Thieving Fear

by Ramsey Campbell

  Since he was managing to look at her without betraying his distress, he could surely restrain it if he touched her. He took hold of whichever arm wasn't involved with the suitcase, and his guts shrank as if he'd been punched in the stomach. The arm felt frail as an old woman's, and he was unable to judge how much of the handful consisted of cloth, how much of skin emptied of flesh. The long-sleeved blouse was as baggy as the trousers it went some way towards covering up, and he didn't know whether he'd taken it for a nightdress only because the clothes looked as if she'd slept in them. He tried not to look at her starved loosened face beneath the clump of unkempt maddened hair. He thought he'd concealed his reaction, but as he took a pace towards the house Charlotte said 'You bring the bag, Hugh.'

  Ellen produced a version of a laugh. 'He is.'

  'Oh, Ellen, don't be silly. You're just playing with words now.'

  'Or they're playing with me,' Ellen said, which fell short of being a joke.

  Hugh relinquished her arm, only to wonder if she would think he'd recoiled. Might she have been so involved in her writing that she hadn't had time to eat or had forgotten to? Perhaps other writers looked as strange – perhaps it came with the job – but he was dismayed to watch Charlotte lead her away as Ellen must have escorted people she cared for. He didn't move until Charlotte glanced back, presumably to see why she couldn't hear the trundling luggage. He grabbed the handle and hurried after them in a panic that his sense of where they were might desert him once they vanished into the house.

  Charlotte hesitated outside as the small case bumped and wobbled along the path. 'Go in, Ellen,' she urged and turned to murmur 'Have you got much to eat at home?'

  'Nothing for me,' Ellen said at once.

  'You can have a snack at least before we go to the hospital. When did you eat last? What did you have?'

  'More than I should have.'

  'I've used up nearly everything I bought at work,' Hugh was unhappy to have to admit. 'I've got some bread, I think. We could have toast or bread and milk.'

  'Don't treat me like an invalid,' Ellen warned them and took refuge in the hall.

  Charlotte had to make some kind of effort to follow. Hugh lifted the luggage over the doorstep, and as he wheeled it to join the case she'd left at the foot of the stairs he thought he knew why she'd been reluctant to enter. In the street he'd been unable to locate the source of all the scents – several front gardens, he'd assumed – but now it was apparent that Ellen was doused in perfume, and not just one. Perhaps he should have restrained his bewilderment, but it was too quick for him. 'What's happened to you?' he cried.

  Both women swung around to stare at him, and he could have concluded that they'd both taken the question personally. He might have felt compelled to answer if Ellen hadn't said 'You aren't saying you can't see.'

  'No, I mean why?' At once he had the anguished notion that she'd hoped he would deny her state. 'Is it being out of work?' he babbled. 'I mean, you aren't, of course, you're writing. Is that it, the writing, the stress? Or Rory, is it him?'

  His cousins gazed at him for at least a mute second after he ran out of suggestions. 'Oh, Hugh, we love you,' said Ellen. 'Don't ever change.'

  Of course he had, but he mustn't bring up his problem if he could keep it to himself; she and Charlotte had enough to worry about. Ellen's words had come close to a phrase he wouldn't have dared to admit yearning to hear from her, but he couldn't take advantage of that now. 'Thanks,' he said. 'Really, thanks. So which –'

  'One of those, I expect. All of them if you like.'

  'Then what do you think you should –'

  'That's all now, Hugh. No more or I'm leaving. Like Charlotte said, we're here for Rory, not for me. Show us where we're sleeping.'

  Charlotte was giving him a private frown, presumably for leaving her no chance to question Ellen. 'Upstairs,' he mumbled.

  'We'll find our own way, shall we?' said Charlotte.

  'I shouldn't think it takes much finding,' Ellen said.

  He could have imagined they were making light of his condition, but surely he'd managed to hide it. While he was able to follow them he knew which way to go. 'I'll bring the cases,' he said.

  Ellen was first up the stairs, fast enough to suggest she was seeking a refuge. As Hugh brought up the rear with a case Charlotte said in some haste 'That's Hugh's room.'

  He thought she was trying to head her cousin off from being troubled by its state. Ellen pushed the next door open, only to wonder 'Isn't this?'

