The Face That Must Die

by Ramsey Campbell

  He remembered Craig’s stains on his coat. He couldn’t afford a repetition of that. Snatching the overall from its wire shoulders, he buttoned himself up swiftly.

  Her key slithered into the lock. Was she talking to herself? She mustn’t be quite right in the head – but that was true of all these so-called creative people. How many of them were homosexuals? Tchaikowsky had been. Horridge could have done without his music – he would have preferred the world to be clean. His mind was chattering to leave no room for seeds of panic.

  He heard her stride to the table. There was a sound of cloth – maybe she’d put something in her pocket. Leave now, go away, get out! Now she wasn’t moving. Was she staring at the wardrobe? Had she seen the gap between the doors?

  He was paralysed. If he moved she would hear him. Sweat boiled out of him, pricking his skin; the overall clung to him. It was too small, and oppressed him with his own feverish heat. His hand clenched on the slim metal body.

  She was leaving, thank God. He heard the dragging of the case and the slam of the door. The bird drooped from his unclenching hand. Why couldn’t he hear her on the stairs? He was ready to risk movement, since he felt the threat of cramp, when he heard her steps – still in the flat.

  Did she know he was there? His limbs twitched, tugged by pangs of cramp. Sweat glued his clothes and the overall to him. He felt unclean, as though she’d made him soil himself. Hatred grew in him.

  Her slow tread paced around the room. He was becoming convinced that she knew he was there – that she was playing a game, just as Craig must have played with his helpless victims. He heard her opening doors. Sweat pierced him like shards of ice.

  She was approaching the wardrobe. He was trapped. The doors opened. They admitted only meagre light, which framed her silhouette. Despite the twinging of his limbs, he stood absolutely still. Perhaps she wouldn’t see him.

  His bad leg betrayed him. Cramp jerked it awry. He stumbled a little; hangers jangled. The silhouette came peering towards him out of the purple twilight, its halo of red hair darkly smouldering. “Come out,” the painter’s voice snapped like a domineering teacher’s.

  Cramp and self-disgust and panic convulsed his arm. The bird flew up and leapt at her. He heard and felt the beak go into her, but the silhouette showed nothing.

  He watched the silhouette sink to its knees. He had to strike again at the top of its head before it would fall out of his way. At least its voice was silent; perhaps it had been too surprised to cry out.

  He stepped hastily over her. In the purple twilight her face looked unreal. That made even the leaking of her head bearable; it was easy to imagine that dye from her hair was staining her face.

  The dye might seep through to the floorboards. It would help if she weren’t found for a while, to give him time to plan. Everyone would assume she was on holiday. He grabbed her beneath the arms to heave her into the wardrobe.

  It was as though she were making herself heavy. He could scarcely move her; her grossness disgusted him. Her head lolled back, staining his overall. Once, when he tried to shift his grip, one of her breasts flopped into his hand. He recoiled shuddering, and with an effort fuelled by panic flung her into the wardrobe.

  Then he realised that he had felt a pulse in her breast.

  He picked up the metal bird, and closed his eyes. It had to be done. In any case, she was corrupt: she believed that everyone, including him, was homosexual. God only knew what she and Craig had done together.

  He opened his eyes minutely, to see exactly where her head was. Then he struck until his arm was tired. He could tell he’d done enough, by a change in the quality of the blows. That dismayed him, but it was easy not to think about it. He threw the metal bird into the wardrobe without looking.

  Beneath the scattered stained newspapers the floor was clean. He bundled the papers together with the overall and hurled the bundle into the wardrobe. The snap of the doors sounded final, satisfying.

  He patrolled carefully. The knives. The spoons. The taps. The kitchen door and handle. Couldn’t he take his time now, to be thoroughly convinced that he’d missed nothing? But the wardrobe disturbed him indefinably. It looked exactly like an ordinary wardrobe. You couldn’t trust appearances.

  At least he’d left no prints in there; the metal bird must be too rough to take them. He wiped the other places that he’d listed, and shied the tea-towel into the kitchen. On the landing, he scrubbed the doorknob with his handkerchief.

