‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’ Oxford Companion to English Literature
‘Easily the best horror writer working in Britain today’ Time Out
‘Campbell is literate in a field which has attracted too many comic-book intellects, cool in a field where too many writers – myself included – tend toward panting melodrama . . . Good horror writers are quite rare, and Campbell is better than just good’ Stephen King
‘Britain’s greatest living horror writer’ Alan Moore
‘Britain’s leading horror writer . . . His novels have been getting better and better’ City Limits
‘One of Britain’s most accomplished horror writers’ Oxford Star
‘The John Le Carré of horror fiction’ Bookshelf, Radio 4
‘One of the best real horror writers at work today’ Interzone
‘The greatest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition’ The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural
‘Ramsey Campbell has succeeded more brilliantly than any other writer in bringing the supernatural tale up to date without sacrificing the literary standards that early masters made an indelible part of the tradition’ Jack Sullivan, editor of the Penguin encyclopaedia
‘England’s contemporary king of the horror genre’ Atlanta Constitution
‘One of the few real writers in our field . . . In some ways Ramsey Campbell is the best of us all’ Peter Straub
‘Ramsey Campbell has a talent for terror – he knows how to give you nightmares while you’re still awake . . . Only a few writers can lay claim to such a level of consummate craftsmanship’ Robert Bloch
‘Campbell writes the most terrifying horror tales of anyone now alive’ Twilight Zone Magazine
‘He is unsurpassed in the subtle manipulation of mood . . . You forget you’re just reading a story’ Publishers Weekly
‘One of the world’s finest exponents of the classic British ghost story’ Sounds
‘For sheer ability to compose disturbing, evocative prose, he is unmatched in the horror/fantasy field . . . He turns the traditional horror novel inside out, and makes it work brilliantly’ Fangoria
‘Campbell has solidly established himself to be the best writer working in this field today’ Karl Edward Wagner, The Year’s Best Horror Stories
‘When Mr Campbell pits his fallible, most human characters against enormous forces bent on incomprehensible errands the results are, as you might expect, often frightening, and, as you might not expect, often touching; even heartwarming’ Gahan Wilson in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
‘Britain’s leading horror novelist’ New Statesman
‘Ramsey Campbell is Britain’s finest living writer of horror stories: considerable praise for a man whose country boasts the talents of Clive Barker and Roald Dahl, M. John Harrison and Nigel Kneale’ Douglas Winter, editor of Prime Evil
‘Campbell writes the most disturbing horror fiction around’ Today
‘Ramsey Campbell is better than all the rest of us put together’ Dennis Etchison
‘Ramsey Campbell is the best horror writer alive, period’ Thomas Tessier
‘A horror writer in the classic mould . . . Britain’s premier contemporary exponent of the art of scaring you out of your skin’ Q Magazine
‘The undisputed master of the psychological horror novel’ Robert Holdstock
‘Perhaps the most important living writer in the horror fiction field’ David Hartwell
‘Ramsey Campbell’s work is tremendous’ Jonathan Ross
‘Campbell is a rightful tenant of M. R. James country, the genuine badlands of the human psyche’ Norman Shrapnel in the Guardian
‘One of the world’s finest exponents of the classic British ghost story . . . His writing explores the potential for fear in the mundane, the barely heard footsteps, the shadow flitting past at the edge of one’s sight’ Daily Telegraph
‘The Grand Master of British horror . . . the greatest living writer of horror fiction’ Vector
‘Britain’s greatest horror writer . . . Realistic, subtle and arcane’ Waterstone’s Guide to Books
‘In Campbell’s hands words take on a life of their own, creating images that stay with you, feelings that prey on you, and people you hope never ever to meet’ Starburst
‘The finest writer now working in the horror field’ Interzone
‘Ramsey Campbell is the nearest thing we have to an heir to M. R. James’ Times
‘Easily the finest practising British horror novelist and the one whose work can most wholeheartedly be recommended to those who dislike the genre . . . His misclassification as a genre writer obscures his status as the finest magic realist Britain possesses this side of J. G. Ballard’ Daily Telegraph
‘One of the few who can scare and disturb as well as make me laugh out loud. His humour is very black but very funny, and that’s a rare gift to have’ Mark Morris in the Observer
‘The most sophisticated and highly regarded of British horror writers’ Financial Times
‘He writes of our deepest fears in a precise, clear prose that somehow manages to be beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He is a powerful, original writer, and you owe it to yourself to make his acquaintance’ Washington Post
‘I would say that only five writers have written serious novels which incorporate themes of fantasy or the inexplicable and still qualify as literature: T. E. D. Klein, Peter Straub, Richard Adams, Jonathan Carroll and Ramsey Campbell’ Stephen King
‘Ramsey Campbell is the best of us all’ Poppy Z. Brite
‘The foremost stylist and innovator in British horror fiction’ The Scream Factory
‘One of the century’s great literary exponents of the gothic and horrific’ Guardian
‘A national treasure . . . one of the most revered and significant authors in our field’ Peter Atkins
‘No other horror writer currently active is engaging with the real world quite as rigorously as Ramsey Campbell’ Kim Newman
