Ancient Images Part 1

Ancient Images.

Ramsey Campbell.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I should begin by thanking Forry Ackerman, whose Famous Famous Monsters Monsters magazine acquainted me with Karloff and Lugosi before I saw any of their films. Decades later, Dennis Etchison helped me add to my knowledge of them. In the writing of the book my wife Jenny was more important than ever; Edward A. Novak III, Susanne Kirk, Harriet McDougal, Ann Suster, and Tom Doherty also made helpful suggestions. --------------------------------------1 magazine acquainted me with Karloff and Lugosi before I saw any of their films. Decades later, Dennis Etchison helped me add to my knowledge of them. In the writing of the book my wife Jenny was more important than ever; Edward A. Novak III, Susanne Kirk, Harriet McDougal, Ann Suster, and Tom Doherty also made helpful suggestions. --------------------------------------1 At last the pain became unbearable, but not for long. Through the haze that wavered about her she thought she saw the fields and the spectators dancing in celebration of her pain. She was surrounded by folk she'd known all her life, oldsters who had bounced her on their knees when she was little and people of her own age she had played with then, but now their faces were evilly gleeful as the gargoyles on the chapel beyond them. They were jeering at her and holding their children up to see, sitting children on their shoulders so that they were set almost as high as she was. Her streaming eyes blinked at the faces bunched below her. As she tried to see her husband she was praying that he would come and cut her down before the pain grew worse.

She couldn't see him, and she couldn't cry out to him. Someone had driven a gag into her mouth, so deep that the rusty taste of it was choking her. She couldn't even pray aloud to G.o.d to numb her awareness of her bruised tongue that was swollen between her back teeth. Then her senses that were struggling to flee what had been done to her returned, and she remembered that there was no gag, remembered why it couldn't be her tongue that felt like a mouthful of coals whose fire was eating its way through her skull.

For an instant her mind shrank beyond the reach of her plight, and she remembered everything. Her husband wouldn't save her, even if she were able to call out his name instead of emitting the bovine moan that sounded nothing --------------------------------------2 like her voice. He was dead, and she had seen the devil that had killed him. Everyone below her, relis.h.i.+ng her fate, believed that she was being put to death for murdering him, but one man knew better--knew enough to have her tongue torn out while making it appear that he was simply applying the law.

The haze rippled around her, the gloating faces seemed to swim up toward her through the thickening murk, and again she realized what her mind was desperate to flee. It wasn't just a haze of pain, it was the heat of the flames that were climbing her body. She made the sound again, louder, and flung herself wildly about. The crowd roared to drown her cries or to encourage her to put on more of a show. Then, as if G.o.d had answered the prayer she couldn't voice, her struggles or the fire snapped her bonds, and she was toppling forward. Her hair burst into flames. As she crawled writhing out of the fire, she thought she felt her blood start to boil.

She didn't get far. Hands seized her and dragged her back to the stake. She felt her life draining out of her charred legs into the earth. Hands bound her more securely and lifted her to cast her into the heart of the fire. In the moment before her brain burned, she saw the man who had judged her, gazing down impa.s.sively from his tower. The face of the devil that had killed her husband had been a ghastly caricature of the face of the man on the tower. --------------------------------------3 Sandy was on her way to lunch when she met Graham Nolan in the corridor. His gray mane gleamed as he strode toward her through the sunlight above London, his blue eyes sparkled, his long cheeks and full lips were ruddy with glee. "Whatever it is must be good to bring you here on your day off," she said.

"What the world's been waiting for." He gave her a fatherly hug, and she felt as if he was both expressing his delight and hugging it to him. "You've time for a drink, haven't you? Come and help me celebrate."

"I was going to have a roll in the park," she fed him.

"If I were younger and swung that way ...8 he sighed, and ducked as she mimed a punch. "A stroll and then a drink, will that do you? Toby's collecting me when he's finished shopping. You wouldn't send me off to toast myself."

"We're beginning to sound like a bread commercial. I think you're right, we'd better take a break."

