Think Yourself Lucky

by Ramsey Campbell

"Cunts," I say loud enough for several loiterers at the shelves to stare at me. "By John Updike."

  Her colleague raises her eyebrows, or at least the skin above her eyes, which is occupied by a pair of whitish lines almost too thin and faint to be identified as hair. "Not familiar."

  It sounds as if she wants those to be the final words, but I won't even make them hers. "Aren't you?" I say like an innocent. "I thought he was quite well known."

  "Of course we know the author," Bookface says. "Just not that book."

  "I expect you meet a lot of writers in your job. What's he like?"

  "She means we know his work," Baldbrows says, and the skin above her eyes climbs higher as though in search of extra hair. "We've never seen him."

  "You might be surprised how many writers you've met. Some of them mightn't make themselves known." I'm tempted to let them know who they have the privilege of meeting, but then I'd have to shut them down, and I've already made today's choice. "Anyway, we're talking about cunts," I remind them. "You'd think they'd have made more of a splash."

  "We can look into ordering it for you," Bookface murmurs as if she's in church or a restaurant or somewhere else equally sacred, "but could you stop saying it now?"

  "I wouldn't mind getting my hands on what I'm after, only I was hoping you could give it to me right away." I watch her and Baldbrows fait to be sure enough of my meaning to object to it, and then I say "I'm surprised anybody in a bookshop wants to do away with words."

  "Words like that one we can do without," Baldbrows informs me.

  "And we certainly don't want our customers to hear them," Bookface contributes.

  "I'll have to be careful what I else I ask you for, will I?" I let them have time to wonder if not dread what that might be while I give the street another glance. There's no sign yet of today's selection, but I know they pass the shop on their way to their car. "Am I allowed to say the en word?" I ask the guardians of language.

  "We'd rather you didn't," Baldbrows says.

  "There's no need for it," says Bookface.

  "I thought you'd say there was. I can say the whole word, then."

  "No," Bookface says, and I'm sure her stubborn impervious mask is growing glossier. "That isn't what we said."

  The other girl's brows seem determined to reach for her hairline. "So is there anything we can find for you?"

  "Ten Little En Words. You surely must have that."

  "It hasn't been called that for a long time," Bookface says as if this is a triumph to celebrate.

  "Not since before any of us was born," Baldbrows is even happier to add.

  "Don't be so sure who was born when." Saying this doesn't quite restore my sense of myself—it feels not far from achieving the opposite—and as Baldbrows makes to leave the counter on my behalf I find some loathing to help me feel more substantial. "Never mind bringing me that one if it's changed its name," I tell her. "I've got no time for things that won't own up to what they are."

  She appears to take this personally, and I'm toying with a question—maybe she and Bookface cunt with each other—when she reverts to her job. "I'm afraid that's all we can bring you," she says and looks relieved to be able to stay behind the counter.

  "There must be some things that are too old to change. Prancing En Word, isn't that a classic?"

  Bookface can't entirely keep her suspicion out of her eyes. "I've never heard of it."

  "Would it offend you too much to look it up?"

  I'm rather hoping they'll say yes, but Baldbrows only shakes her head while Bookface consults the computer. "It's by Ronald Firbank," she says and seems not far from disbelief. "We can order it for you."

  "I'd like to have something in my hands." I glance at the street, but we've still a few minutes before today's terminations pass by. "Joseph Conrad," I say. "You must have his book. What's it called again?"

  Both girls gaze hard at me as if they can find my intentions in my eyes. "He wrote a lot," Baldbrows says.

  "You know the one I have to mean."

  Each of them might be waiting for the other girl to speak, unless they're willing each other not to take the bait. Professionalism gets the better of Bookface, who says "You mean the one about Narcissus."

  "The character who didn't know his reflection was him. You'd wonder how anyone could make that mistake." I'm so distracted by the idea that I have to bring myself back to the situation; it feels like starting awake, I imagine, if I ever fall asleep. "That isn't all the title," I object "What's the rest?"

  Bookface ensures that I hear her breathe through her nose, more than I hear myself do, but it's Baldbrows who says "I think you know perfectly well."