‘Ramsey Campbell taught me how to write . . . There’s an intensity and clarity to his worldview that’s quite beautiful’ Jeremy Dyson
‘When it comes to the box of nightmares into which we all reach for inspiration, Ramsey reaches deeper than anyone else’ Mark Morris
Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Praise for Ramsey Campbell
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One: I’m No Loser
Chapter Two: Minions
Chapter Three: Entitlement
Chapter Four: Lists
Chapter Five: Lost
Chapter Six: Lesser
Chapter Seven: Totems
Chapter Eight: Smilemime
Chapter Nine: Some Sense
Chapter Ten: Moors
Chapter Eleven: Interments
Chapter Twelve: Eros
Chapter Thirteen: It’s Online
Chapter Fourteen: Sites
Chapter Fifteen: Mom is Relentless
Chapter Sixteen: Omens
Chapter Seventeen: Restlessness
Chapter Eighteen: I’m Not Remiss
Chapter Nineteen: Seniors
Chapter Twenty: It Stirs
Chapter Twenty-One: Soon I’ll Rest
Chapter Twenty-Two: No Stillness
Chapter Twenty-Three: Miss Moss
Chapter Twenty-Four: Nets
Chapter Twenty-Five: In Store
Chapter Twenty-Six: Retorts
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Sirens
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Notes on Silents
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Reels
Chapter Thirty: Remission
Chapter Thirty-One: It Smiles
Chapter Thirty-Two: I’m in Motion
Chapter Thirty-Three: Solemn Trio
Chapter Thirty-Four: No Room
Chapter Thirty-Five: Tormentors
Chapter Thirty-Six: Listeners
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Remoteness
Chapter Thirty-Eight: I Emote
Chapter Thirty-Nine: It’s Imminent
Chapter Forty: Met
Chapter Forty-One: Rites
Chapter Forty-Two: Tess
Chapter Forty-Three: St Simon’s
Chapter Forty-Four: Noel, Noel
Chapter Forty-Five: In Lemon Street
Chapter Forty-Six: It Rots
Chapter Forty-Seven: Someone Else
Chapter Forty-Eight: Rentnomore
Chapter Forty-Nine: Intertitles
Chapter Fifty: Mementos
Chapter Fifty-One: Time to Tell
Epilogue: I’m Not Lesser
Acknowledgments
Copyright
for Pete and Nicky Crowther
who got me out of the wods
I’VE HARDLY LIFTED my finger from the bellpush when the intercom emits its boxy cough and says ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Mark.’
‘It’s Simon,’ Natalie’s seven-year-old calls into the apartment and then asks me even more eagerly ‘Did you get your job?’
As I tell him, a boat hoots behind me on the Thames. An unsympathetic November wind brings the sound closer. A barge outlined by coloured lights is passing under Tower Bridge. Ripples flicker on the underside of the roadway, which appears to stir as if the bridge is about to raise its halves. The barge with its cargo of elegant drinkers cruises past me, and a moon-faced man in evening dress eyes me through a window as he lifts his champagne glass. He’s grinning so widely that I could almost take him to have been the source of the hoot, but of course he isn’t mocking me. The boat moves on, trailing colours until they’re doused by the water as black as the seven o’clock sky.
I hear quick footsteps on the pine floor of the entrance hall and arrange an expression for Mark’s benefit, but Natalie’s father opens the door. ‘Here he is,’ he announces. His plump but squarish face is more jovial than his tone. Perhaps his face is stiff with all the tanning he’s applied to make up for leaving California. It seems to bleach his eyebrows, which are as silver as his short bristling hair, and his pale blue eyes. He scrutinises me while he delivers a leathery handshake that would be still more painful if it weren’t so brief. ‘Christ up a chimney, you’re cold,’ he says and immediately turns his back. ‘Mark told us your good news.’
By the time I close the heavy door in the thick wall of the converted warehouse he’s tramping up the pale pine stairs. ‘Warren,’ I protest.
‘Save it for the family.’ As he turns left into the apartment he shouts ‘Here’s Mr Success.’
His wife, Bebe, dodges out of the main bedroom, and I wonder if she has been searching for signs of how recently I shared the bed. Perhaps the freckles that pepper her chubby face in its expensive frame of bobbed red hair are growing inflamed merely with enthusiasm. ‘Let’s hear it,’ she urges, following her husband past Natalie’s magazine cover designs that decorate the inner hall.
Mark darts out of his room next to the bathroom with a cry of ‘Yay, Simon’ as Natalie appears in the living-room. She sends me a smile understated enough for its pride and relief to be meant just for us. Before I can react her parents are beside her, and all I can see is the family resemblance. Her and Mark’s features are as delicate as Bebe’s must be underneath the padding, and they have half of Bebe’s freckles each, as well as hair that’s quite as red, if shorter. I feel excluded, not least by saying ‘Listen, everyone, I – ’
‘Hold the speech,’ Warren says and strides into the kitchen.
Why are the Hallorans here? What have they bought their daughter or their grandson this time? They’ve already paid for the plasma screen and the DVD recorder, and the extravagantly tiny hi-fi system, and the oversized floppy suite that resembles chocolate in rolls and melted slabs. I hope they didn’t buy the bottle of champagne Warren brings in surrounded by four glasses on a silver tray. I clear my throat, because more than the central heating has dried up my mouth. ‘That’s not on my account, is it?’ I croak. ‘I didn’t get the job.’
Warren’s face changes swiftest. As he rests the tray on a low table his eyebrows twitch high, and his smile is left looking ironic. Bebe thins her lips at Natalie and Mark in case they need to borrow any bravery. Natalie tilts her head as if the wryness of her smile has tugged it sideways. Only Mark appears confused. ‘But you sounded happy,’ he accuses me. ‘The noise you made.’
