YELLOW AND
    RED

                  Tanith Lee




Tanith Lee began writing at the age of nine. After
school she worked variously as a library assistant,
shop assistant, filing clerk and waitress before
spending a year at art college.
She published three children’s books in the early
1970s, but it was only when DAW Books
published her novel The Birthgrave in 1975, and
thereafter twenty-six other titles, was she able to
become a full-time writer. To date she has
published nearly sixty novels, including such recent
titles as White as Snow, A Bed of Earth and Venus
Preserved, plus nine collections of novellas and short
stories. Her radio plays have been broadcast by the
BBC and she scripted two episodes of the cult TV
        series Blake’s 7.
        Tanith Lee has twice won the World Fantasy
        Award for short fiction, and in 1980 she was
        awarded the British Fantasy Society’s August
        Derleth Award for her novel Death’s Master.
        “I am a great admirer of, amongst others, M.R.
        James…,” reveals the author. “His influence on
        me, in this story, is perhaps evident only to
        myself.”




              From the Diary of Gordon Martyce:


     9th September 195-: 7:00 p.m.
      Coming down to the old house was at first interesting, and
then depressing. The train journey was tedious and slow, and after
the second hour, over and again, I began to wish I had not
undertaken this. But that would be foolish. The house, by the
quirkiness of my Uncle’s will, is now mine. One day I may even
live in it, although for now my job, which I value, and my flat,
which I like, keep me in London. Of course, Lucy is terribly
interested in the idea of an old place in the country. I could see her
eyes, lit by her second gin, gleam with visions of chintz curtains,
china on the mantlepiece, an old, dark, loudly-ticking cloak. But it
is not that sort of house—I knew that even then, never having seen
inside it in my life. As for Lucy, I am never sure. She has stuck to
me for five years, and so I have not quite given up on the notion of
one day having a wife, perhaps a family. Quite a pretty woman,
quite vivacious in her way, which sometimes, I confess, tires me a
little. Well, if it comes to that, she can do what she wants with the
house. It is gloomy enough as it stands.
     Beyond the train, the trees were putting on their September
garments, brown and red and yellow, but soon a drizzle began
which blotted up detail. It was raining more earnestly when I
reached the station and got out. I had only one small bag, the
essentials for a stay of a couple of nights. That was good, for there
was no transport of any kind.
      I walked to the village, and there was given a cup of tea, the
keys, and a lift the last mile and a half.
      Johnson, the agent, let me off on the drive. He had offered to
take me round, but I said this was not necessary. There is a woman,
Mrs Gold, who comes in every day, and I was told, she would have
put things ready for me—I trusted this was true.
      The rain eased as I walked along the last curve of the drive.
Presently I saw the house, and recognized it from a photograph I
had observed often enough in my Father’s study. A two-storey
building, with green shutters. Big oaks stood around it that had
done the walls some damage, and introduced damp. I supposed
they could be cut down. Above, was my Grandfather’s
weather-vane, which I had never been able, properly, to make out
in the photograph, but which my Father told me was in the shape
of some Oriental animal deity. Even now, it remained a mystery to
me, between the leaves of the oaks and the moving, leaden sky.
      I got up the steps, and opened the front door, and stepped
into the big dark hall. The trees oppress this house, that is certain,
and the old stained glass of the hall windows change the light to
mulberry and spinach. However, I saw through into the sitting
room, and a fire had been laid, and wood put ready. A touch on a
switch reassured me that the electricity still worked. On the table
near the door I found Mrs Gold’s rather poorly spelled note. But
she had done everything one could expect, even to leaving me a
cold supper of ham and salad, apple pie and cheese. She would be
in tomorrow at eleven. I need have no fears.
       I looked round. I am not fearful by nature. I always do my
best, and am seldom in a position to dread very much. A childhood
visit to the dentist, perhaps, for an especially painful
filling—something of that apprehension seized me. But it was the
nasty dark light in the hall. My Uncle died in this house not three
months ago. Before him, he had lost his family, his wife and sister,
and two sons. Before them another generation had perished. As
Shakespeare points out, it is common for people to die.
