The One Safe Place

by Ramsey Campbell

  "Hi, it's Susanne Travis. Marshall's mother."

  "Oh yes, Head wanted you to call. He's rather busy at the moment, I'm afraid. Will you hold on for a few minutes, or shall I ask him to ring you when he's free?"

  "Can't I have just a quick word? I'm in the middle of teaching a class."

  "Teaching." That seemed to alter the situation in Susanne's favour, until the secretary said, "Oh, you mean students," as if she'd been tricked. "I think you're best off waiting till he calls you. He's got some parents in at the present."

  "Can you tell me what the problem is at least?"

  "I've just told you." After a pause the secretary said, "I get you," and then was silent for too many seconds. "I think that's for Head to say," she said at last.

  This time Susanne couldn't relax her grip on the fragile plastic. "Either tell me yourself or put me through to him. You're a mother, aren't you? Even if you aren't you must know how I'm feeling right now."

  "The thing is, Mrs. Travis, Marshall..." Susanne thought the secretary had decided once again that it wasn't her place to give out the information, until she said, "Bear with me one moment. I think Head's nearly free."

  The pause lasted considerably longer than one moment, and was almost more than Susanne could bear. Even when the secretary said, "Putting you through now," that was followed by nothing but static. Suddenly afraid that someone would think she wasn't there and cut her off, Susanne started parroting, "Hello? Hello?" Most of the static ceased, and she heard a man saying, "Thank you for coming in. I wish all our parents were as involved." The hollowness which must have been contained by his hand cupped over the mouthpiece made way for his voice. "Mrs. Travis? Dennis Harbottle here."

  "You wanted me to call you about Marshall."

  "Thank you for responding so promptly. Mrs. Travis, are you aware of his whereabouts?"

  Susanne consulted her watch, having disentangled the strap from the thread which held the button on the cuff of her blouse. It was quarter past three, which meant that school still had twenty-five minutes to run. "Isn't he with you? At school, that's to say?"

  "I am very much afraid not. It appears he has not been seen here since the end of the morning session."

  Susanne had been standing in an awkward posture which she was scarcely aware of having frozen into, and now she hardly sensed her body lowering itself onto the chair behind the desk. "Did someone—" The idea was so terrible she had to force it out of her mouth. "Did someone take him away?"

  "A relative, do you mean?"

  "Not a relative, no. We've no relatives in Britain. Someone. Anyone up to no good."

  "I think not, Mrs. Travis. I rather fear that Travis was operating under his own steam."

  "You're saying he wasn't with anyone."

  "I believe those were my words, yes," the headmaster said in a tone which made it clear she wasn't supposed to question his usage. "I have ascertained that Travis was seen by several of his friends leaving the school premises without authorisation at the start of the lunch period. Would I be correct in assuming you had not provided him with a letter?"

  "Saying he needed to leave, you mean? He'd have handed it in if I had. Are you telling me it's been three hours since he went missing?"

  "The teacher who took his first class of the afternoon is only with us for the week, and I regret that Travis's classmates neglected to point out the absence. I assure you they will be dealt with appropriately."

  "Their fault, huh," Susanne muttered, and raised her voice. "Did anyone ask them if they know why Marshall did what he did?"

  "I think I may have the answer to that, Mrs. Travis. Shortly before he was last seen I had occasion to reprimand Travis. He was to take you my letter inviting you in to discuss his behaviour. From his attitude during the interview I would conclude that he may be seeking to avoid doing so."

  Last seen at the school, the headmaster meant, she told herself. "What behaviour? What are you saying he did?"

  "I have to inform you that a member of my staff saw Travis damaging a newsagent's display."

  "That doesn't sound like Marshall. What kind of a display?"

  "I should hope that as a parent you would agree with me that is irrelevant, Mrs. Travis."

  "If it's relevant to why he isn't there I don't agree at all. Did you find out what kind of a display it was?"

  "I rather think it referred to the verdict in your most unfortunate court case and your reaction to it."

  "Oh, those graffiti, right. I saw them on my way to work. I was hoping Marshall wouldn't come across any of them." Susanne took hold of the receiver with both hands so as to haul it away from her right ear, which had begun to ache with the pressure against it, to the other. "You do realise it would have upset him. It's one more reminder of what those, of what happened to his father."

  "Whatever my personal feelings, Mrs. Travis, without rules of behaviour not only the school but our whole society would collapse. If I may permit myself an observation—"

  "Stop a minute. There's something I don't follow. I'm sure Marshall was upset, and maybe he felt you should have taken that into account, but he'd have come home and told me about it tonight, he wouldn't have run away from that. Was there anything you said to him?"

  "Nothing, I assure you, that could justify his leaving here without permission."

  "Maybe not justify, but did you say anything to make him?"

  She heard a dry sound which might have been the headmaster considering whether to answer her question. At last he said, "It may be possible that one of my comments was open to interpretation."

  "Go ahead, let me hear it."

  "I believe I commented to the effect that Travis's behaviour was as unlawful as the actions of the men who were the subjects of the trial."

  "You told Marshall he was like the men who killed his father."