‘I think you were hearing a boat on the river,’ I tell him.
Natalie’s parents share an unimpressed glance as Natalie asks Mark ‘Don’t you know the difference between Simon and a boat?’
‘Tell us,’ says Warren.
I feel bound to. ‘One sails on the waves . . .’
Before Mark can respond, Bebe does with a frown that’s meant to seem petite. ‘We didn’t know you were into saving whales. Can you spare the time when you’re hunting for a job?’
‘I’m not. An activist, I mean. I don’t make a fuss about much. One sails on the waves, Mark, and the other one saves on the wails.’
I wouldn’t call that bad for the spur of the moment, but his grandparents clearly feel I should. Mark has a different objection. ‘Why didn’t you get the job at the magazine? You said it was just what you wanted.’
‘We can’t always have what we want, son,’ Warren says. ‘Maybe we should get what we deserve.’
Natalie gazes at me, perhaps to prompt me to reply, and says ‘We have.’
Bebe drapes an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘You two know you’ve always got us.’
‘You haven’t said why yet,’ Mark prompts me.
Through the window behind the editor’s desk I could see to the hills beyond London, but when the editor conveyed her decision this afternoon I felt as if I’d been put back in my box. ‘I’d be writing for them if I hadn’t mentioned one word.’
Bebe plants her hands over his ears. ‘If it’s the one I’m thinking of I don’t believe this little guy needs to hear.’
Perhaps Mark still can, because he says ‘I bet it’s Cineassed.’
She snatches her hands away as if his ears have grown too hot to hold. ‘Well, really, Natalie. I’m surprised you let him hear that kind of language, whoever said it to him.’
‘He saw me reading the magazine,’ Natalie retorts, and I wonder whether she’s reflecting that Bebe persuaded her not to display the covers in the hall as she adds ‘I did work for it too, you might want to remember. Otherwise I wouldn’t have met Simon.’
Everyone looks at me, and Warren says ‘I don’t get how just mentioning it could lose you a job when Natalie landed a better one.’
‘She was only on design.’
‘I wouldn’t call that so very inferior.’
‘Nor would I, not even slightly. The look was all hers, and it sold the magazine, but I’m saying my name was on half the pages.’
‘Maybe you should try not telling anyone that’s offering you a job.’
‘You don’t want people thinking you’re trying to avoid work,’ Bebe says.
‘Simon is working. He’s working extremely hard.’ Rather than turn on either of her parents, Natalie gazes above my head. ‘A day job and another one at night, I’d call that hard.’
‘Just not too profitable,’ says her father. ‘Okay, let’s run you to work, Simon. We need to stop by our houses.’
‘Don’t wait for me. I’ll have time for the train.’
‘Better not risk it. Imagine showing up late for work after you already lost one job.’
As Natalie gives me a tiny resigned smile Mark says ‘You haven’t seen my new computer, Simon. The old one crashed.’
‘Nothing but the best for our young brain,’ Bebe cries.
‘It’s an investment in everyone’s future,’ Warren says. ‘Save the demonstration, Mark. We need to hit the road.’
The elder Hallorans present their family with kisses, and I give Natalie one of the kind that least embarrasses Mark. ‘Bye,’ he calls as he makes for his room, where he rouses his computer. I leave Natalie’s cool slender hand a squeeze that feels like a frustrating sample of an embrace and trail after her parents to the basement car park.
The stone floor is blackened by the shadows of brick pillars, around which security cameras peer. Bebe’s Shogun honks and flashes its headlamps from one of the bays for Flat 3 to greet Warren’s key-ring. I climb in the back and am hauling the twisted safety belt to its socket when the car veers backwards, narrowly missing a dormant Jaguar. At the top of the ramp the Shogun barely gives the automatic door time to slope out of the way. ‘Warren,’ Bebe squeals, perhaps with delight more than fear.
The alley between the warehouses amplifies the roar of the engine as he speeds to the main road. He barely glances down from his height before swerving into the traffic. ‘Hey, that’s what brakes are for,’ he responds to the fanfare of horns, and switches on the compact disc player.
The first notes of the 1812 surround me as the lit turrets of the Tower dwindle in the mirror. Whenever the car slews around a corner I’m flung against the window or as far across the seat as the belt allows. Is Warren too busy fiddling with the sound balance to notice? In Kensington he increases the volume to compete with the disco rhythm of a Toyota next to us at traffic lights, and Bebe waves her hands beside her ears. The overture reaches its climax on the Hammersmith flyover, beyond which the sky above a bend in the Thames explodes while cannon-shots shake the car. Rockets are shooting up from Castelnau and simultaneously plunging into the blackness of a reservoir. They’re almost as late for the fifth of November as they’re early for the New Year. The Great West Road brings the music to its triumphant end, which leaves the distant detonations sounding thin and artificial to my tinny ears. ‘How did you rate that, Simon?’ Warren shouts.
‘Spectacular,’ I just about hear myself respond.
‘Pretty damn fine, I’d say. The guy knew what people liked and socked it to them. You don’t make many enemies that way.’
‘Never do that if you can’t afford to,’ Bebe says.
‘All I did was look into the background of the films that were topping the charts. Colin wrote the piece about testing Oscar winners for drugs. He named too many people who should have owned up, that’s why we were sued.’
