Demons by Daylight

by Ramsey Campbell

  Our room had two deep beds and strip lighting, pure mirrors and its own blinding white bathroom. Bill unwrapped his free soap and emerged from the bathroom masked by the towel as he rubbed. “My God, Don, don’t drum your fingers like that, you’ll wear your nails off,” he said.

  He switched on the radio and found the Beatles singing in German. I remembered Beatles songs through portable radios across Hampstead Heath as I’d walked back from their flat, catching the rain in my outstretched hands. I went out on the balcony and stared at the sunset, curling over the edge of the city like burning sheets of paper. As I gripped the balustrade my fingers found a niche in the concrete. “What shall we do then, Bill?” I called.

  “I’d like another Weiner Schnitzel.”

  I came back into the room and swung up my camera from the bed. “That’s all right, but I mean, since it’s Frankfurt we could find a couple of women afterwards. You don’t have to search here.”

  “Not for me, thanks. You can put that camera down too, mate,” he said. “You needn’t think you’d be taking pictures.”

  I threw the camera back on the pillow. “What makes you think I’ve sunk to that level?” I said plaintively.

  “Don’t take everything so seriously, mate. I know you’re all right.”

  “Then what shall we do?” I asked again.

  “You won’t have any fingernails left in a minute. I tell you what I’d like to do — find that beer we had in Munich.”

  As I washed my face I kept catching sight of Bill in the mirror, sitting on the bed. I rubbed soap into my eyes to stimulate my brain; I couldn’t think what he reminded me of. At last I had it. I came out grinning. “Let’s find a Weiner Schnitzel for you, Bill!” I shouted. Of course: he looked like a man in the condemned cell.

  In the foyer we browsed in the bookshop. The girl smiled at us from the top of a ladder; I noticed that her thighs were mottled with bruises. We emerged into the street. Panels of light were propped against the tops of store windows. As we passed a side street two women came alert and followed us for several blocks until they were replaced by others. On the next main street trams clanked by; where they connected with the overhead wire a spark spat like a burning hair, greatly amplified. For me certain things are intensified to the exclusion of many others. And quite rightly: one must concentrate or founder.

  We followed the tram-lines into the heart of the city, past the station, grim faces peering into themselves, heads withdrawing into the ground on an escalator, boys buying what looked like black sealing-wax, a Wimpy Bar opposite. “I don’t think we should eat round here,” I said to Bill. In open bars on corners gross figures munched immense hamburgers, girls so young I couldn’t believe it sat on high stools with their tight skirts pulled up. In a square a fountain flickered like a close-packed chatter of luminous ghosts. The tram-wires gave out, but we strode on. “We’ll find that beer for you to have with your Schnitzel,” I promised Bill as he panted and grumbled.

  At last I saw a menu in a scrolled bright window on the corner of a dark alley. “There,” I said.

  Beneath the lamps like dim inverted amber blossoms, more high stools stood close to a dark bar. On the walls, haloes of leaves surrounded the lamps and boisterous engravings. A few circular tables, their surfaces encircled by whorls of the tree-trunk like frozen ripples, were scattered in the darker reaches of the hot room choked by smoke and by a heavy mass of shouted conversation; Bill and I sat at one. I pressed my back against the hard ornate chair to stop the Germans from rising to the roof like balloons. A man in a bulging stained apron said “Nacht” expansively and handed us menus. But I nodded to Bill to say “Zwei Weiner Schnitzels, bitte.” I knew virtually no German, although I once had a friend at school who could swear in six languages; I spent nights remembering the words.

  I ate my Weiner Schnitzel and watched the bar; Bill was protestingly silent because they hadn’t had the beer he wanted. Ahead of me a girl sat with her skirt spread around the stool and hanging down. She must have known when eyes were watching her wherever they were, just as I do, for she turned and stared at me. I tried to smile, but my mouth felt like that of a tragic mask. She said something to the man on her right, and he swung round trailing smoke, his cigar like a blackened gun-barrel, to train his gaze on me.

  I knew he was hostile; I always do. I stared at him, pressing my lips together with my fingers to stop them trembling, willing my eyes to burn out his. Bill’s head was bent on his food. I couldn’t speak. Then the man’s two companions glanced at him, turned and supported his gaze. It wasn’t fair. I could feel myself dwindling.

