Incarnate

by Ramsey Campbell

  He couldn’t move for rage. His mother had let Dr. Kent see where he lived. He wanted to run home, whether to scream at his mother or hide from Dr. Kent he didn’t know. “I didn’t think it was you at first,” Dr. Kent said. “I thought you lived somewhere else.”

  She was laughing at him. Her long face looked as sober as her ankle-length black coat and black trousers, but he knew when he was being jeered at. “So this is where you live,” she said. “No need to be ashamed of it, Danny. It isn’t as though you have the best job in the world. You work at the Hercules just up the road, am I right?”

  He nodded and even smiled. He would have to finish with her all the sooner now that she knew where he lived and worked. Perhaps she always had, perhaps she had only pretended that her and Molly Wolfe’s spies hadn’t told her, to lull him into feeling safe. Now she was keeping him talking here so that his parents would see. “Come on then,” he muttered.

  “By all means. Oh, you’re looking for my car. I’m sorry, it’s off the road. It’ll have to be public transport, I’m afraid.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Why, the West End on New Year’s Eve, and Trafalgar Square at midnight. Where else?”

  “Better take a taxi, then. It’s a long way on the train.”

  “Entirely up to you, Danny. You’ll be paying. I haven’t brought a sou. You invited me out, remember.”

  She’d set another trap for him. No doubt she would be doing that all evening. Let her, it would make him hate her more, help him do what he had to do. “We’ll go on the train.” he said with a grin that gritted his teeth.

  Two young Scotsmen Were doing their best to feed drinks to all the faces on the posters in the Underground; beer foam dribbled from a girl’s mouth as long as Danny’s arm. Singing echoed in the tiled corridors as the train pulled in. a conga line came kicking onto the platform and through the automatic doors as they tried to close, again and again. Dr. Kent seemed shy of all this, as if she were waiting for Danny to reassure her. Of course it must be another trick, and he was glad there was too much noise on the swaying train to make speaking worthwhile.

  She took his hand at Oxford Circus, kept hold of it until they caught the train to Charing Cross, and all the time he was afraid she would be able to read his feelings by the way he held her hand. He thought of squeezing it until the’ bones splintered. On emerging at last into the open in sight of Trafalgar Square, he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  Crowds roamed chanting past the hotels on the Strand and under the plane trees of the Mall. They seemed almost capable of waking up the aloof buildings of Whitehall, of roping in the tenants of Downing Street. Cars flashed their lights and honked their horns at anything in sight, policemen chased a band of revelers out of the bandstand in St. James’s Park. Danny felt poised on the edge of a flood. All he could think of to shout was, “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ll make that decision since I suppose all this is new to you, but that’s the last one I’ll make for you. Danny, understand?” She pointed to a noisy pub in a side street. “That looks as good as any.”

  The pub was even hotter and more crowded than the train had been. Danny unbuttoned his coat and waited for Dr. Kent to go first until he realized she expected him to force their way through the crowd. If there were any tables and chairs, he couldn’t see where. He managed to locate the bar by the truncheons of the beer pumps, and was still struggling toward it five minutes later when he thought to ask, “Do you want anything to drink?”

  “I believe that’s the done thing in these establishments. Did you have something else in mind?” His hatred must have touched his eyes, for she said, “Danny, you really must learn to laugh at yourself. I’ll have a large gin and tonic.”

  He struggled furiously to the bar, ready to claw at anyone who wouldn’t let him pass. Laugh at himself! That was exactly what she and her crony wanted, to destroy his faith in himself. They hadn’t succeeded in Oxford, and they wouldn’t succeed now. He caught the barman’s attention at last, though not before spilled beer had soaked through the elbow of his coat, and turned with her drink and his pint of beer. She was nowhere to be seen.

  His fist was tightening on her glass when he saw her waving at him from a distant corner, where she had managed to find space for two on a bench. He wormed his way over, his arms held high, his shirt glued to his armpits. She gave his suit a wry nod as he laid his coat on his lap. She sipped her drink and at last she said, “Well, are we going to sit here and stare at each other all night or are you going to tell me about yourself?”