  It was more like a museum of his boyhood. As Ellen gazed wistfully at the misshapen scale models and puerile books, Charlotte said 'It's all his house.'

  Hugh could have taken this as a rebuke for forcing Rory out, and did. If he'd still been living here, Rory wouldn't be in hospital. Ellen opened the third door, beyond which there was hardly any furniture except an infirm wardrobe and a single bed, not even a mirror. 'This'll do for me,' she said at once.

  Charlotte gazed around the landing as if she wished it were larger or less shadowy, and Hugh came close to wondering if one shadow too many was lurking in a corner. He wheeled the dwarfish case ahead of her into his old room and had to assume she wanted him to emerge before she went in. She made him feel like a jailer for lingering outside, but he was growing nervous of letting his cousins out of his sight in case they were his only means of orientation. In a moment she said 'Wasn't there some talk of a cup of tea? You'd like one, wouldn't you, Ellen?'

  Was she trying to send him downstairs so that he wouldn't inhibit any female conversation? 'I'd better phone the hospital,' he countered. 'We need to find out when we can go.'

  As the number rang Charlotte came to the doorway, and he heard the bed creak in Rory's old room. The switchboard operator transferred the call to the ward, and as the bed amplified Ellen's restlessness Hugh wondered unhappily if his brother could move even that much. Charlotte was raising her eyebrows at him by the time the ward sister spoke. 'Intensive Care.'

  'How's Rory Lucas? It's his brother.'

  'The same as when you called this morning, Mr Lucas, and this afternoon. No change, but that's no worse.'

  'I've got our cousins here now. When can we come and see him?'

  'We're having a few problems on the ward just at the moment,' the sister said, and Hugh was disconcerted to overhear a laugh that sounded anything but pleasant, not merely muffled but clogged. He could only suppose it was somewhere other than the ward, since she didn't react to it, instead saying 'Do you mind if I put you off for a while?'

  'If you've got to. Till when?'

  'Tomorrow would be best.'

  'It won't make any difference to him, or will it?'

  'Not at the minute, sadly, I'm afraid. I'll contact you if there's any significant development.'

  'Thanks. That's kind,' Hugh said, but as soon as he pocketed the mobile he thought he'd been too eager to accommodate her – worse, that he was glad to have a reason to delay travelling all the labyrinthine way to Leeds. 'The ward's shut to visitors till tomorrow,' he announced, and Ellen let out a groan that vibrated her bed. He had to dodge as Charlotte darted out of her room. 'I'll make it,' she informed him, at which point he grasped that she was thinking of the tea, not proposing to escape from the house. He might have been grateful if he hadn't needed to choose which cousin to stay with, which direction to take. As he hurried downstairs, terrified of losing sight of Charlotte, he began to dread that the reunion would turn into the longest night of his life.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As the smell of breakfast drifted through the house, Ellen tramped out of the bathroom. 'None for me.'

  'It's only toast,' Charlotte called up the stairs. 'That's all there is.'

  'I know that. I said none, thanks.'

  'You ought to have something,' Hugh protested before turning back to the grill more hastily than Charlotte understood.

  'I did last night.'

  'You didn't have much,' Charlotte said.

  'I had all I wanted. Don't sta
rt another argument or I won't be going to the hospital.'

  'You wouldn't not see Rory,' Hugh cried, twisting around as if she'd unbalanced him.

  'Then don't either of you make me. I'll stay up here until it's time to leave,' Ellen declared and shut herself in her room.

  Charlotte would have expected her to spend longer in the bathroom. In a moment Hugh voiced her own feelings, if barely audibly. 'What's wrong with her?'

  She might have asked the same about him. This morning he'd stayed in his room until Charlotte headed for the bathroom, and on emerging she'd discovered him outside. Had she sensed him lurking out there? Certainly her impression that someone unseen was uncomfortably near had rendered the confined space yet more claustrophobic. She could only assume that Hugh didn't want to be left alone with his anxiety, for Ellen now as well as for his brother. 'I expect it's like you were saying yesterday,' she murmured. 'She's under a lot of stress.'

  How much of it was Charlotte's doing? She might blame Glen and the new regime at the publishers, but this hardly absolved her of responsibility. She didn't need Hugh to remind her by pleading 'What can we do?'

