Ramsey Campbell - The Face That Must Die

There had been another letter from the intolerable pensioner. Craig’s colleagues read out their hostile correspondence or passed it around the long Inland Revenue office, but the letters depressed him too much for that. “Maybe if you have time between your cups of tea you’ll deign to work out how much tax you owe me on these dividends.” That was bearable; years ago, bitterly gleeful, Craig had written DIFFICULT TAXPAYER in red ink on the man’s control card. But there was always the postscript: “Haven’t you anyone in your department who can write legibly?”

“ When are you going to buy me new glasses?” Craig knew his poor handwriting was growing worse – hardly surprising, under all the circumstances.

Still, he might have read the letter out if he had been sure of his colleagues, except that he no longer knew himself. One police visit and three phone calls had done that. Not since his marriage had he felt so uncertain how to behave.

He tried to relax, to feel like the water. At least the third-floor discotheque wasn’t thumping overhead; they must all be out, thank heaven. Though he admired Cathy: a capable woman. She needed to be, with that husband of hers.

Had that been true of Daphne? Perhaps she hadn’t been quite capable enough. Memories floated up. Of late they had been uncomfortably vivid, sharp with guilt. Perhaps the lulling of the water might soften them. He knew he couldn’t elude them.

Had he really wanted to marry? He’d thought so then, but had that come of a need to prove he could have a girlfriend? Still, he’d grown fond of Daphne; they’d talked and hummed Mozart together, to the amusement of their colleagues; in restaurants, they were happy to be quiet together as well as to chat. Best of all, she’d seemed content with affection rather than outright sex.

Marriage had released her sexuality. Sometimes he had satisfied her, more often they’d lain side by side, dummies in a bedroom display. He’d known she was brooding on why she didn’t appeal to him – but he had been trying not to believe what was wrong. Surely one teenage relationship couldn’t have exerted such a hold over him.

Had it been desperation which had made him at last go drinking with Nelson, a colleague who he’d known was homosexual? Had he simply wanted to discuss his troubles, or to be taken to the club?

The club had shown him what he was. Despite the shock of unfamiliarity, despite his shrinking from the shrieks of the flamboyant, before the evening was over he had felt at home. He’d been able at last to be open – but how was this helping his marriage? That doubt had stiffened his movements, tripped up his speech.

He’d begun to wonder if an affair might help. Would he feel less unfaithful to Daphne with a man than with another woman? Would it help him to be less inhibited with her? The plan had seemed furtive, almost squalid – like the toilets which the desperate used, where you could hear intruders approaching before it was too late.

One night the solution had seized him. He and Daphne had been sitting by the gas fire, the only warmth they seemed able to share. He had been thinking drowsily about the club. All at once he’d grown randy. As he grabbed Daphne’s hand she had gazed incredulously at him. They’d made love violently and urgently. Hidden within his closed eyelids there had been a young man.

His ruse had worked for months. Sometimes, as they lay embraced, he’d wanted to tell her about himself. Might she have understood a confession? His lips had locked in his words. He was feeling too peaceful. Maybe next time.

Then, without warning, the young man had vanished like a magician’s exposed trick. Craig had been alone with the void within his eyelids. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” he’d muttered to Daphne, invisible beneath him.

He hadn’t wanted to return to the club; it would have been like an addiction. Instead he had bought magazines. He’d gazed at the nude young men until they were fixed in his memory. Had he been tiring of the strain of marriage? Couldn’t he have found a more secret place for the magazines?

When he’d come home, Daphne was standing at his desk, which had been their wedding present from her aunt. Her shoulders grew stiff as a judge, and he’d seen that the bottom drawer was fully open. Yet at first she’d sounded incongruously apologetic. “I was looking for drawing-pins,” she’d said.

He’d never kept them in that drawer. He had been unable to speak, and her anguished inward expression had prevented him from going to her. “This can’t be you,” she’d said low, as if praying tonelessly. “You’re keeping these books for someone else, aren’t you? You can’t be that. I won’t believe it.”

She hadn’t wept. Perhaps her unshed tears had become the ice that froze her into herself. When he’d offered to help make dinner she had said “Please just stay away.” Serving dinner, she’d avoided his touch. He had never been so intensely aware of her.

That night, and every night until she’d returned to her parents, he had lain cramped and sleepless on the couch. She’d achieved a quick move to another Inland Revenue district. Almost her last words to him had been “I think I could have borne it if it had been another woman.”

The water was cooling. He rose wallowing from the murk, and hoped those memories were gurgling down the drain, which sounded like an injured throat. Had Daphne married again? He wouldn’t like to have spoiled her life.

He swaddled himself in his towelling robe. He shaved, and stung his cheeks with Brut after shave. Oh you brute, he mocked his reflection. Who could care for that old bag of a face? It looked pouchy as a hamster’s. Going to the club tonight would be not only a regression but a waste of time.

Still, he began dressing. Usually the main room seemed comfortably spacious; the heavy curtains helped it seem so, as well as protecting his sleep from any hint of light. Now the room looked emptily large. His only companions were the photographs.

One was of Daphne. Just before she had found the magazines she’d had her hair cropped very short. Had she been prompted by her subconscious? At the time, she had never looked so attractive to him. Now, gazing with a faint calm smile out of the frame, she looked like Joan of Arc in the films.

Her expression would never change, nor would it reach him. He slipped a record from its sleeve: Beethoven’s last quartet, Opus 135. The stylus settled delicately on the rim. Even the first bars, which sounded more complex every time he heard them, failed to distract him from the photograph of Paul.

Left alone, Craig had known neither what he wanted to be nor how he appeared to others. Sometimes he’d behaved exaggeratedly male, sometimes a camp gesture had caught him unawares. When he’d set out to act camp, to put an end to speculations, his gestures had grown stiff, parodic. His colleagues had been bewildered by him.

He’d returned to the club, though he no longer felt at home. Then one night, just as the dim coagulated light and the camp squeals that slashed the roar of conversation were becoming unbearable, he’d seen Paul.

The young man had been leaning on the bar, looking like a model who’d been forgotten by an art class. H is expression was bored: posing wasn’t his style, he’d agreed to model only because he’d been asked – but was that expression defensive? A sweet ache, wholly unfamiliar, had grown between Craig’s stomach and his genitals: panic and yearning. He’d had to force himself to shoulder his way along the bar.

When at last he’d glanced at Craig the young man’s boredom had been visibly deliberate. “You look as though you feel out of place,” Craig had said.

The young man stared: was Craig about to jeer? At last he’d said “Maybe I do.”