The Grin of the Dark

by Ramsey Campbell

  'It's just the clouds, Tim,' his mother assures him.

  'We're up above them now,' says the man beside her. 'See, we've got wings again.'

  'I thought you didn't speak English.'

  Though I only mutter this, my neighbour retorts 'Who says? No fools in this family.'

  Her voice is alarmingly low and hoarse. It must be a symptom of her cold, but I could imagine she's a fat man in a flowered dress, even when the man in front calls 'What's up, grandmother?'

  'Feller here making out we're immigrants.'

  'He wants to be careful.'

  'Must be one himself if he can't tell where we're from,' says the mother.

  'You don't know what they do to their brains when they're abroad,' the grandmother remarks.

  I feel as if I'm trapped in a witless comedy routine that makes the cabin feel cramped and airless. I glance at her neighbour, but he's facing the window as fully as he can. 'I didn't mean you were foreigners,' I tell the troupe.

  'Then you want to say what you mean,' the father advises.

  'I was going to say, while we're talking – '

  'We aren't,' says the mother.

  If the oldster contradicts her, it's only by asking me 'You're not from our country, are you? Don't sound like it.'

  'Of course I am,' I protest and am suddenly aware that I've no idea how my voice sounds to anyone else – perhaps nothing like the one I hear inside my head. 'Is Lester English enough for you?'

  'That's never a Leicester accent.'

  'Lester. My name. Ell ee ess tee ee ar. Simon Lester.'

  I must have spoken louder than I thought, because a steward with a drinks trolley stares at me. 'Don't let it bother you,' the father says.

  'You watch that instead,' says the mother. 'It'll take your mind off.'

  I sit forward to see that the boy is intent on a miniature screen. He's holding a mobile phone, but what is it showing? I have to release my seat belt and crane over his seat to distinguish the monochrome image. My guess is that it's a muted pop video, intercutting riot footage with glimpses of a vintage comedy, so brief that they border on the subliminal. Then the steward leaves his trolley and marches at me, his hat waving like a limp windsock. 'Can you fasten your seat belt, sir,' he exhorts. 'The captain hasn't switched the sign off.'

  I sit and grope for the metal tongue of the belt. Somehow it has strayed beneath my neighbour's spongy thigh. When I tug it free, the woman unleashes a squeal that turns into a convulsive sneeze. 'What's he doing to you, mother?' her daughter cries.

  'I'm just doing as I'm told,' I protest.

  As the steward frowns at me while maintaining his smile, Tim's father says 'He's been talking like we're refugees, like we've got no business here.'

  'And he keeps going on about Leicester,' the grandmother complains. 'Seems to forget it's full of immigrants. Wouldn't surprise me if he was one, the way he talks.'

  I've had extravagantly more than enough. 'Speaking of the captain, didn't he say mobiles had to be switched off?'

  'He's only watching,' the boy's mother objects.

  'He's on the Internet if I'm not mistaken.'

  The steward peers at the mobile with rather less enthusiasm than he showed for reproving me. 'You need to keep that off on the plane, son.'

  The boy jerks his entire body to signify his displeasure, almost thumping me in the face with the back of the seat as he pokes a button before folding the phone in half. He's quiet for a very few seconds, and then he says 'Isn't it going too slow to stay up?'

  'Now look what you've done,' his grandmother accuses me.

  Tim's father twists around. 'What's he up to now, mother?'

  'Nothing. Not another thing. I'm not even here,' I say and shut my eyes tight.

  I'm determined not to open them or move in any other way until we're on the ground. I only have to hold my mind alert so that I don't dream of being elsewhere. I wish I hadn't added my last remark. When the drinks trolley arrives beside me I'm tempted to accept a coffee, but I suspect the nurse may have drugged it. I try to remain absolutely still as he hands brimming plastic cups across me to my fellow patients in S Ward, because I'm afraid of being scalded if anyone distracts him or unbalances him. The cups pass so close I can feel the heat on my eyeballs. By the time he moves on I know perfectly well that I'm not an inmate or surrounded by them, but I'm much less certain that my neighbour is a woman. Isn't the way Tim's parents address her one attempt too many to convince me? If I looked closely, might I see that the person whose puffy arm is pressed against mine is wearing a wig? I have to clench my fists so as not to grab the mop of grey hair and attempt to remove it. I'm nervously grateful when the captain announces that we've begun our descent to Heathrow until the boy in charge of my cell declares 'They've gone again. We won't stay up.'

