The House On Nazareth Hill

by Ramsey Campbell

  ‘What’s he been saying about me?’

  ‘Amy!’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Priestley. I was about to tell you, Amy, we were saying you’re usually a conscientious girl who can be relied upon to produce good work, and if you’ve any problems at the moment either of us can help you with, that’s part of what we’re here for.’

  ‘Then tell him to let me go to the library. That’s me being conscientious.’

  ‘I can’t intervene between you, of course. You must see that isn’t what I had in mind. Was there anything else you wished to say?’

  Even if this wasn’t just an invitation to apologise, it felt like one to Amy. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘May I leave her in your hands then, Mr Priestley? Work never done and all that. Same for you, I’m certain, as long as we’re both doing our best to look after those we’re responsible for.’ She unfolded her arms, freeing her breasts in a gesture Amy found disconcertingly maternal. ‘You know where I am, Amy,’ the headmistress said.

  Amy did indeed: at least a generation distant, and far less understanding of her than the headmistress imagined herself to be. As though to demonstrate this, Miss Sadler said ‘Before you trot off to make peace with your father, there was one thing I had to say to him.’

  ‘Don’t mind me.’

  ‘I have,’ said the headmistress with a look which hoped Amy had genuinely misunderstood her, ‘and now I’m saying it to you. Please don’t be so severe with your hair. Moderation in all things is the way to social harmony.’

  ‘Your headmistress means she doesn’t want such hair at her school.’

  ‘I’m prepared not to go quite so far this time, given Amy’s previous record. Let it grow out as soon as nature provides, Amy, if you would. In most ways she has shown herself an agreeable girl. I’m sure this is just a token rebellion,’ Miss Sadler said, and even less to Amy ‘May I leave further discussion to you? Please do feel free to contact me at any time within school hours.’

  She’d taken hold of the inner doorknob when Amy said ‘Did you hear me on the radio?’

  Miss Sadler looked disappointed. ‘I’m glad to say I didn’t, Amy,’ she said, and closed the door.

  Amy hadn’t expected much better. She marched at the fire doors and held one open with her foot just long enough for her father not to have a reason to accuse her of having let it swing in his face, then she walked fast through the school. By the time she reached the next pair of doors he was too far behind for her to bother holding one. She heard them repeat their creak behind her, and her father calling ‘Amy. Amy,’ low and sharp. He sounded as though he was summoning a dog and trying not to admit to his attitude, she thought. She could keep walking, out of the school and away to the central library; how could he stop her? Surely the library would be one where you still weren’t supposed to make a noise, and so he would have to leave her alone to research. But the long windows overlooking the corridor had started to rattle and crawl with tendrils of water, and as soon as she let herself out of the heavy front door of the school she couldn’t see for rain.

  She was knuckling her eyes in a fierce attempt to clear them, and feeling infuriatingly as though some of the moisture was or might soon be tears, when her father took hold of the arm she was using. ‘Don’t stand there, you’re getting drenched. This way, now. Our vehicle is over here.’

  She had to give in. The Bible from Nazarill was in her bag, and long before she reached the library it would be soaked, its message illegible. Yet she couldn’t help feeling that her eyes had been affected in order to trap her. She suffered herself to be guided across the swimming concrete, which appeared to be emitting jabs of rain, to the blotchy reddish lump that proved to be the Austin. Her father held onto her until he’d unlocked the passenger door and handed her into the car, and then she was alone for a few seconds with rain trickling down her face, a trickle she didn’t manage to palm plopping on the bag she’d transferred to her lap. By the time she’d finished wiping her face her father was beside her and the doors were locked.

  He switched on the headlights to catch the rain and set the wipers sluicing the windscreen, and waited while three girls dashed shrieking out of the gates before he advanced the car to the road. As he accelerated cautiously along the road out of Sheffield Amy demanded ‘Did she call you?’

  ‘There was no need. I had to be here.’

