Ramsey Campbell - The Claw

This time he wasn't just pretending to be fierce. All at once she felt very small. She would have gone up to say she was sorry, except that she felt too ashamed. She went into the kitchen, to be with mummy. Mummy was making bread; she was wearing lumpy gloves of flour. Anna wanted to tell mummy that she was afraid she'd done something naughty, and she was just opening her mouth when mummy said, 'What on earth have you been doing to yourself, young lady?'

Anna didn't know what she meant until mummy washed her hands at the sink and got a mirror out of her handbag to show Anna her tongue. It was almost black from chewing the pencil. 'Parrots are supposed to have black tongues, not little girls. The way you chatter on sometimes, maybe you're turning into a parrot,' mummy said, then she frowned. 'Don't put pencils in your mouth, Anna. We don't want you poisoning yourself, do we?'

The world seemed full of things you mustn't put in your mouth, but that wasn't why Anna felt miserable. 'I was making a noise on the stairs and I stopped daddy writing. Do you think he won't be able to write any more, ever again?'

'Oh, I think he'll manage.' Mummy was smiling, but she hadn't seen how he'd looked… 'Now look, I'm busy just now. Would you like to watch something on the video?'

Anna followed her into the long room, where the video cassettes were lined up like books on shelves above the recorder. Most of them were too old for her – mummy said so, though sometimes daddy said she could watch. She was allowed to watch Laurel and Hardy and programmes about animals and insects. 'How about The Wizard ofOzV mummy said, then frowned for a moment. 'You know it's only a story. The witch isn't real.'

But it wasn't the witch with her bright-green pantomime face that bothered Anna; it was the Cowardly Lion. She knew he wasn't real, he was only a man dressed up, but somehow that made it worse. When he peered out of the trees, making his noise that wasn't like an animal or like a person, she looked away. She didn't like him at all.

But looking away didn't help, because she could still hear his voice. She wished she'd switched the light on. The rainy windows looked as if they were melting, and the room jerked whenever the light from the television changed. Usually she didn't mind that, but now it made the claw on the mantelpiece seem to move, to creep forward when she glanced away. Why had daddy brought such a horrible thing home? It made her think of the torture chamber in the waxworks she'd been to once in London. She didn't like being in the same room with the claw, or even in the same house.

The Cowardly Lion was trying to roar again. He didn't look like a man dressed up, he looked like a man whom a spell had turned into a kind of animal. She thought she could smell an animal in the room. Either she was imagining the smell, or the soggy goats must have moved nearer the house. She left the recorder running, because she wasn't supposed to touch it, and took refuge in her playroom.

She could still hear the Cowardly Lion. So could mummy when she came out of the kitchen to call Anna to lunch. Mummy told her off for leaving the recorder on when she wasn't watching, which seemed unfair to Anna. Grownups often were. At least lunch was something to do.

Daddy had lunch in his workroom. Anna had hoped he would come down and talk to her. She hoped he was working, not failing to work because of her. She must have looked miserable, because after lunch mummy played Ludo with her all afternoon, to cheer her up. It was such a long game that Anna was tempted to cheat so as to end it, but luckily mummy went into the kitchen to start dinner.

Daddy came downstairs for dinner, and was cheerful once he'd had some wine to drink. He and mummy talked about people they'd known before they got married. Anna felt left out and bored, until she thought of playing I Spy; they had to talk to her then. She grew excited with the game and her glass of wine. She was going to enjoy today after all. But almost as soon as dinner was over, they told her it was time for bed.

She had been looking forward to staying up late and playing with daddy. She'd hoped to be with him more now that he was home again, but so far she'd hardly seen him at all. And now they were packing her off to bed so that they could be together, as if she didn't matter. When she was ready for bed she turned her face away and wouldn't let either of them kiss her.

She lay in bed, but couldn't stop seeing the Cowardly Lion peering out of the forest, couldn't stop remembering the torture claw that was in her home, the wax faces screaming silently in the torture chamber. The worst thing had been that the wax victims weren't being tortured; they had been screaming because they knew what was going to be done to them, screaming with no chance of being heard. Perhaps they'd had no tongues, she thought, and wished she hadn't thought it. Her room was growing dark.

She slept at last, only to dream that the Cowardly Lion had crept into her room. He was reaching for her with the metal claw, since he had none of his own. She cried out as she woke. The dark in her room, and the sound of the waves, were as strange and frightening as they had been the first night she'd slept here. Someone was coming upstairs to see why she had cried out, padding upstairs. His footsteps sounded very soft. It was the Cowardly Lion.

When the door opened and he came into the room, she could see his long soft monstrous face, like the face of a soft toy that ought not to be moving. By the time she saw that it was daddy with daddy's face, it was too late: she had already cried, 'I want mummy.'

'Just wait a minute, then.' He sounded peevish, as he always did when she asked for mummy instead. It was only that mummy looked after her, and he was always too busy writing. Now she was afraid she might have driven him away. As soon as mummy came to her, Anna said, 'Daddy won't go away again, will he?'

'Was that what was wrong? No, I'm sure he won't, darling. He has no reason to.' Mummy cuddled her and stroked her head, and before Anna knew it she was asleep.

When she woke it was morning, and the rain had stopped. That was one of the good things about living here: it never rained for long. At breakfast time the sea was pale with haze, which meant a scorching day to come. As she helped mummy wash up the breakfast things, Anna heard children shouting and laughing on the beach below the Britannia Hotel.

Daddy wasn't in a good mood. He had his breakfast at his desk and didn't want to be spoken to, not a word.

'We'll go into the village, and then I'll make a special dinner,' mummy said. 'Perhaps that'll help daddy to relax.'

They were ready to go – mummy wouldn't let her cycle on the road to the village – when they heard the slam of the phone in daddy's workroom. The other phones rang in sympathy. He came downstairs as if he was looking for something but didn't know what it was. 'Problems?' mummy said.

'That was Teddy Shaw.'

He was daddy's editor. Teddy the Editor, Anna began to sing to the tune of Nelly the Elephant, until they both frowned at her. 'What did he want?' mummy said.

'Only to piss on my fucking title. It was a Robert Mitchum film. They changed the title in Britain.'

Anna shoved her fist against her mouth to keep in her giggles. She could see he was being serious, but he never said those words in front of her. Mummy was trying to calm him down. 'But you can still use it, can't you?'

'That's what Teddy said. You're both wrong. It doesn't feel right, and that means it's no fucking good.'

Mummy decided that the best thing was to leave him alone. 'We're going into the village and then we might look in at the hotel.'

'Fine, do whatever you like.' But he was staring at Anna. She felt small and guilty and defenceless even before he said, 'Just so long as I get some peace.'