  Aigburth Drive was deserted. Nobody was spying from behind the trees. Horridge strolled down to the lake and enjoyed the still reflections. He’d intended them to calm him; but once he had left the wardrobe behind he had grown quickly peaceful, without external help. He felt relieved that he had done all he needed to do. He felt invulnerable.

  When he emerged from the park, the house no longer looked unnaturally alive. Whatever had possessed it had been exorcised. It was quiet now, just another aging house. Still there was no sign of watchers. The police had missed their last chance to capture him. He strolled away delighted, hardly limping.

  ***

  Chapter XIX

  A van large as a room stood outside the house. Men were furnishing the van from Mr Harty’s flat. “Are you going tonight?” Cathy asked him. Her own plaintiveness dismayed her.

  “ Yes, I am.”

  Peter dropped the shopping bag about which he’d been complaining mutely all the way from Lodge Lane. “You’ve found somewhere better then, have you?”

  “ I’m afraid that anywhere else would be better now, so far as I’m concerned. But yes, I’m going to a pleasant flat. I should think about a move yourselves if I were you.”

  “ Sometime,” Peter muttered, stooping reluctantly to the bag.

  The van was growling, eager for its run. “Goodbye, Mrs Gardner, Mr Gardner,” Mr Harty said.

  Echoes seemed to be invading the stairs. It was as though a plague of desertion were spreading through the house. At least Fanny wasn’t gone forever. Halfway up the stairs, intuition too vague to define halted Cathy. Had Fanny returned? There was nothing to hear, and she couldn’t knock while Peter was watching: that would need too much explanation.

  As she unpacked the shopping she said “I want to see Frank and Angie.”

  “ When?” He tried not to hear by making plastic crackle.

  “ Tonight.”

  “ Oh come on. Jesus Christ, we only saw them on New Year’s Eve.”

  “ I thought you quite liked them.”

  “ What? I can stand them sometimes, when I have to. They’d be all right if they were younger, maybe. I mean, we might just as well go to your mother’s.”

  Her mother had rung her today, in case she needed reassurance. Cathy would have liked to visit her, but her concern would only annoy Peter. Besides, she didn’t think much of him at the best of times; neither she nor Cathy’s father nor Lewis had liked him – he resembled none of them. Was that why Cathy had married him?

  “ I’m not going to argue,” she said. “I want to go. I want to talk.”

  Irritability roughened his voice; he must have a cannabis hangover. “So talk to me, for Christ’s sake.”

  How? Their private language had died, and very little had replaced it. “I rang Angie this afternoon,” she said. “They’re expecting us.”

  He gobbled his dinner without comment. When she washed up he wiped a few plates and smoked a joint. Before he could roll another she said “I want to go now.”

  She drove the van past Penny Lane. Boys stood eating out of newspapers. Beside her, Peter swayed like a bag of shopping. It was a good job that he couldn’t drive. On Allerton Road couples were window-shopping; a young man staggered out of a wine store, bearing a carton of bottles of spirits to his sports car. Shops or petitions barred pubs from the area.

  Queens Drive was an avenue of trees and sodium lamp-standards. The Halliwells’ Cortina occupied their driveway. Each semi-detached house was guarded by a large car.

  The do
orbell chimed a half-hour. Soon Angie appeared in a long dress entwined with cotton vines. The hall walls were crowded: a nostalgic pub mirror, Frank in an old school photograph, the Desiderata: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence…”

  Angie finished massaging Frank’s neck. “I didn’t know you had massage parlours round here,” Peter said. He stood frowning at Angie’s Royal Family portrait album, at the very fat new leather suite. When he sat down, his chair was audibly rude to him.

  Frank opened the flap of the bar counter: homemade, of glossy pine. “Cathy, what would you like to drink?”

  “ A huge gin and tonic.”

  “ Peter?”

  “ What, a little drinkie?” His tone stopped just short of mocking. “Beer’s all right,” he said.

  “ I know what you want,” Frank told his wife, pouring tequila. “Et pour moi – le vin!” he announced gravely.