  The wings are indeed flickering in and out of existence like an imperfect transmission on the screens of the windows. Of course clouds keep engulfing them, but each time they reappear they look almost imperceptibly fatter. Is ice gathering on them? I dread hearing an emergency announced – I can visualise the chaos in which the family would involve me – and I grow yet more apprehensive as I see lights sailing up towards the wings. I wanted to be home for Mark's school play, but suppose they've reopened the airport prematurely? Suppose the plane skids out of control? I close my eyes as the lights surge upward and the cabin shudders with a thud. The plane slows so abruptly that I'm certain it will flip upside down – I don't need the boy's wail to tell me. Then the violent roar of the engine subsides, and the captain has to appeal to the passengers to resume their seats while the plane crawls towards the terminal.

  As it halts at last, nearly everyone competes to be the winner at standing up. Rather than wait for minutes on my feet I remain seated, though I'm at least as anxious to be inside the terminal. Mark's play isn't for hours, but I need to phone my bank. When a steward wrestles the door open I struggle to my feet. Well after she notices my efforts the mother says 'Let him out, Tim.'

  The boy raises the seat a very few inches. 'That should have been upright on our way down,' I realise too late. I grab the seat and lever myself up, only for it to give way and dump me where I came from. 'Do it properly,' the woman says, and I have the infuriating notion that she's talking to me. The boy jerks the seat erect with a violence that might be expressing my rage, and I'm sidling to join the sluggish parade to the exit when my arm is seized in a soft but tenacious grip. 'Lend us a hand, son,' the grandmother growls.

  Apparently she wants help in standing up. Her other neighbour is so intent on the window that he might almost be a bulky dummy. I suffer her to cling to my arm as she labours to rise, but it isn't enough. Her grin stretches wide with her exertions, and a trickle that looks thick enough for glue runs down her forehead. I contort myself in the trap between the seats and take hold of her free arm. I'm afraid to grasp it too firmly, because my fingers seem to sink deeper than I like. Nevertheless I lift her in order to make my escape, and her face wobbles up towards mine, grinning wider still. I lurch into the aisle and let go of her arm. It's too easy to imagine that the rubbery flesh is about to pop like the sagging balloon it resembles.

  Has the boy been tearing up his copy of the in-flight magazine because he couldn't use his mobile? As I shuffle to the exit I glimpse words on the yellowed scraps of paper at his feet: crown, come, hack, judge, guilty, riot... I mumble thanks to the festively bedecked staff and am rewarded with grins surely more identical than they need be. I tramp up the passage to the immigration desks, where I'm surprised to find the four are overtaking me in an adjacent queue; I would have expected the grandmother to slow them down. 'English,' I can't help calling to them as I exhibit my passport. 'English.'

  They look as unimpressed as the immigration officer, who spends so long in comparing me with my photograph that I'm about to declare that we're the same person when he hands my passport back. I sprint along sections of crawling walkway to the baggage hall and stake out the end of the carou
sel. The conveyor belt waits for the last passenger before it twitches and creeps forward. The first suitcase isn't mine, nor are its motley followers, each of which brushes or shakes dangling strips of plastic like a clown's version of hair out of its boxy face. There's a pause while an unclaimed shapeless package lumbers offstage, and then the next procession is led out by my suitcase. As it blunders abreast of me I lug it off the belt and pull up the expanding handle to wheel it away. Or rather, I attempt to, but the handle has been snapped off.

  'Well, thank you,' I say loudly. 'That's really useful. Thanks so much.' I raise my voice further as I notice the family watching me from across the carousel. Is the amused fat man with them? Was he the skulker by the window on the plane? 'Some fool behind the scenes buggered up my luggage,' I inform anyone who ought to hear.

