Think Yourself Lucky

  Ramsey Campbell

  First published in the UK in 2014. This epub is version 1.0, released December 2014.

  For Mark and Nel with love—

  we survive...

  ONE

  "Hello?" It was the last word they ever spoke, but by no means the last sound they made.

  TWO

  "It isn't even in the paper," Emily said, and patches of her small neat face flared pink. "They don't want some people to be heard." Helen tilted her head as if her sympathetic grimace had pulled it awry, and Bill ducked towards the gap under the window of the currency desk.

  "Who's they?"

  As his long thin face offered its habitual smile Helen retorted "Anyone who makes a joke of that kind of thing."

  David felt anxious to head off an argument. "Emily, can we help?"

  Andrea raised her broad face as if she meant to head off any disagreement with her pointed chin. "Just by leaving it, David."

  "He was on the phone, Andrea. He didn't hear," Emily said and told him "I was saying a friend of my dad's was attacked outside his house. He was punched in the face when he was only trying to defend his daughter. She was being stalked on her way home from school by a man who lives across the road in what's supposed to be a care home."

  "There are too many of them out on the streets," Helen said and twirled a finger like a mime of drilling her close-cropped red-haired scalp. "Nobody cares enough."

  "They blamed her and her dad and let the man off," Emily said as her face grew more thoroughly pink. "They said she should have phoned the police, and her dad's a community policeman. Only the police said it it would be his word against the man's, and the man would have his social worker in court."

  "Antisocial, more like," Helen said, "Working against the rest of us who know how to behave."

  Andrea emitted a cough to put a full stop to the discussion and stood up to take an armful of holiday brochures to the racks. "Well, we've all got work to do," she said.

  David wondered if she meant to make sure his parents weren't brought into the argument, but he suspected she was only being managerial. He might even have called it officious, since just now his and Emily's and Helen's work consisted of waiting for their phones to be answered by anything more than an automatic response. He watched Andrea file the brochures—Winter Wonders, Spring Forward, Summery Summaries, Crucial Cruises—and then unlock the door as though hoping to attract custom. All she let in was a gust of February air and the trumpeting of a busker outside the railway station down the hill. "Lucky," David murmured.

  "Watch out, girls," Bill called. "You've got our Dave talking to himself."

  Andrea's glance made it plain that she didn't welcome being called a girl at thirty, even if he had two decades on her. He was one ahead of Helen, and Emily was half his age, a few years short of David. "I'm just saying we're lucky to have jobs," David said, only to feel that something else had been in his mind.

  He heard a living voice on his phone at last as Andrea returned to the counter. The tour operator couldn't help him except by providing another number, which offered him a trio of numbers to select from, and another and another... Five minutes after that an advisor made it clear that David couldn't book extra leg room for his customers on the Maltese flight until next week. He called them and apologised on behalf of Frugogo, and was replacing the phone in its plastic trough when someone came into the shop.

  His sharp face looked drawn taut by enthusiasm. His greying hair trailed at various lengths over the shoulders of his tweed jacket, which was equipped with shiny leather elbows that reminded David of a teacher at his old school. Before David could think why else he seemed familiar, the man came over to him. "David," he said loud enough to be addressing every listener. "Didn't know you were this close."

  David's uncertainty earned him a reproachful blink to go with a vigorous handshake. "Len Kinnear," the man said like rather more than a reminder. "I gave you my bill in the street."

  Andrea contributed a cough. "It didn't use to be like you to owe anything to anybody, David."

  "My handout, love," Kinnear said. "A flyer for my bookshop. That's We're Still Left, just up the hill. We're about empowering the people and giving them a voice."

  "I should think most people have one of those," Helen said without enthusiasm.

  "I'll tell you who's got one if he's let, and that's our David here."

  "I didn't know anyone wasn't letting him," Andrea said.

  "You'd know, would you, love?"

  "If anyone here would," Bill said not quite low enough to be unheard.

