Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

Now, in a way that annoyed him, he was jealous.

“Should we sample the Scotch Streak fare?” said Annette. “In Kilpartinger’s day, the cuisine was on a par with the finest continental restaurants.”

“I doubt British Rail have kept up,” said Harry. “It’ll be beef and two veg, pie and chips or prehistoric bacon sarnies.”

“Yum,” said Magic Fingers. “My favourite.”

“Come on, boys. Be brave. We can face angry spirits, fire demons, Druid curses and homicidal lunatics. A British Rail sandwich should hold no horrors for us. Besides, I’ve seen the menu. I rather fancy the quail’s eggs.”

Annette led them to the dining carriage. Wood-panel and frosted glass partitions made booths. Tables were laid for two or four.

As he passed under the lounge clock, Richard looked up. For a definite moment, he saw a face behind the glass, studded with bleeding numbers, clockhands nailed to a flattened nose, cheeks distended, eyes wide, clockmaker’s name tattooed on stretched lips.

“That’s where you’ve got to,” he mused, recognising Douglas Gilclyde. “Lord Killpassengers himself.”

The face was gone. Richard thought he should mention the apparition, then realised he’d only have to fill in another form and opted to keep stum. There’d be plenty more where that came from.

III

They were all laughing at him, the bastards!

Harold Cutley tasted ash, bile and British Rail pork pie. He wanted to tell the bastards to shut up. The only noise he produced was a huffing bark that made the bastards laugh all the more.

“Gone down the wrong tube,” said the insufferable Jeperson Boy.

The French tart slapped him on the back, not to clear the blockage – taking an excuse to give him a nasty thump.

“Get Prof a form to fill in,” snarked the beatnik. “See how he likes it.”

Cutley stood and staggered away from the table. He honked and breathed again. He could talk if so inclined. As it happened, he bloody well wasn’t.

He knew they’d all gang up on him!

That was how it always was. At Brichester, no one understood his work and he was written off as “the Looney”. Muriel hadn’t helped, betraying him with all of them. Even Head of Physics, Cox-Foxe. Even bloody students! He was with the Diogenes Club toffs on the sufferance of Ed Winthrop, who habitually overruled and sidelined and superseded. Ed had saddled Harry with this shower so he couldn’t get anywhere, would never have any findings to call his own.

No one was coming after him. He shot a glance back at the booth, where Annette was canoodling with the teddy boy. The bitch, the bastard! Magic Fingers was tapping the table, probably hopped up on “sneaky pete”. If there were results to be had, he’d have to find them on his own.

He would show them. He would have to.

The conductor – what was his name? Why hadn’t he fixed it? – was in his way, blocking the narrow aisle. Cutley got past the man, shrinking to avoid touching him, and strode towards the dark at the end of the carriage.

“Well, really,” said the frumpy bat who was the only other diner, the old girl with the guns. She’d spilled claret on her gammon and pineapple and was going to blame Harold Cutley. “I must say. I never did.”

Cutley thought of something devastating to snap back at the pinch-faced trout, but words got mixed up between his brain and his pie-and-bile-snarled tongue and came out as spittle and grunts.

The woman ignored him and forked a thin slice of reddened meat into her mouth.

He looked back. The carriage had stretched. The rest of his so-called group were dozens of booths away, in a pool of light, smiling and fondling, relieved he was gone, already forgetting he’d ever been there. The bastarding bastards! They had the only bright light. The rest of the carriage was dim.

Now there were other diners, in black and white and silent. One or two to every fifth or sixth booth. Shadows on frosted glass partitions. Starched collars and blurry faces. Some were missing eyes or mouths, some had too many.

Muriel was here somewhere, having her usual high old time while someone else brought home the bacon.

Bitch!

“May I see your ticket?”

It was the conductor. Or was it another official? This one looked the same, but the tone of voice was not so unctuous. He sounded deeper, stronger, potentially brutal. More like a prison warder than a servant.

What was the name again? Albert? Alfred? Angus? Ronald? Donald?

Arnold – like Matthew Arnold, Thomas Arnold, Arnie, Arnoldo, Arnold. That was it. Arnold .

“What is it, Arnold?” he snapped.

“Your ticket,” he insisted. His collar insignia, like a police constable’s, was a metal badge. LSIR. That was wrong, out of date. “You must have your ticket with you at all times and be prepared to surrender it for inspection.”

“You clipped mine at Euston,” said Cutley, patting his pockets.

Cutley searched himself. He found his bus ticket from Essex Road to Euston, a cinema stub (1s, 9d, Naked as Nature Intended , the Essoldo), a slip pinned inside his jacket since it was last dry-cleaned three years ago, a sheaf of shorthand notes for a lecture he’d never given, an invitation to Cox-Foxe’s thirty-years-service sit-down dinner, a page torn out of the Book of Common Prayer with theorems pencilled in the margin, a linked chain of magician’s handkerchiefs some bastard must have planted on him as a funny, a Hanged Man tarot card that had been slipped to him as a warning by that blasted Puma Cult, his primary school report card (FAIR ONLY), an expired ration book, a French postcard Muriel had once sent him, his divorce papers, a signed photograph of Sabrina, a Turkish bank-note, a card with spare buttons sewn onto it, a leaf torn out of a desk calendar for next week, and a first edition of Thomas Love Peacock’s Headlong Hall he had once taken out of Brichester University Library and not got around to returning but which he could’ve sworn he’d left behind in the house Muriel had somehow wound up keeping when she walked out on him. But no ticket.

“Would this be yours?” said Arnold, holding up a strip of card.

Cutley was more annoyed. This was ridiculous.

“If you had it all the time, why didn’t you say so, man?”

“We have to be sure of these things.”

Cutley noticed that the conductor wasn’t “sirring” him any more. Before he could take the proffered ticket, he had to return his various discoveries to his pockets. Even if he piled up the things he could afford to throw away, it was a devil of a job to fit everything back into his jacket, which was baggier and heavier by the minute.

Arnold watched, still holding out the ticket.

Beyond the conductor, the dining car was nearly empty again. Jeperson, Annette and Magic Fingers were in the far distance, merrily tucking into knickerbocker glory or some other elaborate, sickly-sweet pud. None of that on his old ration book, he remembered with a bitter twinge.

He was sorted out. Except he had put the Peacock with the used bus and cinema tickets. He slid the book into his side-pocket, tearing a seam with a loud rip. He had a paper of buttons but no needle and thread. Muriel always had a needle, ready threaded, pinned about her in case of emergencies. She wasn’t in the dining carriage now – probably off in some fellow’s compartment, on her knees, gagging for it, the cow, the harlot!

“Why are you still here?” he asked Arnold, snatching his ticket.

“To make sure,” said the conductor. “This isn’t your place. This is for First Class Passengers only.”

Bloody typical! These jumped-up little Hitlers put on a blue serge uniform that looked a bit like a policeman’s and thought they could order everyone else about, put them all in their proper and bloody places. One look at Harry Cutley was enough to tell them he didn’t belong with silver cutlery and long-stemmed roses at every table. All the knickerbocker glory a fat girl could eat conveyed with the compliments of the chef to the table in crawling, grovelling deference! Only, just this once, Harry Cutley did belong. Baggy, torn, patched jacket and all, Cutley was in First Class. He had a First Class ticket, not bought with his own money, but his all the same. With angry pride, he brandished it at the conductor’s nose.