The Hallorans stare at me in the mirror as if they weren’t thinking of Cineassed. After a pause Warren says ‘Shows you should be careful who your friends are. You could end up with their reputation.’
I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or about me. Planes rise from Heathrow like inextinguishable fireworks. A reservoir is staked out by illuminated fishermen beside the old Roman road into Staines. Warren brakes in sight of the video library that’s my daytime workplace, and then the car screeches off a roundabout to Egham. As we leave the main road near the outpost of London University, Bebe tuts at a student who’s wearing a traffic cone on his head like a reminiscence of Halloween. The Shogun halts at the top of the sloping side street, between two ranks of disreputable parked cars. ‘Open up while I find a space, Simon,’ Warren directs.
I hurry to the slouching metal gate of the middle house they own and manoeuvre the gate over the humped path. A large striped spider has netted the stunted rhododendron that’s the only vegetation in the token garden apart from tufts of grass. The spider is transmitting its glow through its equally orange web to discolour the leaves, except that the glare belongs to a streetlamp. I sprint to the scabby front door and twist my key in the unobliging lock. ‘Hello?’ I shout as the door stumbles inwards. ‘Here’s your landlords.’
Though the hall light is on beneath its cheap mosaic shade, nobody responds. Wole’s door is shut – a ski-masked cliché on a poster bars the way with a machete – and so is Tony’s, on which Gollum holds the fort. Besides a stagnant smell of pizza, do I distinguish a faint tang of cannabis? I try to look innocent enough for all the tenants as I swivel to meet Bebe. ‘Just letting the men know you’re here in case they aren’t decent,’ I improvise.
She turns to Warren, who has parked across the driveway of their house on the right. ‘He’s alerted the students we’re here.’
‘Showing solidarity, were you, Simon?’
‘It isn’t so long since I was one. Thanks again for letting me rent the room.’
I watch the Hallorans advance in unison along the hall, which is papered with a leafy pattern designed for a larger interior. Bebe knocks on Wole’s door and immediately tries it while Warren does the same to Tony’s, but both rooms are locked. Bebe switches on the light in the sitting-room and frowns at me, although I’ve left none of the items strewn about the brownish carpet that’s piebald with fading stains. In any case the debris – disembowelled newspapers, unwashed plates, two foil containers with plastic forks lounging amid their not yet mouldy contents, a sandal with a broken strap – hardly detracts from the doddering chairs of various species in front of the elderly television and dusty video recorder. Bebe stacks the containers on top of the plates and takes them to the kitchen, only to find no space in the pedal bin, any more than there’s room for additional plates in the sink. ‘Simon, you’re supposed to be the mature one,’ she complains and dumps her burden among the bowls scaly with breakfast cereal on the formica table top. ‘How long have you been letting this pile up?’
I’d tell her where I spent last night, but Natalie prefers to leave them in some doubt of our relationship until I have a job we can be proud of. I try remaining silent while Warren takes the rubbish out to the dustbin, but Bebe performs such a monodrama of tuts and sighs as she sets about clearing the sink that I’m provoked to interrupt. ‘I can’t play the caretaker when I’m out at work so much.’
‘Students are investments like these houses,’ Warren says, grinding home the bolts on the back door. ‘Investments the rest of us make.’
Bebe thrusts a plate at me to dry. ‘How much of one do you think you are, Simon?’
I lay it in a drawer rather than smash it on the linoleum. ‘If Natalie values me, that’s what matters.’
‘How romantic. I expect she’d be pleased.’ Bebe hands me another plate before adding ‘I believe we matter as well. We’ve invested a whole lot in her.’
‘I meant to tell her we met somebody she used to know,’ Warren says. ‘He’s done real well for himself and anyone involved with him.’
Am I supposed to say she can have him or perhaps yield more gracefully? I know they’re waiting for her to lose faith in me. Even renting me the accommodation makes it harder for us to meet and characterises me as a parasite. Arguing won’t help, but I have to hold my lips shut with my teeth while I stow the dishes.
Warren’s comment loiters in my head as he leads the way upstairs. A tear in the scuffed carpet snags my heel. Bebe lets her breath be heard when she sees the clutter in the communal bathroom. Joe’s door has acquired a poster for a troupe presumably deliberately misspelled as Clwons Unlimited. Warren’s knock brings no answer, and the door is locked. ‘I’ll open up if my quarters are due for inspection,’ I say.
‘That would be helpful,’ says Bebe.
I was joking, and if they don’t understand that, they’re the joke. I might say as much, but I’ve nothing to hide except how demeaned I feel. I throw the blank anonymous door wide and switch on the light under the tasselled Japanese shade Natalie hoped would cheer up the room. Her parents stare in, though there isn’t much to see or criticise. My clothes are stored in the rickety wardrobe, and yesterday I dragged the quilt over the bed. Books are lined up on shelves next to the skeletal desk on which my computer has pride of place. ‘Do tell me what you’re looking for if I can help,’ I say.
‘It seems to be in order,’ Bebe says but gives a quick ominous sniff.
‘We’ll check our other properties,’ says Warren, ‘and then we can run you to the gas station.’
‘I’m not due for an hour yet, thanks. I’ve things to do here first.’
‘Do say they’ll be productive,’ Warren urges.
