The Count of Eleven

by Ramsey Campbell

  It might have been a question. "I've a daughter at the school," Jack told him.

  "You won't hear a word said against her," the man said, so disapprovingly that Jack had no idea how to respond. "What about the rest of them?"

  "Look on the walls."

  "That's them on their best behaviour, just for show. They're on their worst when they go to a library, believe me. What's the discipline like here?"

  "I should ask the headmistress."

  "I mean to, never you fret. Not that I haven't learned in thirty years of public libraries how to handle them. Give me adults any day, though. Last year I'd have laid odds I wouldn't be applying for a job like this."

  The secretary opened the door again and raised one eyebrow at Jack, and he was almost certain she was commenting on what she must have overheard as well as signalling Jack to go in. He dug his right hand into his trousers pocket and squeezed the clown's head as he stood up. "Clown' added up to thirteen, and so did 'lucky clown'. It was time to turn ill luck into good, he thought as he reached the inner office.

  "And then I realised he was someone else entirely," the head of the English department was saying.

  "I can imagine how you must have felt. It happens to all of us at least once in our lives," the headmistress said, and stood up to greet Jack. Her ash-blonde hair was cropped close to her head, making her broad face seem rounder. A dark stone at the throat of her blouse flamed red as it caught the light. "Mr. Orchard. We're very pleased with Laura," she said.

  "She's excellent at planning how to use her skills," the head of English said, recrossing her legs in her pinstriped skirt.

  "Maybe I ought to take lessons from her."

  "I shouldn't think you need to," the headmistress said as though jokes weren't quite appropriate, "judging by your cee vee here. I'm a little surprised you chose to give up librarianship."

  "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm older and wiser."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Coffee? Tea?"

  She was apologising for the cup in her hand, apparently. "Coffee would be fine," Jack said, "with a dribble of milk."

  "Coffee with a," she said into the phone, "dribble of milk." She straightened up and gave Jack a slightly lofty smile. "So your venture didn't quite live up to your expectations."

  "Or I didn't. When my partner left he took all the business with him."

  "We all have to learn our limits," the head of English said. "Most of us work best when we're employed."

  "Quite so," the headmistress said, which presumably meant she'd found the utterance more meaningful than Jack had. "Did you have much to do with children and young people, Mr. Orchard?"

  "In libraries? I used to feel I'd achieved something when I'd helped them track down information. One more strike for literacy, I used to think."

  "Here's your coffee. Tell us more about it. Take your time," the headmistress said.

  Jack took that as an invitation to reminisce. He did his best not to begin any anecdote before he had finished its predecessor, and punctuated them with sips from the cup, which he managed not to spill or to rattle more than once against the saucer each time he set it down. Eventually the headmistress said, "I think we've heard enough, don't you?"

  He put the cup on her desk and stood up quickly, and she raised her eyes to him. "I hope to be in touch very shortly," she said.

  He restrained himself from looking smug as he emerged into the corridor. The small man in the big suit jumped off his chair, looking aggressive and impatient for a cigarette, and Jack knew at once that the man hadn't a chance. He strode out of the school, counting. "Library' added up to thirteen, and so did 'school library', and what was he turning them into? "Good," he said aloud, since there was nobody to hear.

  All the same, when Julia asked him how the interview had gone he said "It's not for me to say, is it? We'll have to wait and see."

  "When?" Laura demanded as if even one more syllable would waste time.

  "Some time next week, I hope."

  She let out an extravagant sigh, and he restrained himself from telling her that he was certain he'd got the job. That was a secret he should keep until a letter from the school revealed it, and then perhaps he would share the secret of the numbers with her and Julia. Keeping the secret required some effort, especially on Saturday, when he couldn't even go out for a walk until Thursday's caller made an offer for the videotapes. At the same time the secret kept him content as the day wore on and nobody came to the house.

  It was shortly before a quarter past one on Saturday afternoon that the phone rang. Thirteen past thirteen, he thought as Laura ran to the phone. "If it's for me tell him I'm waiting," he called.