  "I'm asking you to tell me. Or aren't you supposed to help your customers too much?"

  Both girls look offended—I've begun to think they have just one expression between them at a time—but I'm threatening their image of themselves. "Has the shop told you not to say what the book's called?" I suggest. "That's a strange way of selling books."

  "Of course not. The En Word of the Narcissus," Bookface mutters as if she hopes not to be heard.

  "That wasn't too hard, was it?" I feel as if I need to carry on the argument so as to keep myself where I can watch the street and perhaps to keep my mind alive as well. "You can't suppress words," I point out. "It doesn't make the thoughts go away. More like it puts them beyond your control."

  "I don't see what you're getting at," Bookface complains.

  "If you don't spell the word out you can't be sure what it is, can you?" For a pause like a void in my mind I feel as if I meant something else entirely, and then I manage to regain myself. "Let's say niggler. Ten Little Nigglers. Prancing Niggler. The Niggler of the Narcissus. Don't you even like me saying that? Let's try Ten Little Nibblers..."

  "Shall I show you where the book is?" Baldbrows tells me rather than asks.

  "The Nitwit of the Narcissus, you mean. Not Prancing Nitpicker or Ten Little Nincompoops.'" Being ushered to the shelf would take me away from the street, and in any case I've exhausted their ability to amuse me, not that there was much of it. "Or The Nonsense of the Narcissus, are you saying?"

  "If you don't want anyone to find what you asked for—" Bookface says.

  "You'd like to see the last of me, would you? Quite a few have." I'm tempted to enquire if the shop has a complaints desk, although no doubt there'd be a warning on it against abusing the staff, which I'd say would be a provocation to complain about the notice. If the shop does have a grievance facility I won't be visiting it just now, but at least the question might leave the girls nervous, though nothing like as much as I ought to make them. I'm about to speak when the pair I'm awaiting pass the shop and vanish downhill. "Thanks for the diversion," I tell Baldbrows and Bookface. "You wouldn't think it, but you've been some use."

  My quarries turn the corner at the bottom of the hill as I leave the shop. Are the shopgirls already forgetting me? I know they won't be able to describe me, and I think our encounter may seem as if they dreamed it, since their minds are too small to have room for anyone like me. I haven't time to reward anybody so insignificant for their lack of appreciation. They aren't the ones I'll be giving something to remember, though not for long.

  I'm first into the lift at the car park, but I don't need to be noticed yet. There are better locations for action. "Oh, what's that smell?" complains the elder of my targets as she pokes the grubby button. "We don't like that, do we? Hurry up and let us out, lift. Someone's been disgusting."

  "If you want a definition of disgusting, just listen to yourself."

  She doesn’t hear me say that. The lift makes a muffled row about reaching the third level, and I watch her grow nervous that it may break down. She isn't sufficiently worried to make it worthwhile to halt the impromptu toilet between floors, but I enjoy her discomfort with the stench of urine. The moment the doors stagger open she lurches between them, so desperate to take a breath that she blunders towards the low concrete wall above the street. A lit
tle more impetus would tip her over the edge for a three-storey fall onto the pavement, but suppose that isn't fatal? She stumbles to a halt well short of it and gasps "Be careful."

  I'm amused to think she isn't talking only to herself, even though she doesn't know I'm close enough to touch. She veers away from the wall like a dumpy vessel taking another tack and heads for her car. I'm in the back seat by the time she unlocks the door. She lowers her ponderous bulk into the driver's seat and eases the safety belt across her midriff as though she's wrapping a delicate package. "There we are," she murmurs. "Safe now. Soon be home."

  I could contradict most of that. I don't need a safety belt, and they won't for much longer. There's no point in drawing attention yet; I'm not even in the mirror. I stay unobtrusive as she starts the engine and coasts down the narrow ramps to the exit, where the post that swallows her ticket with an expressionless slit of a mouth holds up its arm like a warning she's too unimaginative to understand. She drives up a side street and then swings across town to the tunnel under the river. None of this is any use; she's going far too slowly to be in sufficient danger. Even the tunnel keeps her to forty miles an hour, and she's boxed in by vehicles in front and behind and in the adjacent lane. Nothing bad enough could happen here, however much I'm tempted to find some way to bring her babble to an end. "Now we're under the water," she drivels. "Not underwater, or anyway I'm not. You are, though, aren't you? Underwater inside mummy to keep you safe."

