Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror

I’m not mad, you know, whatever they say. Louise will tell you that, won’t you Louise?

Well, she would if she was in the mood.

* * *

Mark Timlin describes himself as a writer of pulp fiction, whose most famous character is private investigator Nick Sharman. This South London sleuth has so far appeared in one collection of short stories and some thirteen novels, the latest being A Street that Rhymed at 3am, published by Gollancz. Sharman was also the titular hero of a television series that Timlin describes as finishing a number of careers and was reviewed by one daily newspaper as ‘a national disgrace’. As the author explains, “‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” was originally written for the first One Day Novel Competition in 1994, in which a score or more writers sat for two twelve-hour sessions over one weekend in London’s Groucho Club. It didn’t win for several reasons, and I still subscribe that it wasn’t because it wasn’t the best. I read the winners and the runners-up and they didn’t hack it. Firstly, it isn’t a novel, being something less than nine thousand words long. And secondly, it may have something to do with the fact that I spent most of the second session upstairs in the green room as far away as possible from where the writing was going on, getting thoroughly zapped on free booze and goading a small coterie of fellow writers into excesses of mickey-taking out of the organizers, the other competitors and the club. Anyway, that’s my excuse and I’m going to stick with it. I don’t know why I entered the damned competition in the first place, having already had a load of books published and the prize not being worth a candle. As for the subject matter,’ adds Timlin, ‘that I was serious about, as the first part at least is the story of a true relationship of mine and I’m glad to see it published properly at last. And hey, I’m finally getting paid for it.’

Sous Rature JAY RUSSELL

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, most people think: who died?

I know it’s only Klein.

‘I don’t understand this sous rature stuff, Steve. How the hell does the bastard get away with it? I mean, he just crosses the bloody words out and then leaves them there on the page like squashed bugs. Doesn’t that bother anyone? Isn’t there a law? Doesn’t it drive you crazy?’

Our apartment sits just off-campus, in a neatly appointed professorial ghetto. The phone rests on the floor across the room from the bed because the cord won’t reach to the night stand. I don’t know why we haven’t just bought a cordless — or moved the bed — but that’s the way it is.

Elaine sleeps right through the calls. She used to bolt awake and roll off the bed, grabbing the receiver in one smooth motion. It amazed me how she could answer in a crisp, businesslike voice. As if it wasn’t the middle of the night; as if she hadn’t been stone dead to the world two seconds earlier.

Now she doesn’t even turn over.

‘It’s because he’s French, isn’t it? They get away with everything. I can live with Baudrillard’s bullshit, and even that crazy Virilio. But this erasure thing is too much. I mean, it’s up there with Jerry Lewis and Jean-Marie Le Pen. It’s, you know…God, it’s brilliant. It fits.’

I knew I’d regret lending Klein the Derrida books. I knew it would mean a lost night’s sleep.

‘Klein…’

‘I just, I can’t fully make sense of it. Steve, this is your field. You’ve got to explain it to me. I… I think I see where it fits — it’s so bloody fractal — but I just can’t quite…I’m afraid I’m going to have to really learn French for this guy, Steve. I mean, not just that oo-la-la crap that got me through Foucault. He’s…’

‘Do you know what time it is, Klein?’

‘Uhhhh. hold on.’

‘No, Klein…’

Too late. I glanced at Elaine. I wondered if the little bug inside her was awake or asleep. The duvet had become twisted around her slightly swollen belly. A thin line of saliva trailed from her mouth, watering the faded flowers on the pillowcase.

‘It’s almost three-thirty.’

‘Klein. ’ I sighed and stared vacantly at Elaine’s heavy breasts.

‘You really have to go back to Heidegger,’ I began.

I started having doubts about fractals and such the day one of my undergrads — a gaunt, black-clad cultural studies major with the unlikely moniker of B. Bronski — came to class wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the Mandelbrot set on the front and ‘I ¦ Chaos’ on the back. This same kid handed in a term paper with the title: ‘The Prosthetic Aesthetic: Fractal Postmodernism in the Cyberpunk/Splatterpunk Imperative.’ After that I figured it was only a matter of time before old Benoit himself performed a turn on Oprah.

Not that I entirely understand the stuff. If poked sternly with a pointed stick I can creditably acquit myself with an explication of strange attractors and sensitive dependence on initial conditions — God knows, I’ve heard Klein go on about it enough — but it’s still something of a strain for me. A lifetime in comparative literature departments has taken its toll on a scientific aptitude which wasn’t terrific to begin with.

Once upon a time, I dreamed about becoming an astronomer — next best thing to astronaut — but Cs and Ds in physics and calculus quickly stymied such fancies and sent me running for the shelter of Chaucer’s little helpers.

Still, my interest never entirely waned. I kept up with Drexler on nanotechnology, and was hyping VR and cyber-culture long before Wired magazine. Barnsley and Gleick and all the others opened up new worlds for me even as I completed my doctorate in English. I sprang for a top-of- the-line PC and high-res monitor when that kind of stuff was still an arm and a leg, and played with fractal- generating software, staying up into the wee hours, reliving the ‘star-gate’ sequence from 2001.

And I re-channelled my interest from science to science fiction, cajoling the department chair into letting me teach a graduate seminar by throwing a little Pynchon and Lessing in with the Dick and Ballard. I set to work on the definitive study of Olaf Stapledon and even scammed some funding to organize a small conference on popular science and science fiction.

Which was where I met Klein.

‘Klein call?’

I nodded and gave Elaine a mug and a kiss. It was a morning ritual and sort of unwritten contract that I get up first and bring her tea in bed. I like it. The ritual, I mean. Like any red-blooded American — even a Yank at (well, near) Oxford — I hate tea.

‘He wake you? I didn’t see you stir.’

She took a series of quick, tiny sips, the way the dog laps his water, and leaned back against the pillows.

‘No,’ she said, ‘but I dreamed of bells.’

‘Wedding bells?’

‘Don’t be a cheek. What did he want this time?’

I stood at the mirror adjusting my tie. My sole sop to respectability. I ran the back of my fingers under my chin and decided maybe I should have shaved after all.

‘He wanted me to explain deconstruction to him.’

‘Aauuuughhh,’ Elaine laughed and Darjeeling sprayed out of her nose. She dabbed at it with her nightie, still giggling. ‘What in the world for?’