Personal Demons

by Christopher Fowler

  'I hope you don't mind me just turning up like this,' I said, but before I could continue she interrupted; 'It's about him, isn't it? You've come about him. I knew someone would eventually.'

  I asked her what she meant, and she invited me to the silent heart of that shadowed house. We sat facing each other in faded armchairs, in a shuttered room that showed too many signs of a woman living long alone.

  'He is still beautiful, isn't he?' she asked. 'Did he touch you? He did, I can tell. You smell of him. Have you felt his power? He places people beneath the spell of his fertility, the spell of the satyr. You knew he was a satyr, did you? The distilled essence of everything male. A priapic satanist, a pagan. A god.'

  While I was trying to form a response to this she continued. 'I tried to leave him. We were lovers for months but he frightened me. He showed me things inside myself that I couldn't bear to think about. He lived in South London then, in the great old house he used for ceremonies. I told him I'd have no more to do with him. He was very gracious. Said he was sorry I felt that way. Kissed me on the forehead as I left.' She touched the first of her scars, retracing his lips. 'When I reached home it was late and the hall lights were out. The timer wasn't working. I made my way upstairs, let myself in and boiled the kettle. Then I heard a noise in the lounge, a clanking sound. Metal on wood. Couldn't think what it was. Went in to see, but there was nothing to see.

  'There was a chest of drawers against the far wall, and that's where the noise was coming from, a steady rhythmic knocking, the only sound in a silent house. It was where I kept a few tools for home repairs. Curious, I opened the drawer and a wooden-handled claw hammer flew out at me, smashing into my face. Each time I shoved it away it flew back, hammering at my eyes, my nose, my teeth. I saw it returning through a curtain of blood, over and over. Eventually I passed out. In the morning I awoke and managed to call someone. I was in hospital for nearly a month. They wired my jaw but couldn't save my eye.'

  'My god, what did the police say?'

  'It was just a hammer. There were no prints on it except mine. There was nobody else here, Miss Merrigan. What could the police say?'

  'Who else knows about this?'

  'No-one. I knew he wouldn't want me to speak of it.'

  'But we have to tell someone. If he has some kind of – power – over people, he must be stopped.'

  'You don't understand,' whispered Danielle, wiping her good eye with the heel of her hand. 'He refuses to see me. He ignores all my letters.'

  'It sounds like you're safer if he does – '

  'I still adore him. I pray for us to be together again. Why else do you think I call and write? I have no control over this awful – desire. He has left me with a thirst that can't be quenched. I worship him. That's what he wants.'

  I left the poor thing shortly after that. In the dessicated garden I looked back up at the window and saw her crooked face staring down at me. I believed in darkness then. Perhaps her wounds were self-inflicted and she was simply deranged. It made no difference. Her suffering was real. I understood now. The price of the gifts Midas bestowed was slavery. Every god needs to be worshipped. And those who lapse are cast into damnation.

  I couldn't just walk out of the apartment. Aside from the financial problems it would involve, those rooms represented every shred of independence I had mustered for myself. I wearily returned home to find the landing at the top of the stairs sombre and silent, but when I listened at Midas' door I could hear a faint chanting of madrigals. I dreaded to think what he was up to in there.

  Two days later my ex-husband came to London to discuss the maintenance payments he had failed to keep up. When I returned from the station with him, Midas was lying in wait, standing casually outside his front door as if keeping a prearranged appointment.

  'Judy's told me so much about you,' he said, extending his hand, which was shaken in puzzlement. 'She and I are neighbours but I like to think we share much more than just a landing.'

  I attempted to shepherd Michael into my apartment, but Midas caught his arm. 'Before you two go off and talk business, I'd love to offer you a drink.' Michael looked at me unsurely, but I could tell that he was prepared to be swayed.

  'Judy says you collect science fiction. I have quite a decent collection myself.'

  His door was open. His arm was extended. His smile was wide. Michael was lured inside, and I followed like a fool. Over the next half-hour, Midas exuded so much sincerity that I nearly passed out with the strain of smiling back. The two men sat cross-legged on the floor pulling books out of racks and laughing together. Michael was completely taken in and proved reluctant to leave, even when I insisted on keeping our restaurant booking. The neighbours of serial killers never notice anything unusual. What do they see? Smiling strangers who quietly close their doors. Good citizens. Likeable men.