I clench my fists as I watch my landlords’ heads jerk puppet-like downstairs. Warren’s scalp is lichened by a green segment of the grubby lampshade, Bebe’s is tinged an angry red. Warren glances up at me, and a smile widens his mouth. I can’t take it for encouragement, even if it glints green. Once the front door shuts I switch on my computer. The Hallorans have said too much this time. I’ll surprise them and perhaps Natalie as well. I’m going to take charge of my life.
ALL MY LIFE that’s fit to print (and maybe some that isn’t):
Simon Lester. Born 1 January 1977, Preston, Lancashire. Attended Grimshaw Street Primary School 1982–88, Winckley High School 1988–95. Grade A GCSE in English Language and Literature, Mathematics, Spanish; B in Physics, Chemistry, Social Studies. (History and Geography, don’t ask. Would have done better if hadn’t fallen in love with cinema and set out to watch every film on multiplex/television/tape? Doubt it.) Grade A at Advanced Level in both English subjects and Mathematics, B in the sciences. Attended London University at Royal Holloway College 1995–98. Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Media Studies. Co-edited (with Colin Vernon, but would rather keep that quiet) college film magazine Freeze Frames and contributed reviews and critical essays. 1998–2000, film reviewer for Preston Gazette. Wrote articles for Sight and Sound and Empire. Then –
(Emailed by Colin Vernon. Cineassed will be most irreverent movie magazine ever. His father’s backing the launch. Colin will put me up in his Finchley house until I can afford a flat. Any doubts assuaged by editorial meeting, not to mention drinks afterwards with Natalie. Had to be worth it for meeting her. Now libel case against the magazine and Colin in particular won’t come to trial until next year. Assets of magazine frozen. My reputation seems to be, but mustn’t let that happen to my thoughts.)
2001–02, staff writer for Cineassed. I highlight this onscreen and delete it and gaze at the absence. Whenever I mention that I’ve written about films, interviewers remember where they’ve heard of me, which is there. In that case, should I change my name? I connect to the Internet and search for an anagram generator. Here’s a site called Wordssword, and I type my name in the box.
The trail of anagrams leads off the screen, but I can’t find a full name that anybody rational would use. I’m encouraged to play with my letters, however. Milton Lime could be the third man’s brother, Noel Morse would be related to the inventor of a code. I substitute the name that convinces me most at the top of my history. As I save the document and shut down the computer, a gust of wind rattles a plastic chair against the garden table by the dustbin, and I imagine evicting my old self to sit there in the dark. I wish I had time to search for jobs tonight. Tomorrow morning I’ll be at my desk before work.
My breath grows orange as I step out of the house. Once I’ve tugged the door shut I take out my mobile and bring up Natalie’s number. The spider in the bush twitches its luminous web as she says ‘Hello?’
‘Leslie Stone here.’
‘Simon? Simon.’ The second version is a fond but terse rebuke. ‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘My parents just showed up.’
‘You’re saying they’re back.’
‘No need to be clever with words all the time,’ she says, which I wasn’t intending to be. ‘I meant before. They rang me at work and I mentioned your interview and Mark’s virus, but the first I knew they were coming was when they arrived bearing champagne and a computer.’
‘That was kind of them.’
‘I still wish we’d been on our own when you brought the news.’
‘Never mind, soon they’ll be hearing about Leslie Stone.’
‘I don’t think I’m getting the joke.’
‘That’s because there isn’t one unless you think I am. I’m going to use a pseudonym.’
‘I’ll come and see in a few minutes, Mark. To write a book, you mean?’
The idea hadn’t occurred to me, but it should have. ‘What do you think?’
‘They say everybody’s got one in them.’
I might have liked a more personal comment. A computer illuminates a bedroom as I tramp downhill towards the Frugoil station, where a car honks at a petrol pump as if to remind me of Simon Lester’s status. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to let you know my plans before I start work,’ I tell her.
‘Good luck with them, Simon. I hope I can still call you that.’
‘Call me whatever you fancy,’ I say, but the horn is louder. It plays three notes that remind me of Laurel and Hardy as the impatient driver swings the car off the forecourt. ‘Love you,’ I say, and believe I hear an echo before Natalie vacates the mobile. I pocket it and dodge traffic across the main road.
Shahrukh scowls at me through the pay window as I reach the pumps beneath the slab of jittery white light that roofs the forecourt. I could imagine that he doesn’t recognise me as a colleague, which suggests I’m turning into the person I want to be. Then he slides off the stool and tucks his overstuffed white shirt into his trousers while he plods to unlock the door. Having opened it an inch, he says over his shoulder ‘You are late.’
I blink at my wristwatch, and the colon ahead of the minute blinks back. ‘Just a few seconds. What’s that between friends?’
‘You are not meant to be late. There is much work to be done.’ He wags a thumb in the direction of the clock above the shelves of cigarettes penned behind the narrow counter. ‘You are slow,’ he declares. ‘That is off the bloody computer.’
I hope my silence will speed him on his way. Instead he says ‘Are you hungry? Have you eaten?’
I know him well enough to recognise a trap. ‘I’ve had something,’ I say, though it’s barely the truth.
‘Do not eat any of the sandwiches that are to be thrown out. That is stealing,’ he warns me. ‘In fact, do not throw them out at all. Mr Khan will deal with them in the morning if nobody has paid to eat them.’
‘Your father will have them for breakfast, you mean.’
‘Now you are ragging me. I can take a joke if it costs nothing,’ he says and points one of his fattest fingers at the refrigerator cabinet full of plastic bottles. ‘What do you see there?’