  I'm not inviting a response. It comes as more than a surprise when a head pokes through the plastic strips, especially since it isn't human. Before I can react the large grey dog sails along the belt, trailing its leash, and rears up to plant its considerable weight on my chest. 'Good boy. Good dog,' I try saying as I topple backwards.

  I sprawl on my back with the animal on top of me. 'Down, Fido. Off now, Rover,' I command with all the authority I can summon, but the dog is busy snuffling at my clothes. The family of five all grin at me as they wheel away their luggage; Tim looks positively triumphant. As I struggle to flounder from beneath the dog a uniformed man recaptures its leash while his colleague not so much helps as hauls me to my feet. 'You'll have to come with us, sir,' he says and tightens his grip on my arm.

  THIRTY-THREE - SOLEMN TRIO

  Might they have let me go if I hadn't tried to insist on making a phone call? They kept saying they weren't the police, to which I could only retort that they shouldn't act as if they were. Once I'd had enough of that routine I was reduced to peering at my watch until the mime attracted the attention of one of the uniformed men. At least, I thought it did, although he homed in on my other wrist. 'Show me that, please, sir.'

  No doubt I shouldn't have attempted to joke. 'Haven't you seen enough of me?' I said, since they'd taken my clothes as well as the suitcase.

  He frowned at the remark and then at my wrist. His even bulkier colleague joined in as a preamble to asking 'What's your explanation for this, sir?'

  'I hurt it on the handle of my case before some bloody fool broke it. Maybe it's infected. I'd better see a doctor.'

  'That isn't an infection, sir. We've seen things like it before.'

  The reddened remnants of a circle with a gleeful face inside it did indeed resemble something else – a brand? I was about to ask what they thought it recalled when the lesser but more sharply voiced man said 'Is that your explanation, sir?'

  'If you mean the clown, all right, I know you do, I got it here.'

  Both men seemed to grow instantly heavier, and so did the larger one's voice. 'Here.'

  'Not here as in here here. Up the road. In London.'

  'Where exactly, sir?'

  Perhaps my jet lag was doing some of the talking. 'They called it St Pancreas,' I said.

  The men's frowns stiffened almost imperceptibly, and the lesser hulk glanced at the sheet he'd filled in. 'Are you sure you've given us your correct address, sir?'

  'Of course I'm sure,' I declared, not far short of an undefined panic until I grasped the point. 'Yes, I live near there. I know it isn't really called that. It may have been a joke. Not mine.'

  'Perhaps you can tell us whose,' the man with the document said.

  'At a fair. A memorabilia fair, that's to say. What's supposed to be sinister about it? It's just a stamp everyone got when they went in. It must have got under my skin, that's all.'

  'We've seen something very similar on drugs.'

  For an insane second I was tempted to enquire which drugs the two of them were on. 'You can see clown faces all over the show. I don't mean you,' I probably shouldn't have added, and then there seemed to be nothing more to say.

  Despite the hardness of the chair, I must have nodded off. No doubt that increased my resemblance to a drug fiend. I flee the company of Tubby's face, which shines as white as his teeth, to find myself once again in a windowless boxy place. Beyond it amplified voices continue to announce delays, though not mine. I feel as if I'm imprisoned behind the scenes. There are three unformed men in the room now – no, uniformed – and I have to blink hard to establish that they don't have Tubby's face. The third is the officer who took away my belongings, and he's murmuring to his colleague who wrote my details down. 'Just traces of activity on the clothing. No evidence of importation.'

  His associate notices I'm awake. His expression grows officially neutral as he turns to say 'You can leave whenever you're ready.'

  'I've been that for hours.'

  The three men stare at me but don't otherwise respond. The one with the document adds some lines to it while I dress. I've grabbed my suitcase and am lugging it towards the door when he says 'You'll need to sign this.'

  The sheet states I was detained on suspicion of possessing a controlled substance, but it's the last phrase that makes my eyes feel even rawer with fury than with jet lag: 'insufficient reason for action'. By Christ there wasn't, and only my unwillingness to linger prevents me from saying as much if not more. I take hold of the ballpoint, though the weight of the suitcase has left my fingers clumsy, and scrawl my name. Before I can retrieve the case the man responsible for the document says 'May I see your passport again, sir?'

