Compulsory Games

by Robert Aickman

  “The house looks in poor shape,” said Ronnie. Never for a moment was he one to claim that his goose was his swan.

  “Houses of that exact period were often not very well built in the first place,” I pointed out. I was already accustoming myself to ideas of that kind with a view to the future I was planning.

  We managed to dart across. It seemed right that I should leave Ronnie to ring the bell, which was still labelled “Night Bell.” Most of the paint had fallen off the doors and windows.

  Not a sound came back to us: possibly on account of the very heavy lorries in very low gear, and the fleets of screaming motorbikes. The lads of the village go to Hilltop from all over London with their bikes in order to roar up and down the various slopes in and around the cemeteries.

  Ronnie started pushing, I think, and in the end the door opened. I encouraged Ronnie to enter first.

  It was Mrs. Baldock who awaited visitors in the narrow passage within. Possibly the night bell had not rung since the good doctor’s time.

  “Splendid of you to come, Ronnie. I shan’t forget it.” Mrs. Baldock first shook his hand and then continued holding on to it.

  Ronnie motioned me forward with his free limb.

  “It’s wonderful of you too, Mr. Roselink. Between ourselves, Ronnie, I don’t know a single other person here. None of the regulars seem to be turning up. I suppose it may be the hill that causes the trouble for some of them. There is always so much that ought to have been foreseen, Mr. Roselink.”

  “It may be a good thing to bring in some new blood,” suggested Ronnie.

  “New blood is always wanted,” said Mrs. Baldock.

  But a woman was standing in the passage behind her.

  “Young masculine blood particularly,” said this woman in a low but very clear voice that I can hear now, and hear without especially trying or wishing. It was a voice like the Walbrook in its pipe. “Young masculine blood is hard to attract.”

  “Vera!” cried Mrs. Baldock. “You made me jump.”

  I had often seen for myself how true the woman’s words were. They applied wherever I had been with Ronnie. In those circles at least, one asked, with the singer, where had all the young men gone?

  Mrs. Baldock had looked momentarily quite startled, but it was true that Vera had entered upon the scene without a sound. Now she was smiling at Mrs. Baldock.

  “Present these two handsome young men to me, if you please,” said Vera. Her formality was, I thought, only half-humorous. She was sovereign and she knew it.

  “Mr. Ronald Cassell and Mr. Richard Roselink,” said Mrs. Baldock, still fluttery. She did not put a name to our hostess.

  I could see at once that Vera was drawn to Ronnie; strongly drawn at first glance. Not to me. It really did not much matter, but there it was, and I could not be mistaken.

  Vera Z—— was a short, perhaps even dumpy woman, with damp-looking black hair hanging over her shoulders and parted widely down the middle, after the style of Myra Hess, who had been at the top of her vogue only a short time before. I recalled the piano-playing younger brother, whose talents we were there to assess. Myra Hess might have played her part in the domestic legend. Vera had somewhat the same features; but she also had large, dark, glistening eyes, and a noticeably big and luscious mouth. She was wearing a long black skirt and the simplest possible white blouse with an oval neck and short sleeves. Her bare arms were by now a little too long and bony, but her neck was still firm and well-shaped.

  A woman of force, one thought, both in physique and in costume. I glanced at Ronnie. Duly, he was all eyes for her; for her big eyes.

  There was even a perceptible silence for a moment among the four of us. It made me aware of something else. The whole house, at which a party was supposed to be going on, even if only for charity, seemed equally silent.

  “Are we the first?” I asked, almost involuntarily. One tries never to speak involuntarily, but, in bizarre circumstances, one does not always succeed.

  “By no means the first,” said Vera Z——, in her dark voice, and giving me a look that might mean anything or nothing, but which probably meant that I was something of an ass to speak at all.

  She addressed Ronnie. “Would you take my hand, Mr. Cassell?”

  Ronnie simply snatched it. He had of course previously abandoned Mrs. Baldock’s hand. Vera drew him behind her down the passage.