  David was acutely aware of her silence, the kind he recognised all too well from their months together. "Anyway," Kinnear said, "remember the invite. Seven o'clock Friday above the shop."

  "What's that for, David?" Emily was eager to learn.

  "We aren't just a bookshop, we run a writers' group," Kinnear said. "All Write."

  "All write as in you think everyone's a writer?" Helen said.

  "They will be now the web's democratising it at last. That's the new culture, only some of them need to be told." When Andrea cleared her throat, a high sharp sound, Kinnear said "Just say you're coming Friday, Dave, and I'll be out of your face."

  Although David knew why Kinnear wanted him, he wouldn't have called it a reason. Before he could answer Kinnear said "Give us a shot, eh? If you find you aren't for us, no bother at all."

  Not least to be rid of him David said "I expect I could give it a chance."

  "A glass of plonk says you won't be sorry. Now here's some real customers instead of me." Kinnear held the door open and observed "As somebody was thinking, about time."

  David couldn't help feeling vindicated when the young couple came straight to him. He sold them a fortnight in Kefalonia while Andrea fixed a man up with a weekend in Prague, and then she turned to David. "I'll have to say he was right in a way," she said, "your friend."

  "Right how? Not about me," David felt compelled to establish.

  "We need to promote ourselves like him, however we have to. We're competing with the internet as well. Any ideas from anybody, I'll be listening."

  Emily parted her pink lips, but only to say "Why does he think you're a writer, David?"

  "It was just a mistake," David said. He was as ordinary as any of his colleagues—if anything, more so. He turned to his computer terminal but couldn't ignore his own thoughts. What was troubling him? Not just Andrea's oppressive interventions, not Bill's heavy humour, not the way Emily and Helen had inadvertently reminded him of the work his parents did. The busker outside the station produced a fanfare that might almost have been mocking David's inability to pin his feelings down. As the computer keys began to clack beneath his fingertips he had a sense that he'd let something out he should never have said.

  THREE

  Who's next? It's Mr Accident, marching back from the shops with a paper rolled up under his arm. Maybe he thinks it makes him look like a soldier with a stick. With his droopy face he reminds me of a dog that's fetched one. "Stick it in your gob," I say, but he's too busy looking for traffic before he waves me out of my drive. "Stay right where you are," I tell him.

  He hitches up the paper and then lifts that arm from the elbow like a robot to shove his ear wider, though it's already big enough to poke a fist in. "Er..."

  "Don't worry about it. I'll be there before you know and then you won't need to hear."

  It's the work of a moment. I've been distracted by our neighbour, who has come out of Binbag Manor to dump more garbage in her bin. He's in the middle of the road and hasn't time to dodge. I thought I was tramping on the brake, but it must have been the accelerator. I floor a pedal as the car lurches out of the drive, and it stalls inches sh
ort of Mr Accident, who staggers backwards and almost trips over the kerb. "Good God, what are you trying to do?" he cries and appeals to Mrs Rubbish. "I didn't even wave him out and he nearly ran me over."

  "I'm truly sorry about that." I am that it was only nearly, and I add "I didn't mean to."

  "You want to be more careful." Mrs Rubbish shuts the bin with a thump like a warning not to open until it's being emptied, and then she jerks her head back as if it's being tugged by her bun of straggly brownish hair. "Whatever have you done to your car?"

  "He bumped into the gateway last week," Mr Accident says as though it wasn't because he waved at me and distracted me into waving back at him. "You can't afford to let your attention wander when you're driving. It's not safe."

  She gives me a maternal look, though at least there's no love in it. "Honestly, what are you like?"

  "Not like you, I hope, and the same goes for him."

  She seems ready to ask what I'm muttering—she's tightened her face so much it reminds me of the bag, which wasn't much paler or more lumpy either—until she hears a groan of machinery along the road. The binmen are approaching, which is the highlight of her week. "Better move so you aren't in their way," she says.