The lift lowered them five stories to the lobby of Metropolitan Television, where the green carpet felt like turf underfoot. Beyond the revolving doors, taxis loaded with August tourists inched along Bayswater Road. Graham shaded his eyes as he followed her out beneath the taut blue sky, and kept his hand there while he ushered her across to Hyde Park.

A man whose scalp was red from shaving had attracted most of the tourists at Speaker's Corner and was ranting --------------------------------------4 about someone who ought to be dumped on an island: if they couldn't survive, too bad. Graham made for the nearest park shelter and smiled apologetically at Sandy. "Not much of a stroll, I grant you."

"You can owe me one," she said, and sat beside him on the bench, "since you can't wait to tell me what you've tracked down."

"Guess."

"All the scenes Orson Welles shot that were cut after the sneak preview."

"Ah, if only. I begin to doubt we'll see those in my lifetime. Maybe my heaven's going to be the complete Ambersons, Ambersons, double-billed with double-billed with Greed Greed on the biggest screen my brain can cope with." He blinked rapidly at the park, nannies wheeling prams, pigeons nodding to crumbs on the paths. "I know you've indulged me already, but would you mind if we were to go inside now? I feel in need of a roof over my head." on the biggest screen my brain can cope with." He blinked rapidly at the park, nannies wheeling prams, pigeons nodding to crumbs on the paths. "I know you've indulged me already, but would you mind if we were to go inside now? I feel in need of a roof over my head."

They dodged across Marble Arch, where the black flock of taxis wheeled away into Edgware Road and Oxford Street and Park Lane, and almost lost each other in the crowd before they reached the pub. Though he was mopping his forehead with one of his oversized handkerchiefs, Graham chose a table furthest from the door. Sandy perched on a seat wedged into the corner and stretched out her long legs, drawing admiring glances from several businessmen munching rolls. "You haven't found the film your American friend was sure was lost forever," she said.

"Tower of of Fear. Fear. I have indeed, and I wanted you and him to be the first to know. In fact I was wondering if you'd both care for a preview this evening." I have indeed, and I wanted you and him to be the first to know. In fact I was wondering if you'd both care for a preview this evening."

"Was there ever one?"

"Not even in the States, though my copy came from a bank vault over there, from a collector who seemed to prefer watching his investment grow to watching the films themselves, bless him. Mind you, I've my suspicions that one of --------------------------------------5 my informants had a copy salted away too." He sat back as if he'd just finished an excellent meal, and raised his gin and tonic. "May all my quests be as successful, and my next prize not take two years to hunt down."

"Was it worth two years?"

"My dear," dear," he chided her, knowing she was teasing him. "A feature film with Karloff and Lugosi that no one living will admit to having seen? It would have had to be several times worse than the worst of the junk that's made these days to disappoint me, but let me tell you this: I watched half an hour of it before bedtime, and I had to make myself put out the light." he chided her, knowing she was teasing him. "A feature film with Karloff and Lugosi that no one living will admit to having seen? It would have had to be several times worse than the worst of the junk that's made these days to disappoint me, but let me tell you this: I watched half an hour of it before bedtime, and I had to make myself put out the light."

"What, just because of--was "An old film? An old master, I'd say Giles Spence was, and it's tragic that it was the last film he directed. He knows how to make you look over your shoulder, I promise you, and I think you'd be professionally impressed by the editing. I'd love to watch the film with someone who appreciates it."

"Doesn't Toby?"

"He's sweet, but you know how he is for living in the present. I hope he won't feel outnumbered if Roger joins us, the American you mentioned. You met him at my last entertainment, you'll recall."

"We exchanged a few words."

"Oh, wary, wary. I wouldn't dare to arrange a match for the hermit of Muswell Hill," Graham said, pretending to shrink back in case she hit him. "Seriously, shall you be able to come tonight?"

He sounded so anxious that she took pity on him. "I'll look after you."

He glanced behind him, presumably for Toby, but there was no sign of Toby among the crowd silhouetted against the dazzle from outside. Above the bar the one o'clock news had been interrupted by commercials. Ap.r.o.ned women with sheaves in their hands danced through a field of wheat to the strains of Vaughan Williams, and a maternal voice mur --------------------------------------6 mured "Staff o' Life--simply English" as the words appeared on the screen. Now here was the news footage Sandy had edited, the line of constables blocking a road into Surrey, the wandering convoy which the media had christened Enoch's Army fuming at the roadblock, the leader burying his fingers in his beard which was ma.s.sive as his head while a policeman gestured him and his followers onward to yet another county, children staring out of vehicles at children jeering "Hippies" at them from a school at the edge of the road. "Scapegoats, you mean," Graham muttered.

