Dark Companions by Ramsey Campbell Page A

others.”
    “It would if it were, but what makes you think it was?”
    “I think it burnt down. Come and see.”
    He was rubbing his forehead, trying to smooth it. “I’ll look later.” His words tripped loosely over one another.
    Perhaps it was only a wall. It wasn’t important now; what mattered was that Paul was on edge. She wiped specks of earth from her glasses, then she turned on the pressure cooker and uncorked the wine. When she went to call him, he was gazing at his empty glass. The rectangular shadow had engulfed the garden. As the afterglow faded from her dazzled eyes, it looked as though an entire foundation had sprouted, dark and vague, from the earth.
    He chattered and joked throughout dinner. Whenever he had problems at work he always laughed more, to pretend he had none. She’d grown used to the fact that part of him was marked Government Property—a part she would never know. She was used to telling people that she didn’t know her husband’s job. But when he was worried, as now, she couldn’t help feeling cut off from him.
    Boxy shadows stretched into the house. She drew the curtains to make the rooms cosier. The radiators twanged as hot water expanded their veins. Beyond the curtains in the front bedroom a blurred light shone: a car, turning.
    They played backgammon. The circular men tapped around the board, knocking one another onto the central bar, leaping back into the fray. When Paul had drunk enough to be able to sleep, she preceded him upstairs. Was that the same light beyond the curtains? It seemed to be flickering slowly—perhaps a child was playing with a flashlight in the house opposite. It held her attention, so that she failed to hear Paul entering the room.
    He was staring expectantly at her. “Sorry, what was that?” she said.
    “I said, what were you looking at?”
    “That light.”
    “Light?” He sounded confused, a little irritable.
    “That one.” She parted the curtains, but there was only the tree before the streetlamp, an intricate cut-out flattened by the sodium light. Had the child hidden on glimpsing her shadow? She lay beside Paul, and felt him twitch repeatedly back from the edge of sleep. His restlessness made her want to raise her head and peer towards the window. She lay, eyes closed, trying to share her sleepiness with him.
     
     
    The bricks refused to shift. Very well, she’d build a rockery over them. In the afternoon she walked down to the beach. The sea leapt up the rocks and shouted in her ears. The high wind nuzzled her face violently, deafening her. As she tramped home with an armful of rocks, sand stung her eyes and swarmed on her glasses.
    Though her eyes were watering, she piled her collection on top of the bricks. The arrangement looked sparse; she would need at least one more forage before it looked impressive. Still, it hid the bricks.
    She had to keep dabbing her eyes while she prepared dinner. The gas sounded jerky—but that was only her hearing, trying to return to her. After dinner, when she drew the curtains, she could hardly see out of the bedroom window or hear the murmur of the town. Was the child playing tricks again? Certainly a light was flickering. She groped her way to the bathroom to mop her eyes.
    All evening Paul told jokes, some of which she hadn’t heard before. “Have another drink,” he kept insisting, as though that would make her a more appreciative audience. Oh, what was worrying him? Could it be the very nature of his job? No, he’d come to terms with that long ago. Though she had never seen him so much as threaten violence, he felt no such reticence over national defence.
    She followed him upstairs. He was swaying a little beneath the burden of alcohol; she hoped it would drag him down into sleep. When he went into the bathroom she could still feel his tension, entangled with her nerves. She’d neglected to draw the bedroom curtains when her eyes had been smarting. She strode to the window and halted, coughing