Ramsey Campbell - The Doll Who Ate His Mother

Ramsey Campbell

The Doll Who Ate His Mother

First published in 1976

Dedication: for Kirby, a good agent; an even better friend

Acknowledgments

A great many people helped me write this book. I should especially like to thank:

Mr. McGrath of the Liverpool City Morgue, who was kind enough to describe the formalities to me

the Liverpool Coroners Court and its officials for their patience in answering my questions

the staff of Liverpool Public Libraries, for finding out all manner of things for me, and their cataloguing department for cataloguing Glimpses of Absolute Power for me

the assembled writers, wizards of wine, culinary genies, bibliophiles, and croquet champions of LiG: particularly Tony and Cherry, for their advice on car accidents

my friends among the Liverpool cinema managers, for giving me glimpses of the job: especially Tony McCarthy, for his insights into suburban cinema management

and most of all my wife, Jenny, for sharing the birth pangs of The Doll Who Ate His Mother.

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Thursday, July 24

There were no taxis.

Clare Frayn stumped back and forth on Catharine Street, shivering. The July night was mild, the entire street was orange as embers beneath the sodium streetlamps, yet she was shivering. She glanced at her watch. Four oclock, good God. No wonder she was cold; her body was at its lowest ebb. Even Rob had never kept her up so late before. In a minute shed chance the brakes in Ringo the Reliant and drive him home.

He was standing at the corner of Catharine Street and Canning Street, a block away, leaning his long body into the road whenever a distant motor whirred. Beside him traffic lights blinked emptily; beyond him glowed the will-o-the-wisp of a disordered telephone box. Around them both, in the Georgian terraces of Liverpool 8, poets and artists slepthalf of them drunk and snoring, no doubt, Clare thought. Rob looked back at her over his shoulder and smiled, encouraging, embarrassed. Then he leaned out again.

Who else would have such a fool for a brother, Clare thought with a kind of irritable resigned affection. Stop leaning out, for Gods sake. There are no taxis. No sound at all, except for a ships low tone drifting sleepily up the Mersey from the sea. But there was: the sound of an engine; the unmistakable sound of a taxi labouring up Myrtle Street beyond the curve, beyond the Childrens Hospital. She began to run, cursing her short legs, slapping basement railings furiously with her hand, for speed. She reached the curve as the vehicle did, driving down the side street opposite, not up the hill at all. It was a lorry carrying its baby on its back.

When she plodded back as far as the traffic lights, Rob said, Im sorry Ive kept you up so late.

You mean youve just noticed? God, Rob, youre worse

Than all the kids in your class put together. I know. But I really did need to talk, and theres nobody else I can talk to.

Except your wife, she thought. But of course it had been Dorothy he had wanted to talk about, as usual. Its all right, Clare said. You know I dont mind really. She was shivering again; her eyes felt as if theyd been fitted with thick lenses a couple of sizes too large. Theres nothing I have to get up for later, anyway, she said.

He saw her shivering. He stooped and put his arm about her shoulders, rubbing them. From nowhere a car came roaring up Canning Street, hooting at Rob as its occupants did, at his pigtail and leather waistcoat and checked trousers and high gold-painted boots. Id walk if I could, he told her.

I know that. Dont worry. He hadnt been dressed half so bizarrely the night hed walked home along Princes Avenue, when the youths had beaten him up and left him on the central reservation of the dual carriageway, among the trees. But I dont think were going to find a taxi, Clare said.

If I could phone Dorothy Id stay. But she might be worrying.

Shes probably fast asleep in bed. Unless shes a fool.

She wasnt last time. That was when we had the row about having children, remember, I told you. She wouldnt go to bed until I said wed try next year. Im sure shell still be up.

No man would keep me up like that, Clare vowed. I dont see what I can do, she said.

Couldnt you drive me home? There wont be any traffic.

I dont want to drive until the garage has looked at the brakes.

They both heard the taxi. It was whirring purposefully toward them, so loudly that they strained their eyes at the empty street. Its sound had filled the street before it turned, tantalizingly, somewhere out of sight. Oh Christ, Rob said, swaying rapidly and unhappily from one foot to the other, tick tock.

Clare gazed at him. He looked exactly like a child who was frantic to pee. All at once she realized that he wasnt anxious to get back to win the argument with Dorothy, which hed abandoned along with his dinner. He wanted to go home because he was worried about Dorothy, because he loved her. She shook her head, sighing. Some things about him she would never understand.

Come on, she said suddenly. I suppose if I drive slowly well be all right.

They made for Blackburne Terrace and Clares car. Several babies were walking across the roofs of the garages opposite, crying. When Clare looked again they were cats. Rob said, I still dont understand how Dorothy can stand those people.

Dont go through that again, Clare thought, for Gods sake! Shed already heard once how Dorothy felt he was losing her all her friends. Hed arrived at midnight but had waited until one oclock to tell her he was famished, to say nothing of his doubts about his marriage, whether hed married Dorothy just for sex, how theyd run out of things to talk about, how working for the same people as your wife meant you were together too much of the time. To Clare, all this had sounded like one of his Radio Merseyside record shows without the records, hours of sheer nervous energy, uncontrollable words. When hed begun to mention taxis, shed thought he had run down at last, but here were Dorothys friends again. Perhaps you should ask her why she likes them, Clare said, hurrying toward Ringo the three-wheeler.

Oh, she went through all that. They arent reasons that make any sense to me. I cant understand how she could have friends like that. Ive told her before I dont like them. Theyre just a load of boring middle-class shit.

Keep that for your record shows. Youre never going to convince me youre working-class. In the grainy light beyond the streetlamps she squinted at the car door, fumbling with the key; her eyes prickled. Not with parents whove retired to a spa town, she said.

That doesnt make me any class, love. Dont try to throw me in that shit. He sounded as he did on his late-night programme, The Working Class Hero Show: aggressive, dogmatic, secretly unsure. You ought to meet her friends, he said. You ought to see them, walking around the flat and looking as if this is all you can expect from a secretary married to a deejay.

Are you sure it isnt you who think that?

He slid into the front seat, packing as much of his folded legs as he could beneath the dashboard; then he turned to gaze at her. No more so than you do, he said.

What, Clare despise Dorothy? Just for putting up with Rob? Dorothy, whod married him out of admiration for his drive and his refusal to conform, who suffered him quietly most of the time now, perhaps because she knew that if she didnt contain herself hed simply flee to Clare? Yes, Clare thought, she despised her a little. Dorothy did herself no good by keeping quiet. And all that was called love, good God.

Rob was nodding triumphantly. I know you, he said. I know what it means if youre more polite to someone when you get to know them better. It means you cant stand them.