  She had taken off her coat but was still dressed in black, a jacket and a low-cut blouse. He looked away from her large breasts, which made him feel suffocated, and tried to outstare her. “Why not you?” he shouted.

  “You know all you need to know about me.”

  That was truer than she knew. He gulped his beer so that he wouldn’t be tempted to say so. The heat must be making him thirsty, for all at once he was holding an empty glass. “If you’re having another I will too,” Dr. Kent said.

  When he reached the bar he couldn’t see her now that she was sitting down. Faces moved like chunks of a glacier, like the hovering smoke of all the cigars and cigarettes; no wonder the pub was growing darker. Was the barman leaving Danny until last to give Dr. Kent time to search his coat? Let her, the letter about her was safe in his room. When at last he got back to the corner, she had folded his coat just as he’d left it, and both she and the people nearby were pretending she had never touched it, which proved they were in it with her. She finished her drink and raised her full glass until he lifted his. “Here’s to the New Year,” she said, “and now back to this one. Same question. Danny.”

  He’d thought of an answer. “I told you everything once.”

  “You did indeed. More than I think you realized.” She was leaning so close to him that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “But that was eleven years ago. You must have changed since then.”

  Of course he had. She’d changed him, she had almost destroyed him, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing. “No must about it,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Danny, I don’t believe it. Or if I do, it makes me very sad. Don’t you want anything more for yourself?” She was so close now he thought he could feel her lips moving. “Or is it that you don’t know what it is? Knowing what you want is the first step to getting it, Danny.”

  He knew that wasn’t true, but he couldn’t think why; he could only tell himself she didn’t believe it either. “Try and tell me,” she whispered. “I may be able to help. Try and think what your hopes are for yourself, your dreams.”

  He jerked away from her so. violently that he almost upset the tankard the man next to him was holding. “Sorry,” he muttered at the man, who was staring blearily at him as if he were trying to remember how to look aggressive. “Sorry,” Danny shouted, and turned on Dr. Kent. “I never have dreams.”

  “I didn’t mean that kind. Sorry to stir up unpleasant memories, if that’s what they are. By dreams I meant whatever you most want for yourself.”

  “I don’t have either kind.”

  “Everyone does. Danny. Some people are afraid to admit it, that’s all. so afraid that maybe they don’t even realize they have them. But you never used to be, Danny. I do hope that business all that time ago hasn’t made you that way.” She actually looked hopeful, almost pleading. “I would feel responsible,” she said.

  He couldn’t speak. Now he saw how deftly she had tricked him: she’d maneuvered him into asking her out when she knew he couldn’t chat to her in the way you were supposed to talk to girls you took out, the way men did in films. She must have thought he would have to answer her questions; she couldn’t have anticipated that he would simply refuse to speak. He drained his pint glass to block his mouth. ”Wananother?” he said, and hardly recognized his voice.

  “Thanks. You’re learning.” she said with a wide smile that made him wo
nder all the way to the bar what lurked beneath her words. The pub was growing hotter yet, everyone seemed to be swaying. Everything was shifting. Her mention of dreams must have done that, undermined his hold on his surroundings. He’d have it out with her. he’d shout so everyone could hear; surely there must be someone in the crowd who wasn’t under her control. He gulped his beer as he struggled back, another mouthful as he sat down, for his throat felt clogged with the heat. She must have got ready for him. because at once she said. “If you won’t talk about your hopes, perhaps you’ll talk about the other kind of dream. What do you remember from Oxford?”

  He remembered how it felt: like this, like someone trying to poke around inside his head. When they’d attached the pads with their wires and left him alone, he’d felt as if an insect with wiry feelers had hold of his brain. “Nothing,” he said.

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes.” The heat and smoke made it sound more like a cough. “Yes.” he shouted.

  “Forgive me, Danny, but I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth. I know this must be difficult for you, but now the subject has come up I hope you’ll be frank with me. We need to understand what happened. It may be important for both of us.”

