Compulsory Games

by Robert Aickman

  Now was the real test, and well Delbert knew it. In his conspicuous clothes, he had to bring the almost uncontrollable cockleshell to a smooth and perfect landing at one single, special spot. Furthermore, he had first to turn the said cockleshell in the swift and stubborn stream, and then discern the landfall with eyes in the back of his head. While not exposing himself to jocosity and ensuing hostility, he had to accomplish all swiftly lest the boy filter away. Hesper and he often sent one another telegrams, because both of them were much of the time away from a telephone. The local Post Office had instructions, for what they amounted to, to put telegrams through the letter box if no one answered either bell or knocker. Other things commonly eventuated; as now.

  II

  As it happened, Delbert both came in and stepped out perfectly. Nothing so far that day had given him greater pleasure. He even stood there and waved to the boy to come down.

  But the boy shook his head and dangled the orange envelope over the gate. Delbert ascended the stone steps with dignity and took it from him. It was never worth complaining about anything, even jocularly, or referring to anyone’s short measure or lack of enterprise; and, in any case, the boy seemed particularly eager to be on his way. He was a shrimpish boy with overlong arms, and his face was pale as a mushroom.

  Delbert read the telegram: DELAYED BY INSPECTION AUDIT SORRY DARLING BACK BY NINE HESPER. It was unusual, but not unprecedented.

  The boy was almost back at the dank passage alongside the house. To communicate, Delbert had to shout.

  “What’s the name of this river?”

  “Dunno.” The boy sounded as if he had little wish to know, or to speak either, let alone to bellow. But he did stop for a moment; possibly from surprise or shock.

  “Or is it a creek?”

  The boy said nothing. Perhaps he might not know what a creek was; might think it was some kind of Chinaman.

  “Or a straits?”

  At which word the boy looked very scared, too scared even to say something rude or obscene, and scampered down the passage as if from the copper. Delbert could not think how he had come to ask such a question, to use such a term.

  He shoved the telegram into his pocket, and stared out once more at the equivocal prospect. He would be without defined occupation for the next five and a half hours: longer if Hesper’s estimate were insufficient. The crowd at the Town Hall were at once the servants and the masters of democracy. Despite all the protocol, their behaviour was inevitably unpredictable, even to themselves.

  Delbert saw that on the far side of the water a figure of some kind was waving, much as the telegraph boy had just done, but more lustily.

  For the moment, from the top of the steps which he was beginning to think of as “his,” Delbert could make out mainly a mass of unusually bright yellow hair. The sun, no longer curtained, glinted on it, and at the same time dazzled Delbert. He began once more to descend, for no particular reason, except possibly that the figure was summoning him. He saw too that a strip of matting now descended the muddy opposite slope from the low ridge. It was as if the figure had unrolled a dun carpet behind it; somewhat after the manner of a snail.

  Back at the water’s edge, Delbert realised something else. The number of steps had diminished by one, and the little boat was floating more freely to its painter. Somewhere, the tide had turned. Possibly the mist before the sun had related to this.

  At this level, one could see more than hair across the flood. A squat, square, but probably masculine figure dwelt beneath the yellow, and was beckoning to Delbert personally and urgently.

  When Delbert did not at once respond, but merely stood staring, the figure began to make vivid movements indicating the need for Delbert to re-embark and scull over. Delbert seemed to be confronted with a competent natural mime, but he wondered why, if the man needed his company so badly, he did not himself make the passage; why he had no visible vessel in which to do so, or to go anywhere else. Delbert himself was already settling down as an established boat owner. One day he might hope to own something larger and more spectacular than this almost childish little pram.

  Delbert had no wish to be disobliging, so he stepped gingerly aboard and settled to the crossing. Different reflexes were required from the last occasion, but Delbert deemed that he handled himself well. First, the telegraph boy; now the yellow-haired person: perhaps Delbert shaped up best when under strong observation. Within the exigencies of the sculling process across a wilful flood, Delbert could see no more of the man on the far side until at the very last moment he was confronted with the entirety of him.

