Dark Entries Page 20

  Monday found us picnicking in Lancashire, having been driven there by the Nuttalls. Later we visited Chingle Hall near Goosnargh but saw none of the reputed ghosts. Robert felt he and I should sign the visitors’ book, and perhaps our autographs still haunt it. On the same trip we failed to find an abandoned waterways terminal Robert had been given to believe was somewhere in the area.

  Alas, that was our last meeting. We continued to correspond regularly until he wrote to apologise that he would no longer be able to keep it up, having been told ‘not really to my surprise, that I have cancer. At present I am oppressed by the mere vulgar symptoms.’ What can one say on such occasions? We assured him he would be welcome to stay whenever he liked, but it’s hardly surprising that he neglected to take up the offer. A year or so later he died, leaving me and Jenny with memories we wouldn’t be without. Jenny feels he should have given us a sign from the other side by now, since he was such a believer in the supernatural. I’m just as much of a sceptic, and yet I sometimes have a sense of being observed by him, especially if I swear immoderately to myself when there’s nobody else to be seen.

  So was he as terrible a chap as Roger Johnson thinks? About as much as I am, I’d suggest. I’m the better for having had him as a friend and as an example. Once he commented to Kirby McCauley that there were no longer any vivid men. That was certainly untrue in at least one instance while he was with us.

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL is hailed by the Oxford Companion to English Literature as ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’. His novels include The Doll Who Ate His Mother, The Face That Must Die, The Nameless, Midnight Sun, The Long Lost, The House on Nazareth Hill, Ghosts Know and The Kind Folk.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2014

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © Robert Aickman, 1964

  Introduction © Richard T. Kelly, 2014

  Afterword © Ramsey Campbell, 2013, 2014

  Ramsey Campbell’s ‘Robert Remembered’ first appeared in a shorter form in Night Voices, published in 2013 by Tartarus Press

  Cover design by Faber

  Cover illustration by Tim McDonagh

  The right of Robert Aickman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–31178–1