  Her gentleness made him even more suspicious. He gulped more beer though his stomach felt heavy and uncomfortable. “Did you foresee too much, is that what went wrong?” Dr. Kent was almost pleading. “Whatever you saw, surely it must have happened by now. It isn’t as though talking about it can make it happen.”

  She must be lying. Perhaps even thinking about it could. He was raising his glass, but not to drink. He could feel how it would smash against the table, how her mouth would twitch and jerk as he stuffed the broken glass down her throat to shut, her up for good. If they had been alone there was no doubt that was what he would have done. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do it anyway as she took hold of his arm. “Danny, look at me,” she said.

  He managed to turn his head at last and meet her gaze, and felt that everyone was watching him. “I asked you at the time but I’m asking you again,” she said. “Did all of you dream the same thing?”

  He couldn’t remember what he’d dreamed. He’d spent eleven years not remembering, not saying a word to anyone about that day. He felt himself grin as he said, “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t discuss it afterward. That in itself shows how disturbing it must have been. You really don’t remember, do you?” She looked frustrated and guilty, or would have to anyone less gullible than he was. “There’s one thing you must remember,” she said.

  He was already remembering too much, remembering how it had felt as if something were both trying to creep into his brain and emerge from it. That was how he felt now. He reached blindly for his glass, but hadn’t found it when she said, “What did you mean by what you said the last time you came out of your room?”

  He gripped the glass and didn’t care how many people saw. They were all on her side anyway. But he rammed it into his own face instead of hers, though it still felt as if it might break. “You said she made it happen,” Dr. Kent was insisting. “You know who I mean. What was her name, now? Yes, Molly Wolfe.”

  He bared his teeth at her. There was no point in pretending now. “Don’t you know what I meant?”

  “No, I don’t.” She looked so puzzled that he almost thought she was. “I really don’t. If I did I wouldn’t be asking.”

  He drank more beer as if that might frustrate her. It seemed not to be working for him: the sense of something in his brain was growing, he felt that everyone in the crowd that was flooding upward was waiting for him to speak. Suddenly he thumped his glass on the table and was shouting. “She started everything changing, that’s what she wanted to happen. It would have too if it hadn’t been for me. I’ve been stopping it ever since. That’s why you want to get rid of me.”

  “Who does, Danny? Nobody does. I give you my word.”

  He was groping to unbutton his overcoat—he was so hot and sticky—until he remembered he had already taken it off. The crowd was pressing close around him, hundreds of people, and he no longer had control of himself when she said, “If that’s what you think about yourself and Molly Wolfe, what about the others who were there?”

  She was trying to confuse him, trying to make him feel the way he’d felt eleven years ago, so that he wouldn’t be able to stop things from changing. The others wouldn’t know what Molly Wolfe was up to, he was the only one who was standing up to her and holding off the change. The insight came too late to prevent him from smashing the glass against the edge of the table.

  Only the base was left in his hand. It never happened that way in films. Dr. Kent was staring at him as if she were frightened and wouldn’t let it show, people were shouting at him and picking splinters out of their clothes while he gazed stupidly at the jagged disk in his hand, and then the crowd that had pretended to be jammed shoulder to shoulder was parting to let the barman at him. “That’ll be all,” the barman said. “Fun’s one thing, that’s another. On your way and think yourself lucky I’m not prosecuting.”

  He was in it too, of course. Danny grabbed his overcoat and bundled up its flailing arms, then he staggered along the aisle that Dr. Kent’s crowd were happy to make for him now they’d confused him and got rid of him. When he reached the doors, he found she hadn’t followed. The barman blocked his way and waited until Danny stumbled out of the pub.

  She would have to come out when the pub closed. He almost tore his overcoat before he could get it on, then he folded his arms about his throbbing, queasy stomach and waited while crowds began to converge on Trafalgar Square. Each time the pub doors opened, his fingers sank into his upper arms. They and his bladder were aching when the emerging crowd forced the doors wider, when the last stragglers swayed out, when the pub went dark.