  The man had seized the painter from far off. Everyone seemed to have very long arms that afternoon, young and old. The man dragged in the dory a little too roughly (Delbert simply did not know the exact and best name for the tiny ship); but as if habituated to such ploys.

  In a second, his hand was outstretched to Delbert, big and hard as the largest of crabs.

  “Petrovan,” he said. His voice was unexpectedly high.

  His face was flat, his eyes were flat. His general coloration was rubicund or umber. His hair was as the flames round the sun. His height was as restricted as had been thought; his breadth as boundless. Moreover, the name was known.

  “Catlow.” Delbert took the hand with such circumspection as could be applied.

  “We’re neighbours,” said the man.

  “I suppose so,” said Delbert, trying to smile. The man had been smiling most broadly from the very first.

  “So we may as well be neighbourly,” said the man, gleaming at Delbert’s entirety as if waiting instantly to stamp hard upon the slightest exception taken.

  “As far as all this water between us permits,” said Delbert, establishing a small advance, and now himself smiling quite noticeably.

  “When it’s there,” said the man. “Come and have a drink, a smoke, a yarn.”

  “A drink would be very pleasant,” said Delbert.

  “Very well then,” said the man, and led the way.

  The wide strip of matting ran upwards among the curious, flat-topped trees and the black wrecks. It gave little sign of having been trodden upon. Delbert was convinced that it really had been unrolled while he had been back in his garden for a few moments. The man’s feet were bare in any case, and his trousers rolled to the knees. Here was just such ship of passage as Delbert had feared might invade. Moreover, there was an extreme inconsistency between the present appearance of the two of them.

  As he ascended, Delbert became aware of shapes standing motionless beneath the trees. The shapes were black too. They frightened Delbert. Since returning to his home that afternoon, he had not been exactly frightened: not until now. Before he had reached the ridge, he had come to realise that under each tree was at least one of these shapes.

  Perhaps they guarded the path from the shore. Perhaps they were not to be found further inland—if one might put it like that. Perhaps they lived in the wrecks, and had crept out for some warmth.

  The long-armed man with the yellow hair said nothing as they climbed. Nor did he once look back encouragingly. Nor, for that matter, did he glance from side to side, verifying the black residents.

  But Delbert knew perfectly well who he was; or who he was claiming to be. There were probably impostors; notoriety seekers and attention demanders. The real Petrovan (so to speak) had often received attention in the newspapers. He was good copy. The items about Petrovan and his kind were of no particular interest to Delbert. He could not remember even discussing them with Hesper. He did know that Petrovan refused to appear on television. Prominence was always given to that eccentricity. Petrovan claimed that television waves disintegrated the enduring soul. His face, therefore, was less familiar than many. What he said about the television seemed to be very likely, Delbert had always thought. But there his concern had ended.

  Beneath the ridge stood a red hut; square as Petrovan (if he it really was). The planks had been flushed again and again with ox blood. Thick grass
rotted on the roof. Delbert passed his hand slowly over his head, as he often did; confirming that his hair was still smooth and even silky.

  And beyond the hut was nothing at all: nothing but a muddy waste extending to the sky and, afar off, indistinguishable from it. The flat trees were confined to the slope up which Delbert had climbed, though there they had seemed to grow abundantly and uniformly. On this flat muddy plain were only occasional trunks and stumps; struggling amid tangles of dead weeds. Nor beyond the ridge were there any of the wrecks. Presumably the ridge acted as a barrier even to the very highest tides; to those tides which must have engulfed the Catlows’ lawn when they had not been there, and so much else, no doubt.

  Delbert looked back. He could see his home quite plainly, and the other semi-familiar suburban landmarks. He was almost surprised that they were still there. All the same, he could see also that the tide was now racing ahead. So small a boat as his should probably be withdrawn from the water, temporarily but soon. He could see it bobbing and flopping.

  “I ought to go back,” he cried. “While I still can.”