  I glanced at Mrs. Baldock, who now seemed to be flushed rather than frail.

  “I’ll wait here, Mr. Roselink,” she said. “I expect there’ll be some latecomers.”

  I looked at my watch, and saw how unwise I had indeed been to suggest that Ronnie and I might have been the first arrivals. The hour named on the circular had already passed. I have always been one who is never late for anything. I felt certain that the time had gone in some inexplicable way while I had been discussing the house with Ronnie as we waited to cross the road. It sounds unlikely, but I was sure of it.

  Almost all the seats in the room within were occupied. At the far end from where one entered was a rough dais, made of cases and chests, on which duly stood a piano and its stool. It was not a concert grand, but a baby grand; which, from the weight point of view, might have been just as well. The room was full of plain and artless wooden chairs. There was a single empty one at the corner of the back row to my left as I entered. Doubtless it was empty because an average occupant might well complain of draughts. Ronnie had been escorted to a seat in the front row, as if he had been an Alderman or a House-master, and Mrs. Z—— was leaning markedly towards him and captivating him. However old was she? I had simply no idea.

  I glanced at the occupant of the next chair to my left. He was a thin, elderly man in a serious suit. He offered no recognition of my arrival. I sat down on the empty chair, as it seemed to be the only one available. My neighbour never so much as glanced at me. I was trying to think of something to say to him, possibly with an inward quality to it, when the fraternal pianist appeared from nowhere, and everyone but I clapped for some time. Dead silent though they had been hitherto, at least they seemed all to care deeply for music. Of course we all care for music in these days.

  In the nature of things, I had applauded more reticently, and in that I proved not to be mistaken either.

  The recital did not begin immediately, because first the lid of the piano had to be opened. Normally, it might have been done before the performer had entered, or even the audience; but possibly there were aspects of that particular room, or even that particular audience, which would have made it unwise to do it too soon.

  It was Mrs. Z—— who set about the task in person, while the pianist stood behind the stool looking on; but at least not seating himself while others worked. Soon Mrs. Z—— was being assisted by Ronnie, and in the end they brought it off between them, and the open lid was stayed with a rod.

  It had dawned on me by then that there were at least ten males in the room to every female, not a proportion I normally care for; and, furthermore, ten males with grey hair, white hair, mottled hair (as in the case of the pianist), or no hair, to every male with hair of any other kind. No hair at all seemed the commonest. Of course for most of them I had a back view only. It is also a fact that solo music recitals always do seem to attract more solitary men than solitary women. One learns that. I thought a bet could safely be taken that Ronnie and I were the youngest persons present. I wondered where Mrs. Baldock would find a seat. I might easily have to vacate my own for her, and stand in the draught.

  In the event, Mrs. Baldock never entered at all. Quite probably, she had another good work to assist that evening, perhaps far away. At this point it came to me that, as far as I had noticed, no-one had paid the small admission charges for Ronnie and me.

  There had been a single-sheet programme on my seat, palely mimeographed, and with some of the words written in reverse; but I parted company with it too before the evening was over, in circumstances I shall shortly come to. Works by ten or a dozen composers were
promised, but they meant little to me, because I had never heard of one of these people, even though by then I was going to the Queen’s Hall quite often (and not only to the Promenade, which certain girls didn’t care for) and sometimes to the Wigmore and Aeolian Halls also. Acquaintances sometimes involved me in far stranger musical hideouts than those. Already I knew many names in music.

  Whether I did or not made little difference: the man on the rostrum played every composer and every composition in exactly the same way; flawless, I daresay, if followed note by note by someone thoroughly familiar with the notes in question (I always agree with John Worthing in that context), but careful, regular, unintermitting and mechanical to the level of frenzy. I soon found it hard to be sure whether specific works by specific composers were being played at all.

