Compulsory Games

by Robert Aickman

  In the end, Cecilia Susan left me for a more practical chap ten years younger than I was and eight years younger than she was. There was a quick divorce, and I’ve never seen or heard of Cecilia Susan since. I believe she’s in New South Wales, but I see no reason why she shouldn’t be all right.

  All this time I was working for these new people, having left the bank soon after the Parc Monceau business. It’s a funny sort of job, when you are on the inside of it; but it pays a lot better, and it’s occasionally quite exciting.

  There was a meeting at a big hotel near—well, I won’t name it. It was in the very North of Italy. That will give you the picture. Not actually in the town, either; as I say.

  The gathering was international, cosmopolitan, all those things; and, believe me, it was pretty tense. By then, I was accustomed to almost anything, but suddenly I’d had enough, and I went out for a breather. In any case, the room had been horribly congested and most people were shouting. I hate a packed room.

  I went downstairs, and there at a table in the lounge sat Laura. She was looking out through the big window at all the snow and ice and tempest.

  I do not say that she was dressed in exactly the same way. Not at all. But it was a version of the same garb in every detail. And she looked—well—ageless might be the best word.

  I stood back. I was petrified. It had been a terrible afternoon upstairs, if I am to be honest about it; and now here, in the dusk, was this.

  In the end, Laura turned and saw me. Perhaps she was compelled by something or other. How could you know?

  “You do look unhappy,” she said. “Come and sit by me.”

  I could hardly cut and run. In any case, we were all virtually snowed up. But, needless to say, I did not want to do anything of the kind. Calm judgement was useless where Laura was concerned. I find it almost always is useless.

  She filled a glass from a big decanter of red wine. It was as if the glass had been set there for me, and waiting.

  “Wine of oblivion,” said Laura, smiling.

  At least, this time we seemed not to propose mixing them. And, inevitably, by now we no longer read books at all, or bothered ourselves with films and concerts, or with anything like that.

  “How long are you staying?” I asked, with one part of my mind still on the drifting snow.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Laura. “There will be future occasions.”

  I laughed, and everyone in the lounge looked up, except for the very old and very deaf.

  “The intervals are a bit on the long side,” I said.

  “One day there won’t be a second to spare,” she replied, in a matter of fact way.

  I expect I stared at her like a fool.

  “Now, if you like,” she said.

  I suppose I continued to stare. In my work, I had become ready with conventional words, but only with those.

  “Come and see,” she said, with that all-dissolving smile of hers. “Do you mind carrying the wine?”

  I followed her upstairs; back upstairs, where I was concerned. In the conference room, there seemed to be total silence; which was absurd and impossible.

  She wove in and out on the first floor of the hotel, then pushed open a dingy and ill-painted door, not up to the general standard of the place, and held it for me to pass through, with the big decanter in one hand, and the two big wine glasses slipping about in the other.

  Beyond was a very big corridor, ill-lighted and with battered bedroom doors on either side. There were holes in the carpet, and big cracks in the plaster of the ceiling, through which things might emerge when most people had gone to bed. One could not help thinking of that.

  Plainly it was a wing which had been virtually closed. And not only for the off-season, one would suggest. I marvelled that Laura should, as I presumed, sleep there and dwell there.

  Before long I was unable to reconcile so long a corridor with the outside of the building as I had glimpsed it for a moment on arrival, though never since, owing to all the work and flummery.

  On and on and on I tramped after her, tripping over the ragged carpet, coping with my slithery burdens.

  She opened a door to our left. I felt immediately that it might have been any door.

  She stood at the portal, smiling. Really she was much too lightly clad for the dreadful chill of that corridor, where the central heating had been so long turned off. In her wavy dress, she looked more like the sea in summer, though deep and mighty. But you won’t possibly understand what I mean. You would have had to be there. One day perhaps you will be.

  I could only just see into the room.

  In particular, I could glimpse no window, which perhaps explained why I had not been able to detect that section of the structure from the outside. Walls without windows can pass unnoticed. By the few, glimmering lights in the corridor, totally insufficient for modern hotel visitors, I could discern in the room only rotting woodwork, and huge worms, and soiled rags on the floor.

  “Come in and have a drink with me,” bade Laura. “Then I can look after you properly.”

  After a second or two of silence between us, she gently added: “You might call me your guardian angel.”

  No one should think I made a fool of myself. Not at all: I had been very fully trained in self-control. I set down the heavy decanter on the threshold, and though one of the glasses fell from my hand as I stooped, it did not shatter. I by no means broke into a panicky rush, but at the most what my late father, who came very much into my mind at that moment, would have called a fast jogtrot, which sufficed perfectly well, though I don’t know what might have happened if by mistake I had run in the wrong direction.

  Naturally, I have not again seen Laura as yet. I keep telling myself to stop worrying, because such things are not decided by us, but for us.