  That was about as clear to her as the smudged street beyond the side windows. ‘What were you saying to her about me?’

  ‘Let’s pass over who said what. The issue is that we agreed you’re having problems that require addressing. We decided what I already thought, they have to do with your view of where we live. Mend that and we’re sure you’ll improve.’

  Amy stared at the wipers as they wagged mindlessly at her. “What. Were. You. Saying. To. Her. About. Me?’

  ‘Carry on as you choose, you won’t wear me down like—’ He braked as the underwater beacons of a pedestrian crossing inflated their glow ahead, but nobody was waiting to cross. Once the orange blobs had floated by, drawing the edge of the city with them, he drove faster towards the motorway. ‘I may tell you we heard your teacher facing you with your reputation,’ he said.

  Amy held herself silent and still almost to the motorway, but as the Austin sped up the ramp she burst out ‘Who did you mean I wore down?’

  He sent the car into the discoloured wake of an oil tanker, peered in his mirror, swung the car into the middle lane. Settling into the speed of the traffic ahead of and behind him appeared to give him a chance to reflect, since he then said ‘You exasperated me. I wasn’t suggesting you wore anybody down, just that you might have if our situation were different.’

  ‘You were talking about my mother.’

  ‘I was, yes. That is, I am.’

  At once Amy knew what he’d stumbled over. ‘You talked to Miss Sadler about her.’

  ‘We may have exchanged a few words on the subject.’

  ‘About how I killed her?’ Amy had to rage, or she would have wept. ‘How I got on her nerves so much she crashed her car?’

  ‘You’re imagining horrors again. You weren’t like that.’ Instead of adding ‘then’ out loud he said ‘If anyone ruined her nerves, it was her mother.’

  ‘You’re never saying there’s something that wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘You’re being unreasonable. You’re just indulging yourself.’ He eased the car into the inside lane before frowning sidelong at her. ‘You haven’t really been blaming yourself for the accident all this time, have you?’

  ‘Not that long.’

  ‘Truthfully, I can think of no reason why you should, so please don’t. It can’t be helping your state of mind. You’ll hardly remember her mother, will you?’

  ‘I don’t remember yours either.’

  ‘My parents fell out with me once they found I was set on marrying Heather. I should point out we were both considerably older than you. Her mother was the cause of the trouble with my parents. She already had a history, you see.’

  ‘Oh, I thought you didn’t believe in history.’

  ‘You’re going to hear this. It’s time you did.’ He swerved into the middle lane so abruptly that she thought the wind laden with rain had taken control of the wheel. ‘By the time you were old enough to travel she and Heather’s father had moved down south. They kept inviting us, but we always managed to find some excuse.’

  ‘You never lied. Not you.’

  ‘We did it for your sake, perhaps you should realise. That ought to show you how seriously we regarded the problem. She was forever seeing things and hearing things, but when they were getting ready to move she turned worse. Wouldn’t stir out of the house until she’d read all her daily horoscopes and consulted her tea-leaves and laid out her cards. And after the move, every letter we had from Heather’s father contained some new tale of her. She wouldn’t leave the house because everyone she met knew she could see the future and was out to stop her, and if it wasn’t that it was
her thinking she could prevent the future she’d foreseen if she kept still enough. Heather went to visit her a few times, but it only distressed them both, her mother trying to convince her God knows what was in store for her and having hysterics when Heather tried to calm her down.’

  ‘I remember being left alone with you when I was little,’ Amy said, but she didn’t have time for nostalgia. ‘What’s all that supposed to have to do with me?’

  ‘In my view she scared herself out of her wits with her tripe. Scared herself, as they say, to death.’

  ‘I’m not scared.’

  ‘Maybe you should be a little more than you are in some ways.’

  ‘You mean of you.’

  ‘That wouldn’t hurt.’ His eyes flickered as the sign for Partington swam out of the grey depths of the downpour. Once he’d rejoined the cortege in the inside lane he turned to her for as long as he could bear to keep his eyes off the red lights that were being dragged ahead of him. ‘Can’t you see I’m frightened for you?