"I hope people can see that's what they are."

"All you can do is try and show the truth," Graham said, and jumped as someone loomed at him out of the crowd.

It was only Toby. He stroked Graham's head in pa.s.sing, and leaned against the wall beside Sandy, wriggling his broad shoulders to work out tension. In his plump face, made paler by the bristling shock of ginger hair, his blue eyes were wide with frustration. "Thank you, Dionysos, for this oasis in the jungle," he said, elevating his gla.s.s.

"Trouble with the natives?" Graham suggested.

"Not with us at all. Hitler youths on their way to a bierkeller almost shoved me under a bus, and two gnomes in Bermuda shorts sneaked in front of me for the last of the pasta in Old Compton Street. 'Look, Martha, it's like we get at home. Thank the Lord for some honest to G.o.d food instead of all this foreign garbage.' They ought to have been thanking the Lord for my concern for international relations."

"Never mind, love. Sandy'll be joining us tonight, by the way."

"It'll be a sorry buffet, I warn you--whatever I concoct from the little I managed to save from the locust hordes."

"The two of you are enough of a feast," Sandy declared, raising her voice to drown out a man at the bar who was telling a joke about gays and AIDS. She thought he might be --------------------------------------7 unaware of the periphery of his audience until he and his cronies stared at Graham and Toby and burst out laughing.

"I think we may adjourn to our place," Graham said, "lest my mood be spoiled."

"Just as you like," Toby said, his mouth stiff, blood flaring high on his cheeks. Sandy could tell that he wanted to confront the speaker on Graham's behalf. She ushered her friends past the bar, where the men turned their thick necks toward them. The joker's eyes met hers in the mirror between the inverted bottles. His face was a mask made of beef. When he smirked she said, "You must feel very inadequate."

"Queers and women's libbers, I can do without the lot of them," he told a crony out of the corner of his mouth.

"Then you'll have to take yourself in hand," Sandy laughed.

He understood more quickly than she would have expected, and wheeled bull-like on the stool, lowering his head as if he were stepping into a ring. She didn't even need to imagine him in drag in order to render him absurd. She shook her head reprovingly and urged her friends out of the pub. "You make sure our Graham enjoys his triumph," she told Toby, patting his angry cheeks.

"We'll enjoy it more for sharing it with you," he said, and took Graham's hand as they crossed over to the park.

Sandy lingered outside Metropolitan as they strode rapidly past Speaker's Corner. The man with the raw scalp was still ranting, but only the sound of traffic appeared to emerge from his mouth. A tramp or a tangle of litter stirred behind a bench as Graham and Toby reached the nearest entrance to the car park that extended under the whole of Hyde Park. As Graham stepped out of the sunlight he glanced back sharply, but she didn't think he was looking at her. She was squinting in case she could see what he'd seen when Lezli came out of Metropolitan to find her. "Help," Lezli said. --------------------------------------8 At first Sandy thought Lezli was editing an old musical, brus.h.i.+ng her green hair behind her ear whenever she stooped to the bench. Astaire was dancing on the moviola screen, and it wasn't until Cagney joined him that she realized this was something new. It was The The Light Light Fantastic, Fantastic, a television film where the players in an end-of-the-pier show found themselves fading into monochrome and dancing with the best of Hollywood. "Only their rhythm's wrong, and the film's already over budget, and the dancers have gone to America themselves now," Lezli wailed. a television film where the players in an end-of-the-pier show found themselves fading into monochrome and dancing with the best of Hollywood. "Only their rhythm's wrong, and the film's already over budget, and the dancers have gone to America themselves now," Lezli wailed.

"Any chance of using some other vintage clips?"

"It took us months to clear these. I did tell the producer he should try, and he used words I didn't know existed. The worst of it is these aren't the clips we thought we'd be using, the ones the dancers were told to match."

