Antique Dust

by Robert Westall

  Then the old white alabaster clock in the front showroom chimed in hysterically. Yes, the one from Joe Gorman’s shop; green with verdigris when I rescued it from the flames . . . yes, you were right about that, Geoff. And I thought, old Joe’s welcome to haunt me if he likes. Just as long as he doesn’t get in the way of trade. But then a haunted antique-shop would be quite an attraction; draw the crowds. Perhaps that’s why old Joe has stayed away. Out of spite. It’d be like him, that.

  One by one, all my old friends joined in; and it was friendly in the night, like watchmen calling that all’s well. But all dim and muffled, by the thick walls, and dusty carpets.

  Aha, there’s a stranger, I thought. That’ll be the new one. Nice chime. But so loud. Filling the house. Must have left the door of that room open. So incredibly loud . . . and the only one that echoed. The rest had been muffled. It was almost as if . . . If there was a dripping cavern, that clock was in it.

  Subconsciously, I’d been counting the chimes. Any buyer of a new clock does. Ratchets can wear, and the clock starts chiming and never stops. That’s a pretty expensive thing to cure in an old clock, unless you cut out the chiming mechanism altogether, and that halves your profit.

  It struck ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Damn, that’d mean taking it for repair to old Ratcliffe. And Ratcliffe knew how to charge. That’d certainly spoil my profit.

  But it didn’t strike again. Maybe I’d miscounted.

  Then I shot upright. There were voices in the corridor, footsteps. Coming towards my door. Vigorous steps, cheerful voices, men out on the spree. It was hard to tell what they were saying because of the echo effect. But something like ‘Drink up, Higginson . . .’ and something that sounded like ‘Fay suh ki voodra, Francis, fay suh ki voodra. Eh, Wilkes?’ Rich men’s voices, assured, like the local Tories celebrating on election night.

  Who the hell had got into my house? I leapt out of bed, shaking with rage at their cocksureness. Got my old pistol out from under my pillow; the one I borrowed from the Royal Engineers when I got demobbed. Pushed open the door.

  Not a sign of anybody. I ran through the house. Everything was exactly as I’d left it; front door was bolted, all three security chains in place. No window unlocked or broken . . .

  As I listened, a group of people passed on the main road beyond my car park.

  I laughed; it was New Year’s morning. There’d be drunks parading till the small hours. And my car park was a good place for them to come and pee. It’s masked by trees from the main road. Sound carries very clear on a frosty night; something to do with temperature inversion.

  I might have known. The footsteps I’d heard had been crunching on broken stone. There’s broken stone in my car park, but none in my house.

  I went back to bed and slept the sleep of the just; or the drunk.

  The following morning, I went over that clock pretty closely. I wanted to get a description typed up, for America. The more I looked at the clock, the better bargain I knew I’d got. All the ormolu was hand-cut, not mass-produced. A one-off job for a very rich guy. A well-off kink with a very nasty mind. Not just the cloven hooves and goat’s head. But the egg-and-dart moulding wasn’t really egg-and-dart, but alternate male and female genitals. And the handle at the back was in the shape of a woman’s breast. I began to see sexual symbols everywhere. Disturbing. I began to think I’d been without female company too long . . . but I kept on with my note-taking.

  Lastly, I had a grope around inside the ebony case. Sometimes people leave spare clock-keys in there – even spare pendulums. Hair-clips, any old thing that in the past has helped the clock to work. I once saw a Tompion kept going by a Morris Cowley split-pin.

  But in this case all I found was a piece of folded paper. I thought from its shape it had been used to wedge something – the handle on the rear-door was a bit loose and the door tended to swing open. The paper was brown with age, but the middle was less brown as I unfolded it.

  It was a disappointment; just a series of numbers:

  4/1/44

  205

  339

  67

  404

  Ps 83

  And it was signed, in a large spindly hand:

  P. S. Melmerby – Dean

  But it was old – I judged Victorian. Very copperplate, like old clerk’s ledgers. Anything old will be valuable one day. So I didn’t throw it away; I put it in an old tankard on the fireplace.

