The Uncanny Reader (25 page)

I took the beret into the next session, not knowing whether I would use it. But the moment she appeared in the depths of the room I whipped it out and waved it as if I were signaling with a dark lantern. Suddenly she stopped and, instinctively, I put the cap away; but when she started up I took it out and signaled her again. When she paused by the edge of the mattress I was afraid and threw the cap at her. It hit her on the chest and landed at her feet. It took her another few seconds to let out a scream. She dropped the candelabrum, which fell with a clatter and went out. Then I heard her body fall with a soft thud, followed by the louder sound of what must have been her head. I stood and reached out as if feeling for one of the glass cases, but just then my light came on and focused on her. She had fallen as if ready to slip into a happy dream, with half-open arms, her head to one side and her face modestly hidden under her waves of hair. I ran my light up and down her body like a thief searching her with a flashlight. I was surprised to find what looked like a large rubber stamp by her feet: it turned out to be my beret. My light not only lit her up but stripped something from her. I was pleased at the thought that the cap lying next to her belonged to me and to no one else. But suddenly my eyes began to see her feet turn a greenish yellow, like my face the night I had seen it in my wardrobe mirror. The color brightened in some parts of the feet and darkened in others, and soon I noticed little white bony shapes that reminded me of the bones of toes. By then horror was spinning in my head like trapped smoke. I ran my light over her body again and it looked changed, completely fleshless. One of her hands had strayed and lay across her groin: it was nothing but bones. I didn't want to go on looking and I tried to clamp my eyes shut, but they were like two worms turning and twisting in their holes until the light they projected reached her head. She had lost her hair and the bones of her face had the spectral glow of a far-off star seen through a telescope. And then suddenly I heard the butler's heavy step: he was switching on the lights and babbling frantically. She had recovered her full shape, but I could not bear to look at her. The host burst through a door I hadn't noticed before and ran to pick up his daughter. He was on his way out with her in his arms when another woman appeared. As they all left together the butler kept shouting:

“It was his fault, it's that fiendish light in his eyes. I didn't want to do it, he made me…”

Alone for a moment, I realized I was in serious trouble. I could have left, but I waited for the host to return. At his heel was the butler who said:

“You still here?”

I began to work on an answer, which would have gone something like this: “I'm not someone to just walk out of a house. Besides, I owe my host an explanation.” But it took me too long—and I considered it beneath my dignity to respond to the butler's charges.

By then I was facing the host. He had been running his fingers through his hair, frowning as if in deep thought. Now he drew himself up to his full height and, narrowing his eyes, he asked:

“Did my daughter invite you into the room?”

His voice seemed to come out of a second person inside him. I was so startled that all I could say was:

“No, it's just that … I'd be in here looking at these objects … and she'd walk over me…”

He had opened his mouth to speak but words failed him. Again he ran his fingers through his hair. He seemed to be thinking: “An unforeseen complication.”

The butler was carrying on again about my fiendish light and all the rest of it. I felt nothing in my life would ever make sense to anyone else. I tried to recover my pride and said:

“You'll never understand, my dear sir. If it makes you feel better, call the police.”

He also stood on his dignity:

“I won't call the police because you have been my guest. But you have betrayed my trust. I leave it to your honor to make amends.”

At that point I began to think of insults. The first one that came to mind was “hypocrite.” I was looking for something else when one of the glass cases burst open and a mandolin fell out. We all listened attentively to the clang of the box and strings. Then the host turned and headed for his private door. The butler, meantime, had gone to pick up the mandolin. It was a moment before he could bring himself to touch it, as if he thought it might be haunted, although the poor thing looked as dried-out as a dead bird. I turned as well and started across the dining room with ringing steps: it was like walking inside a sound box.

The next several days I was very depressed and lost my job again. One night I tried to hang my glass objects on the wall, but they looked ridiculous. And I was losing my light: I could barely see the back of my hand when I held it up to my eyes.

