The Pretence

by Ramsey Campbell

  She was somewhere out of sight on the front row. The renewed murmur of the audience covered up any sounds the choir made in gathering onstage. Their faces put Slater in mind of pale flowers blooming from a mass of foliage. At first he couldn't see Amy or Tom, and then he was aware only of them. They looked at least as intent as several other people he'd encountered recently, an earnestness that didn't falter even when the children met his eyes. As they shifted it to the conductor who had taken up her post in front of the choir, she raised her hands, reviving the silence. Slater saw Tom and Amy take a breath or at any rate part their lips, and found he couldn't breathe himself. He'd heard less than the first phrase when he was overtaken by the notion that he'd already known what they would sing. "In this fair town where I was born..."

  Did the man who'd tried to order it have a child at the school? Slater wasn't sure the explanation could bear too much scrutiny, but surely it would let him concentrate on the performance. "All in the merry month of May..." He wasn't about to look for Allen in the audience; just the thought made the faces beside him seem far too reminiscent of an identity parade. 'And death was drawing nigh him..." As he saw their mouths shaping the syllables he wondered if this was what somebody had in mind when they'd said a word was made flesh. He supposed he shouldn't think that here, and perhaps anywhere else, not least because it felt like a threat to perception. "As she was walking o'er the fields, she heard the death bell knelling..." Words were information, and he might easily conclude that all life was a form of it—a set of electronic impulses—but where did that lead him? Nowhere he thought he would choose to go, and he tried to drive the reverie out of his mind by only hearing the ballad. "Farewell..." This wasn't the last word, it was the first one of the final verse, but it seemed capable of doing away with everything that came after.

  The hush that followed the final word of the choir—"Allen", which Slater could imagine was trying to remind him of someone—immediately splintered into applause that saw the children off the stage. As soon as he couldn't see Amy and Tom he was anxious to know where they were. He twisted around until he found them by the back wall, among other members of the choir. When he faced the stage again he was dogged by an impression that he'd recognised more people in the audience than he would have expected, even if he couldn't bring them to mind now. "Nothing's wrong," he muttered in case Melanie was about to ask, as well as on his own behalf.

  It would disrupt the occasion too much if he were to take the family and leave. He felt as if he'd been warned not to cause disorder. Remembering that soon they would all be together helped him sit through the rest of the concert—a young pianist playing a transcription of Bach's famous prelude and fugue, a selection from Tchaikovsky's best-known ballet arranged for a chamber group whose percussion sounded oddly electronic, a soprano singing Schubert's Ave Maria, an orchestral finale that took the listener up the mountain to meet the demon. At last the frenzy of the resurrected sank back into the graves, and the music had scarcely faded to its final note when someone burst into applause as if they couldn't bear the silence.

  Slater wasn't slow to follow. Melanie joined in, and he saw pairs of hands rise up on both sides of him like a startled flock of winged creatures. As the clapping subsided and the row began to empty, Tom and Amy came to find their parents. "You really brought it alive," Melanie said. "You were stellar."

  "You deserve to be up in the sky," Slater said.

  Perhaps this went too far, which might explain why Amy was gazing hard at him. "Dad."

  "Amy," he said and wondered why he had an impulse to add her brother's name.

  "I can't see her."

  More nervously than he could recall ever having heard her speak, Melanie said "Who?"

  "The girl I told dad about. The one they—"

  "Not now, Amy." Slater had a sense that far too many people were listening; he could even have fancied that the entire audience had halted on its way out of the hall—that if he looked he might see someone who had interrogated him. "Later," he said.

  "When later?"

  "Tomorrow."

  It was the only answer that came into his mind, but he felt as though he'd made a promise, especially when Tom's eyes brightened. "We're going to see the sun, aren't we? You said."

  "I don't know how far we may have to go."

  "That doesn't matter, does it, mummy?" Amy said. "We'll all be together."

  "That's all it's about," Melanie said.

  Slater looked away to see that the hall was deserted, though he hadn't heard anyone leave. Being confronted by the rows of unoccupied seats made him feel like a show that had come to an end or at least to an interval. "Time we were home," he said.

  The corridor wall was bare of coats. Tom and Amy had theirs— indeed, they'd put them on. The empty schoolyard felt as if the walls and the equally blank ceiling of the corridor had opened out and risen, but not enough. "Who's in my car?" Slater said as he made for the gates.

  "I wish we'd just used one."

  He didn't need to understand why Melanie felt that way. "We will tomorrow."

  "It's my turn," Tom declared and turned to his sister. "You be with mummy."

  Slater couldn't see why the boy thought he had to tell her. No doubt if Tom didn't have some strange ideas he wouldn't be a child, and the same must be true of his sister. Slater supposed he'd entertained a few odd notions when he was either of their ages, but it wasn't worth attempting to remember. He climbed into the Astra and let his son in while Melanie and Amy carried out their version of the routine. Once he'd followed the Viva away from the kerb he glanced in the mirror but couldn't see the school. All that mattered was to keep Melanie and their daughter in sight, though of course not to the exclusion of Tom. The boy seemed as intent on them as Slater was, and his voice sounded no less concerned. "Dad?"

