Some time later, he returned to The Savoy and approached the concierge’s desk, where he engaged him in conversation about his liaison with the woman. “She was staying in Room 941,” he said. “We met for tea. It was a Tuesday – I distinctly remember that, and the date must have been late in January, perhaps the last day of the month.”
“Sir, no such rendezvous can have taken place in this hotel,” said the concierge.
Tooprig was infuriated by such impertinence. “Dash it all, man, are you calling me a liar?”
“Not at all, sir, but no such liaison can have taken place in that room, as there is no Room 941 in The Savoy Hotel.”
Tooprig turned from the counter, quite sure that he had not misremembered the room number. He decided to try a different approach and bribed a bellboy who claimed to remember such a woman from Tooprig’s description. Although the boy didn’t recall the woman’s name, Tooprig asked where she had gone after she had checked out. He slowly spelled out a word he had memorized from the label on her cabin trunks: K-A-I-R-O.
Stan Tooprig had spoken to me often of returning to London, but he never did. He spent his final days in the coffeehouse in Khan el-Khalili, and a man more out-of-sorts with himself you couldn’t hope to meet. It was soon after recounting his tale that he died. He was buried here in Cairo at the Beb el-Wezir cemetery with a view of the Citadel and the Mohammed Ali Mosque, beyond.
In everything there is an element of the mysterious, and yet we know the world can only be this way. For, as the biologist J.B.S. Haldane observed, “The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” It is with a heavy heart that I acknowledge the mystery of Shem-el-Nessim might never be solved. Whether that woman existed only in the mind of Stan Tooprig has never been entirely relevant to me since, once imagined, she existed for him as did everything else in his world.
I am old now. I have memories, and that is all I have. They are like the loose leaves of a book that has lost its binding, the pages are in the wrong order, are torn and discoloured. Each year, on the anniversary of Tooprig’s death, his haunted, bony face comes back to me, and each year I doubt the veracity of his story more – he had woven a tale as one might a ghost story, seemingly omitting anything that did not assist his narrative.
But recently I have reproached myself for questioning Tooprig’s honesty. In recording the foregoing events, I was forced to refer to some back issues of the Cairo Gazette. And so, one evening, I found myself in the reading rooms of the Al-Azhar University library in the shadow of the Fatima az-Zahraa mosque. In an issue from the spring of 1926, I turned the page from an account of the Palestinian labour camps to a full-page advertisement for the company J. Grossmith & Son. It featured a drawing of a turbaned woman on a night-time camel ride in front of the Great Pyramids. She had some of the allure of Louise Brooks. Two oversized bottles of Shem-el-Nessim hung like water vessels from either side of her camel as she smiled gaily at me from the newsprint. The advertising copy read:
SHEM-EL-NESSIM, SCENT OF ARABY AN INSPIRATION IN PERFUME
While gazing at the woman’s face I was struck by an intense fragrance; something oriental laced with spice and perhaps a suggestion of sandalwood. It filled my nostrils, lungs and my imagination, and I almost swooned. I tried to ascertain its source but, apart from me, the room was unoccupied and quite still, save for an odd shadow that paused fleetingly against the open door and a curtain that billowed over a window left ajar.
The Shem-el-Nessim woman may have been an inspiration to Monsieur Duat and the parfumiers of Grossmith & Son, but her “scent of Araby” was tainted by the miasma of early death. I myself fell ill soon after that visit to the library. My vitality has been sapped and I doubt I shall live to see my seventieth birthday. She, though, will never grow old and I fear the lifelong curse of her fragrance, which seduced me like a memory of London long ago, will be on the air long after we are all gone.
MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH
What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night
MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH IS a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published seventy short stories and three novels – Only Forward, Spares and One of Us – winning the Philip K. Dick, International Horror Guild, August Derleth and British Fantasy Awards, as well as the Prix Morane.
Writing as “Michael Marshall”, he has published five internationally best-selling thrillers, including The Straw Men, The Intruders and Bad Things, while 2009 saw the publication of the supernatural novel The Servants under the name “M.M. Smith”. His most recent Michael Marshall novel, The Breakers, is forthcoming.
“‘What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night’ was one of those stories which come along once in a while,” reveals Smith, “the kind that drops straight into your head, fully-formed, as if fulfilling a forgotten order you made from the great Ideas shop in the sky.
“The only problem was that, once this one had dropped on my mental doormat, I didn’t want it. It wasn’t an idea I liked. It was clearly some part of my brain serving up a notion simply because it could, and because it knew it could frighten me with it.
“It did frighten me, and so I did what I always do when that happens – which is write it down, in the hope it will go away.”
THE FIRST THING I WAS unhappy about was the dark. I do not like the dark very much. It is not the worst thing in the world, but it is also not the best thing in the world, either. When I was very small I used to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and be scared when I woke up, because it was so dark. I went to bed with my light on, the light that turns round and round, on the drawers by the side of my bed. It has animals on it and it turns around and it makes shapes and patterns on the ceiling and it is pretty and my mummy’s friend Jeanette gave it to me. It is not too bright but it is bright enough and you can see what is what.