  Is this how mothers are supposed to talk to their contents? How do they speak to something they've got rid of without even bothering to take a look? Perhaps they try to keep it inside their heads, but they ought to know it won't stay there; you can't trap anything that way when you don't know what it is. You've lost your chance to shape it, and it's someone else's turn—who else's but its own?

  The far end of the tunnel is in sight now. Emerging into the open may be a little like being born, as if I'd know. The car leaves the buried light behind and heads for the tollbooths under the clogged black starless sky, and I wonder if mummy will address the toll collector with the excruciating coyness she's been using. She only thanks him for taking her money and thanks him again for turning it into change. She drops coins one by one into the hopper beyond the booth, a constipated process that aggravates my detestation, and I occupy my time with grimacing and waving at the attendant through the rear window to prove he can't see me. The toll barrier lifts its arm at last to signal the start of the race, and the car follows dozens of red lights onto the motorway. All that red looks like a warning or an omen, but mummy doesn't notice any more than she's aware of me. "Nearly home now," she's busy droning, "and then we'll see what daddy has made us for dinner."

  She can imagine that for another few minutes, because there's still a speed limit on this stretch of road. Brake lights flare raw as injuries—more traffic is streaming up a ramp to join the race—and then all the vehicles compete to gain speed as a sign like an eye crossed out with a single black slash sets them loose. Mummy remains in the inside lane, and the car speeds up so gradually that I ache to shove her foot down on the accelerator. "Everybody's so impatient, aren't they?" she croons as if she senses how I feel. "At least you aren't, little one. You take your time and come out right."

  "It's your time, true enough. At least you got that right. Better babble while you can."

  Her head twists an inch in my direction. Does she think she heard something? I don't want to be apparent quite yet, and I imitate the darkness in the back seat until a queue of traffic for a slip road forces her into the middle lane, where all the cars are travelling faster than she seemed to want to drive. She's trapped into matching their speed, and the vehicles rushing past her in the outer lane make her visibly nervous. "We don't like this very much, do we?" she complains. "We'll be glad when we're home."

  "Here's something you'll like a lot less."

  She blinks at the mirror, but perhaps she's just checking the traffic behind her. I give her a glimpse of my silhouette against a glare of headlights. I wag my head and shake my hands on either side, wriggling my fingers to frame the face she can't distinguish. "What was that?" she gasps, and the car swerves a fraction. "What did mummy see?"

  "Blushpuss, will you use your name and not that puky word. I'll tell you mine."

  I'm suddenly aware that I've been using her nauseous name for herself. Even if I meant the use as an insult, the realisation feels like owning up. "What is it?" she pleads in a voice almost too small for a child's.

  I can't tell whether she's asking for my name or unable to determine what's happening, unless she hopes the question will somehow make it stop. "It's Lucky Newless," I say and frame my blank head with my outstretched fingers in the mirror.

  She lets out a cry that sounds desperate for breath. The car wavers as she treads on the brake. Perhaps she didn't mean to—perhaps her nerves took over—and the car speeds faster as headlamps blaze behind it. It nearly strayed out of its lane, but it can't retreat into the inner one, because too much traffic has raced onto the motorway at the junction. "Blushpuss, that's our name for you," I tell her. "You never read about yourself, did you? Too late now. You kept wanting your colleague to make a name for himself and never saw your own moment of fame."

  "Who are you?" she begs as though I haven’t told her. "What do you want? Don't hurt me. Don't hurt us. I'm going to have a child."

  I'd like to let her know how little this helps her case—how it stokes my loathing—but if I enjoy the delay much longer she'll be able to slow the car down. "Call the police," I urge so shrilly it must pain her ears. "Tell them there's an intruder in your car. It's your only chance."