      Going through into the sitting room, I have put a match to
the fire. This has improved things. On a sideboard stands a tray
with brandy, whisky and soda. Though it is early for me, I shall
pour myself a small measure. I gather the boiler is at work, and I
can count on a hot bath. I do not want a chill.


     10th September: 2:00 p.m.
       The house is a mausoleum. Lucy be blowed, I think I shall
sell it. Last night was dreadful. Creaks and groans of woodwork, an
eldritch wind at the windows and down the chimneys. I read until
nearly two a.m. Then at three I was woken by a persistent owl
hooting in the garden trees. I am not a country person. I longed for
my warm city flat and the vague roar of traffic.
      However, this morning early I went over the place thoroughly,
from attic to cellar. There are a great many rooms, more than I
should ever want, and the heating would be prohibitive. It is very
old fashioned, those thick, bottle-green and oxblood curtains
favoured by our grandfathers—evidently by mine, and my Uncle
William, too—enormous cliffs of furniture, and endless curios,
some of them I expect very valuable, from the East—Egypt, India
and China. I am not particularly partial to any of this sort of thing.
I find the house uncomfortable, both physically—it is cold and
damp—and aesthetically.
      At about eleven thirty, the not very punctual Mrs Gold
arrived. I was not surprised. Women are generally unreliable. I have
learnt this from Lucy. Nevertheless, I commended Mrs Gold on
keeping the house clean, which she has more or less done, and on
the supper left for me yesterday. She is a large woman, constructed
like a figurehead, with severe grey hair. She began, of course, at
once to tell me all about my Uncle, and what she knows of my
Grandfather before him. She is, naturally, as her class nearly always
are, fascinated by details of all the deaths. It was with some
difficulty that I got her to resume her work. Going into the library,
I then took down some boxes of photographs, and began to go
through them, more to pass the time than anything else. The agent
is coming tomorrow, to discuss things, or I would have tried to get
home today.
      The photographs, most of which have dates and names
written on the back, are generally displeasing, many the dull,
antique kind where everyone stands like a waxwork, as the
primitive camera performs its task. My grandfather was a
formidable old boy, with bushy whiskers, in several scenes out in
some foreign landscape, clutching his gun, or his spade, for he had
been involved in one or two famous excavations, in the East. Here
he had taken his own photographs, some of which had appeared in
prominent journals of the day. These, obviously, were not among
the general portraits, nor was I especially interested to look them
out. My father had been wont to tell me, at length, how
Grandfather Martyce had taken the very first photograph inside
some remarkable ancient tomb. I had found this, I am afraid,
extremely boring, then, and scarcely less so now. I have, too,
forgotten the location. Lucy has often commented that I am not a
romantic. I am glad to say I am not.
     Eventually Mrs Gold finished her ministrations, and I went
down to learn her wages, which were modest enough. She had put
into the oven for me, besides, a substantial hot-pot.
      “Your Uncle was very fond of those, I must say,” she
announced. “He relied on me, once the old cook had retired. Mrs
Martyce was often ill, you understand, Miss Martyce too. I had a
free hand.”
     I said something gallant about her cooking. She ignored this.
      “It was a great worry,” she said, “to see them waste away.
First the boys, and then the sister and the wife. Your Uncle was the
last to go. He was very strong, fought it off, so to speak. The
doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him. But it was the same
as with the ladies, and the children.”
     I privately thought that no doubt a reliance on elderly country
doctors was to blame here, but I nodded lugubriously, and was
apparently anticipated.
     “Your Grandfather now,” persisted this tragic choric Mrs
Gold, glowering on me in the stone kitchen, the pans partly
gleaming at her back from her somewhat hard work upon them,
“he was the same, but they put it down to some foreign affliction,
bad water, those dirty heathen foods. You understand, Mr
Martyce—your Uncle, Mr William Martyce, was only in the house a
year before he first fell ill. And before that, never a day’s
indisposion.” I noted that, not only did she employ words she
could not, probably, spell, but that she was also able to invent
them.
     “It seems an unfortunate house,” I said. She appeared to wish
me to.
      “That’s as may be. The cook was never out of sorts, nor any
of the maids, while they had them. And I’ve never had a day in bed,
excepting my parturiton.” I assumed she meant childbirth, and kept
a stern face. Mrs Gold was certainly most serious. She said, “If I
was you, sir, I’d put this house up for sale.”