  "Time I was clearing out my gutters," Mr Accident says and marches off as she returns to the doorway of her manor, where the antique door may be all of ten years old. The dumpy house is the same as mine but desperate to look different from the neighbour that's its other half. As I drive away she's waiting to make sure the men whose lives are garbage don't strew the roadway with bins. I've seen her watching from her window in case anybody dares to drop rubbish in one of her bins, and if they try she knocks so hard on the glass I always hope it will crack.

  The sound of the wagon gulping down the garbage seems to have brought more rubbish into the streets. A woman runs to contribute a bag of turds to someone's bin, and she's in such a hurry that she's left a lump on the pavement—presumably her dog's, not hers. A teenager shoves a laptop deep into a bin, as if he wants to make sure nobody can find out what he's been watching, unless he's just ashamed that the computer isn't the latest model. A toddler screams while his father jams a pedal car into a bin, and the screams grow even louder as the plastic cracks. "Having fun playing dad?" I remark, not that I know much about fathers—actually nothing at all.

  The wrecker doesn't seem to hear me for the screams. I'd make sure he didn't like it if he heard. I feel as if I'm swarming with unfinished business all the way to the shops. The winding roads aren’t wide enough for cars to be parked opposite each other, which means a lot are on the pavements, even though they could be on a drive. That must be how the owners stake their territory, along with adding bits to their houses as though this can fool anybody into thinking they're less identical. They might as well wear masks to convince people they have souls, whatever those are. They wouldn't convince me.

  The shops overlook a stretch of gritty concrete strewn with lager cans that somebody's been scrunching to demonstrate their strength. As I park the car one squashed can flattens under a wheel with a tinny clank. The shops aren't so much a parade as a token line-up—Better Bets, Ho's Traditional Fish & Chips that are mostly kebabs and pizzas and Chinese food (there are samples outside, both uneaten and the opposite), Bonus Booze... The general store at the end says it's Open All Hours, which means just those that suit the Slowworm family, who can't even find the time to change the window display, magazines years old and packets of food no less pale with years of sun. "Is anyone alive in here?" I wonder as I let myself in.

  Only Slowworm is. He's behind the counter spread with newspapers and sweets, more of which are in racks lower down for children to grab and whine about to their parents or whichever temporary version of a parent is in charge of them. "What can I get you today?" he says before I've even crossed the grimy threshold.

  He's peering at me as if he can't quite make me out. He might try taking off the crumpled canvas hat he always wears. He's yanked the brim down to his overstated eyebrows, and the hat looks as though it's cramming his broad flat face together. "What's on offer?" he's goaded me to ask.

  "Offer." Once the dull echo dies away he complains "Sounds like you want the supermarket. Us small shopkeepers can't afford to muck around with prices."

  "I wouldn't say any of you was that small." I might add that doesn't include his brain, but instead I say "So long as you enjoy serving the public."

  "Serving the public. I'd enjoy seeing a few more of them."

  "More of them." I can play at echoes too, but I don't think he even notices. I amuse myself by wanting to know "Don't you enjoy seeing me?"

  "Seeing you." He can't quite echo me, and I wonder how much of his resentment has to do with that. "I'll like it when you tell me what you're getting. Words don't pay the bills."

  "Let's hope you do." As his face betrays his struggle to decide how insulting this is I say "I've just come in for cigarettes."

  "Cigarettes. Better stock up before they're against the law. Pretty soon they'll be something else we're not allowed to mention."

  "I thought you said you don't think much of words."

  "Don't think much." Before I can congratulate him on acknowledging some of the truth he says "What brand?"

  The warnings on the packets behind him are bigger than the brand names. They look as if they're advertising death, which comes close to making me grin. "You don’t sell Fatal Fags, then."

  "Fatal Fags." When his face catches up with the notion of a joke he makes a stab at banter. "Not got those."

  "Or Lumpy Lungs."

  "Lumpy Lungs." If he means to sound amused it doesn't work. "Not them either."