The point of the film was that the ghosts of Cagney and Astaire allowed the dancers to forget their bickering and their failures and realize their ambitions for a night, if only in fantasy, but now it looked as if the encounter turned them into clowns. Sandy examined the outtakes, which proved to be useless. She ran the completed scenes again, and then she hugged Lezli. "Couldn't see for looking," she said, and separated the main routine into three segments. "Now how do we get them all to dance in the same tempo?"

Lezli peered and brushed her hair back and saw it. "Slow our people down."

"That's what I thought. Let's see." She watched Lezli --------------------------------------9 run the tape back and forth, trying to match tempi, until the dancers joined the ghosts, not imitating them so much as interpolating syncopated variations in a slight slow motion that seemed magical. The producer of the film came storming in to find Lezli, then clapped his hand over his mouth. "Light and and fantastic. Thanks, Sandy. I thought we were up cripple creek." fantastic. Thanks, Sandy. I thought we were up cripple creek."

"Thank Lezli, she's the one who put the idea into words. Soon I'll be coming to her for advice," Sandy said and went to the vending machine for a coffee, feeling even happier than she would have if she'd edited the film herself.

She enjoyed the urgency of editing news footage, but equally she enjoyed helping shape fictions, improving the timing, discovering new meanings through juxtapositions, tuning the pace. She'd learned these skills in Liverpool; she'd spent her first two years out of school working with children at the Blackie, a deconsecrated church with a rainbow in place of a cross, helping them make videos about their own fears. She'd moved to London to attend film school, she'd lived with a fellow student for almost a year and had nursed him through a nervous breakdown before they'd split up. She'd been a member of a collective that had made a film confronting rapists with their victims, and the film had been shown at Edinburgh and Cannes. When a second film that would have let people who had been abused as children confront their seducers had failed to attract finance, Sandy had gone for the job of a.s.sistant editor at Metropolitan. Later she'd learned that Graham had put in a good word for her, having seen the collective's film in Edinburgh and admired the editing. He'd introduced himself once she had begun work at the station, and they had taken an immediate liking to each other. He'd steered her toward jobs he'd thought would stretch her talents; he'd supported her when, infrequently, she'd thought a task was too much for her, and had been the first to applaud when she solved it; he'd given her the confidence when she needed it and asked for nothing but 10 her friends.h.i.+p in return. In less than a year she was promoted and managed to land Lezli, with whom she'd worked in the collective, her old job. Now, two years later, she was twenty-eight, and sometimes felt as if she was able to shape her life as deftly as she shaped films.

She might meet someone she would like to spend it with, but there was no urgency, especially since she didn't want children. It was Graham and her parents who were anxious to see her matched, though Graham was less insistent since she'd met a young architect at one of his private showings. Among the guests who had a.s.sembled to watch Graham's latest treasures, Dietrich's screen test for The The Blue Blue Angel, Angel, Walt Disney's menstruation film and a copy Walt Disney's menstruation film and a copy of of Double Double Indemnity Indemnity that began in the death cell--actors from the Old Vic, chairmen of art galleries, columnists and socialites and even minor royalty--the architect had seemed to feel out of place until Sandy had befriended him. He'd invited her out for a drink, and next time for dinner in Hampstead, where he lived. Afterward they'd walked across the heath toward his flat as the wind blundered up from Regent's Park, bearing a mutter of traffic like the sound of a sleeping zoo, and the architect had questioned her about her childhood, whether she had misbehaved at school, how she had been punished and what she had been wearing ... She might have played his game if the gleam in his eyes hadn't been so dangerously eager. She'd left him with their only kiss and had walked home to Muswell Hill, reflecting that the encounter had been both funny and sad. Such was life. that began in the death cell--actors from the Old Vic, chairmen of art galleries, columnists and socialites and even minor royalty--the architect had seemed to feel out of place until Sandy had befriended him. He'd invited her out for a drink, and next time for dinner in Hampstead, where he lived. Afterward they'd walked across the heath toward his flat as the wind blundered up from Regent's Park, bearing a mutter of traffic like the sound of a sleeping zoo, and the architect had questioned her about her childhood, whether she had misbehaved at school, how she had been punished and what she had been wearing ... She might have played his game if the gleam in his eyes hadn't been so dangerously eager. She'd left him with their only kiss and had walked home to Muswell Hill, reflecting that the encounter had been both funny and sad. Such was life.