  ‘Well, don’t be. You needn’t be.’

  ‘If I weren’t frightened for you—’ His left hand jerked towards her face and raised the lever to indicate he was about to quit the motorway. ‘I wish your mother were with us,’ he said, barely audibly. ‘She might have handled this better.’

  ‘So try and be like her.’

  ‘You imagine you could get round her, do you? I think she would have had to agree with me.’ If it had occurred to him to allow Amy some concession, he had clearly changed his mind. He drove up the exit ramp, beyond which even more rain was waiting to assault the car, and reverted to talking mostly to himself. ‘I’m the one who has to live with it and it’s my task to deal with it. If I’m wrong in my course, God forgive me.’

  Amy felt as though the chill of the sodden moors had found the dampness of her clothes. She’d assumed that his reminiscences about her grandmother had been the source of fear with which he was determined to confront her, but now—She shivered and said angrily ‘What are you ranting about?’

  ‘Action that should have been taken some time ago.’

  The Austin sped up the crest of the Partington road, and Amy saw the glow of the marketplace repeatedly nickering as the windscreen wipers scythed the rain. It looked as though someone was failing to douse a fire under the pale blotch of Nazarill. The idea made her feel feverish, as hot as she had just been cold. ‘Don’t tell me, then,’ she said almost as indifferently as she wanted to sound. ‘See if I care.’

  ‘You’ll see soon enough. If this doesn’t cure you, God only knows what will.’

  If he was as uneasy as he seemed, thought Amy, perhaps he would leave the threat unresolved, to be revived whenever he didn’t approve of her behaviour. She wasn’t going to ask any more questions, in case they revealed her own nervousness. The car plunged downhill between the streaming banks of the road as the wipers toiled to sluice away the town. Of course Partington wasn’t smaller than usual, yet as the car dredged it towards the windscreen Amy felt as though the streets were closing in. Each time another grey wash of rain inundated the glass fewer houses were visible beyond it, and she could fancy the view being cleared to show that the town had dwindled to a former size. When the car crossed the town boundary the streetlamps looked dimmer and less numerous than usual. The streets were deserted, and so were the lit shops apart from their staff, who turned one by one to watch the passing car. Their faces were so blurred, wads of flesh under glass, that she imagined all of them knew what she was bound for—were wishing it upon her, perhaps. Then the car halted by the massive drooling cross which reinforced the wall under Rob’s lane. Amy was thinking of making her escape, and telling herself her father was capable of nothing that could frighten her enough to justify her flight, when the Sheffield bus to which the car had deferred sloshed away and the car swung up Moor View.

  Cottages slithered through the rain on the side windows. The street was fleeing Nazarill as fast as she was being borne towards it. The houses cut off the glow of the marketplace, but although the security lights were dormant for the moment, the building shone with the pallor of something kept for a long time in darkness. At each sweep of the wipers the pale hulk wavered in order to reform larger and more solid. Only the railings stood between her and her father’s destination for her—the railings and the gates which had been erected since she’d left for school that morning. Except that surely nobody could have worked outside on such a day, and as she realised that she saw there were no gates.

  The railings and the gateposts writhed, then they and the emptiness between them steadied. Her cold hands and colder feet stiffened as her glimpse made her feel vulnerable to seeing worse than gates which didn’t exist, or existed no longer. She rubbed her fingers against her palms to render them controllable, she wriggled her toes until she felt the skin chafe against the damp toecaps of her shoes as the car crossed Nazareth Row and veered onto the gravel drive.

  As Nazarill magnified its pallor and lurched at her, the rain redoubled its attack on the roof of the car. With that she could have imagined the illumination was lightning, but instead of flickering out it grew more relentless. It froze her thoughts as the car pulled up at the entrance. ‘Run in and wait for me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I’m parked.’

  ‘I’ll be upstairs.’

