NAOMI'S ROOM -- Big disappointment. (NO SPOILERS)
Mark Dillon
I sincerely hope that Jonathan Aycliffe's later ghost stories are
much better than NAOMI'S ROOM.
I'm also beginning to realize just how spoiled I've been by
LeFanu, Aickman and Hartley... but that's another story.
For me, the plot began to fall apart when Hillenbrand tells
Detective Allison to look for a man named <NO SPOILER>, and
Allison does *not* do what any competent policeman would do:
interrogate Hillenbrand. "Just who is <> ? What do you know
about him? How are you involved in this?" are the sort of
questions any detective would ask....
And a few chapters later, they do it *again*. Allison
walks away without asking the obvious question: "How the
hell did you ever find out about < >... and who is this new
guy you're telling me to search for?"
This is as annoying to me as those teenagers in horror films
who hear a gurgling cry from the cellar... and go down into
the dark, one by one, to have a look.
Yes, the book is crisply written and held my attention, but
it lacks the sinister atmosphere, the tension and the dreamlike
logic that I find -- in LeFanu, Aickman and Hartley.
And as for final chapters, well... the FRIDAY THE 13TH fans
will love 'em.
So please, let me know: has Aycliffe written better books...
or should I just be looking for a better writer?
Mark Dillon
PS. Sorry to sound so bitter, but I had heard good things
about Aycliffe and was looking forward to reading him.
rbm...@library.syr.edu
dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Mark Dillon) wrote:
>
> I sincerely hope that Jonathan Aycliffe's later ghost stories are
> much better than NAOMI'S ROOM.
>
> I'm also beginning to realize just how spoiled I've been by
> LeFanu, Aickman and Hartley... but that's another story.
Weren't you at least a little impressed by the pervading, almost
palpable sense of melancholy in the early chapters? The first half
especially exudes a sense of sadness, loss and fear. I'll stand by what
I said last week: the first half of the novel left me more uneasy than
any novel I've read since _Ghost Story_. The second half not so much,
but I thought it was, as you say, crisply written, and the denouement
prefigured by earlier events.
> For me, the plot began to fall apart when Hillenbrand tells
> Detective Allison to look for a man named <NO SPOILER>, and
> Allison does *not* do what any competent policeman would do:
> interrogate Hillenbrand. "Just who is <> ? What do you know
> about him? How are you involved in this?" are the sort of
> questions any detective would ask....
>
> And a few chapters later, they do it *again*. Allison
> walks away without asking the obvious question: "How the
> hell did you ever find out about < >... and who is this new
> guy you're telling me to search for?"
>
> This is as annoying to me as those teenagers in horror films
> who hear a gurgling cry from the cellar... and go down into
> the dark, one by one, to have a look.
It's a first person narrator, picking and choosing details. More than
once I had the feeling of things pared away, whittled down to the
narrative need. Can't say I felt I was losing anything important,
though.
> Yes, the book is crisply written and held my attention, but
> it lacks the sinister atmosphere, the tension and the dreamlike
> logic that I find -- in LeFanu, Aickman and Hartley.
>
> And as for final chapters, well... the FRIDAY THE 13TH fans
> will love 'em.
No. Not that bad. The violence is there, but still more implied than
shown. Certainly it's not as all out gory as some of the splatterpunk
work I've seen.
Randy
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Mark Dillon
Randy (rbm...@library.syr.edu) wrote:
>Weren't you at least a little impressed by the pervading, almost
>palpable sense of melancholy in the early chapters? The first half
>especially exudes a sense of sadness, loss and fear. I'll stand by what
>I said last week: the first half of the novel left me more uneasy than
>any novel I've read since _Ghost Story_. The second half not so much,
>but I thought it was, as you say, crisply written, and the denouement
>prefigured by earlier events.
I wanted to like NAOMI'S ROOM.
For one thing, it's short. Aycliffe writes with economy, which
in my view automatically sets the book in a higher category
than the bloated bestsellers on the horror shelves.
For another, it works primarily through implication and subtle
detail, which shows a great deal of faith in the reader's
ability to add one and one to get five.
But for me, the book fell flat... partly because of the plot absurdities
I mentioned earlier, but mostly because of something I find hard
to express --
The book is too straightforward. It lacks a quality that can
be found in other ghost stories by LeFanu, L. P. Hartley,
Robert Aickman, M. John Harrison, Bernard Capes... and in
works outside the field by Durrell, Ballard, Golding and Greene:
a certain heightened atmosphere, a visual super-realism
that comes close to paranoia, an almost dream-like sense
that the world is deeply wrong, a tension in which everything
around you becomes unfamiliar.
