Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother Read Free Page A

the attendant over to the lamp standard, to the parked cars; they were
peering beneath the cars, gazing about at the pavement. They looked like
children hunting for treasure. “Wait a minute,” she said, wriggling her arm in
the attendant’s grasp.
                 They
were walking slowly back toward Ringo, poor old car. She couldn’t hear their
voices yet, but their faces and gestures were talking. There? the policeman said, including everywhere they’d searched in
a sweep of his arm, pointing to the car, the ambulance. No, the attendant
admitted, shaking his head doubtfully. Well then, the policeman said, looking
as if he liked the idea even less. But surely, the attendant said, looking
shocked, actually ill. They were nearly in Clare’s earshot. She strained her
ears, herself, toward them.
                 They
were talking about the man. Which man? The man must have opened the door to
throw himself out, or it had fallen open. The man was Rob, then. His something
had something at the moment of first impact. But then what? Surely you aren’t
saying—Clare strained forward, away from the restraining grasp. The sharp blue
beacon of the ambulance cut through the orange glow, repeatedly flashing in her
eyes, pounding, insisting that she hear the truth, that she admit she’d heard
the policeman’s words. All he was saying was that the man’s arm, Rob’s arm, was
what?
                 “Missing,”
he repeated irritably. “His arm is missing.”
                 Wednesday, September 3
                 “Tell
me about Bob,” Dorothy said to Clare.
                 They
were sitting on the balcony outside Dorothy’s, on the fourteenth storey of a
stack of flats overlooking Sefton Park. Ahead of them
lay the playing field, like green baize worn through in black patches. Beyond
the park and the huddled chimneys and church towers of Aigburth ,
a tanker slid over the glittering shattered sunlight of the Mersey. Beyond
that, except for the occasional factory chimney standing smoking on the far
bank of the river, there was nothing but the enormous open early-evening sky.
                 “I
remember when Rob and I were kids,” Clare said. She’d never been able to call
him Bob, which he’d rechristened himself for the BBC. “He wouldn’t play with
his friends unless they let me join in. Usually they liked me to.” She gazed
out across the playing field, toward the iron-and-glass dome of Sefton Park Palm House, packed deep in trees. She was glad
of these memories. She’d had them for years, and she loved to remember them.
She was grateful that even now they weren’t spoilt.
                 “But
once they reached adolescence he changed toward them completely,” she said. “He
became all serious and protective, wouldn’t let them near me. There was one
boy, Lionel. I thought he was all right; we used to have some good fights when
we were younger. He asked me out once, to the pictures. When Rob heard, he
nearly knocked him down. He stood in front of the house that night to make sure
Lionel couldn’t get at me, and wouldn’t tell Father and Mother why. I was
upstairs sobbing my heart out, you can imagine. It was years later Rob told me
Lionel had used to boast about all the girls he’d had, all the details. I don’t
think he could have had so many, though. He was only twelve.”
                 Dorothy
was leaning forward, alert, ready to learn. Her wide eyes were black and shining
as her wiry curls, on which the sunlight rested softly. Clare could see why Rob
had found her attractive. But then, she’d never denied that Dorothy was pretty.
                 “He
could be really tough when he was looking after me,” Clare said. “You wouldn’t
have thought it was Rob. I remember the first time I ever went to the Cavern,
when the Beatles were on. Did you ever go? It was an experience.” Beneath the
warehouses, dark thick