Strange Stories Page 17

  He had not been away from the lounge for long, but it was long enough for Mrs Pascoe to have begun again to drink. She liad left the tidying up half-completed, or rather the room; half-disarranged; and was leaning against the overmantel, drawing heavily on a dark tumbler of whisky. Phrynne had not yet finished her Ovaltine.

  ‘How long before the bells stop?’ asked Gerald as soon as he opened the lounge door. Now he was resolved that, come what might, they must go. The impossibility of sleep should serve as excuse.

  ‘I don’t expect Mrs Pascoe can know any more than we can,’ said Phrynne.

  ‘You should have told us about this - this annual event - before accepting our booking.’

  Mrs Pascoe drank some more whisky. Gerald suspected that it was neat. ‘It’s not always the same night,’ she said throatily, looking at the floor.

  ‘We’re not staying,’ said Gerald wildly.

  ‘Darling! ’ Phrynne caught him by the arm.

  ‘Leave this to me, Phrynne.’ He addressed Mrs Pascoe. ‘We’ll pay for the room, of course. Please order me a car.’

  Mrs Pascoe was now regarding him stonily. When he asked for a car, she gave a very short laugh. Then her face changed. She made an effort, and said, ‘You mustn’t take the Commandant so seriously, you know.’

  Phrynne glanced quickly at her husband, is. The whisky was finished. Mrs Pascoe placed the empty glass on the plastic overmantel with too much of a thud. ‘No one takes Commandant Shotcroft seriously,’ she said. ‘Not even his nearest and dearest.’

  ‘Has he any?’ asked Phrynne. ‘He seemed so lonely and pathetic.’

  ‘He’s Don and I’s mascot,’ she said, the drink interfering with her grammar. But not even the drink could leave any doubt about her rancour.

  ‘I thought he had personality,’ said Phrynne.

  ‘That and a lot more, no doubt,’ said Airs Pascoe. ‘But they pushed him out, all the same.’

  ‘Out of what?’

  ‘Cashiered, court-martialled, badges of rank stripped off, sword broken in half, muffled drums, the works.’

  ‘Poor old man. I’m sure it was a miscarriage of justice.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t know him.’

  Mrs Pascoe looked as if she were waiting for Gerald to offer her another whisky.

  ‘It’s a thing he could never live down,’ said Phrynne, brooding to herself, and tucking her legs beneath her. ‘No wonder he’s so queer if all the time it was a mistake.’

  ‘I just told you it was not a mistake,’ said Mrs Pascoe insolently.

  ‘How can we possibly know?’

  ‘You can’t. I can. No one better.’ She was at once aggressive and tearful.

  ‘If you want to be paid,’ cried Gerald, forcing himself in, ‘make out your bill. Phrynne, come upstairs and pack.’ If only he hadn’t made her unpack between their walk and dinner.

  Slowly Phrynne uncoiled and rose to her feet. She had no intention of either packing or departing, nor was she going to argue. ‘I shall need your help,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to pack.’

  In Mrs Pascoe there was another change. Now she looked terrified. ‘Don’t go. Please don’t go. Not now. It’s too late.’

  Gerald confronted her. ‘Too late for what?’ he asked harshly.

  Mrs Pascoe looked paler than ever. ‘You said you wanted a car,’ she faltered. ‘You’re too late.’ Her voice trailed away.

  Gerald took Phrynne by the arm. ‘Come on up.’

  Before they reached the door, Mrs Pascoe made a further attempt. ‘You’ll be all right if you stay. Really you will.’ Her voice, normally somewhat strident, was so feeble that the bells obliterated it. Gerald observed that from somewhere she had produced the whisky bottle and was refilling her tumbler.

  With Phrynne on his arm he went first to the stout front door. To his surprise it was neither locked nor bolted, but opened at a half-turn of the handle. Outside the building the whole sky was full of bells, the air an inferno of ringing.

  He thought that for the first time Phrynne’s face also seemed strained and crestfallen. ‘They’ve been ringing too long,’ she said, drawing close to him. ‘I wish they’d stop.’