  Unbuttoning his waistcoat, he sank into his chair, which humphed. “I hear you’re thinking of buying a house,” he said to Peter.

  “ You hear wrong.”

  “ That isn’t what I said, Frank. He knows what computers are talking about but doesn’t understand me,” Angie complained.

  “ Sorry, sorry. Still, it’s worth thinking about,” Frank said. “Apart from all the other advantages, property is an investment.”

  “ Don’t give me that stuff, brother. I’ve had one capitalist at me today already.”

  Cathy shifted uneasily; her chair made sure that everyone noticed. “How about you?” Frank asked her. “How do you feel?”

  “ I’d like to move soon. I want a house before we have children.”

  “ Mm.” His eyes flickered: he didn’t want Angie reminded of their barrenness. “That looked a promising house we passed the other night,” he said to Angie. “In that road.”

  “ Which road?”

  “ Er – oh, you know.”

  “ I don’t.”

  “ Of course you do. You know.”

  “ Which one?”

  “ You know.” He was almost squeaking – he sounded like a man determined to overcome a language barrier by shouting, anything to steer them away from the subject of children.

  “ Husbands.” Angie’s grimace was gentle. Had she known what he was doing? She was glancing about at her collection of elaborately ethnic dolls, most of which he’d bought. One, which was shaped like a fat skittle, unscrewed to yield up a smaller which unscrewed too, until a whole family emerged.

  Peter looked bored, excluded. “When are you finishing work?” Angie asked him.

  “ Tomorrow.”

  “ Eighteen more months as a student, isn’t it? Will you be glad when it’s over?”

  “ I don’t know. It isn’t a bad life.”

  “ Living off us poor overtaxed workers, you mean?”

  She smiled to show that was a joke, but his voice was low as a dog’s warning as he said “I thought all the workers were on the factory floor. That’s who I’d call workers.”

  “ That doesn’t say much for your library work then, does it?”

  “ Right.”

  Angie frowned, then shrugged. “You’ll manage while he isn’t working, will you?”

  “ I expect so. We’ve been all right so far. Touch wood,” Cathy added, touching Peter’s head.

  He recoiled; his dislike shocked through her like electricity. She hadn’t meant anything. “Come and see what I’m making for supper,” Angie said.

  In the kitchen she said “What’s wrong, Cathy?”

  “ Oh, Angie, I want a house. I don’t like the flat any more.” She felt close to weeping. “I try to save for the deposit. But if we move to another flat I may not be able to save.”

  “ Maybe you could look for just a small house. You’ve got to start somewhere. They might give you a mortgage even if Peter’s not working. They can’t all be male chauvinists.” She gazed at Cathy.

  “ What’s really wrong?”

  “ I wish I knew. Peter and I seem to be getting on each other’s nerves so much.”

  “ You’re bound to be nervous after what happened, even now they’ve caught him.”

  “ That’s what I try to tell myself. But it’s so horrible.” She was weeping. “I keep thinking of my parents. They got so they couldn’t bear to be in the same room together.”

  Angie hugged her, trying to contain and calm her trembling. “These things happen. Listen, I’m going to tell you something. When we found we couldn’t have children we couldn’t stand each other for a while. Do you know what it was? We couldn’t bear secretly blaming each other. Eventually we had to talk it out, and that brought us closer than we were before. But believe me, Cathy, for a while we felt like separating.”

  Perhaps she and Peter were just going through a phase. A child might mature Peter, make him aware of his responsibilities. Maybe she ought to find a small house and take him to see it. “Thanks, Angie,” she said and kissed her. “I needed cheering up.”

  Down the hall the television announced the news. “He’d have the box on all night if I didn’t stop him,” Angie said.

  “ I hope you switch off before the National Anthem. Otherwise you get bad luck.”

  “ Watch it. You’ll end up as bad as Trotsky in there. Let’s go and interrupt them before there’s a war.”

  They hurried in the pub mirror, ready for another drink. “ – in a police raid on a London house,” the announcer said.

  “ Bastards,” Peter muttered.

  Frank glanced quizzically at him. “I take it you aren’t fond of the police?”

