The One Safe Place

by Ramsey Campbell

  It didn't sound like the Volvo or the Honda, but he thought it was parked directly outside. Maybe somebody had brought one of his parents home. He heard the clash of the gate, and footsteps on the path, heavy footsteps which belonged to neither of his parents. The footsteps halted, and without giving him a chance to think, the doorbell rang.

  His chair jerked backward, digging its hind legs into the carpet and almost depositing him on his back as he jumped up. The contents of the sideboard trembled as he let go of the chair and ventured into the hall, as far as the front room. He inched his head around the doorframe until he could see through the window. Standing on the path was a policeman, and another was climbing out of the car beyond the gate.

  The man on the path stepped back to survey the front of the house, holding his helmet against his chest, and caught sight of Marshall just as the boy considered dodging back. A number of suppressed expressions almost surfaced on the policeman's face before he raised his eyebrows and hooked a finger several times to indicate that Marshall should let him in. It must be about the videos again, Marshall thought, and instantly felt as though the one in his schoolbag had buried itself in his stomach. They couldn't require him to talk unless there was a lawyer present—unless his parents were. He made himself walk quickly to the vestibule, where he slipped the chain into its socket before opening the front door to the length of the chain.

  Both men were just outside, the driver so close behind his colleague that they resembled a double image, especially since they had both removed their helmets. "Is your mother in, son?" the foremost policeman said.

  The hair on top of his head was raising itself like turf that had been trodden on. Somehow that made Marshall more uneasy than his sky-blue gaze did—so uneasy that the only answer he could manufacture on the spot was, "I don't know. Why?"

  "Come on, son, you know if your mother's in."

  "Suppose I do?"

  "Just get her for us, will you, there's a good lad."

  "She'd want to know what it's about."

  The policeman turned his head a fraction toward his colleague while keeping his gaze on Marshall. No communication which Marshall was able to identify had passed between them when the man in front said, "Look, son, don't make this harder than it has to be. Is she here or not?"

  "What if she—" Abruptly it occurred to Marshall that besides whatever they wanted her for, there might conceivably be some English law which said he had to be a certain age before he was supposed to be left alone in the house. "How old do you think I am?" he said as nonchalantly as he could.

  "Same age as mine, I'd say." For some reason this seemed to bother the policeman. "Now listen, son, do yourself and the rest of us a favour and give me a straight answer. This isn't easy for us."

  "Then don't do it. Leave her alone."

  The backup policeman leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as though composing his small face around the whisper he aimed in the other man's ear. "Maybe he thinks—you know, Operation Nasty."

  The blue-eyed gaze flickered away from Marshall and returned to him. "Look—what's your name, son?"

  Something like regret was hiding in his eyes and maybe under his blunt tone of voice. "Marshall Travis," Marshall said.

  "Marshall. Well, Marshall, I want you to know we aren't after your mother. I mean, this has nothing to do with any police coming to your house before. We only want to talk to her. We've been to the University, and they told us she'd come home."

  "She isn't here now."

  "I'm glad we've got that sorted at least. Can you tell us where she is?"

  Marshall imagined being left ignorant and even more anxious than now while they went to her. "I'll, I'll phone her and tell her you want her, but I'll need to tell her why."

  "It's best if we do that, Marshall. Trust me, son, will you?"

  Marshall thought of a way to make his mother sound protected. "She'll be with my dad."

  "Whereabouts would that be, son?"

  Though the question came from the usual speaker, his awkward gentleness seemed to emanate from both men, and it disturbed Marshall as much as having let himself be manoeuvred into a position where he was virtually bound to tell the police what they wanted to know. "I don't know the street names," he lied in a final attempt to maintain some control. "I'd have to take you there."

  He sensed the police avoiding looking at each other. "Your mother mightn't want that just now, Marshall," the foremost said.

  His colleague touched his elbow. "Shall I—"

  The other policeman appeared to have only to glance at him to understand. "Better had."

