She had left the island, and he was running to it, when he saw the car. It came rushing around the curve toward Emily, its wide nose glittering silver. “Emily, watch out!” he shouted.
She turned and stood, bewildered, in the roadway. The men had seen the car; they retreated to the pavement, gesturing at Emily. “Get back!” they shouted, overlapping, confusing.
He couldn’t reach her in time. The car rushed toward her. He saw the driver in his expensive silver-painted frame: young, cocksure, aggressive, well-groomed yet coarse as a workman’s hands—everything Jack hated, that threatened him. He should have known it would be such a man that would take Emily from him.
The driver saw Emily, dithering in his path. His sidewhiskered face filled with the most vicious hatred Jack had ever seen. He wrenched at the wheel. The car swooped round Emily, coiling her with a thick swelling tentacle of dust. As she stood trembling, one back wheel thudded against the curb outside the house. The car slewed across the roadway toward a lamp-standard. Jack glimpsed the hate-filled face in the moment before it became an explosion of blood and glass.
Emily was running aimlessly, frantically, as if her ankles were cuffed together. She staggered dizzily and fell. She lay on the road, sobbing or giggling. The two men went to her, but Jack pushed them away. “We don’t want your help, thank you. Nor yours either,” he told the drivers emerging from their halted cars. But he accepted Dr. Tumilty’s help, when the doctor hurried over from glancing at the driver, for Emily was beginning to tremble, and didn’t seem to recognize the house. More drivers were gathering to stare at the crash. Soon Jack heard the approaching raucous howl of the police. The only thought he could find in his head was that they had to be deafening in order to shout everyone else’s row down.
“What are you doing?”
“Just looking.”
She turned from the front-room window to smile at him. Looking at what, for heaven’s sake? his frown demanded. “I like watching people go by,” she said.
He could see no people: only the relentless cars, dashing harsh sunlight at his house, flinging dust. Still, perhaps he should be grateful she could look. It seemed the doctor had been right: she didn’t remember the accident.
That had been a week ago. Luckily the doctor had seen it happen; the police had questioned him. A policeman had interrogated Jack, but had left Emily alone, calmed by a sedative. Jack was glad she hadn’t encountered the policeman, his sarcastic deference full of innuendo: “Does your wife take any drugs, sir? I suppose she doesn’t drink at all? She wouldn’t be under treatment?” He’d stared about the house in envious contempt, as if he had more right to be there than Jack—just as the people from the estate would, if they saw something different from their concrete council houses.
The council—They provided such people with the homes they deserved, but not Jack and Emily, oh, no. They’d offered compensation for the inconvenience of road-widening. Charity, that was all that was, and he’d told them so. A new house was what he wanted, in an area as quiet as this had used to be when he’d bought the house—and not near any estates full of rowdies, either. That, or nothing.
Emily was standing up. He started from his reverie. “Where are you going?”
“Over to the shop to buy things.”
“It’s all right, I’ll go. What do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll see when I get there.”
“No, you stay here.” He was becoming desperate; he couldn’t tell her why he was insisting. “Make me a list. There’s no need for you to go.”
“But I want to.” The rims of her eyes were trembling with tears.
“All right, all right. I’ll help you carry things.”
She smiled brightly. “I’ll get my other basket,” she said, and ran upstairs a few steps before she had to slow.
He felt a terrible dry grief. This nervously vulnerable child had been the woman he’d married. “I’ll look after you,” he’d used to say, “I’ll protect you,” for he’d loved to see her turn her innocent trusting smile up to him. For a while, when they’d discovered they could have no children, she had become a woman, almost a stranger—neurotically irritable, jealous of her introversion, unpredictably morose. But when he’d retired, the child had possessed her again. He had been delighted, until her memory had begun to fail. It was almost as though his love for the child in her were wiping out the adult. His responsibility for her was heavier, more demanding now.
