This Is Midnight: Stories Read online

  ‘It’s grotesque!’ I said aloud. ‘It can never work. The whole thing is just too silly.’

  The smiles in the photograph were happy and I thought at once of their smiles and their laughter when I had watched them from the beach on the night of the barbecue. They had swum together, their bodies flashing, glinting in the moon-sparked water, their laughter bouncing back, echoing to the shore. I had felt embarrassed, but determined not to show it, the smile on my face growing more stiff and wooden with every second.

  ‘Don’t hate me, Carl,’ Cera had pleaded an hour before I had left for my London train. ‘I love him,’ she had told me. ‘Please try to understand.’

  ‘Understand!’ I had almost shouted the word back at her. How could she ask me to understand? How could she expect me to? She had known Greg for only two days! And in that time had thrown aside all that I had offered her. I would never understand, I told myself. Never. How could she do it to me? How? I was twenty-four years old and certain that I would never recover. I hated her then. I hated both of them. Desperately. Had she perhaps given me up for someone who was at least physically something of a challenge, it might have been easier to bear. But to lose out to someone who came to just above my elbow was a fact I just couldn’t bear to think about.

  But I did think about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The thought of Cera and Greg preyed on my mind till I was obsessed with them. I still couldn’t believe that I had lost her. It was impossible, I kept telling myself. And yet, there it was. There, too, was the newspaper-clipping, the photograph, and the letter that had more recently arrived from Cera herself. In it she begged me once again to forgive and to try to understand. She was, she said, unbelievably happy. Greg was as well. And all their happiness, all their contentment, they owed to me. It was true; they did.

  But they had destroyed my happiness, I thought. My own life was shattered. Well, in time they would pay. I was determined.

  Another window in the lounge has just fallen out. Shivered in pieces. The heat must be building up in there. Still, it’s not too hot to prevent my getting a quick look into the room. I can just make out the enormous shape there, smoke engulfed, lying on the carpet . . .

  I thought so much about Cera and Greg that when, at last, we actually met – by chance – it came as no great surprise. I knew we would meet again sometime, somewhere.

  On this occasion I was wandering aimlessly around the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. I had arrived there from the school nearby where I taught English and biology; having an engagement in the West End with a friend, it hardly seemed worthwhile going home to my flat in Wimbledon, so the museum was as good a place as any in which to kill an hour. The time was just after four-thirty. I had been amusing myself by gazing at a model of an angler fish. Quite inexplicably I had at once been reminded of Cera and Greg. The very size of the female compared with the male was enough to bring the pair at once into my thoughts again. I made my way to the cafe­teria, bought a cup of coffee and a sandwich. And as I sat down I saw them, Greg and Cera, sitting at the table not far from mine. It was some moments before either of them saw me and I had, in those moments, ample opportunity to study them.

  It must have been over five years since we had last met, I reckoned, and I only hoped that I had not changed quite so drastically in that time.

  To be absolutely honest, I had never seen a more odd-­looking couple in my entire life. Cera, I was sure, had grown larger than ever, while Greg, on the other hand, appeared to have shrunk. And it wasn’t only in height that they had changed. They were different in bulk, also. Greg, moving past Cera to hand her a cup of tea or coffee, looked, I cruelly observed, like a satellite encircling the sun.

  What had I ever seen in her? I asked myself. She was, in a word, enormous.

  And then they glanced round and saw me.

  ‘Carl! Hallo!’ Cera spoke first, her wide mouth smiling in surprise and gladness. Greg, close by her side, nodded, smiling an echo of her smile. He had lost a number of teeth, I noticed. At their insistence I joined them and together we talked for some minutes. I learned that they had bought a house very close to the sea – a large, very old house. No, Cera said, they had no children. I thought she spoke with a touch of sadness in her voice. She must have heard it herself, for she added quickly:

  ‘We don’t need children. We don’t need anyone. We have each other.’