I'm not doing very well, am I?
A sense of mystery. A sense of the uncanny and the arbitrary.
A feeling that certain things can never be explained.
The illogical logic that you find in dreams.
For me, Aycliffe is far too *tidy* and rational in his approach
to the fantastic. He gives his ghost a history and a motive, and in the
end reveals just why Hillenbrand and his daughter have been singled
out as targets.
All very reasonable... but hardly *strange*.
Mark Dillon
rba...@hotmail.com
dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Mark Dillon) wrote:
>
> Randy (rbm...@library.syr.edu) wrote:
>
> >Weren't you at least a little impressed by the pervading, almost
> >palpable sense of melancholy in the early chapters? The first half
(and trim...)
> The book is too straightforward. It lacks a quality that can
> be found in other ghost stories by LeFanu, L. P. Hartley,
> Robert Aickman, M. John Harrison, Bernard Capes... and in
> works outside the field by Durrell, Ballard, Golding and Greene... (and a little off the sideburns)
Ack. Well, I can't argue with your alternatives, Mark ! Those guys are
favorites of mine, too, and Aycliffe, though certainly worth reading, isn't
really in a class with those giants. He would have been a contender had he
maintained that first half mood that Randy indicated, which was easily the
best part of the book. I expressed a similar opinion awhile back when I said
this was a ghost story that turned into a horror story.
How about a segue into some Hartley? We've beaten Aickman black and blue on
this ng, and pilloried LeFanu (affectionately, of course!); I won't even
mention how Rob and I have gone round and round on Oliver Onions...(ixnay on
the Oe-Pay being a ost-ghay story writer, by the way-- Rob had everyone shun
me publicly after that one; even my own barber cut me) Hartley, though, is
great stuff.
rbadac
William Allison
>I sincerely hope that Jonathan Aycliffe's later ghost stories are
>much better than NAOMI'S ROOM.
august forum, THE MATRIX was regarded as the best, but all were felt
to be "better than average".
>I'm also beginning to realize just how spoiled I've been by
>LeFanu, Aickman and Hartley... but that's another story.
We like stories.
>For me, the plot began to fall apart when Hillenbrand tells
>Detective Allison to look for a man named <NO SPOILER>, and
>Allison does *not* do what any competent policeman would do:
>interrogate Hillenbrand. "Just who is <> ? What do you know
>about him? How are you involved in this?" are the sort of
>questions any detective would ask....
Hmmm...
>And a few chapters later, they do it *again*. Allison
>walks away without asking the obvious question: "How the
>hell did you ever find out about < >... and who is this new
>guy you're telling me to search for?"
Well, with a last name like that you can't really expect much out of
him... Poor guy likely had toilet paper stuck to his shoe as well...
-snip-
Bill A(llison)
--
alt.books.ghost-fiction FAQ
http://home.epix.net/~wallison/abgf_faq.html
William Allison
-snip-
>The book is too straightforward. It lacks a quality that can
>be found in other ghost stories by LeFanu, L. P. Hartley,
>Robert Aickman, M. John Harrison, Bernard Capes... and in
>works outside the field by Durrell, Ballard, Golding and Greene:
>a certain heightened atmosphere, a visual super-realism
>that comes close to paranoia, an almost dream-like sense
>that the world is deeply wrong, a tension in which everything
>around you becomes unfamiliar.
>
>I'm not doing very well, am I?
Not doing well?! You're doing great! You've mentioned LeFanu, Hartley,
Aickman, Harrison, Capes, Durrell, Ballard, Golding and Greene in a single
paragraph. I now feel a sense of completeness in my life- I think tomorrow
I'll step off the curb in front of a bus...
>A sense of mystery. A sense of the uncanny and the arbitrary.
>A feeling that certain things can never be explained.
rbadac?
>The illogical logic that you find in dreams.
Or posts to this newsgroup.
-snip-
Bill A (happy that Marshall Dillon has come to clean up the town)
PS- Welcome to the group, hopefully your server will keep us around.
Randy Money
>
[...]
> For one thing, it's short. Aycliffe writes with economy, which
> in my view automatically sets the book in a higher category
> than the bloated bestsellers on the horror shelves.
>
> For another, it works primarily through implication and subtle
> detail, which shows a great deal of faith in the reader's
> ability to add one and one to get five.
