by Adam Nevill
‘Brrrr,’ Ewan said loudly, and eclipsed the end of Seb’s sentence, impatient with his host’s attempts to defend himself. In the past, he’d often make noises and engage in distracting movements, when drunk, if an argument wasn’t going his way. He’d never been able to listen to anyone for long and liked to obliterate other personalities with his manic energy. Seb thought it doubtful the tactics had changed; attack and give no room for counter-attack.
Ewan had always thought he was quick too, while having no insight into what a ridiculous boor he was. More and more was coming back to Seb now, and chiefly those things that he’d been happy to forget.
Seb warily settled into his favourite chair, the one closest to the balcony. ‘So what are you doing here, Ewan? I’m getting tired of asking the same question. What is this about?’
The question summoned a grimace from Ewan. ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you? Not really. About anything. You never did. You always were a bit like that. Couldn’t grasp the bigger picture. You were a bit, dare I say, clueless?’ He pursed his lips and took an affected sip of his beer.
Seb wanted to throw the television remote into Ewan’s face, as hard as possible across the short distance. He thought instead of the distant black figure standing in the sea and quelled a shudder. He had to know how Ewan had managed to appear like that. So let him speak. From whatever the unwanted visitor shared, conclusions could be drawn later.
‘I tried to read a couple of your books,’ Ewan said, creasing his nose as if recalling something worse than the smell of his own clothes. ‘Oh dear. Oh dearie me. But I can see that you put a lot of work into them.’
‘Ewan. What do you want?’
‘Did people really like that story about the hospital? I have to say, I found it all a bit silly. Afraid I didn’t finish any of the others I found in the library either. I tried. But you’ve clearly done all right out of it.’ He looked around himself again with an expression that suggested he wanted to begin vandalizing the room. ‘People will buy anything, though. All about marketing these days, branding, isn’t it?’ He shook his head, exasperated but knowing.
Seb cleared the irritation from his throat. Suppressing it was giving him heartburn. ‘It clearly attracted you down here. What are you after, an endorsement?’ I have seen the future of horror and he hasn’t taken a shower in ten fucking years. Seb smiled to himself. Two could play this game. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen you on the shelves of WHSmith. Better to actually finish a book first, Ewan.’
‘You think I envy all this?’ Ewan shot back. ‘It’s hardly that. I’d actually be a bit embarrassed if I was churning this out.’ He indicated the bookshelves. ‘Pulp, isn’t it? Is that what you wanted to write? Is that all writing is worth to you: money? You missed the boat somewhere along the line, Seb. But I didn’t come here to talk about your books.’ There was a sarcastic tilt on the last word, as if intonation alone could belittle the actual works. ‘I didn’t come here to pay homage. I’m quite sure you get enough of that from the pillocks out there. Though they haven’t got a clue, not about writing, have they? And they haven’t got a clue about the other stuff either.’
‘What other stuff? I’m intrigued as to what the point is that we’ve all missed.’
Ewan silenced him with a big hand that wagged a finger in remonstration. ‘Don’t you think that something so special might be a bit private, sacred even? So all in good time.’ He held up his other hand. ‘My glass is empty.’
‘Bar’s closed.’
‘Open it. What’s the point of having all of this if you can’t relax and have a drink with an old friend.’
‘You’re hardly that. Do friends stalk one another?’
‘Stalk!’ Ewan found this incredibly funny and slapped a thigh. ‘You haven’t seen anything.’ And he fixed Seb against his chair with his eyes alone. Eyes bloated with inebriation but shining with diabolical intent. ‘But I think you’re waking up now and getting the picture. And about time, I’d say. About time you got a bit real. If you were worried enough to run away on the beach, you’ll be quite surprised, shall we say, by what else I can do. I might show you sometime. But I wouldn’t be in any hurry to see it, if I were you. It’s not some magician’s illusion. I’d say that only a tiny handful of people in this world have ever pulled off what I can pull off.’
Seb did his best not to react to the threat and kept his voice calm. ‘What picture can I not see? I still don’t follow.’