  He was a small man, and his expression, faintly worrying from the start, was as totally inflexible as his technique (though, to do the man justice, that is not a word I care for either). He pounded evenly along, shooting out his arms and drawing them in again; pedalling methodically; looking from first to last as frozen-faced as Buster Keaton, though less comical, far less. I guessed that he was sitting on his nerves the whole time, holding in the shrieks; but I had become used to the type in my days at the ancient Grammar School, only just up the road. Our friend might once have been a pupil there, of course and have been taught his art there. It seemed eminently possible, though again one could not attempt a date. I myself had done little at school that was musical beyond roaring out the successive school songs in Great Hall, one with a thousand eager others. I remember all three tunes now.

  Trying to keep my mind occupied as the first half of the programme steamrollered forward, I gazed systematically around me at the appointments of the Z—— home.

  Alas, there were very few appointments visible. The walls were long faded. The ceiling was noticeably in need of attention. There was no carpet. There was nothing you could name beyond the rows of hard chairs. The middle-sized pianoforte could easily have been hired, though the shape was a little unusual. I next realised there were not even light-fittings, or none that I could distinguish.

  I looked at my watch. It was only forty minutes until official lighting-up time. We had a race on our hands, especially when one allowed for the promised refreshments during the intermission. The pianist was showing exceptionally little awareness of this. Would the order ultimately be given for candles to be brought in? As in the eighteenth century? If only there had been something worth looking at by candlelight; or, preferably, someone!

  Despite the wild applause at the outset, I must admit that not a mouse stirred at the occasional, sudden pauses or gaps; presumably between the different pieces, though it was difficult to tell. At least these funny people were not behaving like pop fans. Moreover, the man had no sheet music for someone to shift, since he played on remorselessly without it. I did not think it was possible for anyone in the audience to be actually asleep.

  The interval was upon us. It had come suddenly, as so often happens at recitals. There was applause once more, rustling and lengthy; not merely disproportionate, I thought, but almost irrelevant to anything that had happened. I took the occasion to resemble one of the hysterical amateur dramatic performances Ronnie and I had attended in different suburbs: antique though they were, these people were making glad acknowledgment to one of their very own.

  Then they began to squeeze out through a door at the other end of the room, previously almost hidden from me by the piano. The man who had been seated next to me stood on both my feet in his haste to reach the provender, whatever it might be; and the three men who had been seated beyond him did exactly the same. All three had fishy eyes.

  I remained on my wooden chair, taking off my patent leather shoes, and rubbing the upper surfaces of my two feet. The undersides had already suffered when climbing the steep and stony hill at a time when everyone’s limbs were slightly swollen by the humid autumnal weather. Of course I had no inclination to struggle for undefined refreshments in any case. On that topic, I by now hardly needed Ronnie’s warning.

  I dutifully looked around for Ronnie, but the room was almost empty. It was most unlike Ronnie to forget about me at one of the occasions to which he had invited me. It seemed likely that the spell cast by Mrs. Z—— was responsible, and the very last thing I wished was to grudge him his success. It occurred to me, however, that Mrs. Z—— herself, as hostess, might have come forward to enquire how I was enjoying myself.

  As it was, I continued to massage my poor feet in their thin socks; agitating the bones and muscles, smoothing the abrased tissues. The interminable English twilight, truly the most distinctive feature of our island climate and character, was creeping forward all the time.

  While concentrating on my feet, I realised that a man in later middle age was silently standing before me, looking over the back of one of the seats in the row ahead of mine.

  “I do apologise,” I said. “I’ve been trodden on. Both feet.”

  He nodded, but offered no expression of regret or interest.

  “Do you realise?” he enquired. His tone implied that I must be very insensitive if I didn’t.

  I looked up at him. Though middle-aged to a degree, he too had the large, noticeable eyes that seemed to be general among the locals.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Do I realise what?” I thought it best to rise, though it was painful.

  “Our pianist is fully dressed tonight. In fact, he’s fully in control of himself.”

