Ghosts and Scholars: Ghost Stories in the Tradition of M. R. James

THIS TIME Ramsey Campbell

Ramsey Campbell’s first published stories appeared in the 1960s, when he was still a teenager. In those days he was a keen imitator of H. P. Lovecraft, but he quickly gained sufficient confidence to develop his own distinctive style. A full-time professional writer now for over ten years, his novels and short story collections include Demons by Daylight, Dark Companions, The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and The Parasite. Many of his most memorable tales, such as ‘Mackintosh Willy’, ‘The Sentinels’, and ‘This Time’, make subtle use of Jamesian techniques in very modern and usually urban settings—often in his own native Liverpool. ‘This Time’ is one of his personal favourites.

As Crosby emerged from the dentist’s he almost tripped over a dog, which vanished behind the bushes. He took more care while crossing the road to the park, for he felt unreal, dreamy. He tongued the hole in his stony jaw and tried to recall what he’d dreamed.

People were walking dogs in Birkenhead Park, or being run by them. A man was training an Alsatian called Winston. On the fish-pond the white ducks looked moulded out of the reflections of clouds. He had been counting backwards from thirty; he’d reached fourteen before the anaesthetic worked, and then he’d seemed to begin counting an altogether different set of numbers backwards, on and on into the dark. He felt he had arrived eventually, but where?

He walked through the short cut from the pond to his street. On the playing-field beside him, rugby posts were panting in the August heat: H H H. As he opened his front door, pushing back a couple of letters, spacious echoes greeted him.

His face no longer felt stony. The gap in his jaw was plugged with an ache. He was glad he’d drawn today’s stint before he had gone to the dentist’s—but nevertheless he was anxious not to lose the impressions he had gathered in the waiting-room: a mother holding her child like a ventriloquist’s dummy from which she was determined to coax a brave smile, a teenager who had tried to pretend that the bulge in his cheek was nothing worth noticing, just a sweet. Perhaps Crosby could sketch something for his exhibition.

He gazed across his drawing-board, out of the window. Beyond the long garden, the pond blazed among the trees. The head of the little girl next door kept popping over the seven-foot hedge like a Jack-in-the-box; the seat of her swing was concealed by the hedge. She made him feel all the more unreal, and incapable of sketching the impressions he wanted to fix. When at last he began to sketch he was hardly aware of doing so.

Ten minutes later he had finished. The man’s face stared up at him. It was hairless, and looked smooth as a baby’s face, as though it had never been spoiled. Was it a face or a mask? It looked too good to be true, especially the eyes.

Was it even worth preserving? It meant nothing at all to him—yet that was why he filed it away, in the hope that he would remember where the impression had come from. His thoughts were dodging aimlessly about his mind, like the echoes in the house.

Never mind: he was visiting Giulia. He would have waited for her in the art gallery, except that he might disturb her at work. Instead he wandered about the park before catching the train, then strolled through Port Sunlight for a while. Along the vistas of The Causeway and The Diamond, the trees were dark and velvety, unrolling their long shadows on the plots of grass. Everything was steeped in evening light: the columns and domes of the Lady Lever Gallery, the half-timbered cottages that looked outlined and latticed in charcoal, their gardens trim as carpet tiles. Even the factories beyond the estate looked to be pouring forth gold smoke, like a lyrical advertisement for cigarettes.

Giulia was wearing her grandmother’s apron. ‘How do you feel?’ she said.

‘Cut off from everything.’

She gave him a wry smile. ‘That’s hardly new, is it?’

He followed her into the kitchen of the cottage; he’d found that he wanted to talk. ‘I hope you’ll be able to eat,’ she said anxiously.

‘Certainly.’ She was making several of his favourite dishes. They were too old, and had known each other for too long, to express their affection in words.

She emerged from the pantry bearing spices. ‘So may I take it that your air of gloom is an after-effect of the surgery?’

‘No, not really. My book has been out for a month, without a single review. What makes it worse is the trash that gets reviewed—three notices this week for a collection of pornographic comics.’

‘That’s exactly why you shouldn’t mind that they don’t appreciate you. Few things of any worth are appreciated in their own time, I’ve told you that before.’ She frowned exaggeratedly at him. ‘Now, Thom, you just enjoy being depressed. Some of your work satisfies you, doesn’t it? That’s all that any genuine artist can hope for.’

‘I suppose so.’ He sighed, to make her chide him further. ‘I wish I had more time to do something special for the exhibition. Instead I’ll be wasting a day on this damn television show.’

‘You’ll be reaching a new audience direct rather than via the reviewers. How can that be wasted time?’ She said almost wistfully: ‘If I had a television I’d watch you.’