  I spun the hands right round the clock, to test the striking mechanism. Worked perfectly, one through to twelve. I tried to get it to strike thirteen but it wouldn’t. I sighed with relief; no need for the expense of old Ratcliffe. But the odd thing was, when I examined the dial, the numeral one had been shortened, and the numeral thirteen had been slipped in underneath. It wasn’t a later alteration, but Georgian work, elegantly done.

  I posted off my offer to three gentlemen in America, and forgot all about it.

  I went to bed that night hoping for a good night’s sleep. If you remember, Geoff, the thaw set in on New Year’s Day, and water, perfectly normal water, was dripping from every gutter. And I hoped the jokers who’d been peeing in my car park would be in bed too, sleeping off their hangovers.

  But again I wakened, and all the echoes and drips were back. And I realized I was waiting for that damned clock to chime thirteen . . . bloody ridiculous, considering my watch said twenty past two. I had just told myself not to be a stupid bugger when it started chiming.

  Thirteen.

  Oh, what the hell, I thought. I’ll see Ratcliffe. And rolled over . . .

  Then, through the cavern of drips and echoes, I thought I heard the sound of voices again. Female voices this time, indecipherable through their whispering and giggling. Soft feet – somehow I knew they were bare; and thick cloth swishing and rustling. A seductive sound that drew me, made me get up. I like women; especially women tip-toeing about in the middle of the night on bare feet, giggling.

  But by the time I’d got up there was nothing to be seen or heard.

  A dream; a nice dream; pity it ended so soon. Ah, you’d better get a permanent woman, Watson, I thought. You can afford one now. Before you turn into one of those dirty old men that hang around nude statues in auction-rooms they haven’t got the money to bid for.

  I got back into bed and tossed and turned.

  Then that damned clock started chiming again; and it went on and on and on. And there’s nothing worse than a clock chiming on and on in an empty house. It was like a church bell, chiming, summoning . . . summoning to what?

  I was frightened by then; not inclined to go padding along all those empty corridors in bare feet. I buried my head under the bedclothes. It would soon run itself down and shut up.

  It took me a while to realize it wasn’t just the clock that was chiming. My bedside phone was ringing as well.

  I embraced that phone in my loneliness like a long-lost friend. But it wasn’t a long-lost friend. It was my next-door neighbour, from the other half of the haunted mansion, beyond the party-wall. Bloody man had never bothered to speak to me since the day I’d moved in; cuts me dead when we’re getting our cars out in the mornings.

  ‘That you, Watson?’ he says. ‘That your bloody clock that won’t stop chiming? What’ve you got there – Big Ben? You’ve got me awake, my wife awake, and the kids are screaming. For Christ’s sake, can’t you hear it, man? Are you dead or something? Stop it, or I’ll ring the police and report you as a public nuisance.’ Then before I could say a word, he hung up. But I knew he’d be behind his little party-wall, listening, with the phone in his hand, ready to ring the police. And I can’t afford to have the police nosing round, the business I run.

  I dragged on my dressing-gown, and swigged a mouthful of whisky straight from the bottle. I even took my pistol with me. And that bell went on tolling me . . . to what? I kept on praying it would stop before I reached that half-open door, and had to feel round for the light-switch in the dark.

  It didn’t stop.
I had to reach round. I had to walk in and see its broad green pudding of a dial grinning at me. And the cloven hoofs . . .

  Then it stopped chiming. Just like a bossy human being that summons you to the front of the shop to make a complaint, then tells you to get lost and walks out.

  I’d stop its rotten little games. I turned it round and took the pendulum out. But then it began to tick away like a mad thing, as any good clock deprived of its pendulum will. It was doing an hour every five minutes. In four more minutes it would be chiming again.

  I laid it on its back. It kept on going. I laid it on its dial; on its side. It kept on stopping and starting again. I nearly threw it out of the window; but I’m a dealer with a profit to make. I looked round for something to wedge in the works. And thought of the bit of browning paper I’d found that morning. As I wedged it home, I had a strange feeling that that was exactly what the Victorian gent had done, to stop it too.

