Faces of Fear

by Graham Masterton

  “I’m going to have to give the chairs back,” said Sarah.

  “To whom?” Seáth Rider demanded. “Not to Ian Caldecott, because there is no Ian Caldecott. Not to his family, because they won’t know who he was. They’re yours, Mrs Bryce. You bid for them, you paid for them, they’re yours.”

  “And what do you get out of this?” asked Sarah.

  Seáth Rider smiled; a genuine smile this time. “I will get my commission, Mrs Bryce. Don’t you worry about that.”

  Unexpectedly, he kissed her on the cheek. It was a kiss like no other kiss she had experienced before: soft, yet positive; unusually salacious; a kiss that told her that he wanted more. For some reason she found it incredibly erotic, and when he left the room and closed the door behind him, she stood stiff and wide-eyed, her right hand straight down by her side, her left hand clutching her right elbow, rigid, like a woman who has just witnessed a serious traffic accident.

  In the night she dreamed of her father. She was sitting on his lap and he was reading to her. She could smell tobacco and cologne and old tweed coat. Outside the library windows the sky was a bright shade of aniline purple, and the clouds moved as if they were cut out of cardboard. Sarah knew that she was safe for the moment, but she felt a small, nagging anxiety that when her father reached the end of the story that he was telling her, something terrible would happen; and so she kept begging him to read on and on and on.

  The story was like no story that she had ever heard before. “The razormen came when the night was darkest and sneaked through the house calling and singing. Everybody knew they were there but nobody dared to open a door. They had razors in their fingers and razors in their backs. They had razors in the palms of their hands. If they once took hold of you, why then you were blood all over before you knew it. They had razors between their teeth and they wanted to kiss you.”

  She clutched at her father’s prickly tweed lapel in fear; and for security, too. Inside his waistcoat his voice was a warm, reassuring rumble. She couldn’t think why he was trying to frighten her so much. The razormen! She could see them crawling along the corridor, their backs embedded with two-edged blades, enduring the agony because nobody would dare to touch them when they emptied out your drawers full of jewelry or raped your daughters in a blood-drenched bed. She heard somebody screaming, and she felt somebody jump on the bed.

  She woke up, abruptly, and caught herself kicking the mattress with her heels and making a peculiar gargling noise. She lay back, gasping and sweating, and took ten deep breaths.

  A dream, she told herself. That’s all it was A ridiculous, terrifying dream. The moon was high and it shone between the curtains and illuminated the two chairs. She propped herself up on one elbow and stared at them. It was well past three in the morning and she felt exhausted and disoriented. She hadn’t bought the chairs, she knew that. Somebody else had bought them. Somebody called—

  Somebody called—

  At first she couldn’t think of his name. She could remember his face, but she simply couldn’t think of his name. Ian Somebody. Ian Coldwell. Ian Cottesmore. Something like that. Her memory of him was fading like a photograph left in the sun. But she looked at the chairs and she could remember what Seáth Rider had done for her; giving her just what she wanted.

  She climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom to splash her face with cold water. She stared at herself in the mirror and thought that she looked distinctly different. Not older, but different. When you live with somebody, you use your partner’s face as a mirror, instead of a real mirror. You see your smiles reflected; you see your anger rising before you even know yourself that you’re angry. You see sarcasm, you see affection. But when you live on your own, you have to rely on glass mirror, with silver backs, and there was never a glass mirror with a silver back that ever told the truth.

  Sarah’s father had once said, “Mirrors are only good for one thing: to hold over a dead man’s lips, to make sure that he isn’t breathing any longer.” And that had scared her, too.

  She suddenly thought of seeing her father out on the island; and the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she hadn’t imagined it, and that Seáth Rider had been involved in conjuring him up. Maybe he had done it to tempt her; to excite her. But then again, maybe he had done it to show her what he was capable of doing. Maybe the chairs were nothing more than a teaser, a way of warming her up.

  After all, if he had managed to manipulate history to expunge the man who had originally bought these chairs, this Ian somebody, couldn’t he manipulate history to bring her something she wanted even more? Couldn’t he alter time and events so that her father hadn’t really died?

  She realized that the thought was blasphemous. But she had seen her father, alive. Not an illusion, not a trick of the light. And if Seáth Rider could bring him back to her, the way he had brought her these chairs …

  She went back to bed. It was only 4:00 but she wished it were morning. She was too tired to read but she was too excited to sleep. In the end, however, she did sleep, from 5:15 until way past eight. She talked constantly, strange unintelligible sentences, and once or twice she cried, and tears dripped down her cheeks.

  She met Seáth Rider outside. The morning was misty; so misty that it was almost raining; but the only concession that Seáth Rider had made to the weather was to turn up his collar.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked her.

  “No. I kept worrying about those bloody chairs.”

  “Ah, you’ll get used to them. They’re housetrained.”

  “As a matter of fact I kept worrying about you, what else you could do.”

  He turned and stared at her in exaggerated surprise. “What else I could do? Now what do you mean by that?”

  “I was just wondering if you could do other things … apart from making that man disappear, so that I could have my chairs.”