‘Something else I mustn’t touch?’
‘A gap on the shelf, and there is another. A gap is not a sale. People cannot buy a gap. Wherever you see an opening to be filled, put in what should be there.’
This time my silence takes some maintaining. ‘Well, I suppose I must leave you,’ he says and unhooks his fur coat from behind the door of the small office. ‘Whatever you put out, write it on the sheet for Mr Khan to check.’
His knee-length pelt shivers in the wind as I lock the door behind him. His blue Mercedes darts out from behind the shop, its roof flaring like defective neon, and then I’m alone except for the security camera that keeps watch on my trudge to the stockroom. I might enjoy working here more if it made demands of any kind on me, but now that I’ve learned the routine it leaves my mind free to observe its own lack of employment. Perhaps Leslie Stone should plan a book.
I fetch a carton of plastic bottles and the clipboard from the concrete room, which is grudgingly illuminated by a bulb half the strength of the one Mr Khan took home. How about Product Placement? Placed to Sell is catchier, but I suspect there isn’t enough to the planting of brand names in films to make a saleable book. I slash the tape on the carton with a Stanley knife. Death Scenes, then? The cinema is alive with them, and I could look at how representation has changed since the earliest one – a reconstruction of a hanging – and the ways in which different actors and genres handle them. Or is the theme unmarketably grim? I scrag two bottles from the carton with each hand and knuckle them more space in the refrigerator. Perhaps I could have fun with –
A white Volvo cruises onto the forecourt. I’m heading for the counter to activate the pump beside which the driver has halted when he opens his door. As he stands up to gaze at me over the unshadowed roof of the car my hands close into fists, or as much as they can on the plastic necks, and I almost drop to the floor, out of sight. He’s what I’ve been dreading for months.
I SHOVE THE bottles into the refrigerator and slam the glass door and straighten up from my useless belated crouch. The driver meets my gaze and climbs into the Volvo. It backs away from the pumps as if he’s trying to retract the sight of me, and then it coasts over to the shop. It vanishes beyond the window, and I’m able to hope that it’s gone until the driver reappears around the building. He’s Rufus Wall, and he was my film tutor.
His largely ruddy brow looks even more exposed than I remember, as if his shaggy mane and the beard that blackens most of his wide face from the cheekbones down have tugged his forehead barer. He’s all in black: polo neck, trousers, leather jacket and gloves. Having tried the door, he leans his face towards the glass. ‘Simon?’ he says so conversationally that I decipher rather than hear what he’s saying. ‘May I come in?’
Mr Khan wouldn’t like it – won’t, if he checks the security recording. I’m tempted to use this as an excuse not to admit Rufus. A wind lifts his mane, and I imagine the chill on his nearly pensionable neck. I can’t leave him standing in the cold, however awkward our conversation is going to be. I unlock the door, and he sticks out a hand that feels plump with leather. ‘Sorry to take you away from your task,’ he says. ‘I was told you’d be here.’
My reputation has sunk even lower than I thought, then. ‘Who told you?’
‘Joey, was it, or just Joe?’ He waits for me to lock the door, then folds his arms and gazes at me. ‘What do you think you’re doing here, Simon?’
‘Shall we call it resting?’
‘In the actor’s sense, I take it. Do you know where you’re going, though?’
He’s as persistent as ever. In tutorials that helped me clarify my ideas. Other students weren’t so comfortable with it, and I no longer am. ‘I don’t know if I ever told you,’ he says, ‘you wrote the best thesis I’ve ever had to mark.’
‘Well, thank you,’ I say, and an insecure bottle lolls against the inside of the glass door as if I need reminding of my job. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘What a beginning, I still think. I read it to some of my colleagues, how you’d asked all your film buff friends about poor old Polonsky who was once hailed as the greatest filmmaker since Orson Welles and every single one of them thought you meant Polanski. I can’t imagine a better way of showing how reputations get lost.’
‘Maybe I’m doing that myself now.’
‘It wasn’t your fault your magazine was sued.’ His gaze drifts to the glossy ranks of two-dimensional breasts on the topmost shelf of magazines. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be writing than selling this stuff?’
‘If you know any editors to recommend me to, you can be sure I’ll be grateful.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be passing your name on to any of those.’
I adjust the bottle in the cabinet, but turning my back on him doesn’t hide much of my bitterness. ‘I’d better get on with the job I’m paid to do, then.’
‘Could I borrow some of your attention for just a few minutes?’
I shut the cabinet and fix my gaze on Rufus. ‘Here’s all of it.’
‘That’s more like my old student.’ He clasps his beard as if he’s testing it for falseness and says ‘Have you heard of the Tickle bequest?’
‘Sounds like a joke.’
‘Not as far as you’re concerned, I hope. Charles Stanley Tickell,’ he says, and this time I hear the spelling. ‘One of our students between the wars. Very much an arts man, books above all. Apparently nothing upset him so much in the war as seeing a library bombed. Now he’s left really quite a lot of dosh to the university. We have to use it the way he wanted, to publish books.’
‘Don’t you already?’
‘Not many of the kind he liked. Books on the art of the last century, and of course that includes the cinema. I’ve been asked if any of my students have it in them, and you needn’t wonder whose name I told them. That’s why I won’t be mentioning you to any other editors. If we can make this work, and I’m several hundred per cent certain that we can, I’ll be editing our cinema imprint until I retire.’