  I found myself grinning and nodding like a marionette. The very thought of them being so close to each other, so content in each other’s company, was somehow sickening to me; the smile was all I could manage.

  When it was time for them to go they made me promise that I would visit them. Cera wrote out their address and gave it to me.

  ‘Any time,’ she insisted. ‘We hardly ever go out ourselves. Please come.’

  Again I nodded my agreement, having not the slightest intention of ever keeping to it. I watched as Greg got up and helped Cera to her feet. She moved slowly, shifting her enormous bulk without grace, looking like some huge, stranded sea creature. I was reminded again of the angler fish and her tiny mate as Greg moved around her, before her, and again in her wake, his movements quick and sharp, his eyes never wavering, never moving from the great bulk of his adored wife.

  All the hatred I had harboured for so long was now, I discovered, mixed with an unbelievable feeling of disgust and revulsion. I felt it hit me, sweep over me like a wave.

  For some moments after they had gone I sat quite still. My coffee cold and forgotten before me, my sandwich drying on its plate. After a while I got up and, as if in a daze, moved away. My footsteps, I found, were leading me back to the Fish Gallery.

  The whole room is ablaze now. No one could possibly get to them . . .

  I did visit them eventually. At the time I told myself that it was because I was in the vicinity of Thorsall Down. But that’s not really true. I know it now. I wanted to see them. I had to. Ever since the day in the Natural History Museum I had found myself devoured by a desire to see them again . . . Cera and Greg . . . those repulsive objects of my growing hatred.

  I found the house without difficulty. It stood high up on the cliff overlooking the sea. The only approach to the front door was by means of a narrow pathway that wound through a wild, tangled garden, formless and unkempt. The hard, late November winds had all but stripped the trees of their last leaves, and as I stepped from my car I wondered how anyone could find pleasure in such a bleak, forbidding atmosphere.

  With my collar pulled up high about my ears I made my way along the path to the old porch. My ring at the bell was answered by an old woman who took my name and then retreated quickly into the shadows. Moments later she was back and ushering me into a large, warm room. Giving me a nod and a rather uncertain smile, she left me. And then Cera and Greg appeared.

  The light in the room was quite dim but I could see well enough that in the six months since our last meeting the couple had changed even more.

  I found myself wondering whether the drastic changes would have taken place had they never met each other. If Cera had married me would she still have become this gross, obscene creature that I now saw before me? Would Greg, left to his life in his hometown, still have developed into this little toothless, quick-moving caricature of a man?

  Cutting into my thoughts came Cera’s precise accents as she asked if I would stay for dinner. Taken by surprise, I heard myself accept her invitation, cursing inwardly a second later, for there was nothing I wanted more than to say my hurried goodbyes and go.

  I eventually left after about two hours. They had to be the longest two hours of my life.

  For what seemed ages after the front door closed behind me I remember standing at the end of the long garden path breathing in the clear autumn air in great gulps. Clutching the handle of my car door I fought against the nausea that arose in me. My eyes clenched as tightly as my fists, I tried to dispel th
e images that swam in my mind, threatening to swamp me. But the pictures wouldn’t go. I watched all over again as Greg sat at the table – so close to Cera that their bodies often touched – eating from a bowl a mess of soggy, sloppy pap that she had served him.

  ‘Poor darling cannot chew since he lost all his teeth,’ she explained with loving sympathy in her voice.

  She and I ate some dish of meat and vegetables. I ate without tasting a mouthful, so desperately eager was I to get away. But for the moment there was no escape. I was forced to watch as Cera picked up a spoonful of the slop from Greg’s dish and fed him, gently pushing the bowl of the wooden spoon between his thick, fleshy lips, past his pink, toothless gums. He slobbered, nestling into her gigantic bosom, the food dribbling down over his weak chin as if he no longer had complete control over himself. And Cera didn’t seem bothered in the least; she appeared to be as fond, as adoring of him as ever. The spectacle was sickening.

