The Claw

Ramsey Campbell
One

It took Joanna Marlowe almost an hour to cross from the mainland to Lagos. Beneath a sky the colour of sandy mud the bridge was jammed with cars and bicycles, blaring and ringing and hooting. A few canoes sprouting umbrellas glided across the lagoon, past a lone bedraggled yacht stranded in the drizzle without a hope of wind. Joanna's car was boxed in by a bus called God Save Us and a boastfully shiny black car, driven by a Yoruba man who kept leaning on his horn and chewing a cigar almost as fat as the exhaust pipe. She felt trapped by the thick, muggy heat and the traffic, yet she wasn't anxious to move. Her talk with Isaac had made her afraid to go home.

Beside her, Helen was sulking because she'd been slapped for trying to sound the horn. The little girl crossed and uncrossed her long bare legs, tugged restlessly at her shorts, rolled the window up and down. Now she was snapping the glove compartment, over and over again. Joanna was about to slap her when the bus in front lurched forward. The driver of the shiny car leaned on his horn at once, and Joanna barely restrained herself from walking back and screaming obscenities at him. She no longer felt at all like an anthropologist's wife from Oxford. She wasn't even sure whose wife she was.

Helen was jumping up and down, her seat-belt twanging. 'Look, there he is, mummy,' she pleaded. 'The boy with the toys.' He was one of the traders who plied the narrow strip between the road and the parapet, waiting for traffic jams. Joanna haggled half-heartedly with him for a set of plastic quoits, and wished she could be distracted as easily as Helen was now. She stared across at the Carter Bridge.

Yes, it was jammed too. At least it would mean that David couldn't be home before she was.

When she drove off the bridge at last, the traffic was still crawling. Shoppers in robes of all colours were swarming along the Marina, lorries groaned up from the quay alongside. Beyond the mass of stores, outside which women sat in makeshift shelters, selling matches or buttons or single cigarettes, cars choked the road around the hospital. A plane sailed up from Murtala Muhammed Airport on the mainland and vanished through a gap in the clouds. She felt a sudden wish to take Helen home to England, but suppressed it. She was as afraid of leaving David here as she was of staying with him.

By the time she reached the end of the Marina, the clouds had parted fully. As she drove onto Victoria Island, sun streamed over the exhibition centre and the embassies, the beach scattered with prophets in praying sheds built out of palm fronds and individually signposted for tourists. She'd left the jabber of shoppers behind, she was in the open at last, and yet if anything she felt even more boxed in.

In a few minutes she was at the bungalow. The long front lawn was steaming; beneath the trees the grass was already dry and bright. Perhaps a shower would make her feel better. Thanks to the Foundation for African Studies, they even had a shower in the house.

She drove into the open garage – and jumped, stalling the engine. David's car was already there. Seeing his new friend off at the airport hadn't taken him as long as she'd expected. Joanna cursed. She wasn't ready for a confrontation with him, with this stranger who muttered and clenched his teeth and wouldn't look at her. She dragged at the stiff door of the garage, while Helen swung on it and waved her legs as it jerked downward. Perhaps he'd left the car and gone out for a walk – she hoped so; anything, so long as it gave her time to prepare herself. But when she came round the house the front door was open, and he was waiting in the doorway.

He seemed bigger than ever. He had never looked like an anthropologist, but that hadn't used to matter; he had just been David, huge and red-bearded and gentle, who would carry baby Helen about on the palm of one hand. Now it was a stranger who stood blocking the way – except that a stranger couldn't have made her innards twist and tighten so painfully. She felt Helen draw closer to her as he stepped forward, and that was the worst of all.

But he was smiling, so widely that his lips were trembling. It was the first time in weeks that Joanna had seen him smile. 'Hello there,' he shouted at both of them, so loudly that the Alsatian began snarling next door at the Dormers'. 'My God, you look roasted. I'll bet you're ready to sell your souls for air-conditioning. Where have you been?*

Before Joanna could answer – he was trying so hard to be his old self that it was as if someone was performing a parody of him – he saw Helen's quoits. 'Did mummy buy you those? Aren't you the lucky girl? Come and see what else I've bought you.'

He went into the house at once. When the little girl hesitated, Joanna found it difficult to breathe. If Helen trusted him again, perhaps the past wouldn't matter any longer… Helen was following him, but Joanna could tell it was only out of obedience. She followed her daughter quickly.

He was in the living-room. The sky was clouding over again, but he hadn't turned on the lights. A watery glow filtered through the windows and gathered on the carved toothy masks above the cocktail bar, the ivory Benin figurine at the centre of the Scandinavian table, the collected editions of Dickens and Trollops that came with the bungalow. David was holding up a black box. 'Here you are,' he said to Helen. 'High-Life music whenever you want it.'