 

THE WAITING ROOM

Robert Aickman

Against such interventions of fate as this, reflected Edward Pendlebury, there was truly nothing that the wisest and most farsighted could do; and the small derangement of his plans epitomised the larger derangement which was life. All the way from Grantham it had been uncertain whether the lateness of the train from King's Cross would not result in Pendlebury missing the connection at York. The ticket inspector thought that “they might hold it”; but Pendlebury's fellow passengers, all of them businessmen who knew the line well, were sceptical, and seemed to imply that it was among the inspector's duties to soothe highly-strung passengers. “This is a Scarborough train,” said one of the businessmen several times. “It's not meant for those who want to go further north.” Pendlebury knew perfectly well that it was a Scarborough train: it was the only departure he could possibly catch, and no one denied that the time table showed a perfectly good, though slow, connection. Nor could anyone say why the express was late.

It transpired that the connection had not been held.

“Other people want to get home besides you,” said the man at the barrier, when Pendlebury complained rather sharply.

There were two hours to wait; and Pendlebury was warned that the train would be very slow indeed. “The-milk-and-mail we call it,” said his informant.

“But it does go there?”

“In the end.”

Already it was late at night; and the Refreshment Room was about to close. The uncertainty regarding the connection had made Pendlebury feel a little sick; and now he found it difficult to resume reading the Government publication the contents of which it was necessary for him to master before the next day's work began. He moved from place to place, reading and rereading the same page of technicalities: from a draughty seat under a light to a waiting room, and, when the waiting room was invaded by some over-jolly sailors, to the adjoining hotel, where his request for coffee seemed to be regarded as insufficient.

In the end it was long before the train was due when he found his way to the platform from which his journey was to be resumed. A small but bitterly cold wind was now blowing through the dark station from the north; it hardly sufficed to disturb the day's accumulation of litter, but none the less froze the fingers at a touch. The appearance of the train, therefore, effected a disproportionate revival in Pendlebury's spirits. It was composed of old stock, but none the less comfortable for that; the compartment was snugly heated, and Pendlebury sat in it alone.

The long journey began just in time for Pendlebury to hear the Minster clock clanging midnight as the train slowly steamed out. Before long it had come to rest again, and the bumping of milk churns began, shaking the train as they were moved, and ultimately crashing, at stately intervals, to the remote wayside platforms. Observing, as so many late travellers before him, that milk seems to travel from the town to the country, Pendlebury, despite the thuds, fell asleep, and took up the thread of anxiety which he so regularly followed through the caves of the night. He dreamed of the world's unsympathy, of projects hopefully begun but soon unreasonably overturned, of happiness alone, it was beautiful and springtime; until suddenly a bitter wind descended upon him from nowhere, and he awoke, hot and cold simultaneously.

“All change.”

The door of the compartment was open, and a porter was addressing him. “Where are we?”

“Casterton. Train stops here.”

“I want Wykeby.”

“Wykeby's on the main line. Six stations past.”

“When's the next train back?”

“Not till six-thirty.”

The guard had appeared, stamping his feet.

“All out please. We want to go to bed.”

Pendlebury rose to his feet. He had cramp in his left arm, and could not hold his suitcase. The guard pulled it out and set it on the platform. Pendlebury alighted and the porter shut the door. He jerked his head to the guard, who clicked the green slide of his lantern. The train slowly steamed away.

“What happens to passengers who arrive here fast asleep?” asked Pendlebury. “I can't be the first on this train.”

“This train's not rightly meant for passengers,” replied the porter. “Not beyond the main line, that is.”

“I missed the connection. The London train was late.”

“Maybe,” said the porter. The northerner's view of the south was implicit in his tone.

The train could be seen coming to rest in a siding. Suddenly all its lights went out.

“Casterton is quite a big place, I believe?”

“Middling,” said the porter. He was a dark featured man, with a saturnine expression.

“What about a hotel?”

“Not since the Arms was sold up. The new people don't do rooms. Can't get the labour.”

“Well, what
am
I to do?” The realisation that it was no business of the porter to answer this question made Pendlebury sound childish and petulant.