That was why they had gone to the seaside while the road widened: because the upheaval upset Emily, the glistening mud like ropes of dung where the pavement had been. “Our house will still be here,” she’d said. “They won’t have knocked that down”—not like the post office up the road. Their months by the sea had cost the last of their savings, and when they’d returned it was too late to accept the council’s offer of compensation, even if he had intended to. But he mustn’t blame Emily.
“Here’s your basket. Won’t you feel silly carrying that? Come on, then, before it gets too hot.”
As they reached the gate he took her arm. Sunlight piled on them; he felt as though the clothes he wore were being ironed. Up the road, near where the post office had been, a concrete lamp-standard lay on the new roundabout, protruding rusty twisted roots. A drill yattered, a creaking mechanical shovel hefted and dumped earth. Men stood about, stripped to the waist, dark as foreigners. He pursed his lips in disapproval and ushered Emily to the subway.
The tunnel was scattered with bottles and wrappings, like leavings in a lair. The tiles of the walls were overgrown with a tangle of graffiti: short white words drooled, red words were raw wounds, ragged-edged. Another of the ceiling lights had been smashed; almost the whole of the tunnel was dim, dimmed further by the blazing daylight beyond. Something came rushing out of the dimness.
He pulled Emily back from the mouth of the tunnel. It must be a cyclist—he’d seen them riding through, with no thought for anyone. From the estate, no doubt, where they knew no better. But nobody emerged from the dimness: nothing at all.
A wind, then, or something rolling down the steps on the far side. He hurried Emily through the chill darkness; she almost stumbled. He didn’t like the subway. It felt cold as a flooded cave, and the glimmering graffiti seemed to waver like submarine plants: he mustn’t over-exert himself. The sunlight leapt at him. There was nothing on the steps.
“Oh hello, Mrs. Thorpe,” the shopwoman said to Emily. “Are you better?” Stupid woman. Jack chattered to her, so that she couldn’t disturb his wife. “Have you got everything?” he kept asking Emily. He was anxious to get back to the house, where she would be safe.
They descended the subway steps more slowly, laden now. The passage was thickly dark against the dazzle beyond. “Let’s get through quickly,” he said. The darkness closed around him, snug and chill; he held Emily’s arm more firmly. Cars rumbled overhead. Dark entangled colors shifted. The clatter of their hurry filled the tunnel with sharp fluttering: that must be what he heard, but it sounded like someone rushing toward them. Someone had almost reached them, brutally overbearing in the dark. For a moment, amid the writhing colors and the red filter of his panting hurry, Jack glimpsed a face. It was brief as lightning: eyes gleaming with hatred, with threat.
Jack rested in the sunlight, gripping the metal rail. No wonder he had glimpsed the face of the driver from the accident; he had almost panicked then, too. And no wonder he’d panicked just now: suppose roughs had waylaid Emily and himself down there? “I think we’ll use the shops on this side in future,” he said.
Back in the house he felt ill at ease, somehow threatened. People stared through the windows as if into cages. Were they what Emily liked watching? The sounds of cars seemed too close, aggressively loud.
When the evening began to settle down, Jack suggested a walk. They wouldn’t use the subway, for the pavements across the road glittered with grit and glass. As he closed the gate carefully behind him a car honked a warning at Emily: impertinenc
e. He took her arm and led her away from the road, into the suburb.
The sounds of the road fell behind. Trees stood in strips of grass laid along the pavements; still leaves floated at the tips of twigs against a calm green sky. He felt at home now. Cars sat placidly in driveways, cars were gathering outside a few of the semi-detached houses; people sat or stood talking in rooms. Did the people on the estate ever talk to each other, or just watch television all day? he wondered, strolling.
They’d strolled for several streets when he saw the boys. There were four of them, young teenagers—not that one could be sure these days, with them all trying to act older than they should be. They were dressed like pop singers: sloppily, not a suit among them. As they slouched they tugged at garden hedges, stripping leaves from privet twigs. “Do you live there?” Jack demanded. “Then just you stop that at once.”
“It’s not your house,” said one, a boy with a burst purple lip; he twisted another twig loose.
“Go on. You just move along or you’ll get something you won’t forget.”
