The Grin of the Dark

by Ramsey Campbell

  'Isn't that called vanity publishing?'

  This reminds me so much of Smilemime that for a crazed instant I'm tempted to discover what he has been saying about me since I was in the Pot of Gold. 'No,' I say and take the phone offline. 'It's mismanagement. Bungling. Ineptitude. Incompetence. Cack-handedness. That's what you're suffering from if your hands are full of cack.'

  Bebe emits a small prim gasp, and Warren advises 'I wouldn't say all that to your bank.'

  I wait for the message to finish exhorting me to select keys. At last I'm connected with an agent, or at least with an assurance that the bank values my call even though every one of its operatives is busy elsewhere. This is repeated so often that it's begun to sound like a lullaby, however little it alleviates my tension, when a slightly less automatic voice says 'Tess speaking. May I take your name?'

  'You've already taken a lot more than that.' I don't know if she hears this, but I ensure she hears 'Simon Lester.' I tell her my account number and the sort code and my date of birth and my mother's maiden name and the recipient of a standing order from my current account, but when she asks for the amount I've had enough. 'I couldn't tell you. There's a limit to the stuff I keep in my head. Believe me, if I wasn't who I say I am I wouldn't be this pissed.'

  Bebe tuts and Warren shakes his head as Tess says 'How may I help you, Mr Lister?'

  Does she really say that? It sounded as if there was a gap where the vowel should have been. I hope the connection isn't breaking up, but rather that than my consciousness. 'Lester,' I say with just a fraction of my rage. 'You've paid out an insane chunk of my money to LUP, that's London University Press. Tell me why.'

  I could take the silence for an admission of guilt until she says 'We must have received an instruction.'

  'Not from me. Who from?'

  'From whom,' Bebe murmurs as Tess breaks the silence, fragments of which are embedded in her answer. 'We don't see to ha a re or, Mr L ster.'

  'You're coming apart. You bet there's no record. What are you going to do about it?'

  'It does loo a i there may ha bee an e or. If you cou pu i in iting – '

  'I'll email you, that's fastest. You're damn right there's an error, and you need to deal with it now.'

  'Ple ho on whi I spe to – '

  I assume she's consulting her supervisor. The gap at the end of her sentence is followed by Mozart on a synthesiser, music whose jollity I find inappropriate. It splits into a run of random samples, and I hold the mobile away from my face until Tess interrupts the performance. 'We ca cre it your a ount be or you ut i in wri ing.'

  'I should bloody well think so too.' Instead of this I say 'Thank you for your help. I'll email you tomorrow at the latest.' As I pass the phone to Bebe while the car speeds onto the Hammersmith Flyover I say 'I think this needs recharging. I only just got the message.'

  She avoids touching my fingers as she takes the phone. 'Everything's satisfactory otherwise, is it?'

  'Pretty well. You sound as if you don't think it should be.'

  'You usually get escorted out of airports by security, do you?'

  'He took me through Customs so I wouldn't be delayed any more. I'd drawn some attention because a handler damaged my case, you saw, and then they insisted on going through my things.'

  'We've been waiting for hours because Natalie asked.' Yet more accusingly Bebe enquires 'What was he saying to you?'

  'Just about their procedures. Nothing to do with me.'

  'Maybe you're the biggest innocent we ever met,' says Warren.

  'We thought you might be held up because you'd brought back something you shouldn't,' Bebe says and spies on me in the mirror.

  'Anything special?'

  'Try drugs. We know you were in Amsterdam.'

  'Only because I was taken.'

  'Like I said, the biggest innocent,' says Warren. 'Sounds like you've no control over where you go or what happens when you get there.'

  'I've plenty,' I protest, though for a moment his formulation seems far too accurate. 'Do you honestly think I'm such a fool I'd bring drugs back from Amsterdam?'

  The Hallorans are silent all the way to Hyde Park Corner. They seem preoccupied, and I am by the meagre traces of snow along the route. How could it have been bad enough to close the airports? I'm about to wonder aloud as the Shogun veers up Piccadilly, and then Warren says 'Anything else you're planning on denying?'

  'What else have you got?'