  As the driver hurried to the car the blue-eyed policeman took a step toward Marshall, fingering his lapel badge as though it was a secret sign that would admit him to Marshall's confidence. "Open the door properly, there's a good young feller. We won't come in unless you say."

  Marshall saw the driver sit in the car and pick up a microphone from the dashboard. "Who's he calling?"

  "Just to find out how things—we'll see."

  Marshall felt and heard his own fingers rubbing his sweaty palms. The sensations were distanced from him by the questions which had begun to grind together in his skull and, though he struggled to prevent them, spill out of his mouth. "How do you know what my mother—why do you keep saying—how about my—" He wasn't sure how much of this the policeman heard, but it felt like admitting too much. "I'm going to call them," he blurted.

  The policeman reached for him. For a moment Marshall thought he meant to grab him across the chain, but the hand stopped in front of the policeman's chest, fingers spread and almost imperceptibly trembling. "Listen, Marshall, son—I'm sorry. You won't be able to."

  That had to be true unless whatever was wrong at the shop had been fixed, but how could the policeman know? "Why?" Marshall said, a question which came out as little more than a breath.

  There was a rattle from the police car as the driver replaced the microphone, and the blue-eyed policeman glanced at him. Marshall saw the driver close his eyes and open them as he shook his head from side to side once. The blankness of his small face lent him a resemblance to a crudely animated life-size doll. Marshall's left hand gripped the chain, the links digging into his fingers, the dull ache stinging with sweat. His other hand was rubbing its knuckles against the door as though to convince him something was solid. "Marshall, son, your father's," the blue-eyed policeman said, "been attacked."

  Perhaps he hadn't paused between the words, but Marshall felt as if the world had, like a heart stopping. No words seemed likely to be able to struggle out of his stiffening mouth, and he began to fumble at the chain. "That's right, son, we're your friends, we're here to help you," the policeman said.

  Marshall wasn't planning to let him in—he was planning to run if, as seemed likely, his emotions became too much for him. The door fell away from him, the chain slipped out of its slot and clanked against the doorframe, and Marshall bruised his shoulder against the door as the policeman placed a hand against it to prevent it from closing. The impact jarred speech out of Marshall as though it had wakened him. "He's not hurt, is he? I mean, not bad? How bad?"

  He became aware that his face was jammed in the gap, the frame and the edge of the door trapping his cheeks. He didn't care, he only wanted to know. It didn't matter how old the police thought he was, they had to tell him about his own father. He dragged himself backward with one hand on the vestibule wall and pulled at the door with the other, and the blue-eyed policeman came to him and put an arm around his shoulders. Marshall felt as though he was being held so that he would have to face the driver who was walking inexorably, no more able to halt than a puppet would have been, toward him. "He's not in pain, son. I can promise you that," the driver said.

  Words fought their way past Marshall's lips before he could hold them back—hold back the worst from having happened. He didn't know if they were a question or a plea or a denial. "He isn't dead."

  The man beside him hugged his shoulders, an
d Marshall glimpsed him staring a last hope at his colleague. When the driver said, "I'm sorry, son" the arm hugged Marshall tighter, and the boy felt as though it was trying to squeeze him to nothingness. He was still there, still unbearably alive, because he heard his own voice. "No, he isn't. No, he isn't, no," it said with a babyishness that filled him with self-loathing as everything around him grew bright and flat and remote from him.

  14 Self-help

  "How's your da, Darren?"

  "Fucking great."

  "Listen to it, will you, Bern. Sounds just like his da. Been to see him, have you, lad?"

  "Nah. Says he doesn't want me seeing him with a baldy head."

  "How long'd he get, eighteen months? Bet your dick he's out in half that. Is he getting everything he needs?"

  "Says you get better dope in there than outside. And he's with lots of his friends, mam says."

  "So long as they're not friendly with his arse, eh? Hey up, lad, only joking. No need to get yourself worked up. You don't want to tangle with me even if you are Phil's lad. Where is she, anyway?"

  "Out."

  "Know where?"

  "Never says."