  'Good God, what's the problem now?' While it seems advisable to hand over the passport without uttering the question, I barely succeed. His colleagues gather round to help him gaze at it and at the incident report. Eventually the bulkiest man says 'These aren't the same signature.'

  'You try signing after you've had to drag a heavy case about after some bloody useless incompetent buggered it up,' I snarl and grab the ballpoint, which my crippled fingers almost fling at him. I rest my other hand on top of them in case this steadies them while I cross out my signature and rewrite it at half the speed. 'There, that's the real thing,' I say with only some of my anger. 'Anyway, that's my picture, isn't it? You can see it's me.'

  The three of them scrutinise the photograph until I have the deranged notion that they're preparing to deny that too. After a pause long enough for yet another delay to be announced, the keeper of the documents hands my passport back. 'Please follow me, sir.'

  'Where? For Christ's sake, what's the nonsense now?'

  The three adopt pained frowns that look unsettlingly identical. 'I'll walk you through Customs so you aren't held up any further,' he says.

  'I'm sorry.' Mortifyingly, I am.

  As I follow him out of the interrogation room and through the green exit at Customs I struggle to steer the case ahead of me, almost catching his heels more than once. Beyond a barrier in the arrivals hall, people brandish placards with the names of passengers. I glance along the line, but of course I can't see my name. Above them a clock magnifies my realisation that Mark's play starts in less than an hour, and I turn my frustration on my escort. 'Did it really have to take that long when I'd done absolutely nothing at all?'

  'I wouldn't quite say that, sir.'

  'I'd done nothing illegal. Nothing that's against the law where I was, at any rate.'

  'Behaviour we'd call paedophilia is tolerated in some countries. That doesn't mean you can avoid prosecution when you return to ours. Now if you'll excuse me...'

  I will. I wish I had sooner. Bystanders are staring at me over the barrier as if they've overheard the comments I would least have liked anyone to hear. I'm trundling the case ahead of me – I feel capable of using it to ram anyone who looks at me wrong – when I see that my humiliation hasn't been observed just by strangers. Pacing me behind the silent chorus line, their faces set for a confrontation, are Warren and Bebe Halloran.

  THIRTY-FOUR - NO ROOM

  As the Shogun leaves the car park I begin to think the Hallorans have taken a vow of
silence until Warren thanks the attendant for his change. The word is enough to release some of mine. 'Would somebody have a phone I could borrow?'

  Bebe turns with a slowness that I could take for reluctance to look at me. 'We thought you were meant to be sufficient now.'

  'I've left mine at home.'

  'Home.'

  'Natalie's.'

  I can see that her response is going to be pointed, but I don't expect 'Let me guess. You need to call a lawyer.'

  'No, the bank.'

  'I won't ask why,' Bebe says, but might as well. 'Don't tell us you're in money trouble.'

  'Not for any longer than it takes me to talk to them.'

  'What are you figuring on fixing?' says Warren.

  'Some fool has put me in the red.'

  'Maybe you want to check your account before you throw a fit,' he says and hands Bebe his mobile, presumably to pass to me. 'If it's online it's on here.'

  I have to thrust my hand between the front seats before she yields up the phone. By now the Shogun is racing past Heathrow. Its speed is subtracted from a take-off, so that the airliner appears to hang motionless in the black air as if a film has been paused while I wait for the Internet to load. The vehicle feels cramped and dark with hostility, and chilled as much by it as by the night, in which the edges of the pavements are fat with cleared snow. We've reached the motorway stretch of the Great West Road by the time I type my identification. My tiny portfolio page appears, and I bring up the details of the deposit account. I peer at the shrunken transactions in one kind of disbelief and then another. 'Idiots,' I hiss.

  'Gee, there seem to be a lot of those around,' Bebe says. 'Which ones now?'

  'The bank. They've gone and paid my publisher twice as much as the publisher paid me.'