They ate in the kitchen, then carried the rest of the wine into the parlour and played chess. One of Crosby’s sketches hung above the mantelpiece: an enormous man whose round head resembled a pudding balanced on a larger one, and who was devouring a pudding which looked like him. Secretly he felt that Giulia’s appreciation was worth all the gushing of reviewers.

When each of them had won a game, they stood close together in the small porch, not quite touching, and lingered over their goodbyes. The rocking of the dim train lulled him, made him feel he might be able to meet all his commitments, after all. As he reached home, close to midnight, someone was walking an off-white dog in the park.

He woke convinced that he had been counting backwards. The series of numbers had seemed very long. He felt frustrated by his inability to concentrate or to trust himself to his intuition; he had no time now to add to the exhibition, when the private view was only two days hence.

But perhaps—— He retrieved the sketch of the smooth-faced man from the file and pored over it. Had he dreamed that face too? The enigma annoyed him, but there was another feeling which, if defined, might help him complete the picture. Usually he regarded his subjects with detached yet affectionate humour, like a father or a historian—but he was sure that whatever he felt for the smooth face, it wasn’t affection.

The sound of applause, which he thought at first was a flock of birds starting from the trees, roused him. Down by the fish-pond, fishermen appeared to be presenting one another with awards. They were blurred, for Crosby’s window was wet, though it didn’t seem to have been raining overnight: the park was dry, not a twinkle of rain.

The decks of the Liverpool ferry were crowded with shoppers. White stuffing bulged from splits in the blue sky. A pigeon on the mast of a yacht was modelling the metal bird on the tower of the Liver Building. A naked baby was crawling about behind the legs of the crowd. Of course it must have been a dog.

When he’d overseen the mounting of his exhibition in the Bluecoat Gallery, he sat on a bench in Church Street and watched people. A man with a bowler hat and umbrella danced by as though in search of the rest of his troupe. A scrawny man in a pinstripe suit sat opposite Crosby, his limbs like sticks of mint rock. A whitish dog that looked hairless vanished into the crowd.

By the time he reached home he knew what he was going to draw. An hour later it was done: a chorus line of businessmen, all shapes and sizes, trotting to the office. He liked it enough to copy it for the exhibition before sending it for syndication.

And yet he felt he’d overlooked a more important task. He wandered through the house, feeling like a stranger who had strayed into a gallery full of framed drawings while it was closed to the public. ‘This is the Michaelangelo room,’ he muttered wryly. ‘This is the Cruikshank room. And here is the Crosby room—the smallest room, of course.’ Even if he was being unfair to himself, the echoes agreed with him.

A stroll in the park might help clear his mind. Perhaps his problem related to the smooth-faced sketch, but he felt there was more to remember. When he went out the twilight was deepening: the intricate lattices of grass-blades merged into a smouldering impressionistic glow; the pond looked solid and dark as soil. He began to follow the path around the water as the last fragments of light in the sky went out.

Before long he felt uneasy. The path was caged by railings, and hemmed in by trees and bushes on grassy banks. It turned constantly back and forth in a series of blind curves. Suppose he rounded a curve and bumped into someone in the dark?

Why should that bother him? It was nothing that an apology couldn’t make right. Of course it would be unpleasant to touch an unseen face without warning—but how could he do that when his hands were down by his sides? There was no point in brooding, especially since he knew that if he left the path now, even assuming he could, he would be lost.

He hurried onward, stumbling. Tree-roots forced open the cracked lips of the concrete path. A white blotch on the pond grew suddenly larger, flapping. The grey mass the size of his head which came at Crosby’s face was a cloud of midges.

Though the park road was no lighter, he let out a guarded sigh of relief when he emerged from the path. He made his way along the road toward the short cut beside the rugby ground, and had almost reached the dark gap when he faltered, his jaw lolling. A flat white face had peered over next door’s hedge at him.

He glared up at the seven-foot hedge. He’d had the impression of a face like a bulldog’s, but it had only been a glimpse from the corner of his eye; perhaps it hadn’t been a face at all, just a piece of paper fluttering in the grasp of the hedge. But weren’t the chains of the swing squeaking faintly to a halt? Surely his neighbours wouldn’t let their child play out so late; perhaps a strange child had squeezed through the hedge. Their garden was impenetrably dark. Crosby dodged through the short cut, and was blinded by the streetlamps until he reached them.

Next morning he had been dreaming of fire. He’d turned away in dismay, only to find himself surrounded by gloating eyes. More than that he couldn’t recall, and had no time to try. He was already later than he’d meant to leave for the Manchester train.

When he arrived panting at the television studios, he had to wait while an old soldier misheard his name and announced him dolefully over the intercom. For a moment Crosby hoped the show had begun without him, but it wasn’t that kind of a show. Eventually the producer appeared; his smile was more like a twitch. A makeup girl dabbed at Crosby’s face as though cleaning a dusty waxwork before they rushed him into the studio.