“Ooh, what?” the purple-lipped boy cried, pretending effeminacy. They all began to jeer at Jack, dancing around him, dodging out of reach. Emily stood by the hedge, bewildered. Jack held himself still, waiting for one of them to come close; he could feel blood blazing in his face. “Go on, you young ruffians. If I get hold of you—”
“What’ll you do? You’re not our father.”
“He’s too old,” one giggled.
Before Jack knew what was happening Emily leapt at the boy. She’d pulled a pin from her hat; if the boy hadn’t flinched back the point would have entered his cheek, or his eye. “Mad old bitch,” he shouted, retreating. “My father’ll do you,” he called as the four ran off. “We know where you live.”
Jack felt stretched red, pumped full of blood. “We’d better get home now,” he said harshly, not looking at her. The dull giant pins of the lamp-standards stood above the roofs, looming closer. The rough chorus of cars grew louder.
A car snarled raggedly past the gate. As Jack started and glanced back, he glimpsed movement in the subway. A pale rounded shape glimmered in the dark mouth, like the tenant of a burrow: someone peering out, framed by the muddle of graffiti. Up to no good, Jack thought distractedly. Unlocking the front door, he glanced again at the subway; a brief pale movement vanished. He turned back to the door, which had slammed open as something—a stray wind—shouldered past him.
He sat in the front room. Now, until the streetlamps glared, the drawn curtains were their own dark green. He could still feel his urgent startled heartbeats. “You shouldn’t have flown at those boys,” he said. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“I was defending you,” she said plaintively.
“I had control of the situation. You shouldn’t let these people make you lose your dignity.”
“Well, you needn’t have spoken to them like that. They were only young, they weren’t doing much harm. If you make them resentful they only get into worse trouble.”
“Are you really so blind? These people don’t have any love for us, you know. I wish you could see what they’ll do to this house after we’re gone. They’ll be grown up by then, it’ll be their kind who’ll spoil what we’ve made. And they’ll enjoy it, you mark my words.” He was saying too much, but it was her fault, with her blind indulgence of the young—thank God, they’d never had children. “You just watch these people,” he said. “You’ll have them taking over the house before we’re gone.”
“They’re only young, it’s not their fault.” As though this were incontestable proof, she said, “Like that poor young man who was killed.”
He gazed at her speechlessly. Yes, she meant the driver in the crash. She sounded almost as if she were accusing Jack. All he could do was nod: he couldn’t risk a retort when he didn’t know how much she remembered.
The curtains blackened, soaked with orange light. Emily smiled at him with the generosity of triumph. She parted the curtains and sat gazing out. “I like it now it’s bright,” she said.
Eventually she went up to bed. He clashed the curtains together and sat pondering somberly. All this harping on youth—almost as if she wanted to remind him he had been unable to give her children. She should have married one of the men from the estate. To judge from the evidence, they spent half their time stuffing children into their wives.
No, that was unfair. She’d loved and wanted him, she still did. It was Jack she wanted to hold her in bed. He felt ashamed. He’d go to her now. He switched out the light, and the orange oozed in.
As he climbed the stairs he heard Emily moaning, in the grip of a dream. The bedroom was full of dim orange twilight, pulsing with passing lights. The bedclothes were so tangled by her writhing it was impossible to decipher her body. “Emily. Emily,” he called. Her face rolled on the pillow, turning up to him. A light flashed by. The dim upturned face grinned viciously. It was a man’s face.
“You, you—” He grabbed blindly for the lightswitch. Emily’s face was upturned on the pillow, eyes squeezed into wrinkles against the light, lips quivering. That must be what the flash of light had shown him. “It’s nothing, nothing. Go back to sleep,” he said sharply. But it was a long time before he was able to join her, and sleep.
He had bought the house when he was sure they could have no children. It had cost their old home and almost the whole of their savings. It was meant to be a present for Emily, a consolation, but she hadn’t been delighted: she had thought they should leave their savings to mature with them, but property was an investment—not that he intended ever to sell the house. They had argued coldly for weeks. He couldn’t bear this new, logical, disillusioned Emily: he wanted to see delight fill her eyes. At last he’d bought the house without telling her.