  THE FULLY-CONDUCTED TOUR

  SINCE I’ve written quite a number of stories about strange occurrences—and, what’s more, they’ve some of them been published, it’s natural that people are always asking how many things of the kind have actually happened to me. They often ask with a nasty gleam in the eye, but that’s quite wrong, because strange things happen all the time to many of us, if once we can get our minds off our own little concerns. One point is that the strangeness usually takes an unexpected form, it is no good looking for something strange. It only happens when you’re not looking. I’ll tell you a short tale which may help to illustrate. It’s one of a quite large number that have come into my life.

  It happened twenty years or so ago, and it happened in a part of Italy which I have not visited since, so you must forgive me for not remembering all the names.

  It was when my first wife was still alive, though, unfortunately, she was already far from well. In fact, it was for that very reason that we went to Italy, and we managed to stay there for as long as four or five weeks. Not that it did my poor wife much good in the end.

  We were staying in a small hotel, or pensione, in a famous city of Tuscany. Of course I do very well remember which city, but I think it would be best not to name it, and in the end you may see why.

  Though my wife at that time tired quite easily, and was sometimes, I fear, in a certain amount of pain, we managed to visit a surprising variety of the innumerable historical and artistic sights that surrounded us on all sides. She was seeking distraction—an odd expression, I have always thought; but I must admit that I was glad of it too. Life can be quite unbearable when one of you is not perfectly fit.

  On a certain morning, after weeks of this, my wife said that she would prefer not to go out, but would like just to spend the day reading quietly, sometimes in bed, sometimes not. As many of you will suppose, it was Jane Austen she was particularly fond of. She carried around the set of little books whenever she went—a nice set, bound in old-fashioned limp leather, with gilt-topped pages; and she just read them over and over again. The only trouble might have been the noise of the very heavy industrial traffic that pounded past that particular pensione, abs
olutely night and day. But my brave wife said she would have to make do, and suggested that I visited somewhere or other on my own, as far away as I liked, because she would be perfectly all right for that one day by herself.

  The advertised attractions included a list of villas and castelli, in the surrounding countryside, which were still in private occupation, and which allegedly welcomed tourists to see over the place on occasional specified days. The list was a long one, so that the same names, Il Principe this and La Marchesa that, did not recur very often; and the departure times varied presumably according to the different distances to be covered. All the tours, it was stated, were “fully conducted,” which always makes the heart sink, but I had thought that probably one ought to try one of these excursions once, so, when I had tucked up my wife in bed with Emma, I ambled round to the place where one applied for tickets.

  Of course, Americans and Australians and Scandinavians and Germans were trying to book for all kinds of different things, so there were queues and long delays, and when I reached the counter, the man was not at all welcoming; already irritated past bearing, I assumed.

  “You want to go today?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Yes, please. Today. Is there any difficulty?”

  Despite the pushing crowd, he went to considerable lengths, in not very good English, to explain why some of the places visited on other days were much more attractive to foreign travellers.

  “Today is the only day I’ve got,” I said.

  He made further objections. “There’s no luncheon. The trip won’t start until two o’clock.” I have forgotten to mention that most of the visits were supposed to include a meal, often described very fancifully.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “No food.”

  It seemed odd, but I realised that after all we were only to be occasional paying guests.

  He stared at me very hard for a moment, but could obviously think of nothing more to say, at least in English, and then very slowly wrote out several of the complicated pieces of paper that go with such outings. The Transatlantics and Norsemen were not at all sympathetic in the matter of the time we were consuming.

  Of course I did not really mind very much about missing the funny luncheon, especially as it seemed to have led to a big reduction in the price, but I had to fill the morning somehow, and, whatever happened I couldn’t go back to the pensione. I was quite surprised by how much time I managed to while away just sitting outside a café and watching the different women and girls pass by, all walking so differently from the way they walk in England. Then I went to look at the classical statuary in a nearby gallery, which I had almost entirely to myself, though the attendants, one in each room, kept coming up to me and saying “Venus” or “Juno,” and each expecting a tip.

  There was nothing particularly notable about the party on the coach. It was the usual tired, elderly group, struggling, a little belatedly, with a new world, and not venturing much on comment, except upon such topics as the currency. I spoke to none of them. Of course there were no natives of the country, though a middle-aged Italian woman acted as courier, aided by a very efficient public address system. She looked tired too, but was quite elegantly dressed, and carried herself as gracefully as the rest of her compatriots. She talked about the cascades, the beautiful views on both sides of the coach, and the histories of the different families since Roman times, especially, of course, of the family we were about to visit. She said everything in American English, and some of the things in French and German also. She was difficult to follow, but remarkably sincere.

  After about two hours—certainly not less, and I have some reason to be sure—we reached our destination, and the coach drew up in the vast courtyard of a vast habitation. Much of the villa was in the Gothic style and extremely difficult to date. One would have said that very little of it could nowadays be inhabited, but appearances can be misleading, especially among the patricians of Italy. The stones of the courtyard were very uneven and often dislodged. It was just as well that the coach had stopped when it did. There was rank, aged grass everywhere, and small, tough bushes growing in the interstices. The place as a whole looked in the very last stages of neglect and disuse: far more depressing, I thought, than picturesque, but, of course, I was in a touchy, melancholic state, to start with.