But then it started that when I woke up in the middle of the night, the light would not be on any more and it would be completely dark instead and it would make me sad. I didn’t understand this, but one night when I’d woken up and cried a lot my mummy told me that she came in every night and turned off the light after I was asleep, so it didn’t wake me up. But I said that wasn’t any good, because if I did wake up in the night and the light wasn’t on, then I might be scared, and cry.
She said it seemed that I was waking every night, and she and daddy had worked out that it might be the light that woke me, and after I was awake I’d get up and go into their room and see what was up with them, which meant she got no sleep any night ever and it was driving her completely nuts.
So we made a deal, and the deal said I could have the light on all night, but I promised that I would not go into their room in the night unless it was really important, and it is a good deal and so I’m allowed to have my light on again now, which is why the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that it was dark.
Mummy had broken the deal. I was cross about this, but I was also very sleepy and so wasn’t sure if I was going to shout about it or not.
Then I noticed it was cold.
Before I go to bed, mummy puts a heater on while I am having my bath, and also I have two blankets on top of my duvet, and so I am a warm little bunny and it is fine. Sometimes if I wake in the middle of the night it feels a bit cold but if I snuggle down again it’s okay.
But this felt really cold. My light was not on and I was cold.
I put my hand out to put my light on, which was the first thing to do. There is a switch on a white wire that comes from the light and I can turn it on myself – I can even find it in the dark when there is no light.
I tried to do that, but I could not find the wire with my hand.
So I sat up and tried again, but still I could not find it, and I wondered if mummy had moved it, and I thought I might go and ask her. But I could not see the door. It had been so long since I had been in my room in the night without my light being on that I had forgotten how dark it gets. It’s really dark. I knew it woul
d be hard to find the door if I could not see it, so I did it a clever way.
I used my imagination.
I sat still for a moment and remembered what my bedroom is like. It is like a rectangle and has some drawers by the top of my bed where my head goes. My light is on the drawers, usually. My room also has a table where my colouring books go and some small toys, and two more sets of drawers, and windows down the other end. They have curtains so the street lights do not keep me awake, and because in summer it gets bright too early in the morning and so I wake everybody up when they should still be asleep because they have work to do and they need some sleep. And there is a big chair but it is always covered in toys and it is not important.
I turned to the side so my legs hung off the bed and down on to the floor. In my imagination I could see that if I stood up and walked straight in front of me, I would nearly be at my door, but that I would have to go a little way . . . left, too.
So I stood up and did this walking.
It was funny doing it in the dark. I stepped on something soft with one of my feet, I think it was a toy that had fallen off the chair. Then I touched one of the other drawers with my hand, and I knew I was close to the door, so I turned left and walked that way a bit.
I reached out with my hands then and tried to find my dressing gown. I was trying to find it because I was cold, but also because it hangs off the back of my bedroom door on a little hook and so when I found the dressing gown I would know I had got to the right place to open the door.
But I could not find the dressing gown. Sometimes my mummy takes things downstairs and washes them in the washing machine in the kitchen and then dries them in another machine that makes them hot, so maybe that was where it was. I was quite awake now and very cold, so I decided not to keep trying to find the gown and just go wake mummy and daddy and say to them that I was awake.
But I couldn’t find my doorknob. I knew I must be where the door is, because it is in the corner where the two walls of my room come together. I reached out with my hands and could feel the two sides of the corner, but I could not find the doorknob, even though I moved my hands all over where it should be. When I was smaller the doorknob came off once, and mummy was very scared because she thought if it happened again I would be trapped in my bedroom and I wouldn’t be able to get out, so she shouted at daddy until he fixed it with a different screw. But it had never come off again, so I did not know where it could be now. I wondered if I had got off my bed in the wrong way because it was dark and I had got it mixed up in my imagination, and maybe I should go back to my bed and start again.
Then a voice said: “Maddy, what are you doing?”
I was so surprised I made a scared sound, and jumped.
I trod on something, and the same voice said “Ow!” I heard someone moving and sitting up. Even though it was in the dark I knew it was my mummy.
“Mummy?” I said. “Where are you?”
“Maddy, I’ve told you about coming into our room.”
“I’m not.”
“It’s just not fair. Mummy has to go to work and daddy has to go to work and you have to go to school and we all need our sleep. We made a deal, remember?”
“But you broke the deal. You took away my light.”
“I haven’t touched your light.”
“You did!”
“Maddy, don’t lie. We’ve talked about lying.”
“You took my light!”
“I haven’t taken your light and I didn’t turn it off.”
“But it’s not turned on.”
She made a sighing sound. “Maybe the bulb went.”
“Went to where?”
“I mean, got broken.”
“No, my whole light is not there.”
“Maddy . . .”
