sent me out and presumably Oliver persuaded Maitland not to prosecute. And while I was waiting, Rankin came up to me and said what I told you.”

  “Come on, twitch, you bugger,” Terry muttered, and it wasn’t for a moment that she realized he was talking to the sentry. “He told you his name, did he?”

  “No, someone asked for him by name at the desk while I was there. But I really think he could have told me, he was bold enough.” Telling the lie for the second time was easier. “He came as close as I am to you and said I was right it was Maitland who gave the nigger the treatment, but he was the one who finished him off.” She’d spent time choosing words that would enrage him. “He was showing me that he could say what he liked to me,” she went on, while Terry was visibly furious. “He knew damn well nobody would believe me.”

  Terry was zooming in further as if that would make the guardsman twitch. “So?”

  “I told you, I watched the police station and followed him home. I managed to slip into the building one night while he was out and take a look through the letter-box with my binoculars. Lenny Bennett’s bracelet is on the mantelpiece in the room at the end of the hall. All it needs is someone to go there and photograph it.”

  He adjusted the lever of the zoom lens minutely. “Someone like cop-hater Mace.”

  “You said you wanted power to change things, didn’t you? I’d still be taking most of the risks, persuading him to let me into his flat so I could let you in. All you’d have to do would be to film.”

  “Yeah, and maybe get my head kicked in.” He glanced suddenly at her. “There you go,” he said to the sentry. “Knew you couldn’t keep it up.”

  He switched off the camera. “How do you reckon you’d set all that up?” he said.

  “Wait until he gets home and go up there at once. You’d follow and wait for me to open the door.”

  “You don’t fuck around when you get an idea, do you?” He lined up the camera on the other sentry’s face. “All right, princess, you’ve convinced me. I owe Lenny Bennett that at least, and I wouldn’t mind getting back at the pigs either. When do you want to go?”

  “Tonight?” she said, suddenly tasting apprehension.

  “Monday is better. You’re right we should do it as soon as we can, before I change my mind.” He gave her a wink and started the camera. “It can be my peace offering to Martin for shitting on his work.”

  But it couldn’t make up for her having kept Martin away from his father until it was too late. “I’ll pick you up Monday afternoon,” she said, and started for home.

  Leon had told her Martin had called him and asked that he tell her he would be away for a week or more. His father had died while Martin was on his way home. She wondered if he blamed her for keeping him away. So he should. She wasn’t entirely. convinced that he’d asked Leon to give her any message.

  She shook off her mood when she reached Bayswater Road, and headed for Nell’s. At least there she might be able to achieve som
ething. A man went by chatting to the other head on his shoulders, a baby strapped to his back, and Molly felt as if she’d dreamed of someone like that. It must have been years ago, too long ago to make her nervous.

  The doorbell brought Nell running down. “Molly! I hoped it was you.” She turned away, assuming Molly would follow. “You’ve time for a coffee, haven’t you? Come on up.” She seemed much happier than last time. Nell made coffee and said she hoped Molly would soon be back at work, it didn’t seem fair that Molly should have lost her job when she had just got Nell hers. She’d been looking forward to working with her and seeing more of her. Molly felt confident enough to say she might soon be back. They carried their mugs past the closed doors of the bedroom and the bathroom, and Nell said, “I was meaning to phone you. I wanted to apologize for Susan, for the scene she made on Boxing Day.”

  Molly realized what she had been missing without noticing. “Where is she? Still at school?” she said, though it was late.

  “She’s in disgrace. She’s been behaving very badly since we moved, telling lies and arguing all the time and even stealing. She took the light bulb out of my room for no reason and wouldn’t admit she had. Such a stupid lie too, as if anyone else could have. I don’t mind telling you, Molly, I was beginning to wonder if she was the same child.”

  That made Molly feel strange, she couldn’t say why, and she still hadn’t learned where Susan was. “And as if that wasn’t enough,” Nell said, “someone called the truant officer and tried to make out there was another child here who didn’t go to school. As if I could afford to keep another child on my salary! I often used to wish I could adopt a child, I used to wish Susan had a sister. Of course they wouldn’t let me adopt, they haven’t much time for single parents. Still, I’ve got over that. I have my Susan. Even when she misbehaves I wouldn’t change her for anyone else.”

  Perhaps it was the born-again gleam in her eyes that was making Molly uncomfortable, that bright unassailable look. “But I’ll tell you, Molly, though I wouldn’t tell anyone else, I had to hit her when she wouldn’t stop lying. I’ve never hit her before. At least she’s behaved herself since. I suppose it’s just growing up and moving to a new place,” Nell said, and paused as they heard a key in the door. “Here she is now.”

  The door opened, and Molly wondered what she was seeing. In the dimness of the landing, Susan’s face above the school uniform looked old and sly, and far too large. The girl stepped forward, and of course it was Susan. “Molly’s here. What have you to say to her?” Nell said.

  Susan clasped her hands behind her back. “I’m sorry I made such a fuss when we came to visit you, Molly. I was very rude.”

  “I should think so too,” Nell said. “Is that all?”

  “I was just being silly because I was in a new place. There was a girl who kept trying to spoil things for me, but she’s gone now.”

  “A girl at school, she means.” Both of them were gazing brightly at Molly as if nothing had ever been wrong.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” she said, and stood up.

  “You’ll have to come for dinner soon. And if you ever need a place to stay, you know where it is.”

  So Nell was still odd. At least Susan seemed much happier. All the same, Molly felt uneasy as she stepped onto the dim stairs. When a door spilled light onto the landing, she jumped. A woman in a hairnet was beckoning to her from the flat opposite Nell’s. “Are you from the Education?” she hissed.

  “Afraid not.”