  "Steady on, Mrs. Travis. I rather think you must acknowledge that I—"

  "That's how it sounded to me, so don't bother saying it couldn't have sounded like that to him. The truth seems to be you upset him more than he was already upset and now you don't know where he is. What do you intend doing about it besides having this conversation?"

  "I understood you to imply that Travis was bound to return to you."

  "Of course he will, and when he does—" All that mattered was that he would, because what on earth could stop him? "When he does we'll both want to get together with you."

  "My office is always open to pupils and their parents. I should appreciate being informed when Travis puts in an appearance. And please allow me to reiterate my sympathy over your difficulties."

  She could have done without that, since he was one of them. "Appreciated," she said anyway, and dropped the receiver into its plastic nest before going to the window. A few students were cycling across the quadrangle, scattering sparrows that had gathered about the rind of a sandwich, but there was no sign of Marshall. Maybe he didn't want to risk being upset in anywhere so public as her workplace; maybe he was waiting at home. The sparrows settled like dancing leaves on the remains of the bread, and she hurried to dial the house.

  The phone had to ring five times before the answering machine picked up a call. As the fifth pair of rings came to an end she was still hoping it would be Marshall who answered. Instead she heard a click followed by the hiss of the tape carrying her own hollow mechanical voice. "Susanne and Marshall Travis."

  That was as much of a message as she had been able to record; she'd been too aware of having erased Don's welcoming voice from the tape. She listened for some hint that Marshall was monitoring her call—another click, or breathing—but all she could hear was her own silence, then and now. After a pause which she shouldn't have allowed to continue for so long when recording the announcement, the machine emitted its beep. "Marshall, are you there?" she said. "If you can hear me, honey, pick up the phone. I'm not mad at you. I just want to know you're safe."

  Silence. Even the hiss of the tape had ceased, and the line sounded dead. I
f she failed to speak for more than a few seconds, the machine would cease recording and switch itself off, and her voice would no longer be audible in the house. "Marshall, please be there," she said, and was reminded of Don's voice wanting her to be there the last time he'd called home. She made herself continue, hoping that would prevent Marshall from being reminded too. "Okay, I'm assuming you aren't. If you gel home before I do and hear this, I'll be here at the University till half past four and then I'll come back, so wait there for me, all right? I spoke to your principal and I know what you did, and I know why, so you don't have to worry about telling me. If he didn't understand, I do. The one thing I want is for you to be home when I get there. Nothing else matters, okay?"

  She swallowed and held onto the receiver and listened until she heard the click of the machine terminating her call. It wasn't that she couldn't think of anything more to say but rather that she was thinking of too much. If anything happened to Marshall... if anything had happened to him... Of course there was no reason to suppose that anything apart from playing hooky had. Maybe he would come and find her before she finished for the afternoon, and if not, where else would he go but home? She walked herself out of her office before she could start having second thoughts, and locked the door, and made herself stop listening for the phone to ring, and vowed that by the time she returned to her students she would be ready to teach.

  19 In Broad Daylight

  When the phone rang Marshall hoped more than anything else that it would be his mother. He'd just been listening to his father's voice, and didn't want to be as alone as that had left him. He ran out of his room and down the stairs, and reached the hall with a double thud of his heels as the answering machine cut in. His hand was an inch away from the receiver when he realised that the call might be from the school. He sat down, a stair digging into the base of his spine, while the faint squeak of the spindle indicated that the machine was announcing itself and holding its breath. Then the speaker emitted a woman's cough, and Marshall was hauling himself to his feet when she said, "Message for Mrs. Travis from Bushy Boys. Will you please call the school as soon as possible," and cut herself off with an abruptness that sounded like a warning not to waste her time.

  At least she hadn't spoken to his mother. He rewound the tape so that the next message would erase her, just in case his mother came home before he did, and hurried back to his room. It was almost three o'clock, which meant that she wouldn't return for a couple of hours—far longer than he could bear to stay alone in the house with his raw thoughts. He might have gone to find her at work, but suppose he broke down in public as soon as she asked what was wrong? The desecrated grave was, and the way it had turned his father's last message into nothing more than a recording, the words and pauses and intonations no more meaningful than a pop song he'd played too often. It no longer invoked his father, because the grave had shown him his father was no longer anywhere.

  He took off his uniform and laid it on his bed, to be hung up later, and changed into his favourite track suit, whose solitary pocket had room for his handful of change and his keys and handkerchief. He went through the building to close any doors that weren't already shut, and switched on the alarm and locked himself out of the house.

  He didn't know what he might say to any neighbours who saw him out of school. When he faced the street, however, it was deserted except for a boy he didn't recognise who was disappearing around the corner. Marshall headed for the gate, but faltered beside the lavender his father had planted. He broke off a sprig and crushed it between finger and thumb as he raised it to his face. It smelled like graves and effeminacy. He threw it into the flower bed before his surge of grief could make him grind it beneath his heel, and slammed the gate behind him.