  'Leave her alone for a while if that's what she wants. Maybe seeing Rory will help.'

  How thoughtless was that? Hugh seemed less than persuaded. He was silent while he brought four piebald slices of toast on a cracked plate to the bare stained table, and produced a battered carton of Frugerine from the battered refrigerator, and lifted the plump ragged cover from the clay teapot to fill two mugs, after which the kitchen grew oppressive with his and Charlotte's painfully polite crunching. Last night's Indian meal, which Hugh had arranged to have delivered even though the takeaway was only in the next street, had soon turned wordless too, and afterwards the cousins had applied themselves to trying to enjoy a string of comedy shows on television. Charlotte had kept wondering if she alone could hear an unpleasant snicker as dry as an insect's stridulation amid the mirth of the various studio audiences. The sound had followed her to bed, inside her skull at any rate, along with a sense of so much left unspoken that it had felt more like a presence in the dark. Whenever she'd managed to doze she had wakened either afraid to learn where she might be or convinced that the pent-up darkness was more crowded than she'd left it. Once if not more often she'd heard a model aeroplane suspended on threads stir as if fingers – no less flimsy and jerry-built, she'd thought for some reason – were toying with it in preparation for doing so to her. The prospect of mentioning this made the kitchen seem smaller and darker, as if she were in danger of reviving the night. She finished her toast as fast as she civilly could in order to call 'I think we're ready, Ellen.'

  The narrow hall flattened her voice, reminding her of the size of the house – the lack of it, rather. 'I'll be down,' Ellen responded but wasn't while Hugh picked up the plates and looked uncertain where to put them. Was he really so incapable or just taking advantage now that there were women in the house? Charlotte seized the plates and bore them together with the synthetically buttery knife to the sink, which at least gave her a view of the meagre back yard and its outgrown swings. Once she'd washed up she made for the hall with Hugh at her heels. Ellen was descending the stairs, pausing if not resting on each step. She was wearing the same clothes again or still – unnecessarily capacious trousers and a nightdress, if not a blouse that resembled one too much for anybody else's comfort. 'Aren't you going to get changed?' Charlotte had to ask for fear that Hugh would say worse.

  'I don't think Rory's going to mind, do you?'

  'I hope he might, if you see what I mean. Maybe you should –'

  'I've nothing to change into.'

  Charlotte could only wonder what Ellen's case was full of – perfume bottles, to judge by the scents of her, which were close to suffocating in the narrow hall. 'Would you like something of mine?'

  'You're kind, but it wouldn't be any good.' As Charlotte parted her lips Ellen said 'I've told you I won't have an argument. If you want me with you at the hospital, let's be on our way.'

  She was almost at the front door when Hugh said 'Hang on, I'll phone a taxi.'

  As Ellen hesitated the gloomy perfumed hall seemed to shrink. Charlotte pushed past her to drag the front door open. 'Good heavens, we can walk that little distance,' she said. 'It'll do us good.'

  Ellen frowned as if she suspected some kind of gibe, then held up her hands. Presumably they signalled resignation before she glanced askance at them and jerked them away from her face. 'I expect it won't make any difference,' she said. 'Lead the way then, Hugh.'

  'You two go out. I've got to lock up.'

  This simply meant pulling the door shut with one hand through the letterbox. He kept hold of it as though it or something beyond it had seized his fingers, a notion so unwelcome that it drove Ellen to a feeble joke. 'The house won't fall down without you, Hugh.'

  As the women left the narrow path he dashed after them. Ellen was staring about as if, all too understandably, she hoped not to be seen. Perhaps someone was observing the cousins from one of the houses; certainly Charlotte felt spied upon. Nobody was skulking behind the trees at the junction, although as she hurried past without sparing them a glance she heard an unseen magpie utter its sniggering call. Of course the bird was the shape, pale as bone where it wasn't black as earth, that she thought she glimpsed among the tree-trunks.

  Hugh stayed just behind his cousins as they turned along the road towards the station, although the pavement was broad enough for the three to walk abreast. Perhaps he was leaving room well in advance for an approaching Muslim woman, veiled and so thoroughly robed in black that only her eyes and hands were visible. Ellen watched her pass and turned her head to keep the woman in sight until Hugh muttered 'What's wrong?'