  Suddenly I remembered words. I began to shout at them. “Verfluchte mal! Blutziniger Affe! Scheisskerl!”

  Bill stared at me, astonished. I felt his gaze, but I was hypnotized by the three men. Slowly they got down from their stools, like hippopotami sliding down a river-bank. There was about three yards between us, but they were closing in slowly, inexorably. They would crush me.

  I tried and failed to look at Bill. I rubbed my hands down the insides of my thighs as I had before I was caned at school; helplessly furious, I knew it was wrong that he should have the cane as if he were superior, that my mother should have to go to the headmaster because my father wouldn’t, that they should crush me. It was like being herded in by hippopotami, but one had a duelling scar, another had a red ear pressed out to twice its size. And that ear was flapping toward me. If it touched me I would scream.

  Then Bill pushed back his chair and strode between us. What he did then I thought brilliant in its way; he faced them and let his right hand rest negligently bulging his trousers pocket.

  “Round behind me, Don. I’ll move with you,” he hissed. A part of me was furious; he of all people shouldn’t be in control now, he shouldn’t be enjoying the situation.

  I circled his axis to the door. He backed away toward me — but I hadn’t opened the door, and he pulled his empty right hand into view too soon. The three men started. Words poured from them like beer. I shouldered open the door. “Run!” I yelled.

  We ran: the wrong way down the alley, past women dropping from doorways, as a plane throbbed overhead and drowned any sounds of pursuit. I ducked left into another alley, running headlong into a night wind like an icy pillow. Bill was treading on my heels. I flung myself across into another alley; I was sure we were heading back toward the hotel. Shirts flapped repetitively from a balcony, and behind me I could hear the forced padding and panting of the three men and Bill. Then light tore the labyrinthine blackness. I threw myself out of the alley into a main street before a slowing tram.

  “Is that our tram?” I demanded, pointing, as Bill lurched out beside me.

  “Quick!” he yelled and sprinted.

  “No,” I said, “that’s not our tram.” Unless I was mistaken it plunged out beyond the edge of the city. But Bill continued running. I moulded myself into a nearby doorway. After a moment I saw the three men pop forth from the alley into the light like balloons and bounce after him. If I’d called out they would have seen me, of course. They bounded aboard and the tram moved off. As I raced to stand between the lines where it had been I saw Bill thrown back and forth in the globular mirror of the tram, jostled by the three men like fish in a bowl. I’m sure they have those mirrors on German trams.

  On my way back to the hotel I was pursued by a woman. I waved her off; sometimes on the darkest nights I would look for them in Hampstead when they weren’t there, but now I wanted to keep myself pure. I debated whether to stay in the hotel for a while. I decided not; I needed sleep, and there was a telephone in my room. As I washed my face I glimpsed the empty bed in the mirror. There seemed to be some extra significance in this, but it eluded me. I undressed, and my Nürnberg souvenir fell to the carpet. I thought and hid it in the niche on the balcony. Then I went to bed. I think I wondered what I would say if the telephone rang, if they would understand me. Mind you, Bill could speak only half-a-dozen words of German.

  The next morn
ing I told the courier that Bill hadn’t returned. Obviously I couldn’t describe what had happened; I said he’d gone off with a woman around eleven o’clock. She shook her head sadly. I gave her a pound and said that I felt bound to leave the tour and stay in Frankfurt. Sadly she departed. Some hours later I took a taxi to the airport for the next plane to London.

  Though it was a rush for the plane; almost at the airport I remembered that I’d left my Nürnberg souvenir in the balcony niche. They might presume that it was mine, and wrong address or not, it might reach me. So I had the taxi return, screeching and manoeuvring along the autobahn, and said I’d left my suitcase keys. At first they wouldn’t let me in the room, but the porter closed his eyes and his fist on a pound. I ran into the room and found the niche. I would hardly need my souvenir now. I was glad; had it proved necessary then explanations to Dilys would have been much more difficult. Which they may still turn out to be, of course. But I can wait. That’s something I’m good at.