  “ What do you think? It shows up what you were saying, doesn’t it? You tell me what use it is to own property when the fuzz can break in.”

  “ But they won’t, unless you break the law.”

  Peter’s eyes grew thin. “You’re in favour of drug raids as well, are you?”

  “ Will you get us another drink?” Angie said to separate them.

  “ The law must be upheld. I’d rather have a visit from the police than have my house invaded by a mob of anarchists.”

  Peter stared as though Frank were possessed. “You know what you are? You’re a fuckingfascist.” It sounded like a single word.

  “ Well, if you feel that way – ”

  “ Don’t worry.” Had he meant to achieve this from the start? “We’re going,” he said, rising quickly. “Or at least I am.”

  Let him walk home: serve him right – but Cathy remembered what Angie had told her. Perhaps she and Peter could talk out all that was wrong. “I’m sorry,” she told Frank, who refused to look at anyone.

  “ Maybe Angie will be able to explain. I’ll phone you,” she promised Angie.

  Before she reached Penny Lane she had to halt the van; her hands were shaking. Slabs of light lay beneath shop windows. Empty shoes bunched in a window, like fruit. The deserted pavements looked bleak. Everyone was at home or out enjoying themselves.

  “ If he didn’t want an argument why did he give me that shit? I bet he thought I’d have to be all middle-class and polite. No chance, brother.”

  Once her hands were controllable she ground her heel into the accelerator and drove home. As she opened the porch door, a man with a lopsided face whom she had never seen before emerged. The house would be overrun with strangers now. Nothing could have changed its atmosphere more jarringly. Oh, when could they move? Peter strode into the hall without switching on the light. As though to escape the threatened discussion, he climbed into the resounding dark.

  ***

  Chapter XX

  “ Here’s the man,” a woman said. “You’ve had it now.”

  But Peter was only replacing a book on the shelves. He resented being made into an ogre. It was the woman’s job to control her child, not his.

  He dawdled to the counter. His colleagues were serving a queue; the counter resembled a conveyor belt piled with books. The staff fished book cards from metal trays, hoping the correct r
eader’s ticket would be attached. “What is your name, please?”

  “ Open your books while you’re waiting, please.”

  “ And your name is?”

  “ Your name? Your name?”

  It was all a con. They made their job so important – perhaps they needed to convince themselves. Put people behind a counter or in a uniform and they’d enjoy their power. The more insignificant the job, the more rigidly they exerted their power. “Please don’t turn down the corners of pages. We haven’t much money to spend on books, you know.” The old lady trudged away, looking bewildered, humiliated, resentful.

  The temptation of petty power affected Peter too. One reader always cleared his throat before his name: “Huh – Barnes.” It sounded hyphenated. “Pardon?” Peter would say, to make him omit the cough – but he never had. Nor could he meet your gaze while saying his name. Afterwards Peter had detested his own trivial sadism.

  A massive woman with a face like a boxer’s advanced on him. “Can I have that book?” She jabbed a finger thick as his thumb at the trolley in the staff area.

  “ We’ll be putting the books on the shelves in a minute.” His position behind the counter allowed him to fear nobody.

  It was all false. The job let him play a role, avoid himself. Wasn’t that true of all jobs? The minute hand snipped away the time to five o’clock. Soon he would be free. Cathy had suggested he work in the libraries. The only good thing had been meeting Anne and Sue, and smoking with them in the staffroom.

  An old lady struggled up to him, trying to manage a pile of books and a poodle like a woolly toy with eyes bright yet inexpressive as the stones in its collar. “Do you like my little doggie? You can stroke him. He won’t bite.”

  God forbid. He grabbed the books as they spilled. Nurse Nightingale’s Last Doctor. Operation – In Search of Love. Two Against the world. “That’s a lovely book. I expect it wouldn’t be your style, though.”

  Why did she bother saying so? Why must she be so oppressively nice ? “Thank you so much,” she said when at last he extracted her tickets. “Say goodbye to the nice man, Hercules,” she said, waving its paw. Peter felt as though he’d been forced to swallow a mixture of sugar, saccharin and molasses. He was full of loathing.