  "Hello," she said with her usual eagerness, and then with the disappointment she could never quite conceal if a call wasn't for her, "It's Jody's dad."

  "Not the holiday." That couldn't be the reason for the call; the draw wouldn't take place for weeks. Jack accepted the receiver from her and put his arm round her shoulders. "Hi, Pete. What can I do for you?"

  "It's about the job at the school."

  "I was there yesterday. What is it now, Pete? Good news for me?"

  "No," Pete Venable said.

  THIRTEEN

  Life could be worse, Jack thought as he replaced the receiver, and at once it was: he had to explain to Julia and Laura. He'd let go of Laura once the point of Pete Venable's call had become clear. Now he hugged her and said "I'm afraid your headmistress can't hire me."

  Julia was coming downstairs with an armful of rumpled sheets. She crushed them to her and sat on the fourth stair up. "What do you mean, can't?"

  "Would be well advised not to. The school governors wouldn't approve."

  "Of what?" Julia demanded, almost as though she was accusing him.

  "Of my reputation. Supposedly there's a rumour that I set fire to the shop on purpose."

  "That's criminal. How can she believe that?"

  "I'm not saying she does, but you can see how hiring me would look if other people believe it."

  Laura ducked out of his hug, her eyes bright and wet. "Who says you did?"

  "Quite a few people, apparently. If you mean who started the rumour, I don't suppose we'll ever know."

  "Can't the police find out? Can't you sue them for libel and make them pay you?"

  "It'd be too hard to prove, Laura. Best to let the whole thing die down, I'd say."

  He felt as though he'd betrayed her and Julia again and had to make amends. His calm and rationality were so unlike how he actually felt that they seemed a charm against being overwhelmed by his emotions. "Don't you two worry. There are plenty more jobs around, even for an old clown like me. I don't mind travelling. And at least, Laura," he said, willing this to cheer her up, "Mr. Ink and Nicotine won't be working at your school either. They're re-advertising the job."

  She managed to smile at that by pressing her lips together. "I'll just nip up the road for a paper with jobs in it," he said. "If anyone comes for the videos say I'll be back in five minutes."

  In fact he was more than twice that, since the news agent opposite the Bingo parlour, where the unctuous voice was announcing "Legs eleven', had only tabloids left. Jack ran uphill to the next shop which sold newspapers. The shopkeeper scratched her scalp through her greying curls as she saw him. "It's the stamp man," she said to him.

  "I'll try not to bother you this time."

  "Hmm," she contradicted him.

  "Just the local rag and a Guardian."

  "What, no thirteens?" When she'd allowed herself to be convinced she took his money. "Did your letters get there safely after all your trouble?"

  "I assume so." He saw her resentment that he wasn't more certain after having troubled her so much for the stamps, but he had to smile widely at her; she had given him an idea. "Thanks for all your help," he said, which annoyed her even more than last time, and hurried out of the shop.

  At home he and Julia scanned the job sections. There were more potential jobs for hi
m within a reasonable distance than he would have dared dream: an assistant librarian's post just across the Welsh border, another in Runcorn which was half an hour's drive along the motorway, a third in Ellesmere Port, even closer. He had some difficulty in putting together a list of eleven jobs to apply for, even when he included several at book shops By then it was dark, and Thursday's caller had obviously decided against keeping the appointment, a setback which seemed to confirm that Jack had identified what had gone wrong.

  All he needed in order to put it right was some time by himself in the house. On Sunday morning Julia said "Shall we all go out for a walk this afternoon? It'll do you good."

  "You go. I'll write those letters and then I can relax. If you walk along the beach I'll meet you coming back."

  As soon as he couldn't hear their footsteps in the street he set up the computer and the printer. He instructed the printer to produce thirteen copies of the file called CLOWNLUC, and as it began chattering he opened the phone directory. He took as long to address each envelope as the printer took to issue the letter; he wanted to be absolutely certain that the addresses couldn't be misread.