  "Poison Puffs? Ashtray Breaths? I know, C & C. That's Coughs & Cancer."

  "None of those." He's growing so annoyed that he forgets to echo. "If you've just come in for a laugh—"

  "I wouldn't dream of it. Give me twenty Players and I'll think of the game later."

  He doesn’t know if I'm still joking. His face loosens somewhat when I hand him the cash for a packet of King Size, with the chance of a free gift of a tumour big enough for a monarch. I'll take the consequences, except they've no chance in the world of catching up with me. I strip off the cellophane and leave it crackling like the start of a fire on top of a local newspaper that I could be in. "I'll let you have that," I tell Slowworm. "We don't want any more rubbish on the street, do we?"

  I linger in the doorway to watch him pick up the cellophane and pull it off one hand with the other, then wave the fingers it has stuck to. As he starts tramping on the cellophane to dislodge it from his fingers I lose interest. I can always save him for another day, and I use my lighter on a cigarette while I head for the car. The oily taste of nicotine, the bite in the throat, the hint of dizziness—they all feel like sensations I'm remembering rather than experiencing, hints too meagre to add up to even a foretaste of satisfaction. After another ineffective drag I sprain the cigarette in the dashboard ashtray. The stuffing of tobacco that spills from the torn tube puts me in mind of a soft toy that has been ripped limb from limb. That isn't even a memory, and it leaves me more frustrated still.

  My dustbin lies full length across my drive with its mouth gaping like a dead fish. Maybe the binmen left it like that, unless someone passing by thought it would be a hoot to tip it over, or just a way of spending a few seconds of their life. I leave the car in the middle of the road while I right the bin and trundle it behind the house, but nobody drives up for an argument. I don't need one of those for motivation. I back the car into the drive, where a scrape of paint on the gatepost would give me a reminder if I wanted one, and stroll along the road.

  Mrs Rubbish has left her vigil now the weekly garbage ritual is done, and nobody else can see me either. The moans of the hungry truck are several streets away, and the streets are deserted under a sullen sky that dulls the colours the houses have been daubed with, shades like stale makeup where they aren't childishly garish. If the culprits haven't gone
out to work I expect they're watching television or more likely on the internet. I feel as if I'm surrounded by an electronic mind that swarms with random thoughts. How much of my day happened as I've told it? All that matters is this will. I've reached Mr Accident's house.

  It's well out of sight of mine, around more than one bend. With its carriage lamp sticking out of the shallow porch of plastic wood it looks as if it wants to be an inn, unless it's wishing it were in a street a lot more historical than this one, where a caravan squats in a neighbouring drive and half a car is littered all over another. His house makes me think of a child wearing a bit of a costume in the hope it will let them pass for a character. It has no more chance than him, but where is he? I'm enraged to think I've given him time to finish with his gutters. I dodge around the house and find him perched at the top of a two-storey ladder.

  I'm glad my rage hasn't deserted me, but then it never does. I watch him poke at the gutter above his head like a bird searching for insects to crunch. The trowel he's holding dislodges a sodden wad of leaves, and as he flings the blockage onto the concrete outside the house he sees me. The ladder wobbles and the gutter gives a plastic creak as he grabs it with his free hand. "What are you doing there?" he gasps.

  "Just going for a walk so I'll feel better."

  "Forgive me, I didn't realise you were ill."

  "Forgiveness is no fun, and I don't mean that kind of better." I take a step towards him before enquiring "And what are you up to? Doing somebody out of a job?"

  "Pay a man to do a job you can do yourself and you've cost yourself twice over."

  I should have known he'd go in for homilies. He lets go of the gutter and rests his hand against the house while he squints at me. "What kind of work do you do? We don't seem to know much about you, Mr..."

  "You'll know enough." I can tell he's hoping I've no job so that he can lecture me about it. "I wonder what you'd want to say I am," I muse aloud. "Just call me Lucky, and a collector if you like."