  Panic or confusion or an inability to think for the stridence of my voice makes her rummage one-handed in the bag on the seat beside her. It's enough. As she closes her hand on the phone I sidle through the gap between the seats and lean my face into hers. Her hand is still in the bag as she cowers away from me. I hardly even need to grab her other hand to swing the steering wheel awry with all her helpless weight against it. The car swerves into the outer lane, to be greeted by a falsetto chorus of brakes. We're travelling so fast that before the nearest vehicle can run us down we smash into the central barrier.

  The car actually stands on its nose for a moment, and then crashes on its roof on the far side of the barrier. Throughout all this Blushpuss provides such a soundtrack that she might be screaming for two. Her row and the sounds of grinding metal and smashed glass are lost in an enormous trumpet-blast and an eruption of light, all of which announces the giant truck that sweeps the car and its contents into oblivion. "There's some acrobatics for you. There's a special ride," I tell Blushpuss's passenger as I merge with the night beside the road.

  THIRTY

  As David arrived at the agency he saw his face gliding to meet him. Was he early enough to be first for once? He was gazing at his features plastered to the window like a poster issued by the police when he heard Andrea's cough. He could have thought the sharp bark was summing her up as she appeared from behind the counter. Whatever expression the sight of him provoked, she'd withdrawn it by the time she reached the door. She shut him in before she said "Making up for yesterday, David?"

  "I just thought I'd be as early as everyone else." As casually as he could manage he said "Is anyone else here yet?"

  "You've beaten them at last. Since you're capable you might want to keep it up."

  He'd been hoping everyone was safely there, and his unease made him retort "I don't think I've all that much to make up for."

  "You abandoned your post, David."

  "I wasn't alone out there, was I? There were supposed to be two of us. Did you realise Rex decided he was only there to tell me what to do?"

  "He knows about promotions. That is his profession, you know."

  "He needn't worry about the competition. I'm not a writer." As Andrea gave him a look that hadn't time for patience David protested "That's why I went after Kinnear from the writer's group, to t
ell him not to bother me here any more. I thought that's what you wanted."

  "Don't try and be clever with words, David."

  "I'll say one thing if you don't mind."

  "Please keep it brief. As long as you're here there's plenty of work to be done."

  "I expect there would be even if I weren't." Despite her cough, which sounded like an admonition too fierce to need language, David said "Rex didn't do too well at selling, did he? Bill told me nobody came in while Rex was on his own out there, but you saw they did when I was back on the job. And I went without my break because I'd chased Kinnear, remember."

  Andrea gazed at him without speaking and then past him. "Perhaps you'd like to let your colleagues in, David."

  He turned to see Bill at the door and another workmate at the window. She was wearing a handwritten holiday offer where her face should be—at least, the poster on the inside of the pane obscured her face. As David hurried to open the door his lips were shaping Emily's name, but the woman outside the window was Helen. "Not interrupting, are we? Bill said.

  "What do you imagine you'd be interrupting?" Andrea said.

  "We don't see the pair of you together much. You could have been catching up on old times."

  Well short of the end of this Bill visibly regretted having begun, and tried to compensate with a smile that looked as though he'd forgotten the technique. "Aren't we all here, then?" Helen said.

  David was able to wonder if Emily was behind the scenes until Andrea said "All except our new mother."

  "Won't she be," David said and swallowed, "coming in?"

  "I've no reason to think that. Why, have you?"

  "It's just that I thought she was usually here by now. You haven't heard." This sounded ominously unlike the question he'd intended, and he was quick to add "You haven't heard from her."

  "Which is why I'm assuming she's on her way."

  "I'm sure she is," David said and tried to be. He had no reason to think otherwise; he'd wished Emily the opposite of harm. As he managed to capture the nervous hanger in his locker he thought of looking up the Newless blog, but that felt too close to inviting the worst. Surely Emily had to be too concerned with her new state to offer any threat to him. He hurried out to the counter in the hope of seeing her, only to find Andrea's gaze waiting for him. She seemed to think he'd left before they'd finished talking and to expect him to know what to say, but when her silence failed to prompt him she said "You haven't been home, then."