  "Tom."

  "What was Amy saying happened to some girl?"

  "She was spirited away for asking too much." While Slater meant this for an amiable warning, it seemed to have turned more ominous. "I don't really know and Amy doesn't either," he said. "I think it's best forgotten."

  "You said you were going to talk about it tomorrow."

  "I'm sure we'll have better things to do then, aren't you?" More urgently than he understood Slater said "Don't remind her and perhaps she won't remember."

  Tom stared ahead so fiercely that Slater wondered what he thought he saw. There was just the other car beneath the sky that seemed to weigh on the trees, which looked close to sinking into the open spaces that bordered the road. As the Viva led the Astra into St Peter Street the trees closed in, and so did the sky as though its supports had begun to give way. Everything outside the car looked attenuated by the pallor that lingered on the windows, and even when Slater ducked out of the car in the drive the dull glare of the sky seemed to have diminished his vision. "Let's get inside," he muttered, blinking at the family to bring them into focus.

  He couldn't judge how much of a difference the hall light made to the pallor that appeared to have settled into the house. "What are we having for dinner?" Melanie said.

  Slater supposed she was asking for preferences, but Amy said "I'm not very hungry."

  "I'm not," Tom said.

  "Did you have something before the concert? Hasn't it left any room?"

  When they'd finished nodding and the opposite Melanie said "Then you'd better say, Paul."

  "I wouldn't say no to an early night if we don't know how far I'll be driving tomorrow."

  "One of us can." She might have been about to tell him not to leave them so soon, but whatever she saw in his eyes seemed to change her mind. "I shouldn't think you'll need singing to sleep," she said.

  "I never have," Slater told her and was unable to recall ever having sung Tom or Amy to sleep. He didn't think he ever would. A sharp pang of loss that he didn't want to understand, never mind letting his family suspect, made him retreat to the bathroom.

  As he foamed at the mouth or at any rate the teeth he wond
ered what was troubling him. Was there a word he ought to find significant? It wasn't retails nor yet relates, though it might be related to both. Of course, it was his name in the mirror. He couldn't have said why the rearrangement of the name made him feel vulnerable, but he dropped the badge face down beside the sink. The vibration of the toothbrush resounded through his head until the electronic roaming felt indistinguishable from him. Laying down his badge hadn't prevented the image in the mirror from continuing to bemuse him. What exactly did it consist of? What did he? If it was a projection of himself, what else might be? He didn't want to be alone with it or his thoughts, and he barely lingered to grab his tag. The family came to their doors as he made for the bedroom. "We'll be early too," Melanie said.

  "We won't be late," Amy told him.

  Presumably this was a bid at a quip, but it sounded somehow ominous. It hung in the air until Tom pointed at the badge his father had taken off. "Now you aren't a text, dad."

  Slater wasn't sure how to welcome this or even if he did. He left Melanie a hug as he slipped past her into their bedroom. As he took his place in the bed he planted his badge on the table beside it, only to feel as if he was making sure he would be identifiable in the night. Who would need to identify him? He closed his eyes and felt they were shutting out too much of the world. He thought he'd closed them for scarcely a moment, but when he opened them he saw that the window was dark. Surely that meant he could sleep, and he would let himself once Melanie joined him. In fact she was beside him, and the room was dark as well. He slid a hand around her to be gripped hard and closed his eyes to help him concentrate on her presence, but his mind had a question for him. Had he overlooked a name? Which was the one that came first? He ought to solve the problem before he tried to sleep, so as to be ready for Sunday—not the day of the sun, which would be tomorrow. Sunday didn't mean that putting the names in order had anything to do with religion, but it seemed to be his kind of ritual, and wasn't religion an attempt to bring order to the world? Wasn't any belief? Names—his mind felt in danger of being overwhelmed by them, and there might well be a composer before Adams, perhaps someone called Abbot, though surely not Abate. And did Bach lead the Bs? Babbitt sounded possible, but Babel was something else, conceivably the mass of names in his mind. Babel had been the outcome of reaching for heaven, and he hadn't realised how many scraps of religion had lodged in his consciousness. Did he need singing to sleep after all? He mustn't disturb his family, but perhaps he could simply imagine the music. If he could just bring to mind a phrase by each composer in order, that might be better than a lullaby for him.

  He didn't know how long he had been straining to think of a melody of Abbot's by the time he heard the music. At first he thought it was a man's voice—perhaps he was asleep after all, and singing—until he managed to distinguish that there was more than one, so muffled or so distant that he'd taken them for a solitary murmur. It was the ballad again; the children were breathing it, possibly in their sleep. Their voices proved they were still there in the dark, which meant he needn't go to look, let alone imagine that they were using the song to remind themselves of their own existence. Or could he be dreaming the voices? Dreams were disordered memories, after all, that adopted new shapes in the mind. He mustn't let them do that—he didn't even want to think why not—and he redoubled his hold on Melanie's waist in the hope of regaining control of his thoughts. He might have asked if she could hear the children, supposing she was awake, but she wasn't there at all.