  Nothing else made sense. One of the letters he had originally sent must have gone astray. It wasn't enough just to send them, they had to arrive. When they were all safely in their envelopes he created a file called JOBAPPL1, which put him in mind both of apples and Job in the Bible, and composed a standard letter. As the printer finished each letter Jack changed the details for the next one and addressed an envelope. By the time he'd completed the task he was almost in a trance. He left the job applications piled on the table and slipped the other set of envelopes inside one of his jackets in the wardrobe, then he went down to the beach.

  The tide had gone out, leaving ripples sketched in the sand. As Jack walked down the slipway from the promenade the sky inched down past the horizon. The light which sharpened the waves appeared to be shining from behind the sky, from a source to which the sun was the only aperture in a surface of stained glass. The richness of the colours all around him, and the shadows defining the moment on the sand, made everything seem fragile and precarious, so that when he saw Julia and Laura in the distance he experienced the beginning of an unexpected panic. Was he sure he'd done everything he could to save their luck? They were coming towards him, growing larger; soon they would come too close for him to be able to think. He turned away from their magnification and pretended to be interested in the depths of a shallow pool left behind by the sea. Yes, there was more he could do: he could make certain that the mail didn't lose any of the duplicate batch of letters. The sky seemed to sail up as he lifted his head.

  "What were you looking at?" Laura wanted to know.

  "Something peculiar. It's run away now." He found her eleven shells to make up for the loss of nothing, and then she wandered to the edge of the sea while he and Julia held hands. "Are you better?" Julia said.

  Than what?"

  "Than when we just saw you. You didn't seem to know which way to go."

  "We're on course."

  "Try not to worry, Jack. My grandmother used to say if you worried too much you'd worry a hole in your head."

  "Did she? Well." He wished he could tell Julia that 'on course' added up to eleven. "So long as we can laugh," he said, and ran with her along the beach until she did.

  In the morning he wakened feeling sure of himself. It was Monday the twenty-third of April, and the sum of "Monday' and "April' and twenty-three was eleven. While Julia was in the bathroom he took the opportunity to consult the A to Z of Mersey side. Despite its title, the book of road maps didn't cover all the territory which the telephone directory indexed. He had a shower which set his skin tingling, he waved goodbye to Laura and then to Julia, and was waiting on the doorstep of the Liscard post office when the bolts were shot back.

  Eleven sevens, eleven thirteens. He stuck them on the job applications and squeezed the wad into the post-box, then he climbed into his van in the car park behind a hoarding which advertised finance. He might as well start with the first of the thirteen addresses. "Here comes luck," he murmured, and swung the van into the road.

  Lorries and company cars with jackets hanging above the back seats were almost bumper to bumper in the tunnel. At last the van emerged into the timid sunlight, and he sent it roaring towards the Liverpool suburb of Childwall. Until now it hadn't occurred to him to reflect on what the thirteen did in life. They were certainly all employed, since he'd found their names in the business pages of the directory. He hoped he wouldn't have any problems in delivering the letters to their business addresses, but the strategy might be fun.

  Five minutes' drive beyond the business park which counted Edge Enterprises among its units, Jack passed a supermarket where he recalled having been taken on a roller coaster as a toddler. It had been his first experience of a film, and in Cinerama. The film and the screams of the audience had surrounded him as the entire cinema plunged forwards into the abyss. For years after that he'd expected cinemas to move as he'd watched films in them in the intervals he'd felt as though only the lights were holding the ranks of seats on an even keel and a dream that his home was descending like a lift out of control had recurred for even longer. The ages of the shoppers converging on the supermarket made him realise that most of them were unlikely to have visited it when it had been a cinema. For most of his potential customers at Fine Films, cinema wasn't the adventure it had been to people of his generation, it was simply something else they watched on television. No wonder he'd failed. He needed to bring himself up to date, to learn to seize what the moment had to offer.