     “That might be an idea,” I said.
     “Not that I want to cause you misgivings.”
     “Not at all. But it will be too big for me, I’m sure.”
     When she had gone, I ate the beef sandwiches she had left
me, and was grateful her meals were more cheerful than her talk,
although I have jotted down here her two interesting words, to
make Lucy laugh.


     10th September: 6:00 p.m.
      I do not like this house. No, I am not being superstitious. I
believe there is not a fanciful bone in my body. But it depresses me
utterly. The furnishings, the darkness, the chilliness, which lighting
all the fires I reasonably can—in the sitting room, dining room, my
bedroom, the library—cannot dispel. And the things which so
many would find intriguing—old letters in bundles, in horrible
brown, ornate, indecipherable writing—caskets of incenses and
peculiar amulets—such items fill me with aversion. I want my
orderly room with its small fire that warms every inch, my sensible
plain chairs, the newspaper, and a good, down-to-earth detective
novel.
      I have already taken to drink—a whisky at lunch, and now
another before dinner—and even this went awry. I am not a man
who spills things. I have a sound eye and a steady hand. However,
sitting over the fire in the library, crouching, should I say, with pure
ice at my back, I was looking again at some of the more recent
photographs. These comprised a picture of my Uncle and his sons
on the lawn before the house, and some oddments of him, pruning
a small tree, standing with a group I took to be the local vicar and
various worthies of the nearby village. In these scenes, my Uncle is
about forty, and again about fifty. He looks hale enough, but I had
already gathered from the delightful Gold that he was, even then,
frequently laid low.
      Finally I put the pictures down on the side table, and rested
my whisky, half full, beside them. I then stood up to reach for my
tobacco. I have often seen Lucy have little accidents like this.
Women are inclined to be clumsy, I find, something to do with
their physique, probably. In brief, I knocked the table, the whisky
glass skidded over it, and upset its contents in four sploshes, one
on each of the photographs.
      I gave a curse, I regret to say, and set to mopping up with my
handkerchief. The pictures seemed no worse for the libation, and
so I went downstairs to refill my glass. Having looked in on the
hot-pot, I decided to give it another half hour, and came back
reluctantly upstairs, meaning to try to find some book I could
read—my own volume was finished during the early hours this
morning. There was not much doing in this line, but at last I found
some essays on prominent men, and this would have to serve.
Returning to the fire in haste, I there found that each of the
photographs on which the alcohol had spilled was blotched with an
erratic burn. I must say, I had no notion malt whisky could inflict
such a wound, but there, I am not a photographer.
     This annoyed me. Although I have no interest in the
photographs particularly, I know my Father would have had one,
and for his sake, I would not have desecrated them. I am not a
Vandal. I feel foolishly ashamed of myself.
     I began to think then about my Father and my Uncle William,
of how they had lost touch with each other, and how, oddly, we had
never been on a visit to this house. One assumes there had come to
be a rift between the two men. There was a marked difference in
age. Even so, I recall my Father speaking of my Uncle as the
former neared his end. “Poor William,” he said. “What could I
do?” I had not wanted to press him, his heart was giving out.
     Irritated, uneasy and out of sorts, I have pushed the damaged
photographs together, and come down again, to eat of Mrs Gold’s
bounty.
     10th September: 10:30 p.m.
      Something very odd. How to put this down… Well, I had
better be as scientific as I can. I had forgotten my book, and,
deciding on an early bed, since I am feeling rather fatigued—the
country air, no doubt—I came up to the library to collect the
volume. It lay on the table, and going to pick it up, I saw again the
spoiled photographs.
      While I had been downstairs dining, something had gone on.
The stains had changed, rather they had taken on a colour, deep
swirls of raw red and sickly yellow. This was particularly unpleasant
on the black and white surface of the original scenes. I examined
each photograph in turn, and all four were now disfigured in this
way. I had already resolved that it was no use crying over spilt milk,
or whisky, to be more precise, and was about to put them down
again, when something else arrested my attention.
      Of course, I am aware that random arrangements or marks
can take on apparently coherent forms—the “faces” that one
occasionally makes out in the trunks of old trees, for example, or
the famous Rorschach inkblot test. Yes, the random may form the
seemingly concrete, and mean very little, save in the realms of
imagination and psychiatry.
