New Fears 2: Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

THUMBSUCKER Robert Shearman

My father has become a thumbsucker. I know, it took me by surprise too. I’d taken him out to dinner, and it had been a fine dinner—my father and I always try to have dinner together once a month or so, but sometimes I get busy, I have to cancel and he always understands—but I’d made the time, we’d been out and had this most excellent steak in a restaurant I’d seen reviewed quite favourably in one of the Sunday supplements. We were talking about something inconsequential—cricket probably, or which Wodehouse novel he was re-reading—and the plates were being cleared. And he sighed contentedly, he smiled, he folded his hand into a fist, tapped it gently a couple of times to make the thumb pop out—and then, without any embarrassment or explanation, proceeded to put the thumb into his mouth and hold it between his teeth like the stem of a pipe.

I made no comment on it. And we continued our conversation: “What about that Bertie Wooster?” he’d say, or maybe, “What about that test match?” Puffing on the thumb as he listened to me, then removing it from his mouth and jabbing it in the air to emphasise a point in reply.

The waiter had been attentive all evening, checking that we were enjoying our meal and keeping our wine glasses filled. And when he approached we assumed it was to offer us dessert—Father had decided upon the tiramisu, and I thought I’d plump for a crème brûlée.

The waiter spoke quietly, but firmly. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said to my father. “But would you please put that away?”

Father turned about, as if looking for whomever else the waiter was addressing, then narrowing his enquiry upon his own offending digit. “I’m sorry,” Father said at last. “But I’m sure I’m doing it quietly. I’m not slurping.”

“It’s not a question of volume, sir. It’s our policy. And there have been complaints.”

“Indeed?” And my father looked around again, and this time I did too—but there were no other diners watching us, they were all staring intently down at their food.

“It’s policy,” said the waiter again. “We don’t seek to discriminate…”

“No, no,” said Father. “Well, then. Well.” And he lowered his thumb, tucked it back deliberately into the palm of his hand.

“Thank you. Now, may I fetch you gentlemen some dessert?”

“I’ll have the crème brûlée,” I said.

“He’s my son,” said Father.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“I said he’s my son. Don’t go thinking otherwise.”

“I’m sure he is whatever you say he is. Dessert?”

“I’ll have the crème brûlée,” I said.

“No,” said Father. “The bill. Just the bill, please.”

“Just the bill, sir. Probably for the best.” The waiter nodded, smiled perfectly politely, and was gone.

I started on some new conversation, but it was hard because Father wasn’t joining in, and the restaurant seemed so much quieter somehow and I thought everyone was listening. I was relieved when the waiter returned. He put a little silver plate between us; on it were the bill and two very small mints. “When you’re ready, gentlemen,” he said, and this time confirmed it, there was a slight edge to the “gentlemen” and emphasis upon the word that seemed ironic.

“I’ll get this,” muttered Father.

“Dad, no, I invited you out for dinner…”

“I said, I’ll get this.” He took out his credit card and said to the waiter, “How much of a tip do you usually expect?”

“Tipping is at the customer’s discretion, and in the circumstances…”

“No, no, I want to do it properly. I want to be proper, I want it to be above board. How much?”

“Fifteen per cent,” said the waiter. “Usually.”

“Usually, eh? Well, my maths isn’t very good. Perhaps you could look at this and tell me how much I should add.” He handed the waiter the bill, making it very clear he was keeping his thumb as far away from the sheet of paper as possible.

The waiter calculated, told him. My father gave him his credit card, thumb pointedly still angled away, and all the while he stared at him, he never took his eyes off him—and the waiter grew uncomfortable, he made a mistake with the card machine, tutted under his breath, had to start again.

“I don’t judge,” the waiter said quietly.

“What was that?”

“I don’t judge.” No louder than before. “I’m just doing my job.” He put the credit card and the receipt down on to the table, far from my father, as far from my father as he could manage. And then he hurried off. Father and I put on our coats, and it was only as we reached the exit that the hubbub of conversation behind us seemed to return to normal.

Out on the street, and it was already dark, and I was pleased because this meant the evening was nearly over. “Let’s get you to the tube,” I said, and on the way I spoke brightly about the weather and things. And eventually my father said, “Are we really not going to discuss what just happened?” And he didn’t sound cross, and I honestly thought he was going to apologise to me.

But instead he said, “I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve made mistakes. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. But they’re my mistakes. Okay? What I am, it’s up to me.”

