Thieving Fear by Ramsey Campbell

work feels bloated. Try to slim it down.'

SEVEN
    As Charlotte looked away from the poster of a flooded St Mark's Square the restaurant manager said 'Have you gone?'
    'To Venice? Only in my dreams.'
    'She ought to make them real, shouldn't she, Fausto?' Glen said and pointed at her with the grappa bottle. 'You could be there quicker than it took us to eat dinner. You can sink into the past like nowhere else I know.'
    The thought of being shut in an aeroplane for hours made the small noisy Venetian restaurant feel cramped. 'Sink looks like the word,' she said.
    Despite the lamps reflected in the water, she could easily have taken the black expanse for mud that was about to engulf the dim basilica. The impression seemed to darken the lanterns on the tables and to shade the manager's already swarthy face, unless her remark had pained him. 'I meant it's not the best advertisement,' she said.
    'Our daughter took it. We asked for it so big.'
    'It's a great photograph. She must be talented.'
    'Your family's creative too, right, Charlotte?'
    'Some of us are.'
    She meant to leave herself out, but the manager was grinning at Glen. 'Is she another of your writers?'
    'I'm just a colleague.'
    'Hey, less of the just.'
    ' Bella , anyhow.' The manager pinched a kiss from his lips to flick towards Charlotte. Perhaps he was indicating the grappa, since he added 'On the house.'
    ' Bella for sure, Fausto. The end to a perfect evening.'
    The manager gave Charlotte a comical frown. 'Don't say it is the end.'
    As he sidled away between the tables, pulling in his proud dinner-suited stomach so as not to dislodge a pink-check tablecloth, Charlotte murmured 'Another in what sense?'
    At first she wasn't sure that Glen had heard, given the Vivaldi that had joined the uproar, having lent the restaurant its name. He rested his gaze on her before saying 'A girl I was seeing wanted to write us a book. It didn't work out.'
    'Sorry to hear it.'
    'I should have known you shouldn't get too close to your writers.'
    'Are you saying I am? Gosh, that's more than enough.'
    He'd replenished her liqueur glass to the brim. As he refilled his own he said 'Not so long as you can be an editor. How's work progressing on your cousin's book?'
    'I've sent her the suggestions.'
    Glen stoppered the grappa, none too firmly. 'Any comeback yet?'
    'She's had a new idea.'
    'Fine if it works with ours. Sounds like we triggered her imagination.'
    'An idea for another book.'
    'OK then, sounds like she's productive. Don't forget your drink.'
    Charlotte had a sip of brandy to fire up her enthusiasm. 'Four people share some kind of magical experience but they don't realise till years later when it starts to affect all their lives.'
    'Go on,' Glen said and more than matched her sip.
    'That's all so far. Maybe she doesn't want to risk developing it till she's had a response.'
    'We need to see how she shapes up with Bad Old Things . If she fixes that I guess we'd want to option her next novel. Did you talk to her?'
    'Not yet.'
    'You could tell her that. Could be it's what she needs.'
    'All right, I will.' Charlotte felt as if she'd neglected her cousin, although she had been waiting to speak to Glen. 'I'll call her now,' she said. 'I'll be outside.'
    Ellen's soft voice couldn't have competed with the din, but as Charlotte unfolded her mobile beside a dormant streetlamp under the nine o'clock sky she realised how oppressive she'd begun to find the boisterous dimness. If there hadn't been so many people spilling off the pavements of Camden Road, outside would have been more of a relief. The phone had almost rung enough to rouse the answering service before the simulated bell subsided. 'Is that my author?' Charlotte said.
    'Would you want it to be, Charlotte?'
    'I wouldn't have written all that to you otherwise.'
    'I knew really. Thanks for spending so much time on me. You're not still at work, are you? You sound shut in.'
    'I'm not. I'm outside a restaurant.'
    'Not dining alone, I hope.'
    'I've