Agreed, wholeheartedly, on both points.
[...]
> The book is too straightforward. It lacks a quality that can
> be found in other ghost stories by LeFanu, L. P. Hartley,
> Robert Aickman, M. John Harrison, Bernard Capes... and in
> works outside the field by Durrell, Ballard, Golding and Greene:
> a certain heightened atmosphere, a visual super-realism
> that comes close to paranoia, an almost dream-like sense
> that the world is deeply wrong, a tension in which everything
> around you becomes unfamiliar.
>
> I'm not doing very well, am I?
I agree with Bill A. You're doing splendidly.
> A sense of mystery. A sense of the uncanny and the arbitrary.
> A feeling that certain things can never be explained.
>
> The illogical logic that you find in dreams.
>
> For me, Aycliffe is far too *tidy* and rational in his approach
> to the fantastic. He gives his ghost a history and a motive, and in the
> end reveals just why Hillenbrand and his daughter have been singled
> out as targets.
>
> All very reasonable... but hardly *strange*.
This is, partly, what I referred to when I said, under another thread,
"I wouldn't rank it [_Naomi's Room_] with _The Haunting of Hill House_
or _Ghost Story_ for literary accomplishment (admittedly, I need to
reread _GS_ before I could defend that statement) ..."
There is no resonance beyond the story. I still felt uneasy on
finishing it, though that disquiet wasn't as intense as through the
first half, but it didn't open the world to me like the ending of
Jackson's novel does. At the end of _The Haunting..._ and of Henry
James' _The Turn of the Screw_, there are so many questions left
unanswered, and you are allowed to provide "rational" or -- what?
"spiritual"? answers of your own.
I found _Naomi's Room_ entertaining -- it's written with an intelligence
and stylishness you don't always find in genre fiction. I might even
read it again in a few years, after the effect has been blunted by
time. I will certainly read _The Matrix_ and _The Lost_. Still, I
agree that Aycliffe was content with following the course of his plot,
providing rational, unquestionable motivations. But that limits his
effect, and he missed the opportunity to let that effect widen out
beyond the covers of the book.
Humpf. Not doing so good myself. Let's just say I figure any book I
finish within a week of starting it must have something going for it.
If it didn't quite provide me with the literary tingle I hope for, it
provided me with more entertainment than most horror genre novels.
Randy
William Allison
>How about a segue into some Hartley? We've beaten Aickman black and blue on
>this ng, and pilloried LeFanu (affectionately, of course!); I won't even
>mention how Rob and I have gone round and round on Oliver Onions...(ixnay on
>the Oe-Pay being a ost-ghay story writer, by the way-- Rob had everyone shun
>me publicly after that one; even my own barber cut me) Hartley, though, is
>great stuff.
Hartley has been one of my favorites since I first encountered his "Podolo"
in Charles M. Collins' A HARVEST OF FEAR, and "The Island" in Kirby McCauley's
NIGHT CHILLS. Funny how he should come up, as I just started reading his THE
WHITE WAND a couple of nights ago. It's been a couple of years since I read
THE TRAVELLING GRAVE but I think I could muddle along...
Bill A.
Luc
remainder copies of his Complete Short Stories in Toronto, a few years back.
Although I understand the title "Complete" is not quite correct, it is a
collection I go back to regularly, reading one or two stories at a time.
Would anyone know how many of his stories were left out of this collection,
which collects his four previous collections The Travelling Grave, Night
Fears, Two for the River and Mrs. Carterest Receives? I have seen mentioned
one story that is not in the book, "A Visit to the Dentist", while Ashley's
and Contento's Supernatural Index mentions 3 or 4 that appeard in the Ghost
Book anthologies but were not included in the four collections.
-- Luc
----------
Dans l'article <slrn7r49jr....@unaha-closp.epix.net>,
wall...@epix.net (William Allison ) a écrit :
rba...@hotmail.com
Hartley's fine stories. Soon as I get home, I'll check for some answers to
Luc's earlier question about the ones left out of Beaufort Books' alleged
'Complete' collection.
rbadac, in a hot-air balloon somewhere over Aix-La-Chappelle...no, make that:
'W.S.' I'm very near to you now...whoa, my VCR is falling outta the damn
basket ! Hold on-----
William Allison
>I'm not ready yet, but I'm opening up the floor for discussion of Mr.
>Hartley's fine stories. Soon as I get home, I'll check for some answers to
>Luc's earlier question about the ones left out of Beaufort Books' alleged
>'Complete' collection.