  This time the silence lasts as far as Trafalgar Square, from which pigeons rise like discoloured remnants of snow. I take my question to have concluded the interrogation until Warren says 'How did you get on in Hollywood?'

  'Well, it wasn't quite Hollywood. It – '

  'So we understand,' Bebe says, and the lights along the Strand lend her eyes a piercing gleam.

  'It was a film archive, and very useful too. I've brought back plenty of ideas.'

  'Maybe you should keep them to yourself.'

  I'm attempting to interpret this when Warren says 'And how did you find your director?'

  'Pretty useful.'

  'Pretty,' Bebe repeats.

  'Very, if you like.'

  'This isn't about what we like. Useful how?'

  'As a source of information.'

  'Gee, you must be some writer,' Bebe says. 'You stayed in their house for a week – '

  I find this needlessly disconcerting when my sense of time is at the mercy of jet lag. 'It wasn't a week.'

  'Nearly a week if it's so important to you, and all you did was talk to them.'

  Fleet Street flourishes giant mastheads of newspapers at me, and I feel as if I'm under investigation. Before I can respond to Bebe's comment she says 'What was their name again?'

  'Willie Hart.'

  'Willie as in...'

  'Hart.'

  The luminous dome of St Paul's floats by, and I'm reminded of a circus tent. The car swings fast along Cannon Street as though it's expressing the impatience in Warren's voice. 'She's asking you what it stands for.'

  'More than I'm going to.'

  I hear myself say this, but not aloud. I haven't phrased my answer when Bebe says 'No I'm not, I'm telling him. It's Wilhelmina.'

  'If you knew, why did you ask?' That's far too defensive, and I add 'Forget it. The important thing is I didn't know.'

  'Something must be interfering with your senses,' Warren says. 'Spending too long in front of the screen, maybe.'

  'I mean I didn't till I met her.' I could add that I didn't then, but instead I demand 'When did you?'

  'Before you got there,' Bebe says in some kind of triumph. 'We looked in your favourite place.'

  'The Internet,' says Warren.

  'You must be more at home there than I am. All I could come up with was Willie.'

  I might have phrased that better. The illuminated Tower of London has appeared ahead, and I'm almost exhausted enough to imagine that Warren is driving me to prison, especially given the tone of his question. 'That's what you'll be telling Natalie, is it?'

  'Yes, since it's the truth. Why, what will you be telling her?'

  'We already have,' says Bebe.

  'May I know what exactly?' I ask with several times the confidence I feel.

  'Hey, Simon, what do you think?' Warren retorts. 'There's no way you can be as foolish as you're playing it.'

  'Perhaps you could advise me when you told her at least.'

  'As soon as we found out, of course,' Bebe says.

  So Natalie knew when she emailed me at Limestones. Now I see the reply she was hoping for, and why her response to mine was so guarded. I ignore Bebe's surveillance in the mirror and gaze ahead as we cross the bridge to Southwark. In a minute the Shogun turns left with a screech of charred rubber to the Abbey School.

  Children with electric lanterns on poles are ushering the last cars into parking places in the schoolyard. Two ranks of children with lanterns sing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' to welcome parents into the school. As the car slows I releas
e my seat belt, although the captain hasn't turned off the sign. 'Excuse me if I run ahead to find them,' I say, and as soon as it stops I'm out of the car.

  Snowflakes sparkle in the dark air like speckles in an old copy of a film. The swaying lights distort the shadows of their bearers and send them ranging about the yard. As I hurry between the waits the carol falls silent, leaving a corrupted echo in my head: 'God rest ye merry mental men'. It's an ancient joke and not even a good one. I'm nearly at the door when I see that the child nearest to it on the left is the headmistress. 'Miss Moss,' I say clumsily enough for someone to giggle nearby. 'We met. Simon Lester.'

  She only peers at me, and I have the unbearable idea that the Hallorans will need to vouch for me. As I hear their doors slam I say 'I'm with Natalie Halloran, if you remember.'

  Even this doesn't appear to placate her. Perhaps she disapproves of my flaunting the relationship in front of her innocents. A shiver takes me by the neck and measures my spine, and I use it as an excuse to lurch into the school. If she wants to stop me she'll have to speak, unless she grabs me. She does neither, and I dash after two sets of parents or at any rate two couples to the assembly hall.

