New Fears--New horror stories by masters of the genre by Mark Morris

Author:Mark Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

SPEAKING STILL

by Ramsey Campbell

As soon as I opened the door of the Hole Full of Toad I saw Daniel. I’d meant to be first at the pub and have a drink waiting for him, but he was seated near the bar with his back to me and talking on his phone. I was crossing the discoloured carpet between the stout old tables, scarred by cigarettes and at least a decade old, when he noticed me. “Goodbye for now, my love,” he murmured and stood up, pocketing his phone. “You look ready for a drink.”

It was our regular greeting, but I could tell he hoped I hadn’t overheard his other words. Embarrassment made me facetious. “What’s tonight’s tipple?”

“Mummy’s Medicine,” he said and pointed at his tankard. “Not as urinary as it might appear.”

“It’s what the doctor ordered, is it?”

“It’s what this one prescribes.”

Though we’d performed this routine in the past, it felt too deliberate now. “I’ll be the second opinion,” I said to bring it to an end.

When he brought me a yeasty pint I found it palatable enough. We always tried the guest ale and then usually reverted to our favourite. Daniel took a manful gulp and wiped foam from his stubbly upper lip. He’d grown less plump over the last few months, but his skin was lagging behind, so that his roundish face reminded me of a balloon left over from a party, wrinkled but maintaining an unalterable wide-eyed smile that might have contained a mute plea. He kept up the smile as he said,“Ask me the question, Bill.”

“How have you been?”

“I’d prefer to forget most of that if you don’t mind. I’ve seen colleagues lose patients, but that’s nothing like the same.” Daniel opened his eyes wider still, which looked like a bid to take more of a hold on the moment if not to drive back any moisture. “The job’s helping now,” he said, “but that wasn’t the question I thought you’d have.”

“I’d better let you tell me what it ought to be.”

“Weren’t you wondering who I was talking to when you came in?”

“Honestly, Daniel, that’s none of my business. If you’ve found someone—”

“You think I’d be involved with someone else so soon. Or do you think I already was?”

“I’m sorry for presuming. I must have misheard.”

“I don’t think so. Perhaps you missed the obvious.” As if taking pity on me Daniel said,“I was talking to Dorothy, Bill.”

I thought this was quite a distance from the obvious, but stopped my mouth with a drink. “No need to be confused,” Daniel said. “She’s still there. Would you like to hear?”

“Please,” I said, though it didn’t feel much like an invitation.

He took out his phone and opened an album to show me a photograph. “That’s the last I have of her. She wanted me to take it, so I did.”

It had the skewed look of a hasty shot. His wife was sitting up in a hospital bed. She’d lost far more weight than Daniel and was virtually bald, but was matching if not besting the smile I imagined he’d given her.

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