  'That should be me.'

  'You mustn't say that. You've nothing to be ashamed of. You're the same, same person you've always been.'

  Charlotte thought this was increasingly less accurate, but wasn't it also the case with her and Hugh? She might have suggested as much if Ellen hadn't said 'I'm sorry, now I'm starting arguments. Forget I spoke.'

  Charlotte doubted he could do this any more than she was able to. Perhaps his attempts kept him silent as far as the bridge over the ring road. As they stepped onto it he raised his voice. 'Watch out for the troll.'

  'Why are you saying that?' Ellen presumably wanted to know.

  'Our dad used to,' he said so awkwardly that Charlotte didn't need to look back to know his face had turned red.

  As the polluted uproar from below closed around them, Charlotte found little to enjoy in the notion of a presence waiting under the bridge to snatch her and her cousins into blackness. Of course it couldn't be so dark above the ring road, and she wasn't going to imagine that descending the hill brought the party closer to any such presence. The interior of the station wasn't dark, even if a huge voice that sounded blurred by dirt seemed to bring the walls and the roof of the booking hall inwards. As Charlotte made for the nearest ticket window Ellen said 'Buy mine and I'll pay you.'

  'I will as well,' Hugh said at once.

  Charlotte felt like the solitary adult in charge of an outing, at least until she led her cousins past the unstaffed barrier onto the train. Hugh seemed uncertain where to sit in the deserted carriage, and ready to move yet again once the women were seated. Ellen looked uncomfortable wherever she rested her gaze, on her cousins or her lap or the empty aisle, and Charlotte was oppressed by her behaviour and Hugh's, not to mention Ellen's overpowering perfumes. There was worse to come, she remembered as the train cruised forwards: there was the tunnel. Every shadow that flooded the carriage was a reminder, every bridge felt capable of growing longer than its dark should last. She rummaged in her mind for a topic of conversation, the more neutral the better. 'Will you have to take a holiday, Hugh?'

  'Where?' His own question seemed to confuse him. 'When?' he tried instead.

  'Now, I was thinking.'

  'I wouldn't call this much of a holiday.'

&n
bsp; The left side of his mouth betrayed that he was straining at a joke. Ellen took it seriously enough to shake her head in agreement, then raised her hands just short of holding it still. 'I meant time off from work,' Charlotte said.

  'For Rory,' Ellen appeared to think he needed to be told.

  'I know what for.' Hugh stared out at a small station that was dragging the train to a halt. He might have been waiting until the door alarm cued his next line. 'They sent me home,' he said.

  'Because of Rory? That was kind of them, wasn't it, Charlotte? It's good to know there are still some employers who –'

  'Because of me.'

  As fields carried off the small town Charlotte felt trapped between the unwashed windows, and Hugh seemed to see nothing on either side to encourage him. 'You'd have been upset, would you?' Ellen offered him. 'I'm sure they understood. We all were, but he's your brother.'

  'He wasn't hurt then. I was no use, that's all.'

  'Of course you are. You're all sorts of use. Who said you weren't?'

  'Me. Didn't you hear me?'

  'If it's only you that thinks it,' Charlotte said, 'we certainly don't, and I'll bet –'

  'There are plenty, and one's all it takes.'

  Charlotte had a sense of buried glee, but how could it be Hugh's or anybody's there? The blackened underside of a bridge filled the window beyond him, giving way to a dazzle of sunlight that rendered the glass more opaque. 'You shouldn't let people . . .' Ellen said and seemed to regret having spoken.

  'It's not just people.'

  Charlotte felt as if Ellen were leaving her to put a question neither of them wanted to ask. 'What, then?'

  'It's Frugo. I can't find my way round now it's bigger, and it's affected me. You know it has.'

  It was certainly blotching his face. 'Don't let it get on top of you,' she said. 'Go back as soon as you can and do . . . what do you think, Ellen?'

  'See if you can find your way and if you can't there must be people who can help.'

  'They aren't like you. Not many people care like you do.' His gaze dodged back and forth, perhaps in search of a way for him not to admit 'I've been suspended. I had a row with my supervisor and someone else as well.'