  My personality withered beneath the force of Midas' onslaught of charisma. How could I be expected to compete? He was more believable than me, more fun to be with. All I did was moan through dinner. It didn't take a genius to see that Michael would rather have spent the remainder of the evening bonding with my neighbour. I had no allies. Midas could direct his fury at me and shield others from any awareness of it. I realised with some alarm that I had a less forceful personality than the enemy plaguing me. When Michael left, he told me I was lucky to have someone so interesting living next door, and that I should see a doctor about my depression. Perhaps I should try Prozac. I told him to mail me a cheque or I'd see him in court.

  I wish we hadn't parted on bad terms. It was the last time I saw him uninjured. He shouldn't have been driving; he was way over the alcohol limit. His car ploughed into the outer lane barrier on the M2 at the Medway Bridge, a hundred feet above that black river. Midas stopped me on the landing to tell me that my ex-husband had not been wearing a seatbelt. Shocked into silence, I tried not to imagine how he knew. Michael was hospitalised. They wouldn't let me see him for days.

  The last week of August was unbearable, the hottest for years. The icemaker in Ari's store broke down and all his vegetables spoiled. The days were stuck together, melting into nights. In the height of summer a London night has but five hours of darkness. Many of the clubs and bars in the area close with the rising sun. Midas' guests stayed long after that. I lay sleepless and lost in an empty hot bed, listening to the obscene laughter of the revellers on the landing. I could feel my nerves fraying further each day. The most I could ask was for Midas to leave me alone. And he did until the first Friday in September, when there was a familiar knock.

  'I must talk to you,' he said quietly. 'May I come in?' I held open the door. He had lost a little weight, looked great. I felt a wreck, not up to confrontation.

  'You've changed things around.'

  'I had to,' I said. 'All the plants you gave me died.'

  'I can't afford to lose you, you know. I've never lost anyone.'

  'Oh? What about Danielle Passmore? Do I look as much of a victim as her? Did you think I'd be easier to convert?'

  He showed no surprise. 'I can do so much for you, Judy, if you believe in me.'

  'Oh, I believe. You're no crank, I'm sure of that. But I prefer to rely on myself.'

  'Then I must make you realise your mistake.' He disclosed a clear plastic tube in his hand and snapped open the cap, allowing the milky contents to leak on to the doorframe. 'Just as my seed can bring fertility to the barren lives of others, so it can be used in other, more persuasive ways.' As soon as I realised what he had in the tube I shoved him out of the doorway. He allowed me to do so. He knew his strength. 'Let me know when you're ready to reconsider,' he called.

  I had no idea what he meant until the next morning. I had taken two sleeping tablets, and groggily awoke to another cauldron-hot day. The bedroom was stifling; the window had slid shut in the night and wouldn't budge when I tried to open it. None of the lounge windows would open, either. I thought perhaps the paintwork on the sills had become sticky – until I tried the front door. The l
atch refused to move even a tenth of an inch. The wood had become sealed in its frame. There was no other way in or out of the apartment.

  Determined not to panic, I picked up the telephone receiver to call Ari, but found the line dead. The junction box in the skirting board looked as if it had been damaged. Okay, I thought, I'll have to break a window. At first I considered using a hammer, but remembering what had happened to Danielle I decided to stay out of the storage-closet where I kept the toolbox.

  Instead I entered the lounge with a tea towel wrapped around my arm, clutching a hiking boot, and whacked the window with all my might. Nothing happened. No sound, no shatter, nothing. The glass didn't even shake. That was when I started to lose it. I screamed my lungs out for a while hoping that someone would hear me through the walls, but no-one came running up the stairs. In the boiling streets below, pedestrians passed without stopping to look up and listen.