It appears the GHOST BOOK stories not in the Beaufort (itself a reprint
of the 1973 Hamilton (UK) edition) are (date is year published):
"The Sound of Voices" (1971)
"Mrs G.G." (1972)
"The Stain on the Chair" (1973)
Along with "A Visit to the Dentist" that Luc mentioned, this is quite
enough uncollected stories for me to call out for a "Complete Collected
Weirds of L.P. Hartley". And if someone like Jack Adrian is put on the
case, who knows, perhaps some additional stories might turn up.
Considering Hartley's final collection, MRS CARTERET RECEIVES, was
published in 1971, these missing stories would be among the very last
things that he wrote (Hartley died in 1972). It makes me happy to think
that Hartley, "serious novelist- author of THE GO-BETWEEN" was cranking
out ghost stories up until his death.
Bill A. (finishing up THE WHITE WAND, post to follow...)
Christopher & Barbara Roden
William Allison wrote in message ...
>Along with "A Visit to the Dentist" that Luc mentioned, this is quite
>enough uncollected stories for me to call out for a "Complete Collected
>Weirds of L.P. Hartley". And if someone like Jack Adrian is put on the
>case, who knows, perhaps some additional stories might turn up.
Jack Adrian is currently working on a collection of L.P. Hartley's
supernatural stories for Ash-Tree Press. We envisage publication, subject to
satisfactory rights negotiations, sometime in 2001.
Christopher Roden
William Allison
Oh Joy! It's Christmas in August...
Bill A. (wondering if this counts as instant gratification...)
rba...@hotmail.com
which serves his ghosts well, giving them a lingering awfulness; but when one
looks at a few of his non- or quasi-supernatural stories, one realizes that
this awfulness was there first. It only periodically holds the door open for
a spectre. The rotting corpse rubs elbows with the murderer, and both laugh
at the madman's jokes. Amidst the banter and genteel complexities of the rest
of Hartley's characters, they practically blend in; but there is little doubt
who hosts the party.
Most of Hartley's genre classics are found in THE TRAVELING GRAVE (1948), but
there is worthwhile effort in examining his other collections for the odd
horrific gem. Bill A. is posting on THE WHITE WAND (1954), so I'll do a
companion piece on TWO FOR THE RIVER (1961), which reveals some particularly
disturbing examples.
In 'The Corner Cupboard,' Philip Holroyd takes a house in the country to
escape the London bombing. He hires, unseen, a cook named Mrs Weaver, who
comes with some faintly disconcerting references. After discovering that she
nursed a late husband (who played with toy soldiers) in his final illness,
has an aversion to tortoise-shell, and is inconveniently in love with him,
Philip notices that the medicine bottles he keeps in the corner cupboard have
been arranged like armies. This becomes more sinister when, upon his
perceived friendliness with the day woman, Mrs Featherstone, Philip returns
to the cupboard to find a strange tableaux there, constructed of bits and
pieces of his first-aid kit, after which Mrs Featherstone is mysteriously
taken ill...
'Interference' concerns a landlord, Cyril Hutchinson, who lets rooms to the
Trimbles; all goes well at first, until the Trimbles begin to complain of
someone 'interfering' with their belongings. Having the only passkeys, Cyril
is immediately suspected, and his relationship with them deteriorates. The
odious subservience of Cyril's gardener, Mr Snow, and a vision or dream of
Cyril's, in which a large mustached man wishes to rent the Trimbles' vacated
rooms in order to look for something there which belongs to him, send this
tale spiralling off into territory made familiar by a certain author of our
acquaintance with the middle name Fordyce.
'The Pampas Clump' is bizarre and not a little infuriating. The fragility of
some of Hartley's people is usually made much of, but for all that the
collapse of Thomas, who is oppressed by the haystack-sized clump alternately
blocking his view and acting as a paranormal filter for it, seems unduly
overreactive. It helps in retrospect to read more into his neurosis early on;
conveyed as usual by Hartley's typically ominous dialogue, who is to say the
germ of insanity is not in fact present? though, alternately, who could see
it if it were?
'The Pylon,' which is psychological horror of a very understated kind, has a
similar effect. Laurie (a boy, but with definite feminine characteristics)
fears and longs for the pylon which has been demolished, and obstructed the
view in much the same fashion as did the Pampas Clump. His father is
perplexed by his son's withdrawal into a fear-charged inner world, but his
attempt to reach out to him backfires. Nary an irrational occurrence in it,
but the story is fraught with irrational dread.