  “Is that unusual?” I paused for a second. I had struck the wrong note. “Perhaps I should explain that I’m here only as the friend of a friend.”

  “Unusual?” The old man spoke very scornfully. His hands tightened on the back of the seat, “It is a very moving tribute to his family’s love.” Then he added “I am Sir A—— M—— W——.”

  “I don’t really know much about the family, but I’m very pleased to meet you, sir.”

  Of course, I had never heard of him, and when, later, I looked him up in a reference book, he proved merely to have been knighted upon retirement.

  I waited politely for some further utterance from him.

  But my unresponsiveness had discouraged him and he only lurched away, murmuring “Fully clothed. Fully in control.” In a few moments, he was almost lost in the gloom.

  Naturally, I had heard the tales about Pachmann in his later years, when it was said to be unwise to leave him alone on the platform, and about some of the things that happened when people did. Pianists, I took it, had these difficulties.

  I slumped down once more. I was well aware that ahead of me lay the sister with her tricks, and it seemed at the moment almost impossible to depart. My crushed feet would scarcely have borne me; and it would have been very unfeeling to Ronnie, who was always so particularly sensitive in just such contexts. Moreover, I had an eerie feeling that Mrs. Baldock, in leaving, had locked the front door on the outside. It might have seemed a useful precaution, There was no evidence; merely intuition.

  So far I had observed no-one in the room who could possibly have been designated a girl. There was a small number of crones; there was Vera Z——; there was no girl. Ronnie and I seemed to have changed places: he was provided for; I was isolated.

  The audience, which had squeezed out, slowly dripped back, though it was hard to say how long passed before every chair was once more filled. I could again have looked at my watch, but should have been merely irritated. I stood well back in the doorway while the four bony old men pushed silently past my chair. As darkness slowly fell, the draught became steadily more noticeable.

  Somehow the performer was on the platform before I could detect how she had arrived there. It seemed to be how the family did it. Of course there are certain performers who specialise in that exact effect. For some reason there had been none of the strenuous, good-neighbourly applause.

  The light was now really bad, so that conditions were far from ideal for a display of legerdema
in, if that was really what lay before us. I recognised that these artists were beginners, so that very much in the way of presentation should not be expected. The poor woman might even be rather glad of a low visibility. Was she a woman? I tried to remember the details of my dialogue with Ronnie, when I had asked about a possible sister, since a brother had been promised. I was in the very back row in that very dim light but it seemed to me at first that the female on the rostrum was Mrs. Z—— herself, though differently dressed.

  It was absurd not to be certain whether that was or was not so; that at least. One curious difficulty was that the piano had not been shifted, so that the performer had very little space in which to achieve whatever was aimed at.

  Most of the audience seemed still to be wiping their mouths very steadily and systematically after the refreshments, as older people do. One could see their arms moving rhythmically back and forth, when precious little else could be seen.

  The aim of the entity on the platform remained unclear to me. At that date, I claimed no particular gift for instantly catching on to how a conjuring trick was done, but I did expect to be provided, even by semi-amateurs, with data sufficient to define what the trick was. In the present instance, it was becoming more and more difficult to decide even who was performing the trick. The person seemed now to be taller than the Vera Z—— I had been presented to, and to be waxing steadily taller yet.

  Otherwise, the entertainment seemed to consist so far in little more than writhing and fumbling; though it was true that the tempo was becoming more hectic. The face and hair were quite lost to such sight as was still possible. Soon the appearance was not unlike a rising column of old black rags, animated like the smoke from an oily bonfire at dusk. Every now and then something shot out for an instant on one side or the other; much as the pianist had shot out his arms. Of course bonfires behave like that too. Not that on the present occasion there was any flame to cast a light and help things on. If there had been, that particular house would probably have charred right out, almost in minutes. I exaggerate, I am sure, but the house was full of very shaky timber. I already knew enough to know that at a glance. I had been aware of it from the start.