  Either the barman had let her out another way or she had been able to sneak past him. Nevertheless he thought she was somewhere in the crowd that was piling into Trafalgar Square; why, she’d said there was nowhere else to be. He relieved himself in a dark alley, he pressed his forehead against the wall then shoved himself away, because the wall gave like a mattress. The dark must be on her side. He staggered back into the light and the crowd as soon as he could.

  Perhaps the dark had weakened his hold, for nothing would keep still. The crowds hustled him toward Trafalgar Square. Now and then he had to struggle free, panting and swallowing, but at least they were giving him the concealment he needed. He was sure he would find her, never mind how impossible it seemed in the enormous festive crowd.

  He could see Nelson on his column now, like a student who had dared to climb a chimney. Revelers were dancing in the fountain; there wasn’t room to move in the square or even to struggle round the perimeter. Suddenly, unfairly, the clocks began to strike midnight, the crowd was singing “Auld Lang Syne“ until the buildings seemed to shake, thousands of people were embracing and kissing, fireworks exploded in the sky. Someone was firing guns behind him in the Haymarket. No, it was the popping of champagne corks, and all around him beer cans were spitting. Another firework bloomed in the sky, and couples parted in the Haymarket to look up. For a few seconds the upturned faces were brighter than day. Before they went out Danny felt as if his head were on fire. Not a hundred yards away a tall slim man with rumpled hair had lifted his face from a woman’s upturned face, and she was Molly Wolfe.

  She was turning away from Trafalgar Square before Danny was able to move. He had been right to feel that the tables were turned, to follow his instincts; he’d only been wrong to think it was Dr. Kent he was hunting. The crowd between him and Molly Wolfe was still facing the square. He couldn’t shout “Excuse me” too loudly in case she heard, but more than one knot of revelers turned ugly when he tried to struggle through. He lost sight of her before he reached the Haymarket. but when at last he fought his way round the corner there she was, five hundred yards away and unmistakable. This time he wouldn’t lose her.


  He almost did at Piccadilly Circus, among the famished chalky addicts with their bruised arms. Her tall thin friend kept waving at taxis, all of which were taken. They wouldn’t get a cab tonight; her friend’s waving only helped Danny to see where they were. Crowds danced in Regent Street and Oxford Street among fallen Christmas decorations and trampled hot dogs, buildings full of faces seemed to be collapsing like waves toward Danny; people dressed like Dr. Kent or with faces that resembled hers kept getting in his way. Some of them didn’t even look like women. None of this could distract him, not when he’d been dealing with it for eleven years. Nothing could make him look away from Molly Wolfe.

  He followed them along Bayswater Road, past an estate agent’s, up a hill. When she disappeared beyond a gate, he turned up his collar and scrambled up the icy hill before she could close her door. As he reached the railings she was stooping to a niche under the steps and slipping out a key. Danny saw her and her friend vanish into the basement flat. His penis was aching, he needed an alley or somewhere else dark, but his grin didn’t falter even when he turned to go downhill and almost fell. He not only knew at last where she lived, he even knew how to get in.

  30

  MARTIN was asleep first. Molly lay awake for a while in his arms. She breathed his warmth and stroked his chest and listened to the sounds of the New Year. She no longer felt as edgy as she had in Trafalgar Square and all the way home. She was resigned to feeling that way until she resolved what she had to resolve. She had to trust the dream.

  A police car blared along Bayswater Road, greeted by a variety of shouts, and she wondered if Rankin were driving. She knew his name and his face, she knew he’d helped kill Lenny Bennett, she almost knew how he would betray himself. She’d dreamed of him before she’d met him in what most people would call reality, and that proved the dream—proved that Maitland had been telling the truth in the dream when he had implicated Rankin. Perhaps people always told the truth in dreams, in Molly’s, at any rate. Rankin didn’t like her audience to be told lies about him any more than he did, Maitland had said, but it had taken her a while to realize that meant Rankin had been involved in Bennett’s death.