Unlocking the door, he had held his breath. She’d gazed about, and in her eyes there had been only a sad helpless premonition that he’d done the wrong thing. That had been worse than the day the doctor had told him he was sterile. Yet over the years she’d come to love the house, to care for it almost as if it were a child—until now. Now she did nothing but gaze from the window.
She seemed content. She seldom left the house, except for the occasional evening stroll. He shopped alone. The scribbled subway was empty of menace now. Once, returning from the shop, he saw Emily’s face intent behind the shivering pane as a juggernaut thundered by. She looked almost like a prisoner.
The imitation daylight fascinated her most—the orange faces glancing at her, the orange flashes of the cars. Sometimes she fell asleep at the window. He thought she was happy, but wasn’t sure; he couldn’t get past the orange glint in her eyes.
She was turning her back on their home. Curls of dust gathered in corners, the top of the stove looked charred; she never drew the curtains. Her attitude depressed him. In an indefinable way, it felt as though someone were sneering at the house.
When he tried to take over the housework, he felt sneered at: a grown man on his hands and knees with a dustpan—imagine what the men from the estate would say! But he mustn’t upset Emily; he didn’t know how delicately her mind was balanced now. He swept the floor. His depression stood over him, sneering.
It was as if an intruder were strolling through the house, staring at the flaws, the shabbiness. The intruder stared at Emily, inert before the window; at Jack, who gazed sadly at her as he pretended to read. So much for their companionship. Didn’t she enjoy Jack’s company anymore? He couldn’t help not being as lively as he was once. Did she wish he was as lively as the mob outside the window?
He couldn’t stand this. He was simply depressing himself with these reveries. He could just make out Emily’s face, a faint orange mask in the pane. “Come upstairs now,” he said gently.
His words hung before him, displaying their absurdity. The sneering surrounded him as he took her arm. It was coarse, stupid, insensitive; it jeered at them for going to bed only to sleep; but he couldn’t find words to fend it off. He lay beside Emil
y, one arm about her frail waist; her dry slim hand rested on his. It distressed him to feel how light her hand was. The orange dimness sank over him, thick as depression, dragging him down toward a dream of sleeping miserably alone.
It was all right. She was beside him. But something dark hung over her. He squinted, trying to strain back the curdled dimness. It was a face; curly black hair framed its vicious sneer. Jack leapt at it, punching. He felt no impact, but the face burst like a balloon full of blood. The blood faded swiftly as a firework’s star. He knew at once that he hadn’t got rid of the face. It was still in the room.
His fist was thrust deep into the blankets. He awoke panting. He tried to slow his heart with his breathing. The orange light hammered at his eyes. He turned over, to hold Emily, to be sure he hadn’t disturbed her. She was not there.
At once he knew she’d wandered out on the road. The sneering surrounded him, still and watchful. He fumbled into his dressing-gown, his feet groped for his slippers. He heard the rapid swish of cars. His head was full of the thud of a body against metal, although he had heard no such sound. He ran downstairs. He felt his mouth gaping like a letter-slot, making a harsh sound of despair.
He stumbled down into the dark. He was rushing uncontrollably; he almost fell. Parallelograms of orange light lay stagnant inside the front door. He scrabbled at the lock and bolts, and threw the door open.
The road was bare beneath the saucers of relentless light. Only a blur of dust hung thinly above the surface. Perhaps she was in the subway. His thoughts had fallen behind his headlong search. He had slammed the gate out of his way before he realized she couldn’t have bolted the door behind her.
He was awake now, in time. But he was still running, toward the snarl of a car swinging around the curve. He tottered on the edge of the pavement, then regained his balance. When he turned back to the house he saw Emily gazing between the front-room curtains. The car sped round the curve. Its light blinked in the window beside Emily: a pale bright flash, an oval glimpse of light, a face, a sneering face.
The Year's Best Horror Stories 14 Page 8