Holes for Faces by Ramsey Campbell

Author:Ramsey Campbell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Dark Regions Press
Published: 2013-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

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Tunstall thought he hadn’t slept when the phone rang. He clutched it and sat up on the bed, which felt too bare and wide by half. On the bedside table the photograph of him with Gwyneth in the sunlit mountains far away was waiting to be seen once more, and beyond it the curtains framed a solitary feeble midnight star. He rubbed his aching eyes to help them focus on the mobile as he thumbed the keypad. “Hello?” he said before he’d finished lifting the phone to his face.

“Forgive me, is this Charlie?”

The sight of Gwyneth’s name on the midget screen had raised his hopes, but the voice belonged to somebody he’d never met. “Charles Tunstall,” he had to say, “yes.”

“Excuse me, Mr Tunstall. Your name is showing up on this phone as the last person called.”

“I know.” He couldn’t leave it at that, and he said “It’s my wife’s.”

“We hoped so.” While the pause after the first word was close to imperceptible, the woman seemed to have to get ready to add “I’m afraid Mrs Tunstall—”

“What? Go on, for God’s sake.”

Why did he need to interrupt? It only delayed her saying “Your wife has had an accident, Mr Tunstall.”

He felt as if they were rehearsing a script whose triteness simply made it more painful. “What’s happened?” he said and was unable to go on.

“We believe she missed her footing on the escalator at the shopping precinct.”

He knew it all too well. He’d always stood in front of her or held her hand to keep her steady as the metal steps bore them eighty feet down. Why couldn’t the friends with whom she’d been dining have looked after her as he did? If she’d wanted to demonstrate her independence by setting off home on her own, why couldn’t she at least have held tight to the banisters? Tunstall tried to take a breath before saying his next overused line. “How is she?”

“She’s on her way to the hospital. Do you know where that is?”

He resented the question almost as much as the lack of information. “Of course I know.”

“You might want to make your way over as soon as possible. Can you drive, or is there somebody who can?”

“I’m not that far gone yet. I can drive myself.”

“How close are you?”

Though he was desperate to reduce the answer, he had to say “Fifteen minutes.”

“That should do it, Mr Tunstall.”

Tunstall struggled not to demand what she meant. “I’m on my way,” he said.

He was. As he’d dashed across the bedroom Gwyneth’s wardrobe had crept open with a jangle of hangers like the sound of a deadened alarm. Her bathrobe had slipped from the hook on the bathroom door to lie white and motionless beside the shower. The dormant beds in the next room had put him in mind of goodnights, of Gwyneth stooping to kiss the grandchildren. He’d taken the stairs two precarious treads at a time, so clumsily the house had seemed to shake. The kitchen calendar was scrawled

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