  ‘We’re packing and going. I needed to know whether we could get out this way. We must shut the door quietly.’

  It creaked a bit on its hinges, and he hesitated with it halfshut, uncertain whether to rush the creak or to ease it. Suddenly, something dark and shapeless, with its arm seeming to hold a black vesture over its head, flitted, all sharp angles, like a bat, down the narrow ill-lighted street, the sound of its passage audible to none. It was the first being that either of them had seen in the streets of Holihaven; and Gerald was acutely relieved that he alone had set eyes upon it. With his hand trembling, he shut the door much too sharply.

  But no one could possibly have heard, although he stopped for a second outside the lounge. He could hear Mrs Pascoe now weeping hysterically; and again was glad that Phrynne was a step or two ahead of him. Upstairs die Commandant’s door lay straight before them: they had to pass close beside the Japanese figure, in order to take the passage to the left of it.

  But soon they were in their room, with the key turned in the big rim lock.

  ‘Oh God,’ cried Gerald, sinking on the double bed. ‘It’s pandemonium.’ Not for the first time that evening he was instantly more frightened than ever by the unintended appositeness of his own words.

  ‘It’s pandemonium all right,’ said Phrynne, almost calmly. ‘And we’re not going out in it.’

  He was at a loss to divine how much she knew, guessed, or imagined; and any word of enlightenment from him might be inconceivably dangerous. But he was conscious of the strength of her resistance, and lacked the reserves to battle with it.

  She was looking out of the window into the main street. We might will them to stop,’ she suggested wearily.

  Gerald was now far less frightened of the bells continuing than of their ceasing. But that they should go on ringing until day broke seemed hopelessly impossible.

  Then one peal stopped. There could be no other explanation for the obvious diminution in sound.

  ‘You see! ’ said Phrynne. t Gerald sat up straight on the side of the bed.

  Almost at once further sections of sound subsided, quickly one after the other, until only a single peal was left, that which had begun the ringing. Then the single peal tapered off into a single bell. The single bell tolled on its own, disjointedly, five or six or seven times. Then it stopped, and there was nothing.

  Gerald’s head was a cave of echoes, mountingly muffled by the noisy current of his blood.

  ‘Oh goodness,’ said Phrynne, turning from the window and stretching her arms above her head. ‘Let’s go somewhere else tomorrow.’ She began to take off her dress.

  Sooner than usual they were in bed, and in one another’s arms. Gerald had carefully not looked out of the window, and neither of them suggested that it should be opened, as they usually did.

  ‘As it’s a four-poster, shouldn’t we draw the curtains?’ asked Phrynne. ‘And be really snug? After those damned bells?’

  ‘We should suffocate.’

  ‘Did they suffocate when everyone had four-posters?’

  ‘They only drew the curtains when people were likely to pass through the room.’

  ‘Darling, you’re shivering. I think we should draw them.’

  ‘Lie still instead and love me.’

  But all his nerves were straining out into the silence. There was no sound of any kind, beyond the hotel or within it; not a creaking floorboard nor a prowling cat nor a distant owl. He had been afraid to look at his watch when the bells stopped, or since; the number of the dark hours before they could leave Holihaven weighed on him. The vision of the Commandant kneeling in the dark window was clear before his eyes, as if the intervening panelled walls were made of stage gauze; and the thing he had seen in the street darted on its angular way back and forth through memory.

  Then
passion began to open its petals within him, layer upon slow layer; like an illusionist’s red flower which, without soil or sun or sap, grows as it is watched. The languor of tenderness began to fill the musty room with its texture and perfume. The transparent walls became again opaque, the old man’s vaticinations mere obsession. The street must have been empty, as it was now; the eye deceived.

  But perhaps rather it was the boundless sequacity of love that deceived, and most of all in the matter of die time which had passed since the bells stopped ringing; for suddenly Phrynne drew very close to him, and he heard steps in the thoroughfare outside, and a voice calling. These were loud steps, audible from afar even through the shut window; and the voice had the possessed stridency of the street evangelist.