The porter looked at him. Then he jerked his head as he had done to the guard and began to move away. Picking up his suitcase (the other hand was still numb and disembodied), Pendlebury followed him. Snow was beginning to fall, not in flakes but in single stabbing spots.

The porter went first to a small office, lighted by a sizzling Tilley lamp, and heated to stuffiness by a crackling coke stove. Here he silently performed a series of obscure tasks, while Pendlebury waited. Finally he motioned Pendlebury out, drew the fire, extinguished the light, and locked the door. Then he lifted from its bracket the single oil lamp which illuminated the platform and opened a door marked “General Waiting Room.” Once more he jerked his head. This time he was holding the light by his dark face, and Pendlebury was startled by the suddenness and violence of the movement. It was a wonder that the porter did not injure his neck.

“Mind you, I'm not taking any responsibility. If you choose to spend the night, it's entirely your own risk.”

“It's not a matter of choice,” rejoined Pendlebury.

“It's against the regulations to use the waiting rooms for any purpose but waiting for the company's trains.”

“They're not the company's trains any more. They're supposed to be
our
trains.”

Presumably the porter had heard that too often to consider it worth reply.

“Thank you,” said Pendlebury. “What about a fire?”

“Not since before the war.”

“I see,” said Pendlebury. “I suppose you're sure there's nowhere else?”

“Have a look if you want to.”

Through the door Pendlebury could see the drops of snow scudding past like icy shrapnel.

“I'll stay here. After all, it's only a few hours.” The responsibilities of the morrow were already ranging themselves around Pendlebury, ready to topple and pounce.

The porter placed the lamp on the polished yellow table.

“Don't forget it's nothing to do with me.”

“If I'm not awake, I suppose someone will call me in time for the six-thirty?”

“Yes,” said the porter. “You'll be called.”

“Goodnight,” said Pendlebury. “And thank you.”

The porter neither answered, nor even nodded. Instead he gave that violent twist or jerk of his head. Pendlebury realised that it must be a twitch; perhaps partly voluntary, partly involuntary. Now that he had seen it in the light, its extravagance frightened him. Going, the porter slammed the door sharply; from which Pendlebury deduced also that the lock must be stiff.

As well as the yellow table the waiting room contained four long seats stoutly upholstered in shiny black. Two of these seats were set against the back wall, with the empty fireplace between them; and one against each of the side walls. The seats had backs, but no arms. There were also two objects in hanging frames: one was the address of the local representative of an organisation concerned to protect unmarried women from molestation when away from home; the other a black and white photograph of the Old Bailey, described, Pendlebury observed, as The New Central Criminal Court. Faded though the scene now was, the huge blind figure which surmounted the dome still stood out blackly against the pale sky. The streets were empty. The photograph must have been taken at dawn.

Pendlebury's first idea was to move the table to one side, and then bring up one of the long seats so that it stood alongside another, thus making a wider couch for the night. He set the lamp on the floor, and going around to the other end of the table began to pull. The table remained immovable. Supposing this to be owing to its obviously great weight, Pendlebury increased his efforts. He then saw, as the rays of the lantern advanced towards him across the dingy floorboards, that at the bottom of each leg were four L-shaped metal plates, one each side, by which the leg was screwed to the floor. The plates and the screws were dusty and rusty, but solid as a battleship. It was an easy matter to confirm that the four seats were similarly secured. The now extinct company took no risks with its property.

Pendlebury tried to make the best of a single bench, one of the pair divided by the fireplace. But it was both hard and narrow, and curved sharply upwards to its centre. It was even too short, so that Pendlebury found it difficult to dispose of his feet. So cold and uncomfortable was he that he hesitated to put out the sturdy lamp. But in the end he did so. Apart from anything else, Pendlebury found that the light just sufficed to fill the waiting room with dark places which changed their shape and kept him wakeful with speculation. He found also that he was beginning to be obsessed with the minor question of how long the oil would last.