  "You want to do something about that as long as you're the man of the house. She knew we was coming, didn't she, Bern?"

  "Maybe she forgot. She does. I expect she's out scoring one way or the other. Nobody else in, is there, Darren?"

  "Only granda."

  "Jesus, is he still around? If I was Phil I'd have taken him up the moors and come back on my tod fucking years ago. He won't say nothing, will he, Bern?"

  "Been a long time since he's known what's going on around him."

  "Can't think why Phil wants to keep him round the house, costing Christ knows how much and contributing fuck all. Don't you ever get like him, lad. We've got to look after us selves round here, we've no time for cunts who don't muck in. So how much fucking longer are you going to keep us standing on the step?"

  "Uncle Bernard didn't say you wanted to come in."

  "Aye, well, fucking Uncle Bernard says it now, don't you, Uncle Bernard? And Barry says it too. That's me, in case you forgot."

  "I don't forget."

  "Look at him, Bern. Just like Phil the time that cunt spilled some ale on his shoe in the pub. You're a credit to your old man, lad. I bet you're a killer when you grow up, only don't come it with me. Want to help us instead?"

  "Doing what?"

  "That's right, never say yes to any fucker till you know what you're saying yes to. Just go on the pavement and keep an eye out for the filth while we bring some stuff in, will that do you?"

  "What sort of stuff?"

  "Never mind what sort. You can't tell nobody if you don't know, right? Go on, lad, move your arse."

  "If Uncle Bernard says."

  "Uncle Bernard wouldn't fucking be here if he didn't, would he? Jesus, tell him, Bern."

  "It's all right, Darren. Phil won't mind."

  Darren seldom knew what his father would or wouldn't mind from one moment to the next, but at least this time it would have been Bernard who got it wrong. He stepped out of the house as Barry, a wiry man whose grey scalp looked scraped and whose left cheek bore a scar which began near his eye and interrupted the end of his patchy moustache, heaved the garden fence upright so as to drag the gate wider on the concrete. Darren plugged his ears with his headphones and saw Bernard mouthing at him beyond the hiss the tape had come to. He had to pull the headphones down before he realised he was being told to do that and to go across the road to keep watch.

  Above him the sky was dark, but behind the low houses was a sediment of blue which made the roofs look razor-edged. Several windows were unsteady with the flickering of televisions, and one was blazing all the colours of disco lights. If anyone was watching as Bernard and Barry unloaded piles of cartons from the back of the old retired Post Office van and hurried in and out of the house like animals stocking a nest, the watchers were staying well out of sight, and Darren was certain they wouldn't dare call the police. He heard a siren racing closer on the main road, but it was an ambulance heading into Manchester. "They'll be sending one for you if you fuck with us," he muttered, glaring at the windows that were dark, seeing the unsteadily illuminated windows shake with fear of him.

  He couldn't have been standing on the pavement long, though long enough for his hands and feet to start growing cold as they did whenever he took a trip, when he saw Barry loitering in the doorway of the house, mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his hooded grey shirt. "What's he waiting for, Bern, the filth to come along and ask him what he's up to? Get your arse over here, lad."

  It wasn't his house. He wasn't Darren's father. Darren stalked across the road, reaching for his headphones as he passed the van. Only the van wasn't quite the size or shape he'd thought it was, nor was it exactly where it had seemed to be, and he couldn't tell if the road around him was lit or dark. A barking in a yard very close to him sounded like somebody—maybe a policeman—imitating a dog, and the hiss of the headphones was trying to drag him down, to rise above his head and drown him. He'd be all right once he reached the house, but the doorway at the end of the elongated path appeared to be shrinking away from him like a picture on a television which had that moment been switched off. Barry had turned away, and Darren couldn't call to him for help, because the inside of his head had been scooped out, tongue and all. Then the image of the house steadied as if someone had used a remote control, and the prickly lumps of meat in his shoes carried him over the doorstep.

  Barry and Bernard seemed not to see anything wrong with him when they bothered to look at him, but he couldn't decide if they were pretending, nor whether it was hot or cold in the house. It must be hot, because Barry was saying, "I could murder a lager now, me."

