Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2

‘No,’ I said, looking at the window. ‘It’s there.’

John laughed. ‘You saw it, did you?’

‘It’s a young and lovely woman with a shawl on a cold night. A young woman with long black hair and great green eyes and a complexion like snow and a proud Phoenician prow of a nose. Sound like anyone you ever in your life knew, John?’

‘Thousands.’ John laughed more quietly now, looking to see the weight of my joke. ‘Hell—’

‘She’s waiting for you,’ I said. ‘Down at the bottom of the drive.’

John glanced, uncertainly, at the window.

‘That was the sound we heard,’ I said. ‘She described you or someone like you. Called you Willy, Will, William. But I knew it was you.’

John mused. ‘Young, you say, and beautiful, and out there right this moment …?’

‘The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.’

‘Not carrying a knife—?’

‘Unarmed.’

John exhaled. ‘Well, then, I think I should just go out there and have a chat with her, eh, don’t you think?’

‘She’s waiting.’

He moved toward the front door.

‘Put on your coat, it’s a cold night,’ I said.

He was putting on his coat when we heard the sound from outside, very clear this time. The wail and then the sob and then the wail.

‘God,’ said John, his hand on the doorknob, not wanting to show the white feather in front of me. ‘She’s really there.’

He forced himself to turn the knob and open the door. The wind sighed in, bringing another faint wail with it.

John stood in the cold weather, peering down that long walk into the dark.

‘Wait!’ I cried, at the last moment.

John waited.

‘There’s one thing I haven’t told you,’ I said. ‘She’s out there, all right. And she’s walking. But … she’s dead.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ said John.

‘No,’ I said, ‘but I am. You’ll never come back. Much as I hate you right now, I can’t let you go. Shut the door, John.’

The sob again, and then the wail.

‘Shut the door.’

I reached over to knock his hand off the brass doorknob, but he held tight, cocked his head, looked at me and sighed.

‘You’re really good, kid. Almost as good as me. I’m putting you in my next film. You’ll be a star.’

Then he turned, stepped out into the cold night, and shut the door, quietly.

I waited until I heard his steps on the gravel path, then locked the door, and hurried through the house, putting out the lights. As I passed through the library, the wind mourned down the chimney and scattered the dark ashes of the London Times across the hearth.

I stood blinking at the ashes for a long moment, then shook myself, ran upstairs two at a time, banged open my tower room door, slammed it, undressed, and was in bed with the covers over my head when a town clock, far away, sounded one in the deep morning.

And my room was so high, so lost in the house and the sky, that no matter who or what tapped or knocked or banged at the door below, whispering and then begging and then screaming—

Who could possibly hear?

One for His Lordship, and One for the Road! (#ulink_13b6b147-2637-568f-a9b4-5138de64f691)

Someone’s born, and it may take the best part of a day for the news to ferment, percolate, or otherwise circumnavigate across the Irish meadows to the nearest town, and the nearest pub, which is Heeber Finn’s.

But let someone die, and a whole symphonic band lifts in the fields and hills. The grand ta-ta slams across country to ricochet off the pub slates and shake the drinkers to calamitous cries for: more!

So it was this hot summer day. The pub was no sooner opened, aired, and mobbed than Finn, at the door, saw a dust flurry up the road.

‘That’s Doone,’ muttered Finn.

Doone was the local anthem sprinter, fast at getting out of cinemas ahead of the damned national tune, and swift at bringing news.

‘And the news is bad,’ murmured Finn. ‘It’s that fast he’s running!’

‘Ha!’ cried Doone, as he leaped across the sill. ‘It’s done, and he’s dead!’

The mob at the bar turned.

Doone enjoyed his moment of triumph, making them wait.

‘Ah, God, here’s a drink. Maybe that’ll make you talk!’

Finn shoved a glass in Doone’s waiting paw. Doone wet his whistle and arranged the facts.

‘Himself,’ he gasped, at last. ‘Lord Kilgotten. Dead. And not an hour past!’

‘Ah, God,’ said one and all, quietly. ‘Bless the old man. A sweet nature. A dear chap.’

For Lord Kilgotten had wandered their fields, pastures, barns, and this bar all the years of their lives. His departure was like the Normans rowing back to France or the damned Brits pulling out of Bombay.

‘A fine man,’ said Finn, drinking to the memory, ‘even though he did spend two weeks a year in London.’

‘How old was he?’ asked Brannigan. ‘Eighty-five? Eighty-eight? We thought we might have buried him long since.’