RAMSEY CAMPBELL

The Wise Friend

FLAME TREE PRESS

London & New York

For Don D’Auria –

champion of horror, champion editor

Chapter One

Chapter One

The Journal

I could never have believed I would wish my son loved books less, let alone dread the consequences. That August afternoon he’d been in my apartment less than half an hour before he ended up in the room with shelves on every wall. He was sprawled in a leather armchair several times his age, and leafing through an exhibition catalogue, when his phone gave its vintage ring. A glance at the screen let him say “It’s mum.”

“Shall I leave you to talk?”

Roy’s features – the long sharp-nosed face and thin lips he’d inherited from me – twitched in a fleeting grimace. Just the deep brown eyes were his mother’s, but their habitual preoccupation was all his. “You can hear,” he said.

Just the same, I turned to the window. Double glazing fended off much of the noise from New Brighton Station down below, but I was being told a train was late. On the far side of the railway, beyond a cluster of chain restaurants at the bottom of the hill, the sea led to a crowd of windmills spinning like cogs of the sky. A microscopic oil rig and the distant filament of Blackpool Tower might have been components as well, helping maintain the pellucid blue. None of this distracted me from hearing Julia say “Are you at your father’s now, Roy?”

“Have been for hours. Do you want to talk to him?”

“I will when I’ve spoken to you. Are you settling in all right?”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

I could tell this meant yes in a fifteen-year-old’s parlance besides protesting at the question, but Julia persisted “Will you be comfortable there while I’m away?”

“Mum, dad can hear.”

“Then I’m sure he understands.”

“I’m good.” As I hoped this wasn’t dutifully aimed at me Roy added “I’m reading in his book room.”

“No need to bring any of those home. That’s what your tablet’s for.”

“The modern librarian,” I murmured and felt sly at once.

“I didn’t hear that,” Julia said, which generally meant she had. “What’s your reading, Roy?”

“A book of dad’s aunt’s paintings.”

“Just don’t let them tempt you to imitate her. You make sure he doesn’t, Patrick.”

“I haven’t done paintings since I was little,” Roy said.

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” Julia retorted forcefully enough to be rebuking both of us. “All the things she was mixed up with obviously harmed her mind, or she wouldn’t have done what she did to herself.”

“It was never proved she meant to,” I said.