      However. However—where the whisky had burned the
photographs, a shape had been formed, now very definite, and
filled in by rich, bilious colour. Not in fact a shape that I could
recognize—yet, yet it was consistent, for in each of the four
pictures, it was almost exactly the same. And it was—it is—a
horrible shape. Most decidedly that. I do not like it. There is
something repulsive, odious, about it. I suppose that is because it is
like some sort of creature—and yet a creature that can hardly, I
would think, exist.
     Then, I am being rather silly. I had better describe what I see.
What is the matter with me?
     There, I have had another whisky—I shall certainly have a
thick head in the morning!—and I will write this down with a
steady hand.
       The thing that the whisky has burnt out in the photographs is,
in each one, identical, allowing for certain differences of—what I
shall have to call—posture, and size. It has the head of a sort of
frog, but this is horned, with two flat horns—or possibly
ears—that slant out from its head sideways. The body is bulbous at
the front, and it has two arms or forelegs, which end in paws,
resembling those of a large cat. The body ends not in legs, but in a
tail like that of a slug. This is all bad enough, but in the visage or
head are always two red dots, that give the impression of eyes.
      It is a beastly thing. I fear I cannot convey how vile, nor what
a turn it has given me.
      The varying size of the—what shall I call it?—apparition?—is
another matter. I can only conclude the whisky fell in a smaller
drop here, a larger there. Although that is not what I recollect quite.
It seemed to me my drink had spread in roughly equal splashes on
each photograph. But there.
      In these two, where my Uncle William prunes the tree, the
thing is quite small. But here, where he is in conversation with the
vicar and the worthies, it is larger. And here, where William is
standing with his sons, the thing is at its largest.
      It is so curiously placed in this view, that it seems to recline at
William’s very feet, spacing its paws for balance. In relation to the
man and boys, it is the equivalent of a medium-sized dog. I cannot
escape the illusion that it has not grown bigger, but—got nearer.
That way madness lies.
     If there were a telephone here, I would put a call through to
Saunders, or Eric Smith, even to Lucy. But there is no telephone.
Perhaps, a good thing. What would I say?
     I know I am behaving in an irrational and idiotic manner. I
must pull myself together.
     I have put the photographs back on the table and turned them
face down. I shall go up and take a couple of aspirins. Obviously,
in months to come, I will reread these entries and laugh at them.


     11th September: 11:00 a.m.
      Johnson, the agent, arrived efficiently at ten, and we
perfunctorily discussed my plans. I had no hesitation in telling him
that I would probably wish to put the house up for sale. I passed a
restless night, mostly lying listening to the grim silence of this
place. I would have been glad for the creaking of the boards I had
heard on my first night, even for the boisterous owl. But both
failed me. Everything seemed locked in the cupboard of the
darkness, and now and then, like a child, I sighed or moved about,
to make some sound.
     I got a little sleep for an hour or so after dawn, and came
down bleary-eyed but resolved. I had put myself into a foolish state
over those confounded burns on the photographs. Perhaps this is
the price for allowing myself to become a middle-aged bachelor.
No matter. I am going back to London this evening. Back to traffic
and fog and lights, and human company if I wish it. I must take
myself in hand. I do not want to become one of those querulous
neurasthenic fools one reads of. Good God, I have gone through a
World War, and although luck put me out of the way of most of
the action, I was ready enough to do my part. Is some childish
horror going to undo me now?
      As he was leaving, Johnson recommended that I seek out the
vicar. “If you want to know anything about your Uncle’s tenancy
here, that is.”
     “Oh, yes. A Reverend Dale, I believe.”
      “That’s right. He’s getting on, but pretty spry. A wise old
bird.”
      I said that I might not have the time, but thanked Johnson all
the same. What, after all, did I want to know? My Grandfather’s
forays in the East did not interest me, and all the rest seemed
decline,     disease,    and    death.    Charming      points   of
conversation—besides, the bubbling Mrs Gold had already rejoiced
me with enough of all that.
    “Incidentally, Johnson,” I said, as I saw him to the door, “I
suppose there is some use of photography in your business.”
        “There is,” he agreed.
     “I wonder if you’ve ever heard of—alcohol making a burn on
a photograph?”