‘Oh, don’t be coy. Some of us have spent our time a bit more wisely, instead of writing silly stories about . . . about . . .’ The drink appeared to be affecting his memory. ‘Ghosties and things. But you don’t understand what’s really out there, or here, and really close by, do you? Not really. You’re in the dark like everyone else. You don’t even know what it is that you’re trying to write about. That’s all fantasy. So I thought I’d show you something real, something special, something that requires a lot more skill than just sitting around in here, pulling some ridiculous story out of your head. Ha! And you are privileged to have seen what you have seen, but you don’t even know it. You can’t handle it. Just like I suspected. Dearie, dearie me, you really have missed the boat. But at least I’m here to help you now.’
Seb wasn’t sure whether his fear or his loathing would choke him first, but the situation felt akin to being taunted by someone who was pointing a gun at him. ‘Help me with what? I’m fine as I am.’
Ewan looked at his glass. ‘We can get into all of that later. Today, I just wanted to say hello and have a drink with an old mate. Get reacquainted before the fun begins.’
‘Fun?’
‘Oh, yes. You’ve got a lot to learn.’
‘About what?’
Ewan grinned. ‘About what’s really going on. Where it all leads.’ He gazed around the room again. ‘I thought your stuff would have a bit of edge, like I tried to show you, when I started you off, back at uni. But you’ve lost the plot.’
‘You started me off, did you?’
‘Don’t deny it.’ Ewan looked at the bookshelves. ‘You wouldn’t have written one of those books if I hadn’t helped you.’
‘I don’t think that’s—’
‘You hadn’t read anything until you met me. You didn’t know anything. Think about it. You could say that all of this –’ again his hands took in his surroundings – ‘is mostly down to me. My influence. And you’ve never acknowledged it.’
To make such a declaration would have entailed Ewan checking the acknowledgements in each of his books, as well as reading the interviews he’d given about his origins as a writer. This made Seb consider the fresh spate of trolling reviews. He wondered if Ewan had been behind those from the start. Perhaps, for years, Ewan had been maliciously harassing his books online. ‘Do you really believe that, Ewan?’
‘Believe it? It’s a fact. You’d never read Machen or Wakefield, or Aickman, Blackwood, none of the believers, until you met me. I even lent you my books. And, judging by what you’ve written, you didn’t read them all that carefully.’
Now Seb’s entire body was rigid, white and uncomfortable with suppressed rage. He stood up. ‘I’m not getting into this. I’m not debating my books with you, or anything else for that matter. But I can understand why you’re upset. It doesn’t appear that things have worked out for you, Ewan, though that has nothing to do with me. But I’m not really surprised that you’re pissed off and pissed up. Nothing’s changed there, has it? Same old resentful Ewan. But you made your bed and I have made mine, and it’s time you took off.’
‘I’ve only just arrived. I’m not ready to go yet.’ He winked and grinned his yellowy grin. ‘You must be a little dissatisfied with how it’s gone, surely?’
‘No, as a matter of fact, I—’
Ewan interrupted, raising his slurred voice. ‘Was it worth it? Not very rock and roll is it? Gadgets and baubles, trinkets! I remember you telling me how you were going to drive across America. Live in a forest in Norway. Or w
as it a Greek island? Have you done any of that?’
‘No. But I—’
‘Ha! Didn’t think so. You’ve just become some fussy, pretentious, stay-at-home pulp fiction type. You haven’t done anything! You haven’t lived, man! Or seen anything. You’re a bit of a fraud, if I’m honest.’ Ewan’s mouth had become sloppy. His eyes were becoming increasingly unfocused and he was struggling to express what Seb suspected was a rehearsed spiel. Ewan may have waited a long time to say all of this.
Seb’s anger would no longer keep silent. ‘I’ll tell you what I did, Ewan: I read. I actually read books, and a great many of them. I learned from them, and from better writers. And I sat still, at a desk, and I wrote. I figured out the basics of the craft. And while I wrote for years without much recognition, I paid my bills doing boring, soul-destroying jobs. I stood on my own two feet and I supported myself. I had no choice. My parents weren’t rich.