  ‘The dead are awake! ’

  Not even the thick bucolic accent, the guttural vibrato of emotion, could twist or mask the meaning. At first Gerald lay listening with all his body, and concentrating the more as the noise grew; then he sprang from the bed and ran to the window.

  A burly, long-limbed man in a seaman’s jersey was running down the street, coming clearly into a view for a second at each lamp, and between them lapsing into a swaying lumpy wraith.

  As he shouted his joyous message, he crossed from side to side and waved his arms like a negro. By flashes, Gerald could see that his weatherworn face was transfigured.

  ‘The dead are awake! ’

  Already, behind him, people were coming out of their houses, and descending from the rooms above shops. There were men, women, and children. Most of them were fully dressed, and must have been waiting in silence and darkness for the call; but a few were dishevelled in night attire or the first garments which had come to hand. Some formed them- selves into groups, and advanced arm in arm, as if towards the conclusion of a Blackpool beano. More came singly, ecstatic and waving their arms above their heads, as the first man had done. All cried out, again and again, with no cohesion or harmony. ‘The dead are awake! The dead are awake! ’

  Gerald become aware the Phrynne was standing behind him.

  ‘The Commandant warned me,’ he said brokenly. ‘We should have gone.’

  Phrynne shook her head and took his arm. ‘Nowhere to go,’ she said. But her voice was soft with fear, and her eyes blank. ‘I don’t expect they’ll trouble us.’

  Swiftly Gerald drew the thick plush curtains, leaving them in complete darkness. ‘We’ll sit it out,’ he said, slightly histrionic in his fear. ‘No matter what happens.’

  He scrambled across to the switch. But when he pressed it, light did not come. ‘The current’s gone. We must get back into bed.’

  ‘Gerald! Come and help me.’ He remembered that she was curiously vulnerable in the dark. He found his way to her, and guided her to the bed.

  ‘No more love,’ she said ruefully and affectionately, her teeth chattering.

  He kissed her lips with what gendeness the total night made possible.

  ‘They were going towards the sea,’ she said timidly.

  ‘We must think of something else.’

  But the noise was still growing. The whole community seemed to be passing down the street, yelling the same dreadful words again and again.

  ‘Do you think we can?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gerald. ‘It’s only until tomorrow.’

  ‘They can’t be actually dangerous,’ said Phrynne. ‘Or it would be stopped.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  By now, as always happens, the crowd had amalgamated their utterances and were beginning to shout in unison. They were like agitators bawling a slogan, or massed trouble-makers at a football match. But at the same time the noise was beginning to draw away. Gerald suspected that the entire population of the place was on the march.

  Soon it was apparent that a processional route was being followed. The tumult could be heard winding about from quarter to quarter; sometimes drawing near, so that Gerald and Phrynne were once more seized by the first chill of panic, then again almost fading away. It was possibly this great variability in the volume of the sound which led Gerald to believe that there were distinct pauses in the massed shouting; periods when it was superseded by far, disorderly cheering. Certainly it began also to seem that the thing shouted had changed; but he could not make out the new cry, although unwillingly he strained to do so.

  ‘It’s extraordinary how frightened one can be,’ said Phrynne, ‘even when one is not directly menaced. It must prove that we all belong to one another, or whatever it is, after all.’

  In many similar remarks they discussed the thing at one remove. Experience showed that this was better than not discussing it at all.

  In the end there could be no doubt that the shouting had stopped, and that now the crowd was singing. It was no song that Gerald had ever heard, but something about the way it was sung convinced him that it was a hymn or psalm set to an out-of-date popular tune. Once more the crowd was approaching; this time steadily, but with strange, interminable slowness.

  ‘What the hell are they doing now?’ asked Gerald of the blackness, his nerves wound so tight that the foolish question was forced out of them.