     “Well, I never have,” he said. He thought deeply. “It might,
perhaps. But not anything pure, I wouldn’t have thought.”
        “Whisky,” I said.
        “From a still, maybe. Not the stuff in a bottle. Why do you
ask?”
        “Oh, something a friend told me of.”
     Johnson shrugged and laughed. “A waste of a good
beverage,” he said.
    When he was gone, I made a decision. It was because I had
begun to feel angry.
     Mrs Gold was not to come today until three, but she had left
me another cold plate. This I tried to eat, but did not really fancy it,
although I had had no breakfast.
     Eventually I took the largest soup tureen I could find from
the kitchen, and the whisky decanter, and went up to the library.
The quickest way to be rid of my “monster” was to carry out an
experiment. It was quite simple. I would place a selection of
photographs in the tureen and pour over them enough whisky to
cover them entirely. Either nothing would happen to them, or they
would burn—burn all over into yellow and red. And that would be
that. No random marks, no possible coincidences of shape. No
doubt the pictures that I spoiled underwent some flaw in their
reproduction, or there was some weakness in the material on which
they were printed. I was confident, to the point of belligerence, that
by this means I should be free of the horror I had unwittingly
unleashed. As for ruining more photographs, if I did so, there
comes a point where one must put oneself first.
     I set the tureen down on the big table in the library. Outside,
the birds were singing. There was a view of the lawn, and the big
oaks, golden and crimson in the dying of the leaves. It is a sunny
day.
     I took three photographs from the box more or less at
random, a scene of my Uncle and his son by the little summer
house, the two boys playing some game under the trees when they
were small. To this selection I added one of the former casualties,
the photograph of my Uncle pruning the tree. One thing I had
made sure of, the three new scenes were of different dates, and had
therefore been processed on other paper.
    Dropping the four into the bowl, I poured in a geneerous
measure of the whisky. A waste, as Johnson had said.
      I have come away to write this, leaving a proper space of
time, and now I am going back to look. There will be nothing, I
believe, or complete obliteration. I am already beginning to feel I
have made an idiot of myself. Perhaps I will tear out these pages.


     11th September: 6:00 p.m.
     The walk down to the village, just under a mile and a half,
took me longer than it should have. I arrived feeling quite done up,
and went into the little pub, which had some quaint name I forget,
and had a brandy and soda.
     Across the green was the vicarage, a picturesque building of
grey stone, and behind it the Norman church, probably of interest
to those with an historical concern. When I got to the vicarage
door, and knocked, a homely fat woman came and let me in, all
smiles, to the vicar’s den. It was a nice, masculine place, redolent of
pipe smoke, with a big dog lying on the hearth, who wagged his tail
at me politely.
     The Reverend Dale greeted me, and called for tea, which the
fat nymph presently brought with a plate of her own shortbread.
This tasted very good, although I am afraid I could eat no more
than a bite.
     The vicar let me settle myself, and we talked about ordinary
things, the autumn, elements of the country round about, and of
London. At last, leaning forward, the old man peered at me
through his glasses.
     “Are you quite well, Mr Martyce?”
     “Perfectly. Just a trifle tired. I haven’t slept well at the house.”

      He looked long at me and said, “I’m afraid people often
don’t.”
     I took a deep breath. “In what way?” I asked.
      “Your family, Mr Martyce, has been inclined to insomnia
there. The domestics have never complained. Indeed, I never heard
a servant from there that had anything but praise for the house and
the family. Mrs Allen, the former cook, retired only when she was
seventy-six and could no longer manage. She was loath to go.”
     “But my family—there has been a deal of illness.”
     “Yes, I’m afraid that is so. Your Grandfather—he was before
my time, of course. And his wife. Your father was long from home,
and his brother, Mr William, was sent out into the world at
twenty… before there was any—problem at the house. The two
brothers did not at first choose to come back. And your father, I
think, not at all. He lived to a good age?”
    “He was nearly eighty. There was quite a gap between him
and William—my Grandfather’s travels.”
      “Eighty—yes, that’s splendid. But poor William did not do so
well. He was, as you know, only sixty-two when he succumbed. His
wife was a mere fifty, and your Aunt in her forties. But, in later life,
she had never been well.”