  “There’s no need,” said Petrovan in his high voice, but still without turning, or even looking over his shoulder.

  He had nearly reached the hut. On this side of the ridge, the mud looked viscous and bottomless. Perhaps the ridge was man-made: a vast sea wall. Perhaps men of old had directed colossi in the building of it. Perhaps it was an ultimate precinct.

  “Where am I?” cried Delbert to the man’s unturning back. “What is this place?”

  “My little humble burrow,” squeaked Petrovan. “I’m sorry it’s not gaudier.” He had opened the crimson door: gaudy enough for any six ordinary folk.

  “But where are we?” persisted Delbert. “I have never been here before.”

  “You live here,” squeaked Petrovan, and began to giggle.

  “But all this open space—” began Delbert interrogatively.

  However, he was inside the red hut, whatever the thought. Petrovan was piling bottles on to a table: three or four at a time in each of his hands. The oblong wooden table, very thick and solid, was marked with geometrical shapes: some table game that had not before come Delbert’s way. Certain of the pictures on the walls were impossible to look at; others were merely inexplicable. There were caged animals everywhere; all so strangely silent that Delbert could not at first make out whether they were animate or stuffed. The wooden floor was marked out also.

  “What shall it be?” asked Petrovan. “You name it.” Delbert tried to take in the numerous bottles; to discriminate.

  “Try this,” said Petrovan.

  Delbert had not seen him pour it, but Petrovan was holding out a triangular glass on a polygonal stem. The fluid within was colourless but clouded. Delbert supposed it to be ouzo. One is supposed in the West to like ouzo nowadays; even to select it.

  “What is it?” enquired Delbert, as affably as he could.

  “Ambrosia,” said Petrovan. “Down with it.”

  Delbert had realised that the smell was quite different from the smell of ouzo. This smell was as rare and heavenly as the day outside. The smell must have inebriated Delbert, or liberated him. He drank down the little draught as if upon doctor’s orders, and as if the doctor were present to watch him.

  “That’s a remarkable drink,” he cried. “What’s it made of?”

  “Beeswing, among other things. Moonstone. Edelweiss.”

  “Do you make it yourself?”

  “To the old recipe.”

  “Where did you find that?”

  The truth was that Delbert would eagerly have accepted a refill, but Petrovan showed no sign of offering one.

  “In one of the old books,” he said. “I forget which.”

  There were many old books in the hut, in among the animals and weird sketches.

  Petrovan himself was not drinking at all, despite the profusion. Delbert began to suspect that somehow the display of bottles, many of them entirely familiar, was fake.

  “Better sit down,” said Petrovan, and again giggled shortly. Delbert had to admit that he was glad of the invitation.

  All the seats were solid wood and all but one were backless. All but the one with the back bore deep marks on the seats. The one with the back was plain and worn as Charlemagne’s throne. There seemed to be provision for more people than the hut could hold. Still, the inside of the hut seemed far larger than the outside had suggested. Delbert saw that there were even doors. But perhaps they merely led to cupboards; or perhaps they provided for apartments that had not yet been added, and very likely never would be. Such situations were common enough, after all.

  “I still don’t know where this is,” said Delbert.

  “Where is anywhere?” replied Petrovan. “What do the words mean? What answer can be given? You are on the far side. It is always strange on the far side to begin with.”

  “This place feels like an island.”

  “This place is an island,” said Petrovan. “I live on an island, though I don’t recommend you to walk all the way round it, because you’ll never come back.” From somewhere he picked up a grapefruit, tore it apart, and sinking his reddy-brown face into the two shards, began to suck riotously.

  Delbert looked at him.

  “I think I know who you are,” he said. The matter had to be raised sooner or later. Delbert was not prepared to be taken for a ninny or an unread ignoramus.

  “Think you know!” gurgled Petrovan. “Of course you know. Everyone knows.”

  But over Petrovan’s shoulder, Delbert had noticed something. In one of the wired cages was an animal that no one thought possible. It was a very small white sphinx, and its two vague eyes were gazing at him.