  “Don’t they always say that women are never satisfied.”

  “It’s not that … it’s just that I saw my father, out on the island. I was wondering whether that was anything to do with you.”

  “Your father’s dead.”

  “The man who bought those chairs was once alive.”

  Seáth Rider wiped his face with his hand. “You’re not trying to suggest that I’ve got any power over life or death? Because I haven’t. All I can do is get you what you want.”

  She stood beside him, watching him. She was afraid of him and the consequences of knowing him but her need was greater than her fear. “Supposing I want my father.”

  He looked at her without speaking.

  “Supposing that’s my heart’s desire?”

  “Well, then,” he said, “that would be something of an acquisition now, wouldn’t it. But of course it would cost you.”

  “Is it possible? Is it really possible?”

  “I didn’t say that it was and I didn’t say that it wasn’t. All I said was, it would cost you.”

  “How much?” she demanded.

  Seáth Rider shook his head. “More than you could afford, I should say.”

  “How much? I’ll give you anything you want.”

  “No,” he said. “You’d only welsh.”

  “Mr Rider, if you could bring my father back to me, I swear on my life that I would never go back on my word, no matter what you asked me for.”

  “I ask only what Fair Breast asked of Iollan. Your fidelity.”

  “Are you asking me to sleep with you, is that it?”

  “Nothing of the kind; unless you wish it. I just want your faithfulness, that’s all.”

  “I don’t really understand.”

  “Your father never taught you what fidelity was? Cleaving to a person through thick and thin; through rain and shine; staying true?”

  Sarah was confused. She couldn’t think what Seáth Rider wanted her to do. But all the same she said, “Yes, you can have my fidelity; if that’s the price of bringing my father back.”

  “For ev
er and ever?”

  “Yes, for what that’s worth.”

  Seáth Rider shrugged. “Very well, then, if that’s what you want.”

  Sarah waited. “Is that it? Is that all there is to it?”

  The rain dripped from the tip of Seáth Rider’s nose, and trickled down his cheeks as if he were crying. “What more did you want. A flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder.” It still made her shiver when he said “tunder”.

  “But he’s going to come back?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you. You can give me a kiss if you care to.”

  She stood facing him for a long time and the rain grew steadily heavier. At last she stepped forward, and laid her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him, on the lips.

  “You’re rare,” he said. “You’re very rare.”

  She was about to turn away, but she found that she couldn’t resist kissing him again, rain-wet lips touching rain-wet lips, scarcely more than a graze, but enough for the nerve-endings in her lips to tingle, and her eyes to close.

  She stared directly into his eyes, but it occurred to her that she didn’t even know what she was looking for. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then she walked back toward the hotel.

  During the afternoon the clouds unraveled and the rain cleared away. Sarah went for a walk around the hotel grounds, and out to the islands. She saw two or three other guests, and exchanged “good-days”, but she saw no sign of her father. She began to suspect that Seáth Rider had been deceiving her with all his talk of giving people whatever they wanted, and his ‘fidelity’. Irish blarney, that’s all it was.

  Just after three o’clock she drove into Kenmare to take a look at the shops. She bought two fine linen tablecloths and a set of silver spoons, and was tempted by a small walnut cabinet, but decided that she had probably spent enough on her Daniel Marot chairs. At five she was beginning to feel hungry so she went into O’Leary’s Restaurant for a half of Guinness and a prawn sandwich. O’Leary’s had a bar on one side and a large, airy restaurant on the other, with gilded mirrors on the walls and old-fashioned fans rotating on the ceiling. Sarah was about to go into the bar, which seemed cosier and jollier, when she noticed a man sitting at one of the tables in the restaurant with his back to her. An elderly man, in a green tweed jacket. Beside him on the tabletop lay a pipe and a tobacco-pouch.

  She felt a crawling sensation all the way down her back. It couldn’t be him, surely. Not here, in this crowded restaurant, in Kenmare.

  She thought: no, it can’t be him. She had hoped and prayed that Seáth Rider could give her what she wanted, but at the bottom of her heart she hadn’t really believed that it was possible. The dead can’t come back – not after a whole year anyway.

  All the same, she found herself walking across the restaurant, circling around tables until she was standing close behind him. She closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t know what would upset her the most: if it were him, or if it weren’t. But then she reached out and touched his shoulder, and he turned around. And it was.

  Neither of them spoke. Her father pushed, back his chair, and stood up, and took her in his arms. For a long, long time the two of them stood in the middle of the restaurant, holding each other, with tears streaming down their faces. A few people looked and a few people smiled, but in Ireland that sort of dearness is never anything to be ashamed of, and that’s why they cry when they play their laments.

  “My dearest Sarah,” said her father, at last. “How I’ve missed you, you’ve no idea.”

  “Oh daddy I’ve missed you too.”

  They sat down, and held hands across the red-checkered tablecloth. Sarah couldn’t believe how young her father looked, and how fit. He’s dead, she thought, and I think he looks fit! It was like one of those awful Jewish jokes about the husband who died after a holiday in Florida, with all the relatives at the funeral home saying how well he looked. She found herself laughing at her own stupidity, but also with pleasure, just to have him back again.