It was a portable radio and cassette recorder. They'd always told Helen she could have one when she was old enough. He was holding it out to her, his smile wavering in case she wouldn't go to him. But she ran to him, pleading, 'Show me how to work it, daddy.'

He hugged her and stroked her long auburn hair as he showed her which buttons to push. But he must have felt he was trying too hard to wipe out the effects of the last few weeks, because he patted her bottom and sent her away as soon as he'd finished demonstrating. 'And what can I give mummy? You look as though you could do with a long cool alcoholic drink. In fact, let's both have one.'

Was that a good sign? In these last few weeks – in fact ever since he'd managed to track down a survivor of the old outlawed secret society – he'd hardly touched alcohol, as if he was afraid of losing control. He came back from the kitchen, shaking ice in tall glasses in time with Helen's Nigerian cassette. As he brought Joanna her Bacardi and Coke he squeezed her shoulder and gave her an apologetic, hopeful smile. She managed to smile in return, and clasped his great hand on her shoulder.

When he moved away to his chair – he moved as if he was sore inside, in his mind, perhaps – she said 'Was your friend in time for his plane?'

'In time? Joanna, you know you've got to be at least a day late to miss a plane in Lagos. He wasn't really what you'd call a friend, anyway. Though I suppose almost anyone's a friend at a party when you've had enough to drink. I just gave him a lift to save him from having to pay the earth for a taxi, that's all.'

So he had been drinking at the party. Early this morning when he'd fallen into bed and had gone straight to sleep, she'd been so relieved that she had slept soundly herself. It was the first night for weeks that he hadn't started pacing the room in the dark or stumbled out for a walk. Both of them had slept until late morning, when he'd woken crying, 'Oh God – Alan Knight! I've got to run him to the airport,' and had driven away, haif-dressed and unshaven. Had he been drinking last night because his problems were over, or in a desperate attempt to forget them, whatever they were?

Now he seemed anxious to explain away Alan Knight and change the subject, as if it made him feel guilty somehow. 'Where did you go today?' he asked for the second time.

Before Joanna could think of an appropriate lie, Helen told him: she loved saying the name, which always made her giggle. 'To see Mr Banjo,' she cried.

'Dropped in on old Isaac, did you?' He went quickly to the bar, and Joanna couldn't see his face, only the dark grinning masks around him. 'What did he have to say for himself?'

'Not much,' Joanna said.

'What, our favourite Yoruba from Oxford with nothing to say? Not even a proverb or two? I'll have to have words with him.' His jollity was shrill, almost hysterical. All at once she knew she had been right: the reason Isaac had been so unforthcoming was that he knew what was wrong with David. He'd sat beneath the creaking electric fan in his office at the University, smiling his piano-key smile and telling her that David must be having difficulties in his research. If that was true, why hadn't David told her, his assistant since before they were married?

Now David seemed to realize that she felt cut off from him by his false gaiety. 'I meant to tell you – I've a bit of rewriting to do,' he said, 'and then I'll give you a pile of work. Some of it wasn't worth keeping. Just hysterical.'

She always typed out his work – nobody else could read his handwriting – but he hadn't let her see anything for weeks; he had even taken to locking his notes away. Could the problem really have been nothing but a snag in his research, which had preyed on his nerves but which he'd had to work out for himself? Had he just become trapped in self-doubt? She wanted to think so, but she mustn't ask until Helen was safely in bed.

He refilled her glass and closed his hand gently over hers. 'I've made dinner,' he said. 'Cold meats and salad -it's in the fridge.'

Helen had to be persuaded to join them at the table, for she was dancing around the room to the beat of her cassette. David had regained his appetite and was making up for these last weeks, which was encouraging. Joanna was wolfing down her meal despite the fluttering of her stomach, so that she could finish, bathe Helen and put her to bed, and be able to ask him at last to tell her what had been wrong. She was beginning to sense that his gentleness was a plea for reassurance, and surely that meant he wanted her to ask.

As soon as Helen had finished, she jumped down from her chair and grabbed her radio. In a moment she was disco-dancing beneath the gaze of the masks. 'Don't get too excited,' Joanna warned her. She was enjoying the chance to sit and feel comfortable with David, even though the sky and the room were darkening; it had been so long. 'Bathtime soon,' she said.

David stood up. 'You sit and rest. I've been letting you do everything lately. I'll get her ready for bed.'