‘I had some breaks. A lot of people helped me for sure, agents, editors, even critics, but I wrote my way out of some bad times. Only I could do that, alone. I have no control over the bigger picture, but at least I was consistent and I worked.’
Ewan tried to interrupt. ‘Listen to him!’
‘And I acknowledged my failings, Ewan. Confronted them, addressed them. And I searched myself, wrung myself out to see if I had anything to say, to see if I could make a contribution. Year after year. Half of my life making writing a purpose, including over a decade of indifference from publishers. Eventually I was noticed, because I stuck at it.’
‘Noticed by who? Some twats in London, with their soirees and festivals and launches. I’ve seen them. Been to those things. No one has a clue. No one. They’re not even fun. No one even knows how to have a bit of fun.’
‘Fun? Is that the goal? The party’s over, Ewan. It ended in 1990 for everyone but you. Your own approach doesn’t look like much fun to me. I mean, Christ alive, have you looked in the mirror recently?’
Ewan glanced down his body. ‘What?’ he asked in what appeared to be genuine surprise.
‘What have you produced? Where’s the body of work? You’re what, nearly sixty? Was this the endgame that you had in mind?’
‘Oh, I’ve been working. And writing! Oh, yes, but not some ridiculous crap they sell in some crappy supermarket. Some shit that mums read to pass a few hours. Oh, no, you don’t need to worry about that!’
‘I’m not worried. I don’t care.’
‘Oh, I think you will be quite surprised by what I have been up to. By what I have produced. And we’re talking about the real deal here. Something that will matter when it comes out. Oh, yes.’
Seb no longer thought about the vanishing act, or the lone sentinel watching from afar, or the figure up in the trees of Marriage Wood. Ewan had attacked the most important thing in his life: his writing. ‘Matter to who? You? And when what comes out? And when? How do you even know your writing is any good? What kind of scrutiny has it been put under? Does it not need any informed appraisal? Maybe not, because you just know that it’s brilliant. Still the same old Ewan. Delusional. Pissed and lazy. Just another entitled prick with family money. And that must have been pissed away by the look of you. Or were you cut off? Did your folks finally realize they’d sired a money pit? An ungrateful one at that. Your greatness doesn’t extend more than one millimetre further than your own grubby skull, and it never did. You keep telling me that I’m clueless. Me! That I’ve missed the boat. But I am inclined to believe that when the boat left port, you were still asleep in the park, unconscious on a bench.’
Ewan grinned and lowered his voice in a way that suggested the coming of danger. ‘Listen to yourself, playing at being some literary toff. Pretentious. Mannered. Some cosseted Hay-on-Wye ponce. Who do you think you are, M. R.-fucking-James?’
He roared with laughter at his own jibe. ‘It’s that voice. That horrible voice in all of your books. It’s fake. It’s not you! You’re working class, for God’s sake. A prole trying to write like a toff!’
‘You don’t have a clue about—’
Ewan rose, swaying, from his seat, gesticulating with those dirty claws, swinging his big red hands excitedly through the air. The last of the beer in his glass cut a foaming arc across the room and splashed over a table, the back of the sofa, a wall. ‘You’re the joke! You. Clueless!’
Seb clenched his fists. ‘You son of a bitch. My furniture!’
‘Oops.’ Ewan found the spillage funny, but looked oddly sheepish too, as if finally realizing that he had gone too far and risked losing control of his advantage.
Anger had all but closed Seb’s throat. He was shaking but he took a step forwards, and this time Ewan retreated. ‘I worked . . . so hard. For years.’
‘Misguidedly. It must be said.’
‘You went to a private school! You were born into privilege. Did you think I’d forgotten? You’ve never stood on your own two feet. You’ve never worked, have you? You’ve never even had a job. What’s your excuse? You don’t have one. What have you got to show for yourself? Nothing. You’re undisciplined and feckless, an overgrown adolescent. And you come here, to my home, to terrorize and criticize me? You call me a fraud? You try to threaten me with that . . . with whatever it is that you are doing? Are you so poisoned by envy?’