To return to the sunshine of uncompromised horror, we have 'Someone In The
Lift,' as grim a tale of childhood fatalism as could be imagined. Peter
Maldon can see an indistinct figure in the hotel lift where he and his
parents are staying during the Christmas season. His mother seeks to convince
him otherwise, and his father jokes that it is Father Christmas. Whom it
proves to be is one of the nastiest shocks in all of Hartley.
And 'The Waits' is another Christmas offering; Henry Marriner's family
celebration is interrupted by carolers ('waits'), a man and a boy. He sends
first his daughter Anne, and later his son Jeremy to offer the carolers a
shilling, but both return with the news that 'it is not enough.' They want
what Henry gave them last year. An excellent ghost story.
http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data2/spcoll/lhart/
http://www.sff.net/locus/s344.html#A6750
rbadac
William Allison
but will be a full supper/dinner (have we sorted out the difference?) for
those who enjoy fine writing in-genre or out.
Of the fourteen stories in the collection, four are of ghostly interest:
"A Summons"- The nameless narrator's little sister once told him that if
she ever dreamed she was being murdered, she would knock on the wall for
him to come to her aid. One night he wakes to a tapping on the wall...
"W.S."- I'm guessing this must be one of the most well-known stories
outside of those in THE TRAVELLING GRAVE. Walter Streeter begins to
receive mysterious postcards from a "W.S.". The cards seem friendly
enough at first, but take on a subtly darker tone which corresponds to
the return address on the card getting *closer* to Walter with each one.
As the arrival of W.S. becomes emminent, Walter secures a promise from
the local police to keep a watch on his home. He is relieved to see the
policeman on watch outside, and later, invites the fellow in to warm up.
Shortly after, the phone rings- it's the police station, apologizing for
not sending someone around... (I have a feeling that one of the major
devices in "W.S." was used by King in THE DARK HALF, but as I haven't
read the latter I'm not sure- has anyone read both? Comments?)
"The Two Vaynes"- Vayne was vain. What else could explain his having a
garden statue made up of himself? And what about the disappearance of
Postgate at an earlier party of Vaynes? It was said Postgate had a hand
in Vayne giving up the chairmanship. Funny how the statue of Vayne was
made of a different material than the other statues in the garden, and
how during a bizarre nocturnal game of hide-and-seek (recalling the one
in "The Travelling Grave") it seems to have left its pedestal...
"Monkshood Manor"- Poor Victor Chisholm has a fear of fires that often
causes him to get up at all hours and go check on any fireplaces that may
have been left burning at bedtime. When he is a guest, hosts have learned
to accept these wee-hour ramblings. Monkshood Manor was built, legend
has it, using some of the stones from a Abbey that had been pulled down.
Legend also has it that one of the monks had sworn to come back and start
a fire to burn down the manor. This is one of the more Jamesian of LPH's
stories. I say, is that smoke? From the smell though, it would appear
something other than wood is burning...
I found the non-horror pieces to be equally rewarding due to Hartley's
smooth prose style and keen wit. Even in a "straight" story, Hartley
can conjure up a wonderfully weird scene- take "Mr. Blandfoot's Picture":
At nine o'clock the next morning the maid knocked at Mr. Bland-
foot's bedroom door--knocked several times, though with an air
of misgiving. At last she heard a growl: 'Come in!' The room
was so dark she could see nothing and paused on the threshold.
'How often have I told you,' said a voice, 'not to come until
I ring.'
'Yes, sir,' said the maid, timidly.
'Well, come in, if you're coming,' said the voice, still im-
placable.
There was a vast heaving movement on the bed.
'Now the curtains, now the blinds, now the hot water, now the
bath,' the voice chanted rapidly and irritably, 'and you haven't
told me why you came at all yet.'
'Please, sir,' said the maid, stumbling towards the window,
'there's a letter marked "urgent", so I thought----'
'Why didn't you say so before?' snapped the voice. 'Well,
hand it over.'
But in her flurry the maid had dropped the letter. She groped
for it on the floor, obscurely feeling that she must not pull up
the blind until she had given her master the letter. She did not
know whereabouts in the room she was; she thought she must be near
the bed, but she was afraid to touch it and every moment her
movements grew more rigid.
'I had it only just now,' she murmured, almost crying.
'Clumsy, clumsy,' admonished the voice, in gentler accents.
'Here, I've got it.'