  The ranks of folding seats are almost full. A man has planted a small boy on his shoulders so that the toddler can see the stage, which is divided by a partition containing a door. The left half of the stage is bare, while the right has a backdrop of a night sky with a single enormous star. As I search for Natalie I seem to glimpse on the edge of my vision the toddler performing a handstand on the man's shoulders and then a somersault. I haven't time to look, to prove that I could have seen nothing of the kind. I've located Natalie on the third row, where she has reserved just two seats. 'There you are,' she says too neutrally for my liking.

  As I sit next to her, daring anyone to challenge me for the position, children peep around the night sky. She raises a hand, and I'm afraid she means to push me away until she waves. More of Mark in a striped headdress and robe appears beside the sky as he waves back. He catches my eye and gives me a grin that looks like a promise of fun. Is he scratching his wrist? He disappears behind the scenes before I can be sure, and his grandparents arrive at the end of the row. I've just concluded that the best course is to give up my seat for Bebe when a father lifts his small daughter onto his lap, and the Hallorans take the seats beside me. 'We thought we'd been disowned there for a moment,' Bebe says.

  'It's Mark's show,' Natalie whispers. 'Let's be nice.'

  I fear this may imply she won't be afterwards. Any further dialogue is cut off by the arrival of Joseph and an emphatically pregnant Mary onstage, a sight that's greeted by muffled laughter. They pace around the starry section of the stage and keep returning to the door into the other half, which does duty as a series of accommodations represented by placards that other children hold in front of it. Eventually Joseph and Mary find a stable for the night but have to wait outside while children strew it with hay and populate it with cloth animals. These include an elephant and a brace of Teddy bears, favourites sacrificed to the production and eliciting more affectionate mirth from the audience. Four of the tallest children hide the stable with a sheet as Joseph ushers Mary in. A spotlight lends the star brilliance as a number of robed children guarding toy sheep sing 'While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night', before the end of which the sheet has grown wobbly enough to suggest that it's concealing action more vigorous than seems appropriate. Is that another reason I'm uneasy? There are signs of mute conflict among the bearers, quelled only by gestures from a teacher in the wings. He keeps rubbing his scalp as if to complete its baldness, and I wish his agitation weren't visible. Perhaps it's why I'm nervous of seeing Mark.

  Do the wielders of the sheet believe they're portraying Roman soldiers? They march off more or less in step, revealing that Mary has dispensed with her padding. She's supine in the hay and cradling a swaddled baby doll. Joseph stands beside her with a bemused expression that seems both psychologically accurate and dangerously comical. My smothered nervous giggle earns a sharp glance from Bebe, and I'm glad when the shepherds strike up 'Once in Royal David's City'. It soothes my nerves almost to the end of the first line.

  It isn't just that the three Magi have entered in time with the carol, nor that the third of them is Mark. I have the notion that someone sang not 'city' but a similar and entirely unbecoming word. Even if they did, why should I blame Mark? I watch his lips but can't tell whether somebody sings 'pile' for 'child' and, if so, whether he does. Suppose all this is happening, is it any worse than childishness? The teacher in the wings is rubbing his magic cranium no harder than before. Perhaps my impressions are just symptoms of jet lag, but I'm almost relieved when the carol ends and the three robed boys knock at the stable door.

  The one carrying a small chest is the first to deliver his tribute – gold pieces or more likely chocolate coins wrapped in foil. The second boy bows lower as he presents Mary with a blue perfume bottle representing frankincense. She shows it to the doll and hands it to Joseph as Mark steps forward. He's bearing a pottery jar in which Natalie stores pasta. So loudly that I'm not the only person to jump he says 'The third Magus brings you myrrh.'

  Can't he bear the silence? He's the only member of the trio who spoke. The teacher leans out of the wings, massaging his scalp madly. I'm loath to glance at Natalie, never mind her parents, because Mark seemed to relish the last word so much that it resembled a bray. As its echo lingers and lengthens inside my head he takes a last step. Perhaps he only means to bow lowest of all, or does he trip over his robe or slip on the hay? In any event, the jar flies out of his hands.