  ‘Perhaps now I’ll get some peace!’ I said to myself.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  I got back into bed with the light on, and hunched over another whisky. It took a long time for my panting to die away; but finally the drink took hold, and I began to relax.

  It was then I felt the bed move behind me. Just a little tremor in the mattress, as if someone lying beside me had moved an arm or leg. I don’t go home every night to an expensive wife like you, Ashden; but I’ve had enough women to know when there’s someone in bed with me.

  Then I thought, oh, rubbish! It’s my own leg giving one of those twitches that I’ve had ever since I fought the Japs in the War, in the Arakan Box. I often twitch, on the verge of sleep; especially if I’ve had a hard day.

  But I waited, with the last of my whisky held to my lips. Waiting for it not to happen again.

  It happened again, stronger; it felt like somebody turning over on their side. My back, you understand, was turned towards the rest of the bed. I was facing the bedside light. I desperately wanted to turn round and look, to see what it was. And I equally desperately didn’t. So I stayed frozen. Till the bed moved a third time. Whatever it was was moving nearer. It’s a big, big bed.

  My body leapt of its own accord. My feet caught in the bedclothes, and I sprawled full-length on the bedside rug. My whisky-glass flew from my hand, rolled across the floorboards, and finished up with a hollow rap in the corner. In a second, I was in the corner with it, crouching, the stupid revolver pointing in my trembling hand. I knew it would be quite useless, against whatever was in my bed; but it gave me the courage to stand up and look.

  The bedclothes were tossed back on my side of the bed; but the other side, where the movement had been, was as flat as a board. Furthermore, right in the middle of the flatness was a big fat copy of Miller’s Guide to Antiques that I’d been consulting before I went to sleep. It’s a big bed, as I said. Too big for an ordinary house. That’s why I got it cheap.

  I walked back to the bed. Pulled back the bedclothes . . .

  Nothing. Then I remade the bed, absolutely flat. Poked every inch of the flatness with my gun-barrel, wondering about rats. Nothing. Then a little cold draught from under the bed caught at my ankle. I think I screamed, and leapt away. Then I crept back on my knees, and lifted the counterpane with the gun-barrel.

  Nothing; except the floral chamber-pot I keep under there as a joke.

  Eventually, when I had stood and shivered long enough, I called myself a stupid bastard, and got back into bed and put the light off. There I lay, waiting and shivering.

  There was another wriggle in the mattress; and another. But by that time I’d conned myself into a mood of scientific curiosity. I reached for where the wriggle had come from, and grabbed a handful of it.

  Now if it had been the kind of thing you read about in horror-stories, like cold bone, or rotting rags, or slimy filthy flesh, I’d have been out of bed and down those stairs and in the hands of our local constabulary before you could say knife. Still in my pyjamas . . .

  But it wasn’t anything like that. It was warm, plump, female flesh, breathing gently. And it lay absolutely still, as a young rabbit will ‘freeze’ if you catch it out in the open, when it’s too late to run away. I felt up it, I felt down it. I found a smooth hip, a plump thigh, then a generous breast. Then long silky hair, a face with smooth cheeks and a turned-up little nose. I remember the eyelashes batted against my fingers like a captured butterfly. But otherwise the creature didn’t stir. And oozing up out of the bedclothes as my arm stirred them came a smell that wasn’t me; the warm smell of girl. A bit thick and animal, but not unwashed. Better than some of the living ladies I’ve had in that bed, with their stale reek of gin and cheap perfume.

  Only this one smelt a little bit afraid. I got to know the smell of other people’s fear in the Arakan Box.

  A small hand reached out and clasped mine; slightly sweaty but warm and firm. The other hand began to fumble with the top button of my pyjamas.

  I nearly let it happen. Lonely men aren’t choosy, Geoff. But then you wouldn’t know that; you’ve probably never been lonely in your life. The body was pressing close to mine, now. Then I thought of the flat bed, with the copy of Miller’s Guide lying on top . . . Only suckers take the goods and ask the price afterwards, and Clocky Watson’s not a sucker. I detached the yearning hands gently, and got out of bed yet again, and put the light on.