  Later, as I headed back to London, I said to myself that two such hideous people should not be allowed to go on living.

  I had to do it. I had no choice. I only hope that no one will ever know. I pray it. But the fire must make sure of it . . . The fire. Nothing can be seen inside the room now . . . only the flames . . . The flames are everywhere . . .

  Of course I went back again. I had sworn to myself that I never would but of course I did. I knew I would have to. It was March when I retraced my steps along the narrow, winding garden path. As before, I had made no announcement of my impending arrival and I thought, just for a moment, that they had gone away; I could see no lights shining through the curtains. It was with some relief that I heard the footsteps coming to answer my ring at the door. In another two minutes I was being shown into the lounge by the old servant I had seen previously. When she had gone I sat down, waiting patiently for Cera and Greg to come in and greet me.

  The room was large and lit only by the firelight and one small lamp. Outside, a wind had sprung up, buffeting the house in its exposed position, crying round the corners. Its sound made a forlorn, melancholy background to the bright crackle of the burning log in the grate. And then came the sound of Cera’s voice.

  ‘It’s so nice to see you, Carl. And such a surprise. Come and sit over here by me.’

  Having turned in the direction of her voice I at last made out her shape as she lounged in the shadows.

  ‘Hallo, Cera . . .’

  I moved to her and sat in the chair which she indicated. Before me her huge bulk was draped over a red velvet couch, the legs of which must surely have been groaning beneath her weight. I studied her in the fitful glow of the fire.

  There was no longer even the remotest trace of the girl I had met in Regent Street all those empty, unhappy years ago. She bore hardly any likeness to a woman at all now, and I shuddered to imagine what she must look like divested of her clothing. Her shape was not smooth as one might have expected, but oddly lumpy, and the flickering firelight playing on the great mound of her body gave, I thought, beneath the folds of her loose robe, the strange impression of movement.

  I looked at her face. Her mouth with its strong, sharp, white teeth looked wider than before, while her little round eyes, set in the increasing expanse of her pale flesh, seemed almost to have disappeared. I looked away again.

  ‘Where is Greg?’ I asked.

  For a long moment she hesitated, then she said:

  ‘He is away.’ A pause, then she added: ‘It is a pity you cannot see him. He will be sorry to have missed you.’

  I was about to ask more specifically where he was when she forestalled me with a question of her own.

  ‘Did you come by train?’

  ‘No. By car again. I parked it on the road like last time. I could find no garage or any other suitable spot.’

  ‘There is none.’ She shook her head and her whole body seemed to quiver.

  ‘Then where do you keep your car?’

  ‘We have no need of a car,’ she answered. ‘We have no need to go anywhere. Everything we need is here. Whatever provisions we require are brought to the house. And we have our servants. We manage very well.’ After a pause, she added – with, I thought, a trace of smugness – ‘We are very self-­sufficient here.’

  At this point the maid came to the door and announced that if nothing more was wanted then she and the cook would like to leave for the night.

  ‘Thank you, dear.’ Cera smiled. ‘We’ll see you in the morning.’

  When the maid had gone, Cera said with a shrug, ‘It is impossible to get servants to live in . . .’

  ‘It must be expensive, running a large house like this,’ I said, ‘ – servants as well.’

  ‘Oh, well – ’ another smile came, showing her white teeth, ‘as I said before, we manage.’

  I realised suddenly how very little I knew about her. What was her background? Obviously she had considerable wealth; neither she nor Greg seemed to have done a stroke of work since their marriage.

  ‘Are you surprised to see me?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I thought you would come again.’

  ‘Are you sorry I came?’

  She looked away from me. She spoke softly.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if you did not come back . . .’

  ‘Yes . . .’ She was right. In a moment, I determined, I would get up, go, and never come back. What was I doing here now? I asked myself. It was insane. I rose to my feet and picked up my coat. ‘No, please,’ I said, gesturing as she began to move her great bulk off the couch. ‘I can see myself out.’