  By midday the temperature in the flat was 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and I forced myself to stop panicking long enough to take stock of my position. I carried out an inventory of supplies; I had half a day-old loaf, a little butter, some yoghurt, a tin of beans, a packet of sliced ham, an almost-empty jar of peanut butter, some breakfast cereal but no milk. That was it. I usually stocked up on Saturday. At least there was an unlimited supply of tapwater. I tried the windows again, this time hammering them with a steel-framed kitchen chair, but they seemed to absorb the sound and impact of every blow.

  The computer. I ran to it and switched on the modem. I tried E-mailing Gloria through the internet but my message just rerouted itself back to me, endlessly scrolling down the screen until I was forced to shut the monitor off. The next time I tried it, it didn't work at all.

  My clothes were stained with sweat, so I took a shower. I do my best thinking in the shower. There had to be a way out. I figured I'd be wasting my time taking the floorboards up or burrowing through the walls with the puny hand-drill Michael had left me. There was an attic above the apartment that might be able to get me to the roof – except that the entrance to it was set in the landing ceiling, beyond the front door.

  If I was truly under an enchantment, I wouldn't be able to escape so easily. I thought about the few friends I had made in London. They never came around without calling first; how long would it take them to report my dead telephone line? How long would it take an inquisitive friend to climb my stairs?

  The first night seemed to last forever. Through the front door I could hear Midas' damned madrigals and the imbecile laughter of his debauched acolytes. Secured in my baking cocoon, I began to consider the possibility that he had decided to let me die here.

  I tried a few other ruses to attract attention; turned the TV, the radio and the CD player way up until the collective volume was ear-splitting. No effect at all. He was keeping the sound in, just as he kept others from hearing his celebrations. It was like being sealed away from the world in an impenetrable bubble. On the third day my food supply, with the exception of a few items like gravy mix and maple syrup, ran dry. I had carefully bagged my garbage but the flat was still starting to smell funky and I was out of ideas, trying not to panic. What could I do but sit and wait for someone to find me? I watched TV, read books, played music, listened at the sealed front door as Midas prowled back and forth, laughed, partied. I couldn't believe I was being held prisoner in the middle of a city of eleven million people. It was as if nobody knew I was still alive. Perhaps they didn't; the thought flipped my stomach. Perhaps he had changed their perception of me. Perhaps, like an unloved octogenarian, my bloated body would be found weeks after my death. That night, the fourth night, I lay in bed and cried myself sick.

  The following morning I rose unrefreshed and switched on the TV. The weatherman promised that the summer's endless heatwave would end in the mother of all storms, then a game show host unveiled a cheap-looking car to a collective wave of oohs and aahs. I tiredly followed my track around the apartment, trying to think of ideas and clutching at even the most foolish, like running to the radio for a phone-in number, only to remember that the phone wasn't working.

  I carried out my daily inventory; I was out of soap, shampoo, washing powder and suddenly I was out of water. Turning on the faucet produced a thin trickle, then nothing. He must have turned it off at the mains supply in the attic. I had half a can of flat Sprite in the refrigerator and nothing else. How long, I wondered, could a person survive without water? Three days, four, more? I lay on the floor of the lounge, drained of energy, watching as simpering couples won video recorders on the game show: The thought of giving in to Midas no longer occurred to me. I knew now that this apartment was to be my oubliette. I would die here, an unremembered martyr.

  That afternoon I carefully scooped the water from the toilet cistern into a saucepan, boiled it, then stored it in the fridge. Going to the bathroom wouldn't be a problem; there was nothing to eat. My stomach growled constantly, but there was no pain. I told myself it was like going on a diet. But I knew it wasn't. It was dying by degrees. I felt myself slipping into a fugue state, aided by the incessant drone of the television and the stifling heat of my cell. The door and windows remained unbudgeable. I lay with my burning forehead pressed against the window as the tide of passers-by ebbed and flowed. Day faded to night and back to day. I could feel myself wasting away, stomach shrinking, tongue swelling, muscles atrophying, and I no longer cared.