  The bed was absolutely flat and the copy of Miller hadn’t moved. I’m proud to say I got dressed properly, though pulling my shirt over my head was a panicky moment. And all the time the bed stayed absolutely flat.

  When I had my raincoat on, I suddenly felt ridiculous. I’d had a bad dream . . . no, a very pleasant dream. I was a fool. It was cold and wet outside, even if the thaw had set in. I was bone-weary. The bed looked more inviting than ever, and it was my bed. I walked across in a no-nonsense mood, and thrust my arm in.

  Immediately, under the flatness, two warm hands clutched my arm gently, beseechingly. I tried to pull my arm out, but those hands were pretty strong. I had to put in my second hand to release the first. We struggled, silently, and somehow, under the bedclothes, my struggling arms made the shape where a woman might have lain.

  Then suddenly I was free and running down the stairs, leaving on every light in the house.

  I walked till morning.

  The first thing I did, after I’d had an Irish coffee with plenty of whisky in it, was to box up that clock. I took it to a friend of mine I call Floradora. Her real name is Mrs Eunice Pearce, but she has the faded good-looks of an old music-hall star. She’s been a fine woman in her day, and although her blonde hair is now out of a bottle, she can get a chest-of-drawers into the back of a shooting-brake as well as anybody in the trade.

  ‘Keep this in the back of your shop a couple of days, Flora?’

  ‘Hot, is it? Fell off the back of a lorry?’ She lit up a cigarette and coughed appreciatively.

  ‘Somebody gave it me for a present.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it. Well, mark it “Property of Clocky Watson – to be called for” and I’ll find a place for it. I don’t even want to know what it is. Then I can’t be done. I’m a bit old for scrubbing floors in an open prison . . .’ She thrust the clock into a dark hole, and piled some Edwardian corsets on top.

  I went home and had a good sleep; disturbed at teatime by two Dutch dealers hammering on my door wanting a gross of pewter candlesticks at three pounds apiece. Then I went back to bed and slept the night away too. But by the following morning, I was feeling bored. That was the trouble with that clock; I got bored without it. And though I might fret on about its immense value, and the fact that Flora is both nosy and was a bit light-fingered in her younger days, and her shop’s about as burglar-proof as a 1930s piggy-bank, and she carried no insurance, the truth was I was wanting to examine again the thing that had been in my bed. I had a sick desire to muck about. I drove round to her shop.

  ‘It’s not here,’ she said. ‘You can’t
leave a thing like that here. You must be out of your mind – it’s worth thousands.’

  ‘Where is it? I thought you didn’t even want to know what was in it?’

  ‘I had to have a peep – I had to know what you were letting me in for. Might’ve been a bomb. I’ve got it at home. And I’ve got it going for you. What d’you think of that? Some fool had stuck paper in it.’

  ‘Chiming?’

  ‘Chiming beautiful. The budgie loves it.’

  ‘How . . . did you sleep last night?’

  ‘Like a top. Why – thinking of coming to join me? I don’t snore, you know!’

  Well, I knew one thing, now. That clock had no interest in well-preserved middle-aged ladies.

  ‘I’ll take it now,’ I said.

  ‘But I’ve just opened me shop. I’ll miss trade . . . there’s always a German looks in on Tuesday mornings, and I’ve got a couple of whatnots for him. Besides, it’s a responsibility, looking after a valuable clock like that.’

  I knew what she was after. I reached for my wallet and took out a fiver. ‘Storage expenses.’

  She took it. ‘And I got it going for you . . .’

  We took my car.

  The clock sat huge in the corner of her small sitting-room, surrounded by Staffordshire figurines and lace antimacassars. It looked trapped, like a caged tiger at a children’s tea-party.

  ‘Here,’ said Flora, ‘he was a randy old sod that made it, wasn’t he? All those boobs and pricks . . . funny the things these vicars get up to.’

  ‘Vicars?’

  She handed me the folded bit of brown paper that I’d used to stop the works.

  ‘What’s this, then?’

  ‘Haven’t you never been to church in your life, then, Clocky? That’s a list of hymns and psalms for a church service, that is. See – Ps 83 – that’s the psalm.’