  "Phil keeps some in the fridge sometimes, if the lad or his mam haven't finished it off."

  Barry swaggered down the hall and grabbed a can from the refrigerator. He ripped off the metal tab and threw it among the greasy plates in the kitchen sink, and tossed the can and his head back as he made for the front room. "Jesus, lad," he said, wiping his moustache with a thumb and forefinger, "don't you ever turn the telly off?"

  "My mam always has it on."

  "Don't want to grow up like a tart, do you? Don't want your da coming home to find you in a fucking dress."

  "Tell you what, Barry, why don't you take the drink with you while you move the van."

  "And what'll you be doing, Bern?"

  "I'll hang on till Marie comes home and I can straighten things out with her."

  "I hope Phil appreciates what you're doing, pal."

  "Reckon he will, pal," Bernard said, and Darren wondered if he was going to punch Barry in the face, a possibility that brought his surroundings into much sharper focus. But the men seemed to have made themselves clear to each other, because Barry slouched down the path to the van, tossing his head to feed himself another drink. "Better at thieving than he is at doing as he's told, that's his trouble," Bernard remarked. "Do us a favour, lad, do you have to have it on that loud?"

  He was in the front room now, searching for the remote control among the clothes and bills and free newspapers strewn over and around the chairs which were all that remained of various different suites. "Like a bloody jumble sale, this house. Come ahead, lad, give us the switch and let's have a bit of peace."

  Darren saw the control on the black marble mantelpiece above the electric fire into which his mother had stuffed some bills. Barry had said he was the man of the house while his father was inside, which meant he could have the set on as loud as he liked, so why should he let Bernard tell him to turn it down? Then Bernard noticed where he was looking, and grabbed the control and poked at the buttons, switching from police knocking people down with batons to a man making a woman stand on tiptoe with a broken bottle at her throat to a cowboy being shot six times to some soldiers marching past a dead baby, until he located the off button at last. "Don't tell me you were watching any of th
at," he said, and sat down.

  He'd gone for the least cluttered chair, on which Darren's mother had abandoned the cardigan she'd been wearing earlier. As he leaned back Darren felt as if the man was flattening his mother. He groped under his ears to get rid of the hiss that kept merging with Bernard's voice, then remembered he had to switch off the Walkman, and did so. "I wanted to see if Ken and Dave were on again."

  "They ought to be soon, right enough. Just remember they're family, lad, not some kind of Yankee thriller."

  "I only wanted to see what the telly was saying about them."

  "All right, lad, it isn't you I'd like to give a thumping." Bernard reached into his suede jacket and produced an object whose glinting seemed to promise Darren the present of a weapon, but it was only a tin of cigars. "Find us an ashtray, will you? Where's the one you lifted from the Dog & Gun?"

  Darren went into the back room where the men of the family met. Whenever he found an excuse to join them, like taking them a packet of cigarettes or food they'd sent him out for, they would discuss him loudly for a few moments and then look at him as though he'd already been told to get out. Now he was able to stand as long as he wanted to, inhaling the memory of cigarette smoke and feeling he owned the room, the built-in bar with hula dancers printed on it, the boxing posters with his father's name inserted on each of them, the loose floorboard hiding the gun which had replaced the one his father had thrown in the canal, the piles of cartons of video cameras which Barry and Bernard had brought in. He didn't know how long he had been standing when Bernard shouted, "Get a move on, lad. I'm gasping."

  The only ashtray Darren could see, on the low table whose glass top imprisoned six poker hands with the winner in front of his father's chair, was stuffed with butts and ash. He climbed on a chair and had to thump the narrow transom with both hands until it gave enough for him to empty the ashtray onto the strip of grass alongside the house. He hauled the transom shut and forced the holes in the bar onto the metal struts, and jarred the softness inside his head as he jumped down and walked along the hall into Bernard's stare. "Sweet jogging Jesus, it took you long enough. I thought you were doing a runner."