     I tried a laugh. It sounded hollow. “That house doesn’t seem
very healthy for the Martyces.”
     Reverend Dale looked grave. “It does not.”
     “And what explanation do you have for that, sir?”
     “I fear that, although I am a man of God, and might be
expected to incline to esoteric conclusions, I have none.”
     I said, flatly, “Do you think there is a malevolent ghost?”
     “I am not supposed to believe in ghosts,” said the Reverend
Dale. “However, I can’t quite rid myself of a belief in—influences.”
      A cold tremor passed up my back. I deduce I may have gone
pale, for the vicar got up and went over to his cabinet, from which
he produced some brandy. A glass of this he gave me—I really
must put a stop to all this profligate drinking! I confess I downed
it.
      “You must understand,” he said, “I’m speaking not as a man
of the cloth, but simply—as a witness. I’ve seen very clearly that, in
the Martyce family, those who spend much or all of their time at
the house, sicken. Some are more susceptible, they fail more
swiftly. Some are stronger, and hold at bay or temporarily throw
off the malaise, at first. Your Grandfather lived into his nineties,
yet from his sixties he had hardly a day without severe illness.
Perhaps, in a man of advancing years, that is not uncommon. And
yet, before this time, he was one of the fittest men on record,
apparently he put the local youth, who are hardy, to shame. Again,
some who aren’t strong, also linger in a pathetic, sickly state—your
Aunt was one of these. She succumbed only in her adult years, but
then her life was a burden for her. One wondered how she bore
with it. Even she, at length…” he sighed. “Her end was a release, I
am inclined to think. A satisfactory cause of death meanwhile has
never been established. In your Grandfather’s case, necessarily it
was put down to old age. As with his wife, since she died in her
sixties. In the cases of others, death must be questionable. Or
unreasonable. As with your Uncle’s two sons. They were fourteen
and nineteen years.”
     “I assumed some childish malady—”
      “Not at all. Clemens was their doctor, then. I will reveal, he
confided in me somewhat. He was baffled. The same
symptoms—inertia, low pulse, some vertigo, headache, an
inclination not to eat. But no fever, no malignancy, no defect. You
will perhaps know, William’s health was poor enough to keep him
out of the War. He was utterly refused.”
     I said, briskly, “Well, I’m leaving tonight.”
     “I am glad to hear that you are.”
     “But, I had intended to put the house up for sale—”
     “I think you need have no qualms, Mr Martyce. Remember,
no one who has lived there, who is not a member of your family,
has ever been ill. If anything, the reverse.”
      “A family curse,” I said. I meant to sound humorous and
ironic. I did not succeed.
     The Reverend Dale looked down upon his serviceable desk.
     “I shall tell you something, Mr Martyce. You are, evidently, a
sensible man. I can’t guarantee my words, I’m afraid. The previous
incumbent of the parish passed them on to me. But he was vicar in
your Grandfather’s time. It seems your Grandfather, always a
regular churchgoer when at home, asked for an interview. This was
about three years after his final return from the East. He was
getting on in years, and had recently had a debilitating bout of
illness, but recovered, and no one was in any apprehension for him,
at that time.” The vicar paused.
     “Go on,” I said.
      “Your Grandfather it seems posed a question. He had heard,
he said, of a belief among primitive peoples, that when a camera is
used to take a photograph, the soul is caught inside the machine.”
    “I’ve heard of this,” I said. “There is a lack of education
among savages.”
     “Quite. But it appears your Grandfather asked my
predecessor—if he thought that such a thing were truly possible.”
      I sat in silence. I felt cold, and wanted another brandy, but
instead I sipped my tepid tea.
     “What did he say, your predecessor?”
     “Naturally, that he did not credit such an idea.”
     “To which my Grandfather said what?”
    “It seems he wondered if, rather than catch a human soul, a
camera might sometimes snare… something else. Something not
human or corporeal. Some sort of spirit.”
     Before the eye of my mind, there passed the memory of how
my Grandfather had photographed so many exotic things. And of
the pictures taken inside the ancient and remarkable tomb. I am
not given to fancies. I do not think it was a fancy. Like a detective, I
strove to solve this puzzle.
     I stood up before I had meant to, I did not mean to be rude.
      The old man also rose, and the dog. Both looked at me kindly,
yes, I would swear, even the dumb animal had an expression of
compassion.
