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Authors: Ramsey Campbell
Tags: Fiction
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told your tale or is there more you’ve thought of?”
“I think he thought the blitz was stirring things up that shouldn’t be. If you call him back you could put him in touch. We’ve not spoken since he went off and got married.”
“You’re certainly full of—” The presenter coughs on the way to saying “You’re certainly full of surprises, Bev. Bev?”
Perhaps she’s tired of his increasingly blatant scepticism, but I wouldn’t mind sharing it so late at night when I’m already nervous about my father. Across the street the deserted office lit by the lamp at the intersection seems unsettlingly reminiscent of my childhood bedroom—the dim discoloured oblique light from outside, the long misshapen shadows that resemble dream versions of the furniture. I could almost imagine that one rounded blotch is a face that’s peering at me around the edge of the grubby window. I mustn’t be distracted from listening to calls my father may have followed up.
They’re all about tunnels. Someone whose grandfather was involved in digging Queensway, the first of the pair that take roads under the river, says attempts were made to block up the excavations. The bosses accused the workmen of trying to prolong the job, but some of her grandfather’s colleagues insisted the tunnel had been blocked from within. While I reflect that the digging began at the Old Haymarket, a square built on the highest reach of the Pool, the wife of a worker at the sorting office on Copperas Hill reveals that the postmen are loath to use the tunnel that links the office to Lime Street Station. Perhaps it’s a tale to frightennew recruits, since the veterans say the lights in the tunnel sometimes fail, unless they’re switched off as a prank, at which point you may realise you have company that doesn’t need to see you to find you, because you’ll hear its whisper in your ear before you encounter its wet flabby touch. The construction of the offices unearthed coffins lined with lead, but the presenter is growing so openly cynical about the behaviour of workers that I wouldn’t blame his listeners if they kept any more anecdotes to themselves. A ticket collector rings to talk about the underground railway, a loop of which passes beneath the centre of Liverpool, starting and returning at the bottom of the street the Castle used to dominate. All the tunnels leak, and the loop has to be closed every spring while rails corroded by salt water are replaced. The employee says he’s been told by contractors that they’ve heard intruders running or rather sloshing ahead of them in the dark, even in sections of the tunnels where there’s no water underfoot. It occurs to me that the loop crosses the route of the Pool. The presenter bemoans attitudes to work again before conceding the air to an amateur historian who points out that the city below the ridges of Everton and Edge Hill is riddled with passages—sewers, old hydraulic systems, abandoned railway tunnels and others still in use. As I wonder if my father might feel driven to explore any of them, whatever his reasons, my mobile sets about performing its underwater song.
The call is from my parents’ house. As I pause the broadcast I think something like a prayer—an unspoken wish, at any rate. “Hello?” I say aloud.
“Have you heard?”
Both my mother’s question and her dull voice make me afraid to ask “What?”
She almost laughs. “No, I mean have you heard from him.”
“I haven’t. You haven’t either, obviously.”
“I haven’t.” Her silence suggests that our words have beenengulfed by the mire of repetition until she says “I suppose it must be time, then.”
She means for the police. “Would you like me to call them?”
“Oh, would you? Or do you think I better had? I was only thinking with him living here…” Perhaps she wants me to compete or at least to answer this, because some seconds take their time before she says “Maybe it would be best coming
“I think he thought the blitz was stirring things up that shouldn’t be. If you call him back you could put him in touch. We’ve not spoken since he went off and got married.”
“You’re certainly full of—” The presenter coughs on the way to saying “You’re certainly full of surprises, Bev. Bev?”
Perhaps she’s tired of his increasingly blatant scepticism, but I wouldn’t mind sharing it so late at night when I’m already nervous about my father. Across the street the deserted office lit by the lamp at the intersection seems unsettlingly reminiscent of my childhood bedroom—the dim discoloured oblique light from outside, the long misshapen shadows that resemble dream versions of the furniture. I could almost imagine that one rounded blotch is a face that’s peering at me around the edge of the grubby window. I mustn’t be distracted from listening to calls my father may have followed up.
They’re all about tunnels. Someone whose grandfather was involved in digging Queensway, the first of the pair that take roads under the river, says attempts were made to block up the excavations. The bosses accused the workmen of trying to prolong the job, but some of her grandfather’s colleagues insisted the tunnel had been blocked from within. While I reflect that the digging began at the Old Haymarket, a square built on the highest reach of the Pool, the wife of a worker at the sorting office on Copperas Hill reveals that the postmen are loath to use the tunnel that links the office to Lime Street Station. Perhaps it’s a tale to frightennew recruits, since the veterans say the lights in the tunnel sometimes fail, unless they’re switched off as a prank, at which point you may realise you have company that doesn’t need to see you to find you, because you’ll hear its whisper in your ear before you encounter its wet flabby touch. The construction of the offices unearthed coffins lined with lead, but the presenter is growing so openly cynical about the behaviour of workers that I wouldn’t blame his listeners if they kept any more anecdotes to themselves. A ticket collector rings to talk about the underground railway, a loop of which passes beneath the centre of Liverpool, starting and returning at the bottom of the street the Castle used to dominate. All the tunnels leak, and the loop has to be closed every spring while rails corroded by salt water are replaced. The employee says he’s been told by contractors that they’ve heard intruders running or rather sloshing ahead of them in the dark, even in sections of the tunnels where there’s no water underfoot. It occurs to me that the loop crosses the route of the Pool. The presenter bemoans attitudes to work again before conceding the air to an amateur historian who points out that the city below the ridges of Everton and Edge Hill is riddled with passages—sewers, old hydraulic systems, abandoned railway tunnels and others still in use. As I wonder if my father might feel driven to explore any of them, whatever his reasons, my mobile sets about performing its underwater song.
The call is from my parents’ house. As I pause the broadcast I think something like a prayer—an unspoken wish, at any rate. “Hello?” I say aloud.
“Have you heard?”
Both my mother’s question and her dull voice make me afraid to ask “What?”
She almost laughs. “No, I mean have you heard from him.”
“I haven’t. You haven’t either, obviously.”
“I haven’t.” Her silence suggests that our words have beenengulfed by the mire of repetition until she says “I suppose it must be time, then.”
She means for the police. “Would you like me to call them?”
“Oh, would you? Or do you think I better had? I was only thinking with him living here…” Perhaps she wants me to compete or at least to answer this, because some seconds take their time before she says “Maybe it would be best coming
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