Though she enjoyed Graham's crowded private parties, not least because she knew they meant so much to him, she was flattered to be invited to tonight's small gathering. She must tell him to watch the film Lezli had edited, she thought as the Underground train rocked her homeward. He always watched films she recommended, and that made her feel both special and responsible for him.

She left the train at Highgate and climbed to the main 11 road. Traffic slow and apparently endless as a parade of baggage in an airport rumbled up from Archway toward the Great North Road. She turned along Muswell Hill Road, where buses were laboring toward Alexandra Park. In five minutes she was at Queen's Wood.

After the stuffiness of the train and the uproar of the traffic, the small wood felt like the first day of a holiday. Beneath the oaks and beeches the velvety gloom was cool. Holly spiked the shadows among the trunks. Tangles of brambles sprawled across the gra.s.s beside the tarmac paths that were cracked by the clenched roots of trees. Sandy strolled along the discursive paths, letting her senses expand until the wood glowed around her.

Her flat was at the top of a mock-Tudor three-story house that overlooked the wood. She owned half of the top floor. The skylight above the wide stairwell was trying to fit a lozenge of sunlight into her doorframe as she unlocked the door. Bogart came to greet her, arching his back and digging his claws into the hall carpet until she shooed him into the main room, where Bacall was sitting on the windowsill among the cacti, watching a magpie. Both cats raced into the bright compact kitchen as soon as she opened a cupboard to reach for a can of their food. They ate daintily while she finished off last night's lasagna and the remaining gla.s.sful of claret, they rubbed themselves against her ankles while she washed up and told them about her day. They followed her into her bedroom and watched her change into a dress she thought elegant enough for visiting Graham, and then they chased her as she ran to where the phone was ringing.

She'd left it plugged beside the window seat between the gables that gave wings to the main room. She answered it and sat on the sky-blue couch, Bacall curling up in her lap. "Roger sends his apologies," Graham said. "You don't mind sitting on your own in the cheap seats, do you?"

"I'm almost on my way."

"She's almost on her way," he called, and she heard 12 Toby protest "If she comes too soon there'll be nothing worth eating."

Sandy cradled the receiver and smiled wryly at herself. It seemed she had been looking forward more than she realized to continuing the argument she'd had with Roger at Graham's last soiree. He'd accused television of ruining films by shrinking them and by editing them afresh, she'd retorted that some critics did them worse harm. No doubt they would meet again at the grand opening of tonight's film.

She was easing Bacall onto the floor when the phone rang again. A coin put an end to the pips, and a girlish East End voice said, "h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo."

"Is Bobby there?"

"What number are you calling?"

The voice gave Sandy's number. "Bobby who?" Sandy said.

"I don't know his last name."

Of course you don't, Sandy thought, knowing that the girl had been trying to make sure n.o.body was home. "We've a couple of Bobbies here. Which do you want?"

"I only met him once."

"Well, is he the fat one or the thin one? Youngish, is he? Mustache? I know which he must be, the other's been abroad. Hang on and I'll get him for you," Sandy said, wondering how much longer the girl would dare to pretend. "He'll just be a minute. He's coming now. Here he is," she said, and the connection broke.

"How rude," she told the cats, and took them for a brief run in the wood, where they chased crumbling shadows on the paths. They gazed down from her window as she headed for the station. At Euston, where a distant giantess was apologizing for delays in the upper world, she changed trains for Pimlico. All the women on the train were sharing the compartment nearest the driver, and when Sandy alighted she grinned at them for luck. 13 A vessel loaded with containers colored like building blocks was pa.s.sing underneath Vauxhall Bridge, between the dark women that supported the road over the Thames. A bus with more lights than pa.s.sengers crossed the bridge toward the Oval, and then the night was still except for the lapping of long slow ripples full of the windows of riverside apartments. Graham's apartment was ten stories up, at the top of one of two tower blocks built companionably close together. One of his neighbors was stepping out to walk her dog. "You're Graham Nolan's colleague," the woman remembered, and held the security door open for her.