All at once the sky was very dark. Raindrops that sounded big as flies spattered the windows. Joanna couldn't see his face, only the looming masks. When she switched on the lights – they flickered a little, threatening a power-cut – she felt apprehensive once again, for Helen was looking to her for guidance. The little girl still wasn't sure of her father.

Joanna glanced nervously at him, but she couldn't refuse him. Being accepted again by his child might be just the reassurance he needed. Surely Helen had never been in real danger from him? She'd been wary of him only because he'd turned into someone she didn't know, like the victim of a spell in a fairy tale. 'All right, David, if you like,' Joanna said, and was inexpressibly relieved that Helen went to him at once.

She sat for a while, listening to Helen running about the bathroom and squealing. Now there was the hollow rumble of the bath, like thunder in the midst of the sizzle of rain. The lights flickered again, the masks twitched. Then she realized that she was listening in case anything was wrong, and made herself clear the table and go into the kitchen.

Beyond the window the lawn looked drowned, and the black sky was crawling, lowering toward her, as if it couldn't bear the weight of rain. Its looming presence, breathlessly oppressive, made her feel how near the jungle was. She washed the dishes slowly, aware that she was trying not to make too much noise, just in case. Next door the Alsatian was snuffling. Perhaps it had a cold; she had been hearing the sound for days. Just in case of what? she demanded angrily of herself. That started the litany of fears all over again: another woman, cancer, a crime of some kind – but if any of those was David's problem, it couldn't harm Helen. The important point was that Helen trusted him again. That showed there was nothing to fear.

The rain was slackening. The sound of the downpour faded like tuned-out static. Now she could hear Helen splashing, and she clattered the cutlery so as not to eavesdrop. She could still hear the snuffling – in fact, it sounded as if the dog was just below the kitchen window. Had it strayed into the garden? As the lights dimmed sharply for a moment – it made her think of a heart missing a beat – she craned forward over the sink, to see.

At first all she could see was the brooding green of the lawn and the reflection of her own face, a pale mask set in sodden velvet. Then without warning her face vanished, and the dog began to bark. All at once her chest felt too tight to breathe. She knew why her reflection had been wiped out – the power had failed. That was why the dog was barking – but though the barking came from the house next door, the snuffling was still below her window.

Could something have come out of the jungle, all the way to the island? Ever since she'd come to Lagos, that had been one of her secret fears. She could only thank God that David was with Helen. The black sky pressed down, the lurid garden was closing in like jungle, and it seemed forever before the lights flared up again.

She backed away, limp with relief. Now the kitchen was lit she felt almost secure, walled off from whatever was outside. Perhaps David ought to find out what had strayed into the garden, while she kept Helen safe. She was wondering if it would be dangerous for him to go out there when the child began to scream.

Joanna ran through the living-room and into the hall. The lights were flickering again – the wooden lips of the masks were writhing, their empty eyes glaring dully – but she knew instinctively that it wasn't the dark the child was afraid of; something far worse. Before she reached the bathroom Joanna was crying out for David. But he didn't reply, though she could hear him muttering in there, and the bathroom door was locked.

Her fears rushed back, a shapeless mass of them blotting out her thoughts and leaving her nothing but instinct. Beyond the door Helen was thrashing about in the bath, and screaming. Joanna's senses were feverishly heightened, for she could hear the child scrabbling at the slippery bath, water sloshing across the linoleum. She lifted one leg, and with all her desperate strength, kicked the door just beneath the handle. The door flew inward, ripping the socket of the bolt away from the frame.

The first thing she saw as she staggered into the room was the colour of the water that had spilled across the floor to her feet. It was pink. In a moment she saw what had coloured it – saw the trickles of blood that were mingled with the water. Blood was trickling down the side of the bath. She had to force herself to look beyond that, to where Helen was cowering against the taps.

The child was struggling in the pinkish water. She was screaming so loudly that the tiled walls seemed to shriek, and her limbs seemed useless. The discolouration of the water made it difficult for Joanna to see the child's body. Her eyes were aching with strain before she made out that the child was unmarked. Once she was sure of that, she was able to look at David. She saw the razor-blade in his left hand at once.

He seemed hardly aware of her. Certainly his muttering wasn't intended for her. 'It didn't work,' he was repeating lifelessly. 'It won't stop.' Perhaps he was as drained of feeling as his voice, for he was slashing mechanically at his right hand with the razor. Though its fingers were twitching, it was scarcely more than rags of raw flesh now.

He was turning toward Helen. Up went his left hand with the razor-blade. 'Won't stop,' he moaned. Before Joanna could move, he had shoved the blade into his open mouth, and swallowed. The next moment he lurched forward at Helen. It was a convulsion, not an attack. As he slumped to his knees, nothing reached her but an enormous rush of blood.