         “Excuse me,” I said, “I have to hurry to be sure of my train.”
         “You’re not returning to the house?” said the Reverend Dale.
     “No. It’s all locked up. The cleaning lady has been and gone. I
promised her she’d be kept on until any new tenants take over.
They must make their own arrangements.”
         “I think you have been very wise,” said the vicar.
      He himself showed me to the door of the stone house. “It’s a
lovely afternoon,” he said. “You look rather exhausted. That
cottage there, with the green door. Peter will drive you to the
station. Just give him something towards the petrol.”
         I shook his hand, and like some callow youth, felt near to
tears.
     In future I must take more exercise. It is not like me to be so
flabby. Thank God, Peter was amenable.
      I have written all this down in the train. It has not been easy,
with the jolting, and once I leaned back and fell fast asleep. I am
better for that. I want to make an end of it here, and so return into
London and my life, clear of it.
     No, I cannot say I know what has gone on. When I put the
four photographs into the tureen and poured in the whisky, I
thought myself, frankly, an imbecile.
      I had left them for perhaps twenty minutes, possibly a
fraction longer. I approached the table with no sense of
apprehension. Rather, I felt stupid.
      Looking in, I saw at once, but the brain needs sometimes an
interim to catch up with the quirkiness of the eye. So I experienced
a numbing, ghastly dread, but even so I took out the photographs
one by one, and laid them on the newspaper I had left ready.
         The original had not altered. That is, the photograph, already
damaged, of my Uncle by the tree. It had not changed, nor the
mark, the yellow and red mark, that had the shape of a horned
creature with forelegs and the hind body of a giant slug. There it
still was, quite near to him but yet not close. There it was with its
blind red dots of eyes, brilliant on the black and white surface of
that simple scene.
      The other three images are quickly described, and I should
like to be quick. The whisky had affected them all only in one
place. And in that place, always a different one, exactly similarly.
The demon was there. The same. Absolute.
      Where the two boys are playing as children, it is some way
off, among the trees. It is coiled there, as if resting, watching them,
like a pet cat.
     In the photograph of William and his wife and sister—my
Aunt—the thing is much nearer, lying in the grass at their
feet—again, again, like some awful pet.
      But it is the last picture, the most recent picture of my Uncle
William’s younger son, it is that one—They are standing by the
summer house. The boy is about thirteen, and the date on the back,
that the whisky has blurred, gives evidence that this is so.
     They do not look so very unhappy. Only formal, straight and
stone still. That is probably the very worst thing. They should be in
turmoil—and the boy—the boy should be writhing, flailing,
screaming—
       The demon is close as can be. It has hold of the boy’s leg. It is
climbing up him. Its tail is coiled about his knee—Oh God, its head
is lying on his thigh. The head has tilted. It gazes up at him. It has
wrapped him in its grip. He does not—he does not know.
     I shall write no more now. I do not want to open this diary
again. The lights of London will be coming soon, out of the
autumn dusk. Smells of smoke, cooking, and unhygenic humanity.
Thank God. Thank God I have got away. Thank God. Thank God.
        From a letter by Lucy Wright to her friend J.B.:


     1st November 195-:
      Your letter did cheer me up a bit, though I cried a bit after.
Yes, I’d love to come for a visit, and it would help to get my mind
off—this. Then, I feel guilty. But what can I do? I was totally in the
dark. I didn’t know. He never confided in me. I don’t understand.
      I’d always known Gordon was a bit of an old
stick-in-the-mud. But he was kind and hardworking, and I did hope
he’d get round to popping the question one day. No one else has
made any offers. And of course, he was well-off. Not that that was
my main reason. But, well, I’ve never been rich, and it would be
nice, not to worry all the time, where the rent’s coming from, or if
you can afford a new pair of nylons.
       The funny thing was, when he came back from that house of
his uncle’s in the country (and strangely he wouldn’t discuss that at
all), he couldn’t see enough of me. We were out every night, like a
couple of twenty-year-olds. The pictures, concerts, even dinners in
a lovely little restaurant up West. And he made a real fuss of me.
He even bought me roses. I thought, this is it. He’s going to ask me
now. And I thought, I can change him, get him to brighten up a bit.