  “How have you been keeping?” her father asked her. “You look different. Your hair’s different. How’s that idle husband of yours?”

  “Ken? We’re divorced.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I always rather liked poor old Ken.”

  “Daddy,” she said. “I’m so glad to have you back. Mummy won’t know what to say, will she, when I bring you back home?”

  Her father lowered his eyes. “How is mummy? Did she take it really badly?”

  Sarah nodded, with a lump in her throat. “You’ll make her so happy, coming back. We can be a family again, with Sunday lunches and walks and everything.”

  Her father didn’t look up. “I can’t do it, Sarah. I can’t come back.”

  “But you’re alive. You were dead, but now you’re alive. Of course you can come back!”

  The woman at the next table gave her the oddest of looks, and then went back to her conversation about making jam.

  “Perhaps it’s physically possible, my darling. But I’ve got another life now, quite different from the life I had before. I passed from one life into the next; and now I have friends who need me and people who rely on me. I could come back, but to tell you the truth…”

  He squeezed her hands tight, and his eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Sarah, with all my heart. But the life I spent with you and mummy is over now, and no amount of wishing can bring it back. I could come back, but I’ve been living in a very different place – a place of great affection and complete fulfilment – and I simply don’t want to.”

  The waitress brought Sarah’s sandwich. She pushed it to one side. She couldn’t eat anything now if she tried.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked her father. “How long are you going to stay here?”

  “Just long enough to tell you that I love you; and goodbye. I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye before, did I?”

  “You can’t go,” Sarah begged him. “I’ve brought you back, daddy. I need you so much; and mummy needs you more.”

  He gave her the saddest of smiles. “I’m sorry, darling. I really am. But I have to move on. There’s so much waiting for me.”

  He stood up, and the sun came through the restaurant window behind him and dazzled her, so that she couldn’t see his face. He said, “I love you, Sarah, and I wish you well,” and then he turned and walked out of the restaurant, leaving her sitting alone. She saw him pass by the window, more like a reflection than a real person, but then he was gone. She could have run out after him, and begged him to come back; but she knew that it wasn’t any use. I could come back, but I simply don’t want to … and what could be more specific than that?

  The waitress came over, all concerned. “Is there something wrong with your sandwich?” she asked.

  Sarah shook her head and tried to sound bright. “No. Not at all. There’s something wrong with me.”

  “Well, don’t worry dear, I won’t charge you for it if you didn’t like it.”

  Sarah couldn’t speak. Tears flooded out of her eyes, and all she could do was cover her face with her hands and let out a series of deep, muted sobs.

  The waitress sat down next to her and put her arm around her. “What’s the matter, then? Is it something I can help you with?”

  “No,” said Sarah. “Nobody can.”

  The waitress held her and shushed her while she sat on her bentwood chair and let out the longest burst of uncontrollable grief since her father had died.

  When she returned from Kenmare it was evening and she found Seáth Rider waiting for her in the bar, with a glass of neat vodka in front of him. He looked darker than ever; edgy and dissatisfied.

  “Well?” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  She sat down opposite, on a large loudly-upholstered sofa. Sonny Loony the barman came across and asked her what she wanted to drink. “Dry white wine; very cold.”

  Sonny gave Seáth Rider a sideways look as if to say, don’t you so much as breat
he on one hair of this young lady’s head, or you’ll have me to answer to, Seáth Rider, in return, gave him a black look back.

  “You saw your father, is that it?”

  “That’s it. I went to Kenmare and there he was.”

  “So where is he now? As if I didn’t know.”

  Sarah clamped her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from sobbing. She looked around the room and willed her eyes not to fill up with tears.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” she managed to ask him.

  “I didn’t know for sure. But it’s par for the course. You ask a 20-year-old if he wants to be 16 again, and he won’t be having it. You ask a 40-year-old if he wants to be 27 again, and he’ll say no, even if he’s full of envy. Or you ask a 60-year-old if he wants to be 45, and he’ll scoff at you. We progress. We change. And after we die, there it is, waiting for us, the invisible kingdom, the same the Fianna could visit, full of light and hope and heavenly charms. I warned you, Mrs Bryce, but you didn’t listen to what I saying. The dead will never come back to us. They’ve gone on, the dead, and they’ve left us behind.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Sarah, with as much dignity as she could summon up.

  “Well now you do. You got what you wanted; but what you wanted didn’t want you. It happens all the time, believe me.”

  Sonny brought Sarah’s wine, and she sipped it gratefully. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was; and hungry, too.

  “You’ll have dinner with me?” asked Seáth Rider.

  “No, thanks. I’m going to have a bath, and wash my hair. I’m going to make an early start tomorrow.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I said, ‘I’m going to make an early start.’ I’m going to fly back to London tomorrow.”

  Seáth Rider sat up in his seat, bony and dark, his face as pale as a lantern. “Now look here, you made an agreement with me, now didn’t you. You promised me fidelity. On your life, you promised me fidelity. So what’s all this talk of going back to London?”