Part-way through Seb’s assault, Ewan had looked shocked, and even slightly remorseful. But the swinish grin eventually returned and the expression in his eyes darkened. ‘There, that. That’s more like it. You’re not trying to sound like bloody Walter de la Mare any more. That’s a bit more real. You’re making progress already.’
‘Piss off!’
‘Even better. But you still don’t get it. You can’t even see that I came here to help you. To do you a favour. To share something that’ll . . . well, that’ll make you a better writer for starters.’
Seb returned to his chair, trembling. Instability was contagious. He’d not been truly enraged for years, but was now unable to see straight. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Ha! And tell them what? Did I break in? No, you let me in. I’m just an old friend who’s come a long way to see you.’
‘Who’s been following me, watching me, harassing me. They’ll take one look at you and know the score.’
‘Call them!’ Ewan was excited again, as if Seb had succeeded in initiating one of his rehearsed ploys ahead of the planned time. ‘Get them to come here and escort me off the premises. Go on, do it! What are you waiting for?’
Ewan’s eyes shuttered up and down to refocus, probably from the effects of whatever he’d been drinking, or even taking, before he’d arrived. ‘You won’t call them because there’d be no point. Because I can come back, at any time, and you know it. I presume you’d like to get a good night’s sleep now and again? And to be able to go shopping, and on dates with that tart, without me just popping up, here, there and everywhere?’
He raised his long arms into the air and waggled his fingers spiderishly. ‘At any time, day or night, I can just call on you. If I want to. Tell you what, why don’t I go right now and then come back in a few hours when you’re fast asleep? How does that sound? We can get together then. You won’t need to get up and let me in, either. I’ll let myself in and we can resume our little chat, while you’re asleep or awake. I really don’t mind. What do you say to that?’
Seb felt his anger rapidly cool.
‘Now where’s my bloody beer? I’m parched.’ Ewan wafted a hand in the direction of the kitchen as if to hurry a servant along. ‘Well, go on then, get them in!’
Snoring grumbled from the adjoining room.
By nine, Ewan had finished his fifth drink and the last of the beer in the fridge. After a final salvo of slurred, repetitive reproaches, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa where he’d remained sprawled. Within the soiled clothes his relaxed limbs had looked terribly thin in contrast to the small belly and flabby neck.
He’d briefly snapped awake twice, his expression near unrecognizable, doleful
and confused, as if he had been struggling to identify where he was. Ewan was not only drunk, but spent.
Reluctant to close the blinds, in case the gesture intimated that Ewan had been accepted as an overnight guest, Seb had opened a window and left the room. He’d then remained in the kitchen for an hour, his elbows set on the granite counter, chin cupped in his hands, hungry but nauseous. He realized he knew as little now of Ewan’s reasons for seeking him out as he’d known before the man had entered the house.
The time for shaking Ewan awake and asking him to leave had passed. Even if he had managed to coerce him off the premises, he imagined Ewan making a nuisance of himself on the drive, shouting drunkenly and frightening his elderly neighbours. If he did go away, he’d only turn up again, and who could tell what shape he’d be in?
He would have to kick him out in the morning when Ewan was sober, but only after forcing him to make clear his intentions.
Seb left the kitchen and retired to his room just after eleven, his chest tight and his mind racing.
He undressed, reflecting upon how he had slept in the same bed with an attractive woman the previous evening, inside his smart, modern house. A place where he’d been surrounded and confirmed by the evidence of his achievements. The sudden change in his circumstances seemed absurd, even unmoored from reality. But that was how Ewan had operated in their house at university, and in his room in London, by infecting an environment physically, and in other ways too.
Not this one. Not this time.
It was preposterous. At the age of nineteen, when he didn’t know any better, he had made the mistake of befriending a dangerous misfit. How could he still be paying for the error at the age of fifty? Maybe he would continue to pay for it until one of them died.
Until he fell asleep, Seb listened to the snoring that reverberated through the ceiling.