But then—well it was a funny thing that happened. It was really
silly and—nasty. Peculiar.
      It was my birthday—that was the time he gave me the
roses—and one of my cousins, Bunty, well she sent me a really
lovely present. It was a little camera. What do you expect—I
wanted to use it. And one night when Gordon and I were in that
nice restaurant, I was showing him the camera, and the manager,
who knows Gordon, came up and said, “Let me take a picture of
you, Mr Martyce, and your young lady.” Well I was a bit
giggly—we’d had some lovely wine—and I was all for it, but
Gordon got really funny. No, I mean he got he really angry, sort of
well—frightened, red in the face—but the manager just laughed,
and he took the photograph anyway, with me very nervous and
Gordon all hard and angry and scared. The manager said Gordon
would have to be less camera-shy, for the wedding.
      I thought, Gordon’s angry because he feels he’s being forced
to think about that, about getting married. And he doesn’t want to.
And that depressed me, because things had seemed to be going so
well. So it ended up a miserable evening. And he took me home.
And—well. That was the last time I saw him. I mean, the last time
I saw him. Because I don’t count the funeral. How can I? They had
to close the coffin. Anyway. He was dead then. I’m sorry. Look, a
tear’s fallen in the ink. What a silly girl. Crying over a man that
didn’t even want me.
      Of course, I did speak to him just once more, on the
telephone. He rang me up about a week after the dinner, and he
said he was going to collect the films—the photographs, you see.
And I was glad he’d rung me, so I said yes. I was a bit embarrassed,
because the rest of the film was all of my family, dad and mum,
and Alice and the babies, and it was the first time I’d taken any
photographs, and I was sure they’d be bad.
     But then I didn’t hear again, and the next thing was, the
policeman coming round in the afternoon, just as I was trying to
get money in that rotten meter that’s so stiff. My washing was
everywhere—it was Saturday—but he didn’t look. He helped me
with the meter and then he put me in a chair, and he told me.
Gordon had gone out on the Northern Line and—well, you know.
He’d fallen under a train. Well they said, he’d thrown himself
under. People had seen him do it. But how can I believe that? I
mean, Gordon. It must be a mistake. But then, where was he
going? He doesn’t have any relatives, and no friends out that way.
Didn’t have. Well.
       But I was so glad to get your kind letter. You see, I went
round to Gordon’s flat this afternoon, they let me, because there
were a few things of mine there, a couple of books I tried to get
Gordon to read—I don’t think he did—and some gloves I’d left,
little things—oh, and a casserole dish I’d bought him. It was a nice
one. I thought I’d better have it, now.
       And on the table in his room, there were the photographs.
The police had obviously been there, because things were a bit
disturbed, not the way Gordon would have left them. But the odd
thing was, these photographs were lying on a newspaper, and they’d
stuck to it, so they must have got wet. And—there was a strong
smell of whisky, as if he’d spilled some. Maybe he had. He’d been
drinking more lately, more than I’d known him do. I remember he
said something strange—something about using a spirit to show a
spirit. But he was always too clever for me.
      Any way, I did look at the photographs, and I wondered if I
could take them home, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t, though I can’t
see that they’ll be any help to the police or anyone. Actually, I
hadn’t done too badly for a beginner. The ones of the babies are
really nice, though I’d made Alice look a bit fat, and she wouldn’t
like that. The last one was the one the manager at the restaurant
took of Gordon and me, and it was really a pity. I admit, it made
me cry a bit. Because, it would have been nice to have a picture of
him and me together, something to remember him by. It wasn’t
just that we looked really daft—me all grinning and silly, and
Gordon so puffed up and upset. No, there was this horrible big red
and yellowish mark on the picture—I suppose something went
wrong when it was taken, perhaps some light got in, or something,
that can happen, can’t it?
     The funny thing is, I can’t explain this, but there was
something—something really awful about this mark. It sounds
crazy and you’ll think I’m a proper dope. You know what an
imagination I’ve got. You see, it looked to me like a funny sort of
animal—a sort of snake thing, with hands—and a face. And the
oddest part of all, it was in just this place that it looked as if it was
sitting square on Gordon’s shoulders, with its tail coming down his
collar, and its arm-things round his throat, and its face pressed
close to his, as if it loved him and would never let go.