Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

Rain started to fall steadily as he trudged up Ballard’s Lane towards home, prompting him to quicken his pace. The sky had been low and heavily overcast all morning, pregnant with a promised downpour that had finally come to term, falling like the tears of God, washing away the encrusted scabs of litter choking the gutters. He slipped his father’s books inside his army surplus coat, pulled the frayed collar around his ears, and lowered his head against the water. father would be cross if there was the faintest damp mark on the books, so he stopped under a depleted tree, its leaves taken by the unusually strong autumn winds they’d had of late, repositioning the brown paper bag containing the books beneath his worn Harris tweed jacket. It was a ways still to the old Victorian house, and rain was now descending in icy sheets. Better he catch a cold than return home with wet books.

The traffic lights were green at the junction with Sunningdale Road. Cars sped past, travelling too fast for the weather conditions, and as he stood by the curb, one hit a puddle sending a small wave over his trousers. He groaned. The lights seemed to stay green for longer than usual, two emerald eyes staring at him. At this rate, the books would get wet if he took his usual route. Since he was a free man, he decided to go another way, hoping to speed his journey. He turned left into Long Lane, trotting now, trying to avoid the cracks between the paving stones. After a while he was drenched but could see the rooftops of Squires Lane and HOME. He was a CLEVER BOY. If mummy were still alive, she would have told him so.

Though she had been dead for many moons (the only way he could gauge forward movement was via the lunar cycles, because they were natural, like the passing of the seasons, and his father felt that was the way things should be), he still missed her. When she had been pleased with him, he was rewarded with a dish of ice cream or a plate of Jaffa cakes. Now, whenever he ate them, he thought of her. But on those times she thought him a BAD BOY, he’d been sent to his room. He’d never questioned his punishment. mummy was always right. “You are FREE but you have to learn,” she used to say. That had been mummy’s responsibility, to teach him the things he needed to know. Of course it was, she’d been a teacher before she got A-GRO-PH-OB-I-A and was confined to the house. Yes, he missed her, even though he was now an adult, could take care of himself, and more importantly could eat ice cream whenever he wished.

Rounding the corner he realized he was by the cinema. This was fortunate as the Finchley Odeon had a large awning jutting from its front. He crossed the road to stop beneath it, looking intently at the bright colours of the film posters.

The Odeon was a large old cinema that, in his childhood, had had one huge screen. mummy used to take him there whenever there was something she thought suitable, which wasn’t often. But moons ago it had been turned into one with three screens. Standing outside the grey, worn building, he tried to recall the last time he’d visited the picture house, but he couldn’t remember. He mainly watched films on television.

One screen had a film called Platoon . The poster showed a man on his knees, arms out in a V, his head back as if crying out to the heavens asking the rain to stop. It looked like a war film. He liked war films but mummy had disapproved. They were violent and evil, she said. War was BAD. Maybe he’d come and see it if the rain stopped and father fell asleep early. The second screen had a scary-looking film called Hellraiser , and he shuddered as he looked at a poster showing a piece of flesh pulled back on a hook. He didn’t like scary films. They frightened him, and the world was so big it was already scary enough. He moved to look at the third screen — and froze.

No! Not again!

It… it… was too much. First the terrifying experience on the tube, and now this. The Crocodile was playing with him, taunting him like a cat with a mouse. There on the poster was the beast itself, leering its evil, knowing smile, the eyes narrowed to slits as it licked its lips as it menaced the Pirate. The shock of the image made him lose his grip on the books beneath his coat. They fell to the pavement with a heavy slap, making him start from his transfixed state. Stooping to lift them from the ground, he did not take his eyes from the poster. Was it a trick of the light as his angle of vision altered, or did the Crocodile wink at him? Of course it was no optical illusion, the reptile was filled with cunning. It winked again, saying silently you are mine . He couldn’t stand there any longer; every part of him felt touched by cold, wet fingers. He turned to run, gasping as he collided with a tall, grey-haired man. He squealed piglet-like and bounded across the road, narrowly missing a red Vauxhall Chevette, the tall man watching, a concerned expression on his face.

As he reached the other side, he dared look back. The tall man was still watching him, then turned to the movie poster. The angle of light on the plastic covering obscured the Crocodile’s image, cutting the poster in two. It was gone. All he could see as he disappeared around the corner was the film’s title:

Peter Pan .

He shivered in the porch, fumbling for his keys. He found them and opened the door. Slamming it against the cold and wet, he sneezed.

“Stephen?” his father called from upstairs, the sound that of fingernails on a chalkboard. He moved slowly up the tall, shadowy flight of stairs, the top cloaked in darkness. “Yes, father.”

The elderly man was propped up in bed, his frail frame cradled by three pillows. As usual the reading light was on, throwing an orange slash across the blanket on which lay a pile of books.

“Did you get them?” father asked in a hushed tone.

He nodded, offering the soggy bag.

“Ach! Look at you!” the old man said. “My books! Go dry them, then yourself. The books first!”

“I’m s-s-sorry, father, I’m—”

“Go dry them!”

He turned and headed for the bathroom. “And bring me a glass of water,” the old man added, his request punctuated by a coughing fit.

After he wiped the books and brought father the water, Stephen changed into clean clothes in his room, leaving the wet trousers in a tangled heap on the bare boards alongside piles of dirty laundry and a strewn selection of magazines: Newsweek , The Plain Truth , Harpers , The Face , Country Living , Cosmopolitan . He’d found them neatly tied with string next to the dustbin at number fifty seven a few days before, rescuing them before the dustmen took them away. Magazines held his attention better than books because of the photos. Even if he didn’t understand the articles ( The Plain Truth was clear enough though; that one said the world was coming to an end, and he knew it was the Crocodile’s doing), the pictures provided him with endless interesting discoveries. Like something called the G Spot, a man who looked like a pretty girl but was called Boy George, and the President of America was an old actor who once appeared in a film with a monkey called Bonzo.

He sneezed again as he looked at them. It was still raining so there was little chance of a trip to the cinema. Not that he could go there with the Crocodile waiting so close. Once he was in the dark, he knew it would get him.

Aware he was hungry, he sneezed again and started for the stairs.

Although it was HOME, the gloomy hallway was ripe with hidden menace. He hated passing the collection of skulls on top of the bookshelves, their vacant eyesockets black, mysterious. But he liked looking at mummy’s books, old volumes by people called Hardy, Dickens, Trollope, Christie, and the children’s stories by E. Nesbit she used to read him. Five Children and It was his favourite. Then there was father’s books. Nonfiction. Volumes of Skinner, Pavlov, Watson, Hull, Freud, and Ellis, and many, many others — SERIOUS WORKS father called them. He’d tried to read them once but couldn’t understand the words: all he knew was that they were PSYCHO-LOGY books because that’s what father was — a PSYCHO-LOGIST — or had been until his accident.