Is he entrusting me with that responsibility? It’s almost too much and too abrupt, but I can’t afford to be daunted. ‘Do you know, I’ve been thinking of books I could write.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Final Films, that would be about the last films people made and what they show us about the cinema. Dying to be Filmed, about death scenes, of course. We’re in the Movies, that would look at how the cinema feeds into everyday reality so much everyone takes it for granted. And maybe there’s a book in how films send up other films and rip them off. I might call it Haven’t We Seen That Before?’
By now I’m improvising, since Rufus is gazing at me as if he expects more or better. ‘Maybe one about dubbing,’ I say in some desperation. ‘I could interview actors who’ve dubbed films and call it, call it Speaking for Ourselves. Or how does this sound, a book about films that were never made? Did you know the Phantom of the Opera Hammer made with Herbert Lom, they’d written it for Cary Grant? And Hitchcock nearly filmed Lucky Jim. Who knows how much unmade stuff there is if I can track it down.’
‘If anyone can, Simon, I’m sure it’s you.’ Rufus is petting his beard, a gesture that used to indicate that he was waiting for a student to add to a presentation. ‘Right now we need whatever you can turn in quickest,’ he says. ‘I think you should publish your thesis.’
I open my mouth to enthuse, but perhaps I’m assuming too much. ‘You mean you’d pay me for it?’
‘Handsomely, so long as you revise it enough that we can call it a new work. May I suggest how you could?’
‘Go ahead. You’re my editor.’
‘If you can make it more entertaining, don’t hesitate. I’m not saying it isn’t already, but the bigger the audience we can net the better. Expand wherever you see the chance if you have the material. I’d love to read more about – who was that silent comedian who’s been written out of the film histories?’
‘Tubby Thackeray, you mean. I couldn’t even find a footnote.’
‘That’s the man. I thought your paragraph on him was fascinating, especially how he may have suffered from the Arbuckle case. People took against him just because they thought he sounded like Fatty, you think? There must be a chapter in him at least.’
‘I’m not sure how I’d find out more than I did.’
‘However you have to. Whatever you need to spend will be taken care of. Mr Tickell isn’t going to question your expenses.’
‘Would I have to spend it first and claim it back?’
‘That’s the usual way, I believe.’ Rufus searches my expression while I try not to look too mendicant. ‘But you’ll see an advance as soon as the contract’s signed,’ he says. ‘What would you say to ten thousand now and twenty when the book’s delivered?’
It’s more than I would earn in two years from both my present jobs. ‘I’d say thank you very much.’
‘Maybe we can raise the stakes for your next book,’ Rufus says, perhaps a little disappointed that I wasn’t more effusive. ‘I don’t want to go too mad too soon. Give me your email and I’ll attach a contract to you tomorrow.’
He produces a pen and notebook from inside his jacket. Dozens of wiry hairs spring up on the back of his hand as he tugs off his glove. ‘It’s simonlest@frugonet.com,’ I tell him. ‘Would you like me to use a pseudonym on the book?’
‘Most decidedly not. It’s restoring reputations. Let’s see what it can do for yours.’
A Triumph has pulled up on the forecourt. Like every customer for petrol, the driver ignores the sign that asks him to pay first. He waves the metal nozzle at me, and I step behind the counter to push the button that starts the pump. ‘I’ll leave you to your duties,’ Rufus says and extends a hand across the ageing headlines of the newspapers on the counter.
His hand feels very little less plump than it did in its glove. As I lock the door behind him he leaves me a grin that’s by no means negated by its hairy frame, and mouths ‘You’ll be hearing from me.’ I return behind the counter and don my widest smile as the Triumph driver saunters to the window. I’m going to enjoy my shift. My only regret is that it’s too late to tell Natalie my news tonight, but tomorrow’s on the way. It can be the first day of my real life.
TUBBY THACKERAY
Date of birth (location)
1880?
England
Date of death (details)
?
Mini biography
Thackeray Lane began his career in English music hall. After he(show more)
Actor – filmography
1. Leave ’Em Laughing (1928) (uncredited) . . . Driver in traffic jam
2. Tubby Tells the Truth (1920, unreleased)
3. Tubby’s Trick Tricycle (1919)
At once I realise something is wrong, though not with the Internet Movie Database. I scroll down the list and try to ignore my neighbour at the adjacent terminal, who is humming under his breath a bunch of notes with which a pianist might accompany a chase in a silent film.
4. Tubby’s Tremendous Teeth (1919)
5. Tubby’s Tiny Tubbies (1919)
6. Tubby’s Telephonic Travails (1919)
7. Tubby Turns Turtle (1918)
8. Tubby Takes the Train (1918)
9. Tubby’s Terrible Triplets (1918)
10. Tubby Tackles Tennis (1917)
11. Tubby’s Table Talk (1917)
12. Tubby Tattle-Tale (1917)
13. Tubby Tastes the Tart (1916)
14. Tubby’s Telepathic Tricks (1916)
15. Tubby’s Telescopic Thrill (1916)
16. Tubby’s Tinseled Tree (1915)
17. Tubby’s Trojan Task (1915)
18. Tubby’s Troublesome Trousers (1915)
19. Tubby Turns the Tables (1915)
20. Tubby Tries It On (1914)
21. Tubby the Troll (1914)
22. Tubby’s Twentieth-Century Tincture (1914)
23. Just for a Laugh (1914) . . . Avoirdupois the Apothecary
24. The Best Medicine (1914) . . . Pholly the Pharmacist
Writer – filmography
Leave ’Em Laughing (uncredited gag writer)
Archive footage
Those Golden Years of Fun (1985)
The biography button on the sidebar brings me a reference to Surréalistes Malgré Eux (Éditions Nouvelle Année, 1971). That’s all, and in one sense it’s more than enough, because the dates in the list are wrong. Whatever ended Thackeray’s career, it couldn’t have been the Arbuckle scandal. The party at which Fatty caused Virginia Rappe’s death began on Labor Day in 1921, the year after Tubby last starred in a film.