  “Come here anyway. I want to tell you about them.” She was pointing at Nell’s. When Molly went to her the woman shuffled quickly backwards, slippers flapping, and gestured her to close the door. “Do you know them?” she whispered.

  “Slightly,” Molly said, holding her breath against the smell of cat turds among the sagging stained chairs.

  “They want keeping an eye on. You ought to if you’re supposed to be their friend,” the woman said as if she hadn’t heard what Molly had said. “For the child’s sake.”

  Molly put her hand over her face, as if she were musing, and tried to breathe. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Her mother sends her to school with the darkeys, for a start. You don’t need me to tell you they’re bound to’ be giving her drugs. And half the time she doesn’t go to school at all.”

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  The woman sat down heavily on a chair, which creaked and wobbled, and stared incredulously at her. “Isn’t it enough?”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Molly said, and opened the door before the woman could invite her to sit down. Once she was in the street she was able to take a deep breath. All the same, she was glad the woman had cornered her. The business of the truant officer and the child in Nell’s flat had troubled her, but there was the explanation: the woman who’d called him wasn’t quite right in the head. She couldn’t help wishing that her problems with Rankin and even with Martin could be resolved as neatly, but that seemed too much even to dream.

  38

  FREDA was the last to leave the train at Euston. A porter muttered at her that this was the end of the line and went on to the next carriage, grumbling because nobody had left a Sunday paper.

  A woman’s voice boomed through the hall beyond the barriers, apologizing for the lateness of the train, as if the Sunday journey weren’t already long enough—long enough for Freda to lose her reasons along the way. She’d phoned Doreen only to find that she couldn’t tell her about Sage over the phone, it had to be face to face, and then she’d spent the week worrying until today, when she could stay overnight because Monday was closing day at the store. As if she hadn’t enough to think about a letter had been waiting among her Christmas cards, a letter from Stuart Hay, the doubter from Oxford. He’d as good as asked if she had started dreaming again, but if she told anyone it certainly wouldn’t be him. She’d put his letter out of her mind so as to concentrate on what she would tell Doreen, but now she was nearly there she didn’t know what she would tell her, or why.

  She went quickly along Euston Road, and wondered why she was hurrying: how could she tell Doreen that Sage had tricked them somehow when the closer she came to it, the less she believed it herself? Was the truth simply that she was jealous of Doreen?

  She was walking slower now, to give herself time to think. If anyone had tricked her, surely it was herself. Either his name had happened to coincide with the letters above the shop or it wasn’t his name at all; he had never said it was. She had hardly glimpsed the posters on the window the night she’d met him. Either vandals had wrecked the place after he’d left or she had mistaken the street. The one thing she couldn’t tell Doreen was that Sage was a charlatan, and it dismayed her to think that perhaps she had meant to try.

  She almost turned and made for the station. Instead she turned along Doreen’s road, past the locked gate. She couldn’t go yet, not when there wasn’t a train for hours, not when the thought of seeing Sage made her feel so peaceful.

  She climbed the steps to the front door she’d repainted and stood there wondering what else was new. Of course, Doreen had changed the knocker. She must have grown tired of the way the dog-faced knocker was askew, even though Harry had bought it. That showed she was getting over her loss. Freda took hold of the bright new silver bar, but a movement made her glance up. Sage, if that was his name, had come to his window.

  As their eyes met, he smiled. On his calm face the faint glad look meant more than astonished delight would have meant on someone else’s. He pointed to himself to show that he would let her in, and she closed her eyes, giving thanks that she hadn’t managed to warn Doreen. She couldn’t believe that anything but jealousy could have made her suspect him.

  Doreen came out of her quarters as he opened the front door. She peered along the hall and missed a step as she saw Freda. She ran to her and threw her arms around her.

  “Freddy, we were just talking about you. We hardly talk about anything else.”

  “
How are you, Doreen?”

  “Happy, thanks to you.” She ushered Freda to the parlor, where the gas fire parched the air. “What brought you back so soon? Did you hear me wishing?”

  “I just wanted to see you.” Freda couldn’t resist adding, a little slyly, “After staying here it felt strange to be on my own.”

  Doreen smiled reminiscently. “I know what you mean.”

  Freda was disconcerted to find herself feeling what she’d thought she was pretending. “How long are you going to stay this time?” Doreen cried, taking hold of her hands. “As long as you like.”

  “I could stay overnight, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” Now she felt thoughtless for not letting Doreen know she was coming. “The Sunday trains take such a time to get anywhere.”

  “Don’t you dare say another word. We’ve plenty to eat, and you know your room is made up.” She glanced at Sage, who was stretching his long fingers toward the fire as if he were beckoning the flames into his hands. “Freddy, would you mind if a friend of mine came over?”

  “Should I?”

  “She’s been a good friend, and I know she wants to meet you. She doesn’t want to be alone, you see. You don’t need me to tell you how that feels.”

  It sounded somehow ominous, but Freda couldn’t very well refuse; after all, it was Doreen’s house. “Don’t put her off on my account,” she said.

  Doreen blinked at her as if she’d missed the point, then went into the hall and closed the door. Freda heard her dialing, heard her saying, “Freddy’s here, Rosie. You must come over tonight,” and would have liked to hear the rest, but Sage sat forward and smiled at her. “The house has seemed lacking without you,” he said.

  She felt the blush spread over her face, and thought it would never stop. Her ears were so hot she had gone deaf. When she said “I’m glad to be back,” her voice sounded muffled in the cave of her skull. So did Doreen’s when eventually Freda was able to hear again, and it wasn’t until she heard the closing of the door that Freda realized Doreen had been talking in her bedroom, no longer talking on the phone. After Timothy’s death Freda had often caught herself talking to herself.