  Mary and Joseph leap to catch it. Neither wins, and Mary drops her burden. The jar and baby Jesus hit the boards with an impact that sounds somehow dubbed until I realise it's augmented by the slap the teacher deals his cranium. At least the jar doesn't break. Mary scrambles to rescue her baby, but her mouth begins to struggle for a shape as she picks up the doll. The top of the wrappings droops emptily, and as she opens her mouth I know what she's going to ask. 'Where's his head?'

  A woman on the front row jumps up as though she has seen a rodent. She gropes beneath her seat and holds up the errant item. The teacher lurches out of the wings, but Mark is closer and faster. Darting to the edge of the stage, he holds out his cupped hands. Perhaps his confident stance persuades the woman, or perhaps she's won over by his wide grin. Whatever makes her thoughtless, she throws him the baby's head.

  Shocked gasps greet this, but so does uneasy laughter. More of both accompany Mark's spirited attempts to mend the baby, at last uniting the portions with a snap that fills the hall and sounds more like bone than plastic. Mary's reaction doesn't help. In a stage whisper she complains 'It's back to front.'

  'Twist it round, then,' Joseph advises and immediately loses the rest of his patience. Grabbing their first-born, he scrags baby Jesus and thrusts the infant at his mother.

  By now the teacher is reduced to retreating as many paces as he takes from the wings while he clutches his scalp with both hands. 'Can't anybody stop this?' Bebe demands in a voice loud enough for an actress.

  To some extent Miss Moss does. She begins to sing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' as she marches to the front of the hall, gesturing the audience to rise to its feet and join in. None of this is quite enough of a distraction from Mary's struggles to reassemble baby Jesus, whose neck keeps popping out of the socket as if the head is eager to regain its freedom. Throughout this Mark retains rather too blameless an expression, and I can't help recalling the grin he sent me earlier – a version of his Tubby face? His gaze keeps flickering sideways to observe the antics of the mother of God, who abandons her attempts to repair her offspring and wraps up the head along with the decapitated remains, rocking them in her arms as the carol ends. The headmistress has her back to Mary's performance. 'Thank you all for coming,' Miss Moss says. 'Thank you to Mr Steel and all his cast for such a memorable production.'

  She leads the applause as the teacher takes a
quick nervous bow and then flaps his hands to hurry the cast offstage. The adults in the hall chat while they wait for their children to reappear, but Natalie and her parents are silent, and I don't know what it might be safe to say. Some protracted minutes pass before Mark steps forth, cradling Natalie's jar. 'It's okay,' he assures her.

  'Unlike that performance,' Bebe says.

  'Nothing like we came to see,' says Warren.

  Natalie takes the jar. 'Thanks for saving it,' she says.

  Before Mark speaks I know he's going to appeal to me. 'Didn't you like it, Simon? You like laughing.'

  I feel surrounded by unspoken warnings. 'It was an experience for certain.'

  I'm afraid he may find this insufficiently supportive, but he rewards me with a grin that looks reminiscent. 'Wait till you see what I've got you at home,' he says.

  THIRTY-FIVE - TORMENTORS

  As the Shogun halts outside the apartments, Bebe breaks the heavy silence. 'Would you like us to come up with you, Natalie?' 'You head off home. You've done enough.'

  Mark wriggles to face me across his mother. 'Can I show you now?'

  'Maybe you should catch up on your sleep,' says Warren. 'Your mom and Mr Lester have some issues to discuss.'

  'Remember we're as close as your phone,' Bebe assures her daughter. 'Chances are you won't be waking us.'

  As the car swerves away up the alley, icy flakes like seeds of Bebe's gaze settle on my forehead. It occurs to me to read the nameplate of the apartment opposite ours, but when I try to clear it of half-melted snowflakes I rub the name illegible. Mark is racing upstairs while Natalie follows him at half the speed. I use both hands to hold my case above the stairs so as not to chip them, and then I blunder with it into Natalie's bedroom. 'You've come back the worse for wear,' she says.

  'Better handle me gently, then.'

  I'm not sure if she's preparing even the slightest of smiles when Mark calls 'Here it is, Simon.'

  'Go on, get it over with,' Natalie tells him or me or both, and steps well aside to let me out of her room.