  ‘Nonsense. We don’t forget our manners. We’ll see you to the door.’

  As she got to her feet I could see at last just how enormous she had become. She must be pregnant, I thought – unless she was very ill . . . But it was not her weight alone. Surely she was now taller than I. The level of her small, button-like eyes was higher than my own. Looking down, I tried to see whether she was wearing high-heels, but the length of her robe hid her feet from view. I became aware once more that beneath her robe there was some flickering of life, a pulsating that must be, I told myself, a trick of the light.

  ‘Goodbye, Cera . . .’

  ‘Goodbye, Carl. Perhaps someday you will understand.’

  Never, I said to myself.

  ‘Well . . .’ Cera out her hand and, hesitating for the briefest moment, I took it. The feel of her flesh was cool and clammy. Quickly I released her and, much relieved, moved to the door. Behind me she followed, moving slumberously, tortuously, her great, unwieldy body swaying with her slow, graceless steps. And then the door was opening and I was out into the air again, hurrying away down the path back to normality. I could feel Cera’s eyes upon me as I went. As I reached a corner I turned and looked back; she was still there, framed in the soft light of the doorway, looking like a monstrous, grotesque museum specimen.

  My sleep that night was fitful. I awoke many times, and each time, it seemed, Cera’s body was there before me; and then Greg, small and insignificant in the shadow of her overpowering bulk. And even in my dreams she was there, swimming by, floating by, the folds of her loose, voluminous robes drifting, undulating, twitching around her. In the morning I got up thick-headed, and unsteady on my feet from lack of sleep.

  I went through my day at school with my mind only half on my job. And all the while my thoughts of Cera and Greg were lurking there, ready to take over. I grew more and more obsessed with them with every passing hour.

  I put my obsession down to the fact that, quite simply, they needed explaining. It was just that. They were beyond my understanding, and I couldn’t let such a mystery rest. Had they always been quite so grotesque, always so repellent? Was the change in them existing only in my own imagination? There were so many questions.

  When I got back to my flat later that afternoon I at once searched for the newspaper
clippings that I had kept for so long. I smoothed at the yellowing photograph and looked at the smiling faces there. They looked young and happy. Cera’s smile was dazzling, and there below was Greg’s grinning face as she towered above him like some giant protectress.

  I turned to the newsprint and read again the words that had, at one time, so devastated my own happiness: ‘. . . at the marriage of Mr Gregory Marchant and his bride, the former Miss Cera Tiidae . . .’

  ‘Tiidae . . .’ I said the name aloud. And I recalled my own words when she had first told me her name: ‘What kind of a name is that?’ I had asked jokingly. Cera . . . Tiidae . . . Cera Tiidae. In my mind the names rolled around, moving, shifting . . . It was almost as if my brain wanted only the merest jolt for the pieces to fall into place . . . Cera . . . Tiidae . . . It meant something to me – if only I could find what it was.

  Casting my mind back I searched my experiences for a clue. There was something there – I knew it – something that would give my mind the necessary jolt. It was something connected with one of our meetings . . . The beach . . . No . . . Where else had we met? At their house in Thorsall Down and in the cafeteria of the museum.

  Click. It was the proverbial piece of puzzle falling into place.

  If I was right.

  No. No! I must be mistaken, I told myself. I must be wrong! The whole idea, the whole conception, was too dreadful to contemplate.

  When the Natural History Museum opened this morning I was waiting on the steps. I had already telephoned the headmaster of my school to say that I might be a little late. Now, hurrying past the surprised doormen, I went at once to the gallery where the fish exhibits were kept. There, striding purposefully between the rows of glass cases, I came at last to the end where the model of the angler fish was kept.

  My heart pounding, I stared at the grotesque creatures. There was the enormous female with the wide mouth and the tiny button-like eyes. And there was the male, so small beside in comparison. And there was the name: Ceratias holboelli (family: Ceratiidae) . . . Ceratiidae . . . Cera Tiidae . . .