'Oh, that's all right then, sir,' said the maid, almost gasping
with relief.
'No,' said the voice, drawing nearer.
'I want you to give it to me.'
Bewildered, the maid held out her hand in the darkness.
'No, just a little more this way,' persuaded the voice, still
advancing to meet her.
Again she stumbled forward in the gloom, her hand stretched
stiff like a fencer's. Mr. Blandfoot seemed to have reared himself
up in the bed: she could see a vague outline towering above her.
'A shade to the left now,' said the voice.
The maid obeyed.
'And now straight into the letter-box.'
She made a half-hearted prodding movement. Something caught her
finger: a sharp pain ran down her arm. She called out, and the
whole room was suddenly flooded with light. Afterwards she
realized it must have been electric light; but at the time she was
only aware of the pain, of the sight of her finger wedged between
Mr. Blandfoot's large irregular teeth, and of his face looking down
at her with a smile that had no kindness in it. The blankets were
tumbled together in the middle of the bed; the floor, as much of it
as she could see, was lumpy with sorry-looking underclothes: the
biscuit-coloured walls refracted the unsympathetic light, as did
also Mr. Blandfoot's parchment-coloured face. The spiritless,
yellow hues around her were infinitely uncomforting; she felt the
world beginning to dissolve.
Great stuff...
Bill A.
William Allison
>There is something extremely uncomfortable in L.P. Hartley. It is a quality
>which serves his ghosts well, giving them a lingering awfulness; but when one
>looks at a few of his non- or quasi-supernatural stories, one realizes that
>this awfulness was there first. It only periodically holds the door open for
>a spectre. The rotting corpse rubs elbows with the murderer, and both laugh
>at the madman's jokes. Amidst the banter and genteel complexities of the rest
>of Hartley's characters, they practically blend in; but there is little doubt
>who hosts the party.
Hartley seems to have become a bit of a forgotten man of ghost-fiction in
recent years. Beyond a couple of appearances in Cox and Dalby, and a few
others here and there, his anthology presence is underwhelming. He didn't
make Hartwell's THE DARK DESCENT for some odd (to me anyway) reason.
>Most of Hartley's genre classics are found in THE TRAVELING GRAVE (1948), but
>there is worthwhile effort in examining his other collections for the odd
>horrific gem. Bill A. is posting on THE WHITE WAND (1954), so I'll do a
>companion piece on TWO FOR THE RIVER (1961), which reveals some particularly
>disturbing examples.
After reading THE WHITE WAND, I was pleasantly surprised by how many
stories fell into the ghostly/fantastic/horrorific catagory in TWO FOR
THE RIVER. While WW had 4 of 14 in-genre, TFTR has 8 of 14 in-genre
(my original count was 7, but I wasn't counting "The Pylon"). Part of
the fun of these "mixed" collections is that you never know ahead of
time if a given story will be scary or not- you have to read it and see.
>In 'The Corner Cupboard,' Philip Holroyd takes a house in the country to
>escape the London bombing. He hires, unseen, a cook named Mrs Weaver, who
>comes with some faintly disconcerting references. After discovering that she
>nursed a late husband (who played with toy soldiers) in his final illness,
>has an aversion to tortoise-shell, and is inconveniently in love with him,
>Philip notices that the medicine bottles he keeps in the corner cupboard have
>been arranged like armies. This becomes more sinister when, upon his
>perceived friendliness with the day woman, Mrs Featherstone, Philip returns
>to the cupboard to find a strange tableaux there, constructed of bits and
>pieces of his first-aid kit, after which Mrs Featherstone is mysteriously
>taken ill...
>
>'Interference' concerns a landlord, Cyril Hutchinson, who lets rooms to the
>Trimbles; all goes well at first, until the Trimbles begin to complain of
>someone 'interfering' with their belongings. Having the only passkeys, Cyril
>is immediately suspected, and his relationship with them deteriorates. The
>odious subservience of Cyril's gardener, Mr Snow, and a vision or dream of
>Cyril's, in which a large mustached man wishes to rent the Trimbles' vacated
>rooms in order to look for something there which belongs to him, send this
>tale spiralling off into territory made familiar by a certain author of our
>acquaintance with the middle name Fordyce.
I think an important aspect of Hartley is his (along with Walter de la
Mare's) influence on Big Bob.