As it thumped shut, Sandy heard a shrill sound. Perhaps the dog had whined, though the door cut off so much noise from outside that it made the silent building feel deserted. The waiting lift rushed her to the top floor, and s.n.a.t.c.hed away her hearing. She swallowed as she walked along the corridor, as if she could gulp down the silence. She pa.s.sed two doors and turned the corner, and saw that Graham's door was open.

Toby must have gone out for more ingredients. She went to the door, which shared this stretch of corridor with an exit to the roof, and halted on the threshold, disconcerted to find herself s.h.i.+vering. "Graham?" she called.

The small bedroom to the left of the main room had been converted into a projection booth. The beam of light from the projector splayed out of the square window, across the Persian carpet, the tables Toby had constructed out of steel and chunks of gla.s.s, the enormous semicircular couch that faced the view of the river. The screen was on the right-hand wall, between two elaborate bra.s.s standard lamps, but the beam was streaming into the master bedroom. She knocked loudly and called "Graham, it's Sandy," and went into the apartment, s.h.i.+vering.

The kitchen was next to the master bedroom. The oven was on low, and she could smell pastry, but the kitchen was unmanned. She made for the projection booth, wrinkling 14 her nose at an odd stale smell. The door to the booth was wide open. Perhaps Graham was preoccupied. She was about to call to him again when her hand flew to her mouth.

The booth was full of shelves of books about the cinema, but now most of the books were on the floor. Some of the largest were torn almost in half, as if they had been flung across the room, as several cans clearly had: she could see where a can had split the plaster of one wall. There was no film on the projector, which had been knocked askew.

Graham and Toby might have quarreled, but never, she thought, like this. She backed out of the room, the smell of pastry swelling in her throat until she had to fight for breath, and swung toward the master bedroom. The bed was made but rumpled, the duvet sagging where one of the men had sat on the edge. The beam of the projector shone over the bed, past a dressing table strewn with jars and combs and brushes, and blanked out the window--except that the double glazing wasn't quite blank. Bewildered, she thought there must be film on the projector after all, or at least a strip caught in the gate, for a blurred figure was visible in the midst of the light. Then her awareness lurched nervously, and she realized that the figure of a man wasn't projected on the gla.s.s but standing beyond it, ten floors up, on the next roof. More dismayingly, she was almost sure that she recognized him.

She ran to the doorway of the bedroom. Of course, she had been s.h.i.+vering because the exit from the corridor to the roof was ajar. Now she could see the face of the man at the edge of the neighboring roof, though she didn't want to believe what she was seeing. He was Graham, and he was waving his hands feebly as if he were terrified of the drop below him.

A wind fluttered the sleeves of his s.h.i.+rt and brought his gray mane wavering over his shoulder. He looked back, stumbled backward a few steps, and panic grabbed Sandy's heart as she saw what he meant to do. "Don't," she cried, 15 and knew he couldn't hear her through the double glazing. She dashed into the room and leaped over the bed, she wrenched at the catch of the window with one hand, waved her other hand desperately at him to delay him. Surely he could see her, surely he would wait for her to speak to him, to tell him she would go into the other building and open the door to the roof-- But just as the catch slid out of its socket, he sprinted to the edge and jumped.

He'd already done it once, she told herself as he reached the edge. However wide the gap looked, he had managed to cross it safely, never mind why he was up there at all. The thoughts didn't slow her heart down or allow her to breathe, nor did they help him. As she sidled the inner pane clear of its grooves, he missed the roof above her, and fell.

She saw him fall into the beam of light. His hair blazed like a silver halo. His mouth was gaping, silenced perhaps by the wind of his fall, and yet she thought he saw her and, despite his terror, managed to look unbearably apologetic, as if he wanted her to know that it wasn't her fault she hadn't been in time to reach him. That moment seemed so unreal and so prolonged that she was almost able to believe the light had arrested him somehow, like a frame of film. Then he was gone, and as her breath screamed out she heard a thud below her like the sound of meat slung onto a butcher's slab.