  He drove past a Jewish school to Childwall Fiveways, where it seemed best to ask for directions to Calderstones Park, near which Veronica Alan lived. "Tag at avenue," a man leaning on a stick in a bus shelter told him, which sounded like a clue in some survival game until Jack saw that the road at which the man had jabbed his stick was called Taggart Avenue. At the top he swung the van around a grassy triangular island towards the park. Trees rose from wide verges in front of secluded pairs of houses which gave way to high mossy brick walls, and a few minutes later he crossed a dual carriage way which was halved by trees and cruised into the park.

  There was just one parking space on the stretch of tarmac near the greenhouses. Slipping the letter to Veronica Alan into his pocket, he left the other dozen on the passenger seat and walked back to the dual carriage way Veronica Alan lived on the far side, in Druid Stones Lane. Here was Druids Cross Road, here was Druidsville Road, and he felt as if there was magic in the air. Here was Druid Stones Lane, and he walked up the slope of it, trying to appear to be on his way to somewhere else.

  Less than a minute's walk brought him to the house. It was a long stone bungalow at the top of a semicircle of concrete occupied by an Audi and embraced by privet hedges as tall as the building. There were no gates, but on a gate post at the corner of the hedge a small brass plaque read ALAN: ANTIQUE RESTORATION. Jack followed the left-hand hedge, keeping the car between him and the long uncurtained window to the right of the front door.

  The door consisted mostly of frosted glass so thick as to be virtually opaque. Through it he could just distinguish a brown object, probably a chest or wardrobe standing in the hall. A brass letter-slot was set in the foot of the door, as though to make postmen pay their respects. Jack went down on one knee on the prickly concrete and dragged the stiff flap open wide enough to admit the letter. The envelope was only halfway through when the spring proved stronger than his fingers and the flap bit down on the envelope with a muffled thud.

  If he tried to push the envelope all the way in, the noise might bring someone to the door. Jack seized his knee with both hands and shoved himself to his feet. He was passing the gate post when he heard a sound behind him like the closing of a trap. Someone had pulled the letter into the house. He hesitated, screened by the privet, and heard an outburst of barking which abruptly grew louder, and then the slam of the door. Someone and their dogs ha
d come out of the house.

  Jack managed not to look around as he walked downhill, fast but not too fast. He was ready to cross the dual carriage way when the barking started downhill. He couldn't resist the chance of seeing who had received the letter. Moving a few paces along the kerb, he stood at a bus-stop.

  The barking reached the corner, and two obese panting bulldogs wallowed out of Druid Stones Lane. They were harnessed to a woman in her fifties who was wearing expensively casual trousers, an ankle-length leather coat, a tortoise shell comb in her silvery hair. Her skin was aged by sunlight, and so brown that some of the light must have been artificial. She heaved at the leads, causing the dogs to snuffle and choke, and came straight at Jack, brandishing the letter. "Rubbish," she said in a voice that smelled of cigarettes.

  She wasn't talking to him; indeed, he could see that she wasn't aware of him. She tore his letter up before his eyes and dropped the pieces in the bin attached to the bus-stop. "Major," she said, jerking the left-hand lead as its dog cocked a leg against the concrete pole, splashing Jack's shoes. "Come along, General," she said, and urged the dogs across the carriage way and up the road to the park.

  She must have destroyed the first letter too, but why should that have affected the Orchards? The bad luck was meant to settle on anyone who ignored the letter, not on the sender unless, he thought in a sudden rage, she'd wished the bad luck on whoever had sent her the letter. His anger felt like a fire in his brain, growing hotter as she dwindled and vanished around the corner towards the park. He could still smell her: leather, dogs, perfume which was undoubtedly expensive, stale flesh. He grabbed the fragments of the letter out of the bin and strode fast up the hill.

  He was only going to stuff the pieces through the door, but part of him knew better. His free hand was reaching in his pocket as he passed the Audi. He felt as though only the actions he was performing could fit into these moments. As he squatted in front of the door, farting inadvertently, he flicked the lighter and set fire to the bunch of paper. "Try some of our luck for a change," he said through his teeth, and levering the slot wide with the hand that held the lighter, posted the blazing paper into the house.