>'The Pampas Clump' is bizarre and not a little infuriating. The fragility of
>some of Hartley's people is usually made much of, but for all that the
>collapse of Thomas, who is oppressed by the haystack-sized clump alternately
>blocking his view and acting as a paranormal filter for it, seems unduly
>overreactive. It helps in retrospect to read more into his neurosis early on;
>conveyed as usual by Hartley's typically ominous dialogue, who is to say the
>germ of insanity is not in fact present? though, alternately, who could see
>it if it were?
>
>'The Pylon,' which is psychological horror of a very understated kind, has a
>similar effect. Laurie (a boy, but with definite feminine characteristics)
>fears and longs for the pylon which has been demolished, and obstructed the
>view in much the same fashion as did the Pampas Clump. His father is
>perplexed by his son's withdrawal into a fear-charged inner world, but his
>attempt to reach out to him backfires. Nary an irrational occurrence in it,
>but the story is fraught with irrational dread.
This one was so understated, I'd classed it a "straight"...
>To return to the sunshine of uncompromised horror, we have 'Someone In The
>Lift,' as grim a tale of childhood fatalism as could be imagined. Peter
>Maldon can see an indistinct figure in the hotel lift where he and his
>parents are staying during the Christmas season. His mother seeks to convince
>him otherwise, and his father jokes that it is Father Christmas. Whom it
>proves to be is one of the nastiest shocks in all of Hartley.
I'd agree that this one is as far as I've seen Hartley go "over the top".
>And 'The Waits' is another Christmas offering; Henry Marriner's family
>celebration is interrupted by carolers ('waits'), a man and a boy. He sends
>first his daughter Anne, and later his son Jeremy to offer the carolers a
>shilling, but both return with the news that 'it is not enough.' They want
>what Henry gave them last year. An excellent ghost story.
Indeed. Here's a fine exchange between Mrs Marriner and her daughter
Anne, after Henry gets out his pistol and goes to the door to confront
the waits:
'But it isn't any good, it isn't any good!' Anne kept repeating.
'What isn't any good, darling?'
'The pistol. You see, I've seen through him!'
'How do you mean, seen through him? Do you mean he's an imposter?'
'No, no. I've really seen through him,' Anne's voice sank to a
whisper. 'I saw the street light shining through a hole in his head.'
I'd add to your tally, "The Crossways", a fairy-talesque story that made
me think of "Conrad and the Dragon"; and "Per Far L'Amore", a story in the
mode of "The Island"- non-supernatural, but horrific just the same. I was
tricked by the latter story, thinking it was a "straight" story until the
gut-punch ending. Hopefully this non-supernatural sort of horror piece
will be included in the forthcoming Ash-Tree collection.
Bill A.
rba...@hotmail.com
by L.P. Hardly
Roger Pettibone stepped quickly into the compartment and pulled the door shut
behind him.
The figure on the seat did not move. Its hat was pulled down over its eyes,
and the lumpy greatcoat it wore supported this accessory as stolidly as a
kettle supports its lid. Roger sat down opposite. 'That was a near thing.
Train almost left without me,' he said airily.
He received no reply-- should he have? His own remark was not motivated by
any genuine *bonhommie*, only the casual conversational pearl one throws to
strange swine, made more for the speaker's benefit than the listener's. A
reply would indeed have been odious, malapropos, totally undeserved. So he
pressed on, as if to apologize for speaking at all.
'They're expecting me in Clacton this evening. I've been made a seat on the
Advisory Committee. The youngest ever chosen,' he added, with as much wonder
as pride. It did seem unreal to him. The stranger shifted in his seat, but
said nothing.
Roger was nonplussed. Really, but this was unendurable. The stranger hadn't
asked for his company, true, but it was a public train after all. Surely in
the interests of common courtesy he should have said something by now, even
if only to tell Roger he'd rather not be bothered. Roger considered what his
response to this might have been. It was not an appetizing prospect. He
should have been compelled to change cars. It might not be a bad idea still.
His cowardice shamed him, and he found himself glancing up at the baggage
niche directly above his fellow passenger. A battered brown valise with a
well-worn leather handle trembled slightly with the motion of the train.
'Do you travel this line often?' he asked in a sudden burst of enthusiasm.
His embarrassment was putting him on the offensive he knew, but it felt
better to him than being cut into social quietus.
The hat lifted slightly, and Roger thought he could see the gleam of an eye.
'As often as I do,' was the response, in an oddly high-pitched voice. 'Yes,
you could certainly say that was often enough.'