The audience applauded, inspired by a placard, as the host strode onstage, a gleaming young man with a disc-jockey’s brittle cheerfulness. Crosby was studying his opponents. The woman who drew feminist cartoons seemed all right, if rather lacking in detachment, but what of her partner on the team, ‘the wicked wit of Welwyn Garden City’? His hair resembled a shaving-brush, his smile was as thin as his voice; his quips made Crosby think of a cruel child probing wounds.

Crosby’s partner was a plump man who made jokes in the tone of a patient describing symptoms. What of Crosby himself? ‘He draws like an artist surveying today’s world from a Victorian time machine,’ the host said, quoting. ‘Kindly but critical, amused but never spiteful.’ It must have been the only quote they could find, but it was true enough: Crosby did feel apart from the time in which he was living, a visiting observer—and never more so than today.

It wasn’t only the game that alienated him, though that, now that he saw it, was repulsive enough: whichever team produced the first cartoon on a theme culled from the audience won a point, as did the team which provoked the loudest applause. The whole thing was as vulgar as its name, Top Draw—a debased circus with cartoonists instead of clowns.

But he was more disturbed by the blank gaze of the cameras—because they almost reminded him of something else. When had he suffered the judgement of expressionless gazes that pricked his skin with dread? Some childhood ordeal he’d forgotten, perhaps? He was still trying to remember when the show ended. The other team had won.

At least examples of his work had been displayed to the cameras, and the host had mentioned his exhibition, though Crosby doubted that the show’s audience would be interested. When he arrived home that night, it was raining on a rugby match; bunches of floodlights glared on bony stalks, lines of rain looked like scratches on glass. Even the roar of the crowd seemed indefinably reminiscent—but why did he feel it wasn’t savage enough? Shaking his head, to sort out his thoughts or dislodge them entirely, he let himself into his house.

He was drawing his bedroom curtains, and ready to enjoy the ineffectual assault of the rain on the house, when he saw the mark on the window. Momentarily the floodlights and his angle of vision made it resemble the impression which a flat drooping noseless face might have left on the glass. It must be a trick of the rain, which was pelting now; in a few minutes he couldn’t even make out where the outline had seemed to be. Then why did he feel that he’d seen such a mark before?

A glimpse of movement in the park distracted him. The trees beyond the hedge were streaming with dim light. When he’d gazed at them so long that they swelled and shifted apart, he caught sight of the man who stood among them, gazing out of the park. It took him longer to distinguish the man’s pale companion, for it was on all fours. How could anyone go out walking the dog in such a downpour? Crosby lay in bed and listened uneasily to the rain. Sometimes it sounded like a scratching at the windows; sometimes echoes made it sound to be inside the house.

He slept jerkily, and dreamed he was in bed with his wife, though in reality he had never even thought of marrying. Then he was betraying someone to the expressionless judges in order to save himself, and there was fire again. He spent the next day irritably pondering all this, which seemed just beyond his comprehension, and trying to draw a last piece for the Bluecoat Gallery. He had achieved nothing when it was time to leave for the private view.

It was hardly encouraging. The invited audience sipped sherry, smiled politely at his work or seemed afraid to laugh, talked of other things. He wouldn’t have thought that dogs were allowed in here—but whenever he looked around he couldn’t be sure that anybody had brought one. When people met his eye, their faces turned hurriedly blank. Again he thought of expressionless judges.

At least Giulia was there, which was a pleasant surprise; of course she would have been sent a ticket at the Lady Lever Gallery. ‘Don’t take any notice of how they looked while you were watching,’ she said afterward. ‘They liked it, from what I overheard. They were inhibited, that was all.’ Perhaps sensing that he was unconvinced, she said ‘Come to me tomorrow and we’ll read the reviews over dinner, if you like.’

If only he could discuss his problems with her! How could he, when he had no idea what they were? That night in bed he tried to catch them in the dark. Though he wasn’t aware of dreaming, he kept starting awake and wondering not only where he was, but who. Several times he restrained himself from getting up to look out of the window.

In the morning he was exhausted, but the notices revived him. They were more favourable than he would have permitted himself to hope: ‘. . . an impressively consistent exhibition . . .’ ‘. . . real wit and style . . .’ ‘. . . civilized humour of a kind one had ceased to hope for . . .’ Perhaps his elation would help him discern the rest of his problems.

He spread out the sketch before him on the desk. There was a background that would make sense of the smooth face, if only he could draw it. He still had time to include it in his exhibition—but was that why it seemed so urgent to complete the picture?

The sketched eyes outstared him, challenged him to be sure they contained any secret at all. He had not the least idea what he was struggling to draw. Outside in the wind and the rain, trees tossed like the foot of a waterfall. Was it the wind or his awareness that kept fading? His pencil and his head were nodding, starting up. Perhaps he gazed at the smooth face for hours.