  On the main road he reached a bus stop at the same time as a bus into Manchester. As he clattered upstairs it loitered for the sake of one more passenger. Though the top deck smelled of fish and chips in greasy newspapers and defiant cigarettes, Marshall had it to himself. He sprawled on the left-hand front seat and propped his heels against the metal under the window, and watched the city proceeding in fits and starts toward him.

  The Indian restaurants gave way to the University, red bluffs rearing up on both sides of the bus and honeycombed with windows. Marshall leaned across the aisle, closing his fist around a chilly metal pole, to peer between the buildings toward the quadrangle which his mother's office overlooked, and all at once yearned to be with her. Maybe he could stand in the quadrangle until she caught sight of him and came out to him. Then the bus put on speed, and he shoved his heels against the metal and his spine into the worn upholstery until the University was too far behind to tempt him.

  When the giant stone skullcap of the public library appeared beyond a pair of trams gliding past each other, Marshall went downstairs, but as soon as he'd walked away from the bus he wondered why he had. What he found he wanted was to go to his father's shop. He hurried down the alley which curved around the library, hearing footsteps very much like his own following him or echoing his, and across the square of which the town hall formed one side, the linked multicoloured rings of an Olympic emblem attached like an abandoned plastic toy to its turreted façade. Beyond the square the streets which led in the direction of the bookshop grew narrower and less straightforward, offices and small shops and unexpected churches mixed together in twisted blocks. There were fewer people here, mostly office workers on errands involving bits of paper, and nobody seemed interested in him. Nevertheless he was relieved when a street led him to the Arndale Centre, the most crowded area in town.

  It consisted of both a shopping mall and a pedestrianised street lined with shops and occupied by ice-cream wagons and hot-potato stalls and bunches of telephone booths. Pigeons marched in disarray past the food stalls while interviewers bearing clipboards, and people selling newspapers devoted to the homeless, tried to single passersby out of the crowds. All this let Marshall feel sufficiently unobtrusive to realise he was very thirsty, and he went into a McDonald's, where the staff repeating "How may I help you?" and "Have a nice day" in Manchester accents brought a grin to his lips. He bought a Coke from a girl with a faint blond moustache like an unwiped trace of lemonade, and sat at the nearest empty table, and tried to relax enough to think.

  Though the customers were only talking, the place was in an uproar. Cigarette smoke from the next table seemed determined to find him again whenever he waved it away, and wherever he looked there was at least one small child smearing its face with ketchup and chunks of Big Mac. After a couple of sucks at the Coke he headed for the men's room, not sure if he was going to be sick.

  Emptying his bladder relieved most of the pressure which had made him feel that way. When he emerged he saw that a two-seater table had been vacated in the non-smoking area by the window. He grabbed his Coke and took a drink as he hurried to the table. An unexpected object, no doubt a fragment of ice, slid out of the straw and was washed down his throat before it could trouble him. He rested his elbows on the plastic slab and held onto his jaw with his left hand and used the other to raise the cup whenever it occurred to him to drink.

  He thought he was taking his time, but maybe he was drinking faster than he should, because after a while he became aware of feeling feverish. The lighting of the restaurant had acquired a glare like the edge of a razor, and the mushy hubbub was spiked with jagged noises—a baby's wail pretending to have finished each time it drew another breath, the clang of utensils in the open kitchen, the scrape of forks on polystyrene. He had the impression that the table had started actively to press itself against his elbows. He felt watched as he had when he'd walked out of the schoolyard, and much less sure of himself. He peered out at the flood of bobbing faces, but couldn't see any that were more than glancing at him. Then he noticed a waitress with a bin on wheels who was edging toward him between the furniture garish as kindergarten toys. He rammed his elbows against the plastic, bruising himself, and lurched out of the restaurant, gripping the c
up until he heard it or the ice within it beginning to crack. He was supposed to be going to the bookshop.

  The crowd forced him to dodge, and dodge again. He thought he was lost, and the inside of his skull started to crawl. Then a clump of traffic lights reddened and sparked off a trail of brake lights which led his stare toward the cathedral, spiny as a lizard basking in the afternoon sun. He ran past the traffic, ice gnashing inside the cup in his hand with each step, and across the lights, which appeared to be implying he could cross. Now he was by the cathedral, and once he made himself pass a bench displaying a woman with a face like white bread swelling out of her headscarf and pigeons covering her crumby arms, he saw that the brown bulk ahead was indeed the Corn Exchange. His suffocated feet tramped the length of the façade undercut by shops, and there around the corner was the bookshop.

  The sign was still above the door. It should have been illuminated, Marshall thought—not just TRAVIS BOOKS in black letters on a white rectangle—but it was too late now. He was trying to grasp what difference illuminating his father's name might have made when he noticed that the door was very slightly open. Was someone deciding whether to buy the stock, or had they broken in? Marshall darted forward stiff-legged and slapped his free hand against the door.

  He was ready to charge down the steps, and so when the door didn't yield he felt as if he should be falling. He had to thrust his face close enough to the gap that he smelled old paint and wood before he was able to convince himself that the door was locked, particularly since the line of darkness between it and the frame seemed not quite stable. When at last he raised his head he felt it plunge into the rush of the city, a medium which he sensed threatening to grow more solid.