  “Have an apple!” squeaked Petrovan, and pitched it at him. “Or would you prefer a very big pear?”

  Delbert slowly shook his head.

  “Let’s gossip,” said Petrovan. “I’ll have to start, I see. Eat your apple. I’ll ask you a series of questions. First question: what do you make of me? Decide for yourself. Ignore what is written.”

  Delbert looked at the floor, covered with intersecting trapezia and spirals: more of them, he fancied, than when just now he had entered.

  “I imagine that it is hypnosis you go in for. I don’t know much about that.” As he spoke, the apple seemed to throb in his hands.

  Petrovan threw away the sucked-out grapefruit skin and began to eat a long banana, skin and all. The skin was bright as his hair. Delbert simply could not see where all this fruit was coming from. He had not seen where the bottles had come from. It was these things that had given him his clue. Perhaps cross-headings in the various news items also: absorbed subliminally.

  “Second question: what do you think is going to happen to you?”

  “In a few minutes, I am leaving and crossing the water before it rises much further.”

  “Third question: what do you suppose the world is doing?”

  “Going to the dogs, mainly.” Really, he did absolutely need another drink. Perhaps an addiction had been established. That seemed quite likely. But possibly it was only the sudden warmer weather. Delbert tried to concentrate his mind upon when he had previously drunk anything at all, but he simply could not remember. No mere apple would quench such a thirst. In any case, he had mislaid the apple.

  “Fourth question: what were you doing that you noticed so little in all the time you’ve lived here?”

  “We’ve only just arrived. I’m quite newly married. I have my career to think of. My wife may be expecting a baby.”

  “Last question: would you rather be living or dead?”

  “Oh, living. I’ve had a topping life so far, and mean to go on while the luck lasts.”

  “Do you feel ready for bed?” asked Petrovan.

  “I thought you’d asked your last question.”

  To that Petrovan said nothing. Perhaps Delbert had caught the demon by its tail. That is said only to happen inadvertently. None the less, it had to b
e admitted that the day seemed to have grown very overcast, especially as, properly speaking, it was but teatime; pleasant in the office, and pleasanter still in the home. Spacious though the interior of Petrovan’s hut was, the windows were few, small, and irregular. Jewelled lights had come on here and there inside the hut without Delbert noticing the actual moment. But it had been such an adorable day, while it lasted! One was bound to regret it.

  “There is nothing to worry about,” said Petrovan, chortling. “It’s only the sunset.”

  But it was not a proper sunset at all. It was much more as if the heaviest of sea mists had descended upon the land. Delbert could see that mist was even seeping into the hut. The little lights were as markers in the mouth of a huge dark harbour; or in the mouth of Behemoth himself.

  “Busy people have no time for twilight,” remarked Petrovan.

  “It’s the time you’re most likely to see a ghost,” rejoined Delbert. He had remembered that ever since his infant school: a private kindergarten; no subsequent place like it.

  “Busy people have no time for ghosts,” asserted Petrovan.

  It was upon this surprising observation that Delbert acquired insight. The normal and average idea was that the press took every opportunity to exaggerate frenziedly. The truth was that, in any matter of consequence, the press was bound to act with great caution, to diminish, to belittle, to concede. Else the press would go unread by normal and average people.

  Petrovan appeared now to be laying into a whole green pineapple, hair, spikes, and all; but the interior of the hut had assumed the blackness of the empyrean, with just a few misty, twinkling, and multicoloured stars.

  “Release me!”

  Delbert had purposed a commanding shout. He had achieved but a foggy mutter.

  “Sleep for you now,” said Petrovan. One could hear his fangs rending through the fibrous flesh.

  In the other room, there was no mist at all, though a single stout candle provided the only direct light. Painted upon the walls were dim glistening angels with wings and mantles. From his recollections of the outside, Delbert could not see how there could be another room of this shape at all. But it hardly mattered: he had been very far from sure that he really wished what he had demanded. Freedom might be all very well for Petrovan and his kind—a rare kind.