“It’s not! I put my hand out and I couldn’t find it!”
My mummy made a sound like she was very cross or very tired, I don’t know which. Sometimes they sound the same. She didn’t say anything for a little minute.
“Look,” she said then, and she did not sound very cross now, just sleepy and as if she loved me but wished I was still asleep. “It’s the middle of the night and everyone should be in bed. Their own bed.”
“I’m sorry, mummy.”
“That’s okay.” I heard her standing up. “Come on. Let’s go back to your room.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Back to your room. Now. I’ll tuck you in, and then we can all go back to sleep.”
“I am in my room.”
“Maddy – don’t start.”
“I am in my room!”
“Maddy, this is just silly. Why would you . . . Why is it so dark in here?”
“Because my light is off. I told you.”
“Maddy, your light is in your room. Don’t—”
She stopped talking suddenly. I heard her fingers moving against something, the wall, maybe. “What the hell?”
Her voice sounded different.
“‘Hell’ is a naughty word.” I told her.
“Shush.”
I heard her fingers swishing over the wall again. She had been asleep on the floor, right next to the wall. I heard her feet moving on the carpet and then there was a banging sound and she said a naughty word again, but she did not sound angry but like she did not understand something. It was like a question-mark sound.
“For the love of Christ.”
This was not my mummy talking.
“Dan?”
“Who the hell else? Any chance you’ll just take her back to
bed? Or I can do it. I don’t mind. But let’s one of us do it. It’s the middle of the fucking night.”
“Dan!”
“ ‘Fucking’ is a very naughty—”
“Yes, yes, I’m terribly sorry,” my daddy said. He sounded as if he was only half not in a dream. “But we have talked about you coming into our room in the middle of the night, Maddy. Talked about it endlessly. And—”
“Dan,” my mummy said, starting to talk when he was still talking, which is not good and can be rude. “Where are you?”
“I’m right here” he said. “For God’s sake. I’m . . . Did you put up new curtains or something?”
“No,” mummy said.
“It’s not normally this dark in here, is it?”
“My light has gone,” I said. “That’s why it is so dark.”
“Your light is in your room,” daddy said.
I could hear him sitting up. I could hear his hands, too. They were not right next to mummy, but at the other end of my room. I could hear them moving around on the carpet.
“Am I on the floor?” he asked. “What the hell am I doing on the floor?”
I heard him stand up. I did not tell him “hell” is a naughty word. I did not think that he would like it.
I heard him move around a little more, his hands knocking into things.
“Maddy,” mummy said, “where do you think you are?”
“I’m in my room,” I said.
“Dan?” she said, to daddy. My daddy’s other name is “Dan” It is like “dad” but has a nuh-sound at the end instead of a duh-sound. “ Is this Maddy’s room?”
I heard him moving around again, as if he was checking things with his hands.
“What are we doing in here?” he said, sounding as if was not certain. “Is this her room?”
“Yes, it’s my room,” I said.
I was beginning to think daddy or mummy could not hear properly, because I kept saying things over and over but they did not listen. I told them again. “I woke up, and my light was off, and this is my room.”
“Have you tried the switch by the door?” Daddy asked mummy.
I heard mummy moving, and her fingers swishing on the wall, swishing and patting. “It’s not there.”
“What do you mean it’s not there?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“For Christ’s sake.”
I heard daddy walkin
g carefully across the room to where mummy was.
Mummy said: “Satisfied?”
“How can it not be there? Maddy – can you turn the light by your bed on, please?” Daddy sounded cross now.
“She says it isn’t there.”
“What do you mean, not there?”
“It’s not there” I said. “I already told mummy, fourteen times. I was coming into your room to tell you, and then mummy woke up and she was on the floor.”
“Are the street lamps out?”
This was mummy asking. I heard daddy go away from the door and go back to the other end of the room, where he had woken up from. He knocked into the table as he was moving and made a cross sound but kept on moving again.
“Dan? Is that why it’s so dark? Is it a power cut?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I . . . can’t find the curtains.”
“Can’t find the gap, you mean?”
“No. Can’t find the curtains. They’re not here.”
“You’re sure you’re in the right—”
“Of course I’m in the right place. They’re not here. I can’t feel them. It’s just wall.”
“It is just wall where my door is too,” I said. I was happy that daddy had found the same thing as me, because if he had found it too then it could not be wrong.
I heard mummy check the wall near us with her hands. She was breathing a little quickly.
“She’s right. It’s just wall,” she said, so we all knew the same thing. “It’s just wall, everywhere.”
But mummy’s voice sounded quiet and a bit scared and so it did not make me so happy when she said it.
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” daddy said. “Stay where you are. Don’t move.”
I could hear what he was doing. He was going along the sides of the room, with his fingers on the walls. He went around the drawers near the window, then past where my calendar hangs, where I put what day it is in the mornings, then along my bed.
“She’s right,” he said. “The lamp isn’t here.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 27