  The heated, hallucinatory hours crawled by. In a brief moment of lucidity I noticed the appalling state of the apartment. Empty food wrappers littered the lounge. One of the wastebags had split, a dark stinking residue leaking on to the kitchen floor. And at night, all night, the satyr sang his song. It pounded against the walls, rattled the crockery cabinets and shook the windows, a high, atonal wind instrument rising beside his voice – and nobody heard it but me. I no longer slept, existing instead in a perpetual mental twilight as his delicate, persistent jungle sprouted around me; phosphorescent sprays of greenery shielding my body, the fragile tracery of ferns brushing my bare flesh. Bright insects buzzed around engorged shoots pulsing with rhythmic growth, rooting me into dank hot earth. More than anything, I remember the suffocating heat that made me tear off my clothes with the little remaining strength I possessed, a humidity perfect for succumbing to an orgiastic pagan past.

  And like a true pagan, I decided that I needed a totem, a spear, something primitive to carry beside me. In my weakened condition it took the next few hours to loosen and remove the wrought-iron embellishments from the coatstand that stood beside the front door. By the time I was left with just a five-foot bevelled metal rod in my hands, it was nearly midnight. It was then that I called out to him. I had no need to summon loudly. A whisper would have done as well, providing it was done in good faith. I called softly again, then held my breath and listened at the door, knowing he would come…

  …and heard his boots scuffing together, just outside the sealed entrance to the apartment. 'Judy,' I heard him murmur, 'oh, Judy.' Behind me, one of the lounge windows gently slid down from its jammed position. The door lock loosened and unclicked. The spell was waning with his arrival, and my acceptance…

  And with my last ounce of strength I ran at the door, ramming the point of the stand through the thin plywood panel until it met with resistance. There was a shout on the other side as the rod passed through and struck him a damaging blow to the stomach. The iron shaft I retracted was smeared with blood. I was beset with a feeling of infinite loss, a terrified animal trapped in the heat-death of the rainforest. The sudden exertion had been too much for me. The room shifted. There was only blessed oblivion.

  And then nothing until – raindrops on my face.

  That's the next thing I remember. Fat wet baubles bursting on my parched skin. A cool zephyr traversing my arms and exposed breasts. More rain. And thunder, blessed deafening thunder as the promised storm finally broke above me…

  'Miss Merrigan.'

  An elderly woman with too-large teeth, upside down.
Ari's wife, Maria. She was holding out a mug of tea. I tried to raise my head. I could hear the rain falling steadily. The air was cool. My mouth and throat were dry, too parched to speak. I gulped at the tea, scalding my tongue.

  'How did – how did you get in?'

  'The front door was wide open. We could smell something. We thought you'd gone away. Are you all right?'

  'I – think so.' Ari was at the other end of the flat, opening the windows. Clouds of flies were resettling on the rotting bin-bags beside the sink. One thought passed through my disordered mind. I had to confront Midas in the company of Maria and Ari, to prove to someone that I was not mad, that I had not done this to myself. I pulled my shirt down overmy breasts, staggered to my feet and all but dragged them across the landing to his door.

  'Are you sure you're all right?' Maria was asking, and Ari was saying something about getting me to a doctor when the door opened and there stood a small grey-haired man in a patterned cardigan and slippers. He had a pot-belly and rimless glasses. He looked like a retired accountant.

  'Where's Midas?' I shouted. 'Is he in there?'

  The little man shot a puzzled look at Maria, then back at me. 'What does she -?'

  I was hysterical now. 'Where is Midas Blake?'

  'I'm sorry, Mr Blake,' Ari was saying, 'she's not been well and she -'

  'Young lady, I am – '

  'Where the hell is he?'

  ' – I am Midas Blake. I don't believe we've met before.'

  'You're lying, you're all lying!' I pushed past the little accountant. 'He must be in here!' But the apartment was completely different, floral wallpaper, cheap padded leatherette furniture, no plants at all. 'You know where he is,' I screamed, 'why are you protecting him?'

  They're all in it, I thought, he's got to all of them. But he hadn't; I know that now. The grey-haired man in spectacles really was someone called Midas Blake, and he'd been living there for years. We'd never met. He'd only ever had one party, the one Ari had so enthusiastically attended. If I had gone as well I would have realised the truth, but we had never bumped into each other.