She dropped the pane on the carpet and fumbled the outer window open, sobbing. Graham lay between the buildings, at the rim of a pool of light from a riverside streetlamp. He looked small and pathetic as a discarded doll. His legs were bent as though he were running, his arms were outstretched on either side of his head, which seemed too large, its outline spreading. Sandy felt as if she were toppling out of the window toward him. As she staggered backward, the building opposite seemed to nod at her, and a shape reared up on its roof.

It must have been a ventilator. When she managed to focus she saw the boxy funnel on which two weeds were 16 flowering. She walked rapidly to the door and took a shuddering breath, and ran across the main room to the phone before the smell of pastry could make her sick. She swallowed several times while the emergency number rang. "Ambulance," she gasped, and gave the details in a voice that felt almost too calm.

She had to close her eyes in the lift, for all the way down she was sickeningly aware of its faint swaying. Stepping into the lobby felt like stepping onto dry land. She turned toward the entrance to the building, and groaned. Toby was coming in.

He was struggling to unlock the door while he balanced a carrier bag. He nudged the door open with his bottom and s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys deftly out of the lock. "Hi, Sandy," he called. "We're nearly ready for you. Graham will keep you amused while I finish in the kitchen."

He saw her expression and hurried forward, tucking his package more firmly under his arm so as to reach for her hands. "Sandy, what's the matter, you poor girl? Just tell me what we can do to help."

"It's not me, Toby," she said, hardly able to speak. "It's Graham."

His plump face was always pale, but suddenly his skin looked like paper. "What? What about him?"

"He had an accident. He's badly hurt, or--was She couldn't say it. She tried to steer Toby toward the door, then thought of telling him to stay here while she went to see, but he misunderstood: he pushed past her with a gentleness that felt like controlled panic. "I know you mean well, Sandy, but please don't try to keep us apart. I have to go up and see for myself."

She found her voice as he reached the lift. "He isn't upstairs, Toby, he's outside. He fell."

"But he was upstairs just now. I only went around the corner." He stared at her, and his blue eyes dulled. "Fell?" he said, his voice shrinking. "How far?" Before she could 17 answer he dodged past her, knocking his elbow against the wall, as if she might hinder him. He seized the security bolt with both hands and dropped the carrier bag; she heard gla.s.s smash. As he heaved the door open she ran after him, wanting to be with him when he found Graham. But she was halfway to the corner of the building when he vanished around it and let out a cry of anguish beyond words. 18 The woman with the dog had found Graham. Toby flailed his hands at the animal as he ran, almost falling as he leaped over a rope that was the shadow of a railing. "Get away," he screamed.

The woman tied the dog's leash to the railing and hurried back to Graham. "You mustn't touch him either. You know me. I'm a doctor."

Toby stooped and flinched from the sight of Graham's broken head. His hands were opening and closing, yearning to lift Graham to him. When Sandy put her arm around him he stiffened to hold himself together. She wished he would turn away from Graham, because then she wouldn't need to see Graham's face, mouth flung wide, eyes moist and sparkling faintly as if he might still be conscious inside the ruin of his skull.

The doctor peered into his eyes, unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt and felt for his heartbeat, lifted one limp arm by the wrist, and then she stood up, her small tanned wrinkled face carefully neutral. "I'm afraid--was Toby moaned and wriggled free of Sandy's arm and fell to his knees beside Graham. He stroked Graham's bloodsoaked hair back from his forehead and began to murmur, saying goodbye or praying. A s.h.i.+ver Sandy couldn't quite locate was gathering within her as she waited, feeling redundant but unwilling to leave him. She wondered why she couldn't feel the rain she saw falling on Graham's face, and then she realized Toby was weeping. The sound of 19 an approaching siren made him crouch lower. When he gripped Graham's shoulders as if he would let n.o.body take him away, she went to him and held on to his arm.

The police car halted beyond the gap between the tower blocks, and two policemen with peaked caps pulled low climbed out. One had a disconcertingly small nose, the other a mustache wider than his face. The doctor met them and gave them details about Graham while they pushed their caps back and gazed up at the building. "You called us, did you?" snub nose said.

"No, I was on the bridge."