Where did I get the idea that the events are connected? From somewhere on the Internet or here in the harsh light of the British Film Institute’s reading room? It surely doesn’t matter, though I’m irritated that so recent a memory is stored beyond retrieval. I click on the biography link to be shown more. Thackeray Lane began his career in English music hall. After he put on so much weight that a stage collapsed beneath him – after he was banned from theatres for making suggestive jokes about telescopes and tarts – after he turned out to be incapable of uttering a sentence that didn’t contain at least a trio of Ts – For all I know, any of these could be the case, because the link doesn’t work. I abandon it and search the web for Thackeray Lane.
It’s at least two places in England. The name also belonged to a professor of mediaeval history whose papers are archived at Manchester University, but I can find no reference to a comedian. A search for Tubby Thackeray brings me no results at all, and he isn’t listed in the library catalogue. The Institute’s Summary of Information on Film and Television database lists his films, but the National Film and Television Archive has none of them, not even Those Golden Years of Fun.
I can’t quite restrain a sigh, which apparently draws the man who was humming an old tune. He keeps his breath and its burden to himself as he leans over my shoulder. When I glance up, sunlight through the blinds behind him sears my vision. I have the impression that his face is very pale, at least in part, and unnecessarily large, perhaps because he’s looming so close. As I blink like an unearthed mole he shuffles out of view beyond the only bookcase, and I head for the counter, above which a screen announces that a copy of Silent Secrets is awaiting a reader called Moore. ‘Did you find what you wanted?’ the librarian says.
‘I was hoping for more, to be honest.’ When she tilts her long face up as though her interrogative smile has lifted it I say ‘You won’t have heard of Tubby Thackeray, by any chance?’
‘He does seem to ring a bell.’ She ponders and then shakes her head, displacing her smile. ‘I must have someone else in mind. I don’t think I’ve heard of him.’
‘Some of us have.’
I turn but can’t identify the speaker. None of the readers at the tables is looking at me, nor at anyone else for having spoken. I’m not even sure how close the man’s voice was. ‘What was that?’ I ask the librarian.
‘I said I haven’t heard of him.’
‘Not you, the other person.’ When she looks perplexed I murmur ‘The one who just spoke.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not able to help you there.’
How could she have been unaware that someone was talking so loud? I’m about to wonder when I realise that every time I’ve addressed her she has gazed straight at my lips. ‘Sorry, you’re, I see,’ I babble and swing around to question our audience. ‘Tubby Thackeray, anybody?’
Do they think I’m inviting someone to reveal he’s the comedian? Nobody betrays the least hint of having spoken earlier. Was it the man who craned over my shoulder? He isn’t behind the shelves now. He must have made the comment on his way out. I sprint past the security gate, which holds its peace, into Stephen Street. He isn’t there, nor can I see him from the junction with Tottenham Court Road. He should be easily identifiable; he was bulky enough, or his clothes were. Once I tire of gazing at the lunchtime crowds I retrace my frustrated steps. It’s the quickest route to meeting Natalie for lunch.
As I turn corner after narrow corner the wind blows away my misty breath. An awning flaps beyond an alley, a sound like footsteps keeping pace with me, except that they would be absurdly large. I dodge across Oxford Street behind a bus full of children with painted faces and sidle through the parade of early Christmas shoppers to Soho Square. In the central garden, around which the railings look darkened by rain that the pendulous sky has yet to release, a loosely overcoated man is opening and closing his wide mouth in a silent soliloquy or a tic.
The Choice Cuts restaurant is across the square, next door to the film censor’s offices. Three steps up lead directly into the bar, which is decorated with photographs of people who have had problems with the censor, a signed portrait of Ken Russell beside one of an equally fat-faced Michael Winner. Natalie is at a table in a semicircular booth halfway down the darkly panelled room, under a poster that repeats IT’S ONLY A MOVIE. As soon as she sees me she slides off the padded bench. ‘Simon, I tried to call you.’
I forgot to switch my mobile on when I left the library. The table bears two drinks besides hers, and at once I know why she looks apologetic. Her greeting might be the cue for the door marked CENSORED next to the bar to open, revealing her parents. ‘Was this place your idea?’ Bebe says, perhaps before noticing me. ‘Oh, hello, Simon.’
‘It was mine,’ I say. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘I could do without the pictures in the comfort station. Warren says his was just as bad.’
‘We were in the West End and we happened to call Natalie,’ Warren says, closing a hand around my elbow. ‘We can leave if you want to celebrate by yourselves.’
‘Don’t feel you have to leave when you’ve got drinks.’
‘You’ll have one for sure.’ When I admit to it and identify it Warren tells the barman ‘White wine for our guest.’