When eventually he fell asleep the pencil seemed about to mark the paper, yet he was too exhausted to intervene. Again he dreamed that he was in bed with his wife. He had woken beside her in the dark. She must be having a nightmare, for she was panting, though everything was all right now: he’d betrayed the smooth-faced man to save himself, betrayed the man who had corrupted him. All this was a dream, since he had never been married, and so he could wake up; please let him wake before he lit the candle! But the flint sparked, the wick flared, and he had to turn and look.

His wife lay face up beside him, her mouth gaping. She might have been panting in her sleep, except that her chest was utterly still. No, the sound was coming from the face that quivered above hers, the jowly face with its tongue grey as slime and its tiny pink eyes like pimples sunk in the white flesh. He thought of a bulldog’s face, but it was more like a noseless old man’s, and its paws on her chest looked like a child’s hands.

Crosby woke, for the pencil had snapped in his fingers. The trees in the park were still now, and hardly distinguishable from the night. When he switched on his desk-lamp the reflection of his hand went crawling among the trees. He barely noticed, for he’d caught sight of the sketch. Before falling asleep, or while he had been dreaming, he had filled in the background at last.

Background wasn’t precisely the word. The smooth-faced man had a body now, though not to his benefit; it was chained to a stake, and was burning. As Crosby stared at this, not at all sure that he wanted to understand, he remembered his spell under anaesthetic. As he’d drifted away he had begun to count backward, not random numbers but years—centuries of them.

All at once fear choked him, yet he wasn’t sure what he feared. Once he was with Giulia he would be able to think. He switched off the desk-lamp and hurried out, contorting himself into his coat. Why did it seem that a dim reflection of his hand stayed in the park?

He strode to the railway station, and kept close to the streetlamps. The downpour had moved on, but rain continued beneath trees. Dockers were yelling inside and outside pubs. The platforms of the station were deserted, but hardly quiet enough; he wished the noises would come out and make themselves clear. The countryside, a glistening blur, dashed past the train. Fireflies of houses and streetlamps swarmed by.

He had just stepped onto the Port Sunlight platform, and was glad to leave behind the foggy light and brownish repetitive seats of the empty carriage, when something darted out of the train and vanished up the passage to the street.

At once his fear was no longer for himself. He ran along the passage, which was deserted, not even a porter. So were the half-timbered streets and avenues; the black and white buildings looked dead as bone. Shadows or rain bruised the pavements beneath trees. Far down a vista, the beam of a headlight stretched between two rows of trees, then broke up and was gone.

Giulia’s cottage was rocking like an anchored boat, for he was stumbling toward it at a run. Something pale was waiting for him in the porch: a crumpled pamphlet, wet with rain. Not even a pamphlet—just a ball of paper. But perhaps it wasn’t rain that had made it wet, for it was also chewed. It was his sketch that had hung on the wall of Giulia’s parlour. It must have strayed out through the front door, which was open.

Mightn’t she have left it open for him? Yet when he made himself enter, he couldn’t bring himself to call out to her. A tap ticked like a beetle in the bathroom to the right of the narrow hall; at the end of the hall, light angled from the kitchen and lay in wedges on the stairs. Amid the smells of cooking was a stench reminiscent both of a zoo and of decay.

He had almost reached the first door—the parlour’s—when something dodged out and past him, down the dark hall. He thought of a slavering child on all fours. He kicked out, but it eluded him. He knew instinctively that there was no longer any reason to hurry into the parlour, and it was a long time before he could.

Giulia lay on her back on the floor, in an overturned chair. Her legs dangled from the seat. Her mouth and her eyes were gaping, her lips were wet. Stooping, he felt for her heartbeat. He was touching her at last, but only to confirm that she was dead. After a while he trudged to the kitchen and switched off the cooker.

Eventually he went back to the station. There was nobody to tell, nothing to do. In the empty carriage a lolling face peered out from beneath the seat opposite, drew back whenever he kicked at it. It was venturing closer, and so at last were his memories, but he was beyond caring.

His street was deserted. Light like glaring metal discs lay beneath the streetlamps. Something like a hairless dog vanished into the short cut to the park. No doubt when Crosby looked out of his window, he would see it and its master waiting among the trees.

He was unlocking his empty house when he thought of Giulia. Both the shock and his sense of meaninglessness had faded, and he began to sob dryly. Suddenly he dragged the front door shut, sending echoes fleeing into the house, and strode toward the park.

His memories were flooding back. Perhaps they would help him. He was almost running now, toward the dark beneath the trees, where the smooth-faced man and his familiar were waiting. Once they were face to face, Crosby would remember both the man’s name and his own. He’d got the better of the smooth-faced man once before, and this time, by God—even if it killed him—he would finish the job.