Now it was Roger's turn to be reluctant to speak, as he pondered this vague
and vaguely malicious reply. The situation seemed utterly senseless; he
himself didn't care to talk in trains, and was regretting having had such an
active hand in the present exchange. But he was caught and he knew it.
'Salesman?' he persisted, with the volubility of the doomed.
The figure shook with a mild fit. Roger noticed that the suitcase was at that
moment perfectly still.
'Manufacturer,' answered his companion before Roger could take offense at his
amusement. Roger was on the point of asking what the man manufactured, but
remembered just in time that he didn't care. So he nodded, as if in grateful
acknowledgement, as if this bit of information carried all the weight
required, and then some. He was suddenly glad there was not a third in their
party.
His seat cushion was miserably thin, and absorbed few of the ongoing small
shocks of train travel. It seemed to be filled with rocks and bundles of
twigs. This struck him as a convenient distraction upon which to privately
expend his ire, though his counterpart didn't seem to notice any deficiency
in his. Surely they were all of them the same. He sat there, toadlike;
accustomed, perhaps, by long acquaintance, or possessed of a hardier
constitution. His reserve seemed to diminish the issue.
Still his own cushion *was* uncomfortable, and Roger struggled to find a
position adequate for him in which to relax. He was conscious of an inertia
in the air, not relievable by occasional glances out the window, where the
formless landscape rolled past like the inside of a magic-lantern wheel. He
felt closed-in and melancholy. Something nagged at his memory, like an
unintelligible echo, some event from the past; he should be alarmed, he knew,
but he felt nothing, only this weird malaise...
He didn't mean to, but jumped anyway when next the stranger spoke. 'I'm all
for comfort when I travel. I like to see people at their ease.' He said this,
and his huddled shape shook once again with mirth. Roger could not tell if he
was being mocked or not, and took up the argument for his own self-respect.
'I don't see how you manage it on this train, at any rate,' he complained.
'Do you have the time?' the stranger asked suddenly.
Roger looked at his watch. 'Half past seven,' he said. It had the effect of
dislocating the conversation, as the other seemed to lose all awareness of
Roger's presence, but proceeded to rock back and forth, muttering, 'Half past
seven. Half past seven.'
Roger began to wonder if his traveling companion might not be a little mad.
One read the stories in the newspapers of course, though there was always in
the mind that personal conviction that these affairs were only outcomes of
scenarios long in the making; nothing of that sort could creep up unnoticed
on a person of reasonable intelligence, he was sure.
But better safe than sorry, he decided, and he was on the point of excusing
himself and going to find another car when the stranger spoke up again. 'It
isn't right that paying customers should suffer,' he asserted, and Roger
could not help but agree. 'Quite so. Do you think we should complain to the
management?'
In answer, the stranger leaned forward until the brim of his hat nearly
touched Roger's forehead. 'I think we should take matters into our own
hands,' he said, and extended his own.
* * * * *
The conductor, making his round, stopped in the empty compartment. He thought
he had seen the young gentleman go in, but there was no one here now, and the
window shutter was pulled down. His puzzlement registered behind voluminous
whiskers when he saw the suitcase still in the niche above the seat.
He was sure the young man had carried no luggage. This must have been left by
a previous passenger. He checked the number on the faded tag, consulted a
list in his pocket, and frowned.
Back in the office, the number was found to belong to no known passenger on
that day's run. The sequence was an old one, and Faiers, the dispatcher,
compared it to his records of years previous.
His face darkened. The conductor said, 'No omission, I hope?'
'He's here, all right,' Faiers answered. ' Thurgood Pritchard. You remember
that name, I'll wager.'
The conductor paused a moment, then realization struck him. 'Impossible,' he
croaked.
'Highly unlikely, that's for certain. They combed the train for his little
souvenirs just after he had his last tumble, didn't they?' Faiers made a
noise of disgust. 'A right mess, that was. Went under the wheels trying to
get away.'
'No worse a mess than the ones he made,' the conductor recalled. 'I had
dreams after that. They ruined me. Don't know how I stuck it. Why would his
suitcase turn up after all this time?' he wondered. They stared at the object
in question, mute on the wooden table under the single bare bulb.
'Should we call the police first?' Faiers asked.
The conductor looked grim. 'Time enough for that if there's anything here.'
He set his face and released the catches on the valise.
It opened easily. The conductor stepped back, out of reflex. When no
immediate surprises were forthcoming, he and Faiers peered inside.
The suitcase was stuffed full of cotton batting, handfuls of it, looking as
if it had been ripped out of old upholstery.
The End