  Palpably the crowd had completed its peregrination, and was returning up the main street from the sea. The singers seemed to gasp and fluctuate, as if worn out with gay exercise, like children at a party. There was a steady undertow of scraping and scuffling. Time passed and more time.

  Phrynne spoke. ‘I believe they’re dancing’

  She moved slightly, as if she thought of going to see.

  ‘No, no,’ said Gerald and clutched her fiercely.

  There was a tremendous concussion on the ground floor below them. The front door had been violently thrown back.

  They could hear the hotel filling with a stamping, singing mob.

  Doors banged everywhere, and furniture was overturned, as the beatific throng surged and stumbled through the involved darkness of the old building. Glasses went and china and Birmingham brass warming pans. In a moment, Gerald heard the Japanese armour crash to the boards. Phrynne screamed. Then a mighty shoulder, made strong by the sea’s assault, I rammed at the panelling and their door was down.

  The living and the dead dance together.

  Now’s the time. Now’s the place. Now’s the weather.

  At last Gerald could make out the words.

  The stresses in the song were heavily beaten down by much repetition.

  Hand in hand, through the dim grey gap of the doorway, the dancers lumbered and shambled in, singing frenziedly but brokenly; ecstatic but exhausted. Through the stuffy blackness they swayed and shambled, more and more of them, until the room must have been packed tight with them.

  Phrynne screamed again. ‘The smell. Oh God, the smell.’

  It was the smell they had encountered on the beach; in the congested room, no longer merely offensive, but obscene, unspeakable.

  Phrynne was hysterical. All self-control gone, she was scratching and tearing, and screaming again and again. Gerald tried to hold her, but one of the dancers in the darkness struck him so hard that she was jolted out of his arms. Instantly it H seemed that she was no longer there at all.

  The dancers were thronging everywhere, their limbs whirling, their lungs bursting with the rhythm of the song. It was difficult for Gerald even to call out. He tried to struggle after Phrynne, but immediately a blow from a massive elbow knocked him to the floor, an abyss of invisible trampling feet.

  But soon the dancers were going again; not only from the room, but, it seemed, from the building also. Crushed and tormented though he was, Gerald could hear the song being presumed in the street, as the various frenzied groups debouched and reunited. Within, before long there was nothing but the chaos, the darkness, and the putrescent odour. Gerald felt so sick that he had to battle with unconsciousness. He could not think or move, despite the desperate need.

  Then he struggled into a sitting position, and sank his head on the tom sheets of the bed. For an uncertain peri
od he was insensible to everything; but in the end he heard steps approaching down the dark passage. His door was pushed back, and the Commandant entered gripping a lighted candle. He seemed to disregard the flow of hot wax which had already congealed on much of his knotted hand.

  ‘She’s safe. Small thanks to you.’

  The Commandant stared icily at Gerald’s undignified figure. Gerald tried to stand. He was terribly bruised, and so giddy that he wondered if this could be concussion. But relief rallied him.

  ‘Is it thanks to you?’

  ‘She was caught up in it. Dancing with the rest.’ The Commandant’s eyes glowed in the candle-light. The singing and dancing had almost died away.

  Still Gerald could do no more than sit up on the bed. His voice was low and indistinct, as if coming from outside his body. ‘Were they... were some of them...’

  The Commandant replied more scornful than ever of his weakness. ‘She was between two of them. Each had one of her hands.’

  Gerald could not look at him. ‘What did you do?’ he asked in the same remote voice.

  ‘I did what had to be done. I hope I was in time.’ After the slightest possible pause he continued. ‘You’ll find her downstairs.’

  ‘I’m grateful. Such a silly thing to say, but what else is there?’

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I’ll light you down.’ The Commandant’s tone was as uncompromising as always.

  There were two more candles in the lounge, and Phrynne, wearing a woman’s belted overcoat which was not hers, sat between them drinking. Mrs Pascoe, fully dressed but with eyes averted, pottered about the wreckage. It seemed hardly more than as if she were completing the task which earlier she had left unfinished.