  I threw the knife as far as I could. It fell with a dull clunk on a roof below, and I thought of Jack the Ripper. Not because I wanted to be another, I’m sure. It was another idea trying to make itself felt, for I remembered how a thought had hung about the house for weeks after my misunderstanding with Dilys: how all women must be alike and yet it had to be Dilys. I’d missed my chance of finding out then; but not this time.

  THE STOCKING

  The phone rang.

  “Phone’s ringing,” Tom said.

  “Yes, well?” Sheila countered.

  “You get it, I’m too tired.”

  “Are you tired, Tompuss?” called Tina in mock sympathy.

  “Let’s toss for it.”

  “Go on, Tom, answer it,” said Shiela. “You’ll have Mr Tubb telling us off again.”

  Wearily he lifted the receiver. A girl repeated: “Hello? Hello?” He brandished the receiver: “It’s for you, anyway.”

  “Bridget?” Shiela greeted, lowering her voice. “And where were you last night?…Now you know I don’t like to go out on my own…Well, you’ll never guess who I went out with!…Yes, that’s right…Oh, fabulous, he took me to that club…Yes, he drove me home…You know I wouldn’t normally, but he’s different…And how did you go on?...”

  Tom fixed his eyes on his work; he always felt depressed by these conversations of Shiela’s. But he was not to be left undisturbed. Tina was in a happy mood today; obviously she’d “had a good night”, as she was fond of telling them. Now she called: “Why are you tired, Tompuss?”

  “Lack of sleep, Mrs McLaine.”

  “Hectic night?”

  “Now, Tina, don’t corrupt Shiela.”

  “No, but seriously, Tom, have you ever?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” He felt trapped.

  “Do you often?”

  “Often what?”

  “Can you?”

  “Can’t you, Tom?” said Shiela in his ear, having finished her conversation.

  “Now, don’t be naughty.” He spanked her and she squealed. He was released. Tina arched her eyebrows. “Kinky,” she commented. “Yes,” said Shiela with a long look at Tom, and went back to her desk.

  When he left for home that night, Tom dawdled on the pavement near the entrance to an alley which he knew Shiela used as a short cut. He saw her leave the building, and ducked into the alley. Soon he heard her high heels on the cobbles, overtaking him. “Aren’t you speaking to me?” he asked as she passed.

  “Oh, hello, Tom, I didn’t see you.” They picked their way between the dustbins, crushed cartons and locked back doors of two main streets. One black door, half off its hinges, creaked in shadows. Shiela pressed close to Tom. “What’s wrong?” he enquired.

  “Oh, that door. It’s always open when I come by. It frightens me. Silly, really.”

  “I didn’t know you were the nervous type.”

  “I am, you know.” They emerged into a square, bright as day between blazing store windows. Shiela’s bus was swallowing its queue. “See you tomorrow,” she said, and ran. Tom began to walk to the traffic-lights where the bus might be halted. It was, and he waved, but Shiela did not see him.

  Next morning she had made the coffee; a cup awaited Tom when he arrived. He sipped it down, his eyes on Shiela, then carried it round to her desk. “Thanks, kitten,” he said.

  “Ready for work?” Mr Tubb called, striding past.

  Tom and Shiela swapped grimaces. She stretched back in her chair, arms behind her head, closed her eyes and yawned. He tickled her armpit. She squeaked and squirmed out of reach. His fingers followed.

  “At it early, children?” Tina commented, sitting down to repair one eyebrow before her compact mirror.

  “Never miss an opportunity,” Tom replied. His fingertips continued. Shiela had worked herself almost into a knot, one leg hooked around the corner of her desk. “Oo — ” she protested yet again. Then: “Oh!” — a genuine protest. She shoved back her chair and gazed at her leg. “Now look, my stocking’s laddered.”

  “I’m sorry, Shiela,” Tom apologized, trying to insinuate regret into his gaze as he took in her legs. “Get some at dinnertime and I’ll give you the money.”

  “It’s all right, Tom, I had to buy a pair anyway.”

  “No, come on, I insist.”

  “Thanks, Tom, but I’d really rather you didn’t.”

  “You’re just finishing your break, are you?” suggested Mr Tubb.