  That and his silent struggle to cry out snatched his eyes open. She was standing at the end of the bed, hand in hand with the children. "Back in the land of the living?" she said. "We're ready whenever you are."

  They were indeed dressed for an outing. As he sat up, Slater peered at the window but could see nothing beyond the glass. It took him some time to grasp that the sky had stayed blank. "Still no sun," he mumbled.

  "You said we'd find it," Tom reminded him.

  "We'll go up if we have to, won't we?" Amy said.

  "We may." Slater found he was groping about the bedside table, but he didn't need the time, never mind his name badge. "Anyway, let me get going," he said. "Someone can bring me a coffee if they like."

  "There's nothing in the house, Paul."

  "Nothing," Slater said and tried to sound only jovially incredulous. "Haven't we been to the shops?"

  "I've had other things on my mind just like everybody else." Her desire not to worry the subject was plain as she said "We can look for something on the way if anyone's bothered."

  She and the children moved towards the stairs as Slater made for the bathroom. Once the door was shut, if not sooner than that, he couldn't hear them. He was tempted to call out, but it was enough to know they were close. There was no harm in reminding them that he was, though he couldn't remember the words of the ballad. He set about humming melodies at the top, such as it was. of his voice—the various themes of the Pastoral. He needed to be sure they were in order, though weren't the notes themselves a form of order? What sort did they bring to the world? He was uncertain whether he could hear an echo or a voice if not more than one joining in. None of the sounds could belong to his reflection, however animated by the music it appeared to be, swaying if not dancing to the rhythms and conducting them as well. Of course this meant that he was doing so, even if it felt like mimicking an image of himself. The idea didn't appeal to him, any more than the pallor that had settled on the glass to attenuate his reflection. He left the bathroom as soon as he could, to see the family sitting on the stairs. They looked like three descending stages of a life, not unreminiscent of the photographs above them. "Was anyone singing?" he said.

  "You were," Amy said, and Tom confirmed it with a giggle.

  Melanie came to stand in the bedroom doorway while Slater dressed, and he couldn't decide whether she was playing a guard or a go-between. Perhaps she simply meant for some reason to encourage him to be quick. She sent the children to make a last use of the bathroom, and he had an odd sense that she'd remembered a scrap of their domestic ritual. As she opened the front door he thought at least one of the children murmured "Goodbye house."

  In the street the trees looked worn down by the pallor that seemed to have descended into them, and Slater could have fancied they were forgetting how to bud. The windows of the Viva and the Astra were blank slabs set in the pallid metal. "Who's going to drive?" Melanie said.

  "I expect you two will in time." Having extracted tentative smiles from the children, he told Melanie "Let me and you can take over if we need you to."

  The Astra emitted its puppyish yip and gave them a coquettish blink, a performance that he seemed to recall amusing Tom and Amy once upon a time. They climbed in the back as Melanie sat beside him, and he saw that the windows weren't too frosted after all, however uncertain of its substance the world beyond them looked. "Ready for the big adventure?" he said and when he'd found the children in the mirror "Where do we all want to go?"

  "Where the sun's gone," Tom said.

  "That'll be through the tunnel," Amy told them.

  "She's right, isn't she?" Slater said. "We're best going under the river if we want to catch it up."

  "You're the driver," Melanie said.

  As he swung the car out of the drive he lost sight of the house. By the time they reached the main road he could have thought the street had reverted to a grove; certainly that was how it appeared in the mirror, but he didn't look back. At least today's route wouldn't take him past the graveyard, where he imagined the stones and the trees deep in a secret colloquy like silence rendered solid.

  There was very little traffic. He would have said all the cars they passed were parked if not abandoned, except that the occasional vehicle seemed to acknowledge his attention by moving off. Was there a fog—the frost in a less substantial form? He found it hard to make out houses, all of which appeared to be occupied by the sunless sky. Any faces he might have glimpsed at windows looked oddly nominal, more like images o
n screens, even if they were watching him and the family. As for any shops, it must be too early for them to be open, and their shutters left them so blank that they mightn't have been there at all.

  The road had left all the buildings behind by the time it led down to the tunnel. Beyond the slanting ramp each of a pair of arches stood over two deserted lanes. As soon as Slater drove beneath the left-hand arch the pale ceiling and its apparently sourceless glow closed over the car. He couldn't judge when the weight of the earth above it gave way to the burden of the invisible river, but it felt as though the blank surface that straddled the car was growing more oppressively present while the enclosed road sank lower, pressed down by the roof. The sight of the unrelieved vista that stretched more than a mile to a subterranean bend seemed to have silenced the family and, he could have thought, the car as well. Unable to think of anything he cared to say, he began to hum the reminiscences of the Pastoral. Before long Melanie joined in, and then the children did. Beethoven had never meant the music as a vocal quartet, but there was nobody except the family to hear. Slater didn't know how often they'd rehearsed the themes when they came to the bend, which appeared to lead up to an unrelieved pale blankness. No, there was a line of tollbooths, and he was suddenly afraid he'd come all this way to no avail. "Have we got some money?" he said not unlike a prayer.

  "We couldn't forget that, could we?" Melanie said.