  There was an enormous portico, and beneath it stood a lady whom one could not doubt for a moment was the chatelaine of the establishment. She was just about the most lovely woman I had at that time ever seen, and she was quite perfectly dressed, in what one knows to be a most expensive way. No shortage of cash there, one could not but reflect; and no playing to the gallery either, as my father would have put it. Furthermore, the lady spoke English much better than the ordinary English person; and her voice was as beautiful as her face and figure.

  The sights within were as forlorn-looking as one could have expected. Indeed, strictly speaking, there was nothing to see at all, either from the ordinary guide-book point of view, or still less from that of the connoisseur. I am not a connoisseur, but it was not difficult to see that much. The apartments were enormous, but almost everything was flaky and discoloured, and it occurred to me from place to place that the floorboards might well be actually unsafe. Most of the contents had been dispersed, but at least the lady did not claim that what remained was more important than it was.

  I was edging along at the rear, as one does when one has to be conducted; but every now and again I was aware of catching the beautiful lady’s beautiful eye. I truly had not been seeking to do so, and I found it difficult to judge, as one sometimes does, whether it was my eye that was being particularly caught. But, in the end, I could be in almost no doubt of it.

  What happened was this, and it was something that I shall never in my life quite forget, simple though it seemed at the time—anyway, at the immediate moment.

  We had reached a particularly long hall or sala, at the far end of which was a pair of double doors, huge, as usual, but in much better condition than anything that we had seen hitherto. The doors were brightly painted all over, both with pictured panels, and with multicoloured geometrical embellishments.

  Surprisingly enough, the lady, who up to that point had been making a reasonable best of everything on view, said nothing at all about these fine doors, but merely announced “Beyond this are the private apartments, and I ask you all to remove your shoes.” Then she smiled a little, and added “Or other footwear.” But next she continued “Those who would prefer not to do so, may sit on the seats and wait here.”

  There were some narrow wooden benches, with obviously uncomfortable backs, lined up irregularly in front of the big doors; but I could see no one, seated or otherwise, who was not removing his or her shoes or boots or whatnot: in certain cases with pain and difficulty.

  However, as far as I was concerned, something had happened.

  I was reasonably sure that the lady had spoken to me, though only with her eyes; and, I fancied, to me alone. Perhaps I was the only lone male in the group. One used to come upon the term “speaking eyes.” The lady of that house had speaking eyes; and what she said to me with them was “Come no further.” I was as sure of it as I could be.

  And, very curiously, at almost that same moment, I felt really peculiar. It was that kind of nausea where one knows that if one moves at all one will almost certainly be sick on the instant. It had come upon me very suddenly, but it was all too real. I was sure that I looked chalky, if not green. I could hardly see.

  Everyone else was shoeless and fully mustered. The lady allowed them to precede her into the private apartments, which had not happened earlier on the tour. I alone remained pallid and virtually paralysed, on one of the wickedly comfortless benches. I consider that the lady’s eyes spoke to me at this point a second time: “Thank you”; or perhaps “Wise little boy.” I was still alert enough to get the message. Then the big doors closed behind them all.

  It was some considerable time before I realised,
again quite suddenly, that my sickness was that of fear; of sheer and utter funk, which no one else had seemed in any way to feel. Possibly some of them had long ago trained themselves to ignore such things.

  In purely physical terms, if one may put it so, I began at that point to feel, if not better, then at least a little different. None the less, I sat on, contemplating the array of boots and shoes; mainly, I imagine, because I was still unable to move about with much confidence. I continued to sit, more and more uncomfortable no doubt, but hardly noticing it; and nothing more of any kind happened. Nothing at all.

  In the end, I realised, simply by lifting my arm and looking at my watch, that I had sat there alone, in front of the doors and the scattered footwear, for more than three hours. I was horribly startled. Dusk was beginning to fall, and of course it falls more swiftly in Italy than in England.

  You may perhaps have gathered that I am not very strong in will-power, but I drew heavily upon what I had of it, and made my escape. At least I knew, and remembered, the way back and out of the place; and all the doors were still open, including the outer one. I saw no one in the house, and I think it quite likely there was no one.

  My weak will by no means sufficed to send me on a perambulation round the outer walls; as duty no doubt enjoined. In any case, it would probably not have been physically practicable, even for Richard Coeur de Lion.

  I stumbled across the immense courtyard, out through the immense gateway, and away down the descending track. There was no sign of the coach. There seemed to be no one at all about, even outside the villa. Probably it was quite safe to leave the great door open. I walked steadily for more than an hour and still saw no one. Of course, rural Italy is said to be emptying. Moreover, it had become completely dark in no time.

  In the end, I was extravagantly fortunate, because I saw from afar a lighted bus, and somehow managed to catch it. I did not really know where I was at all, and could easily have had to spend the night in the open. Far worse possibilities were also plainly on the cards.