  Shiela stretched the laddered stocking before her face and peeked at Tom. “Thanks,” he said, holding out his hand. She hesitated. “Go on, Shiela, if he wants it,” Tina urged. Shrugging, Shiela balled the stocking and tossed it to him. Smiling at her, he impaled it with a pin and hung it from the corner of his desk. Mr Tubb cleared his throat, Shiela’s head went down. Now and then Tom fingered the stocking, glancing up at Shiela. Tina watched him.

  “Make me some coffee, Tompuss,” Tina said.

  He was spooning the ingredients from jars on the window-ledge; blank morning fog walled them in. “I can only carry two cups,” he explained.

  “Well, I’m here, you’re here, so make ours.”

  “No, I must look after Shiela,” and he did so. She was at her desk when he returned, leafing through a women’s magazine with Tina. Tom waited for her to turn to him, then handed her the cup. His fingers lingered among hers.

  “Are you holding my hand, Tom?” she asked.

  His hand, found out, retreated and was suspended for a moment in mid-air. Her neck showed between her cardigan and hair. Tom’s fingers found the gap and stroked. They progressed upward, lifting her hair; it was a gesture such as he might have used to sweep up her skirt.

  Tina’s fingers closed round her cup as she rose. “I’m embarrassed,” she told them. “It’s like watching you courting.”

  “We were innocent until you came, Mrs Libido,” he replied.

  “At least I brought you two together, then. When are you getting married?”

  “Oh, sure!” said Shiela.

  “You really killed that,” Tom followed, and sat down with his coffee. Tina smiled mysteriously. At that moment Mr Tubb entered through the door beneath the clock; his temper and his winter cold were suffering from fog. Tina sat down again.

  Later, gusts of rain cleared away the fog and plastered newspapers against the pane. Nobody went out at lunchtime. Tom unpacked his sandwiches and ate, trying to conceal the sound of chewing. Shiela rustled pages in the silence; Tina stubbed out a cigarette and began to knit. Mr Tubb coughed. Tom heard only the pages turning onward. The thought possessed him that both he and Shiela had scoffed at Tina’s observation; could Shiela be concealing a desire as deep as his?

  “That’ll go stale,” Shiela said beside him. He started; he could not remember how long he’d been holding the half-eaten sandwich. He gnawed at it and she picked up the phone.

  “Is that Bridget?…Look, I can’t make it tomorrow…No, it’s terrible, he’s in hospital…Appendix…Yes, I’m going tonight�
��Of course, except Thursdays, because then visiting’s in the afternoon…The hospital across the field…I do get frightened! … Yes, seriously! Thinking of what happened to that girl last week, and that was in the street…I’m still as frightened, but this is different. I’ve got to go…”

  “Why don’t you ask Shiela out?”

  Tom went cold. Tina had whispered the question, and he could not be sure if Shiela had heard. He forced himself to look; she seemed intent on the receiver. Tina was watching for an answer. “Yes, why not?” he managed, and smiled and nodded violently. Then he picked up a sandwich and began to chew, keeping his eyes on the food, feeling mercilessly exposed to Tina’s gaze. Shiela replaced the phone and left his side. Slowly his face cooled, but he could not think. He reached out and caressed the stocking.

  That night he loitered at the mouth of the Shiela’s alley, but in vain. Eventually he turned down the alley, walking slowly, letting the wall of fog precede him and reveal each remembered door and cobblestone. Silence isolated his footsteps. Suddenly he stopped; a black door had loomed up on his left, rustily ajar. The shifting obscure walls cut them off together. Tom hesitated; then he took out a box of matches and, dragging the door further open, squeezed inside.

  “I hope you two enjoyed yourselves last night?” Tina smiled radiantly at Tom and Shiela as she combed the fog from her hair.

  “Of course,” Tom said.

  “I went to the hospital,” explained Shiela, “then back across the field. It was terribly creepy. Sort of thing you’d have liked, Tom. But I didn’t really mind.”

  “How was he?” Tina asked.

  Tom stirred his coffee, deliberately blotting out their conversation. When he put down the cup, Tina was remarking: “New perfume?”

  “Yes, L’Imprevu.”

  Later, Mr Tubb coughed over next weeks’ time-sheet and pinned it up. Tina rose to scrutinize it. Returning, she called: “That reminds me, Shiela, did you realize you’d be working alone tomorrow night? I can’t work Thursdays.”