  He turned his head and stared at her. Any emotion in his eyes was hidden by the glare of Nazarill. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not upstairs.’

  ‘Wherever. I don’t care,’ said Amy, and tried not to as she groped in her bag. The backs of her fingers slid down the cover of the Bible, snagging her knuckles on a cross. She couldn’t tell which way up it was. She closed her fist around the keys and dragged them free of the tangle in her bag.

  In the seconds it took her to dash around the car, the rain jabbed at her eyes as though the ashen blaze of Nazarill was acquiring substance and splintering into the air. The car screeched away, water and gravel spraying from beneath its wheels, as she landed on the massive doorstep and searched with her key for the lock. It seemed she had barely felt metal slide into metal when the door yielded. She stumbled inside, dabbing at her eyes, trying to rub away more darkness than the corridor ought to contain.

  She heard the doors meet behind her. They still sounded like glass. Perhaps it was the rain on them which made the corridor appear gloomy and flickering, but how could that be? As if in response to her thought, the view ahead stabilised, although not to any very reassuring effect: she could have fancied that the three pairs of doors facing each other in the sly light were sharing a silent message. If her eyes rather than the light had been flickering, that didn’t reassure her either. She felt that Nazarill had somehow changed or was poised to change, and having dropped her keys into her bag, she reached for the door-handle. At that moment a hooded figure loomed beyond the glass, a figure whose outline crawled in and out of shape.

  The doors parted and took their watery crawling with them. The new arrival was her father; she’d known that despite not having heard his approach over the gravel. He threw back the hood of his raincoat and wiped his eyebrows with the side of his hand, a gesture which made him look to be surveying the prospect ahead. Then his gaze lit on Amy, and his eyes widened a little as though to make room for more than the determination they held. ‘Would you like to go up first and get changed?’

  ‘Before what?’

  Either he wanted to be done or believed she was pretending not to know, because his gaze hardened. ‘On second thought, never mind. You aren’t as wet as your father, and this oughtn’t to take long. Besides, it’s never cold in here.’

  Amy thought it was, or was about to be; certainly her hands and feet were. She had an unhappy impression that their stiffness was keeping her captive as she watched his fingers vanish into his coat pocket. She heard a metallic rattle, and he pulled out a bunch of keys—not those he habitually carried. ‘What are they for?’ she demanded. ‘Where did you get them?’

  ‘Why do you
suppose I was in Sheffield? As to their purpose, that’s up to you. You tell me.’ This sounded threatening enough, but Amy could make nothing of it until he said ‘Which room did I nearly deposit you in that you are unable to forget?’

  They were the keys to the ground-floor apartments. He’d borrowed them from Housall—by undertaking to do what? ‘You’re not locking me in there,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t say I would,’ he said, but his expression didn’t waver. ‘I simply want you to see once and for all that there is nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘All right, there’s nothing.’

  ‘No, that won’t do. You have to be shown. I want to see you realise,’ he said, and jangled the keys. ‘Which was it?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘As you wish. I’ve as much time as is required. We’ll go through them all.’

  ‘Try and make me,’ Amy almost said, and then she saw the chance she would be missing. If she saw anything this time, he would have to see it too. ‘Don’t you remember?’ she said.

  ‘It was at the front, I know that.’ He frowned as though he suspected her of trying to trick him into more of an admission than he was willing to concede, then he pointed with a key. ‘I believe it was in that area. Where the old gentleman who was starting to imagine things lived with his son.’

  ‘It must have been if you say so. In there, yes.’

  It wasn’t, Amy knew. The room had been across the corridor, where the photographer had died and the old man had found him—not only him. Abruptly the notion of venturing in there, even with her father, was not at all enticing. For now she would be satisfied with convincing him that he’d persuaded her she was wrong, and surely there was indeed no reason for her to be scared of the apartment where even the old man had found nothing to fear—so far as she knew, came the unwelcome modification, to suppress which she said ‘Go on then, open it up.’