“Well, yes,” I said. “If you like.”

“You’re my son,” he said. “I’d have stood by you, whatever. If you’d ever been caught shoplifting. If you’d got on drugs.”

“I don’t do drugs,” I said.

“Oh, what’s the point?” Again, he wasn’t angry, he just sounded tired. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how old a man my father is.

We walked all the way back to the tube station in silence.

“Well, then,” he said, when we reached the entrance.

“Well!” I said. I’d normally have offered him my hand, but I wasn’t sure what he’d do with it.

“You think that waiter was right, don’t you? Come on.”

“Well,” I said. “You’ve got to admit, it’s a posh restaurant. I mean! It’s not like Kentucky Fried Chicken. Finger lickin’ good, I mean!” I laughed, and I thought he might laugh too.

“A man needs a hobby,” he said. “What have you got that’s so special?”

When I got back home, Peggy was watching television. I settled down on the sofa next to her. When the commercials came on, she said, “How’s your dad?”

“He’s okay, I think.”

“Good.”

“We had steak.”

“Did you give him my love?”

“I did, yeah.”

I did consider discussing the thumbsucking incident, but I couldn’t be sure how to express it as a funny anecdote or as something that should be of concern, and I wasn’t sure, moreover, that either approach could be comfortably confined within the length of a commercial break. And I didn’t know how Peggy would react to thumbsucking; thumbsucking was one of the many areas of the conversational no man’s land into which we no longer strayed.

We finished that programme, and then we watched another. At some point I suggested to Peggy that she’d be welcome to join me and my father for dinner some time, and she said that might be nice; at another point, she came up with the idea that maybe we should invite him over to ours for a home-cooked meal. Not now. Not soon. But some time.

And after a while, we went to bed.

The next day I phoned my mother. A man I didn’t recognise answered.

“Who was that?” I asked her, when finally she got put on. “Was that Jim?”

“There is no Jim any more,” she said. “That’s Frank. Anyway. How are you?”

I told her I was fine. Peggy, fine. How was she? She was fine too.

“I wondered if you’d spoken to Dad recently?”

She gave it some thought. “I don’t think so, no. There was Christmas, I think. I spoke to him then.”

“Right.”

“But whether it was this Christmas or the Christmas before, I really couldn’t say. What’s the matter? Is he ill? Is he dying?”

“No, no, nothing like that. He’s fine. He’s absolutely fine.”

“Fine is good,” she said, and to her credit, she did actually sound relieved.

“I’m just worried about him,” I said. “He doesn’t seem his usual self. I think maybe he’s lonely.”

And at that Mother gave a little hollow laugh. “Well,” she said, “we’re all bloody lonely, aren’t we?”

Yes, he was lonely, and the solution was easy—I’d just make more time to spend with him. But I didn’t. I didn’t call him to arrange a dinner, I didn’t call him at all. And one day I realised three months had passed, and that was the longest time in my whole life I had ever spent apart from him.

His birthday was drawing near, and I knew I’d have to speak to him on his birthday, how could I not? And I knew too that I couldn’t wait until the birthday itself. I’d have to call him some time before it, or the birthday would look too obvious, so I decided to call him one week before his birthday, one week before exactly. Time enough, I hoped, to break the ice, and make that dreadful birthday conversation we’d have to have a little less awkward. I phoned. My heart was pounding. I was scared. I didn’t know why. This was my father, a man who had never hurt me all these years, who had never let me down, who loved me—I knew it—and deserved my love back. I clutched the receiver in my hands, and, dear God, I hoped he wouldn’t pick up.

He did.

He wasn’t tense, or annoyed, he didn’t try to make me feel bad for the months of silence. I talked lightly about cricket for a while, and he seemed happy to join in. “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I’m really sorry, I’ve been very busy.” He said it was all right, he had been very busy too.

I felt a rush of relief at that, and also, I think, a rush of love. “We should meet up soon,” I said.

“That would be nice.”

“As soon as you like! I could take you out to dinner for your birthday. Or before your birthday! I could take you out to dinner before your birthday and on your birthday. Do you fancy that? Do you fancy a pre-birthday dinner?”

And he said, and it was the first time in the whole conversation that there was an edge to his words, “You’re always asking me out to eat. You think I want to eat? You think it’s food that excites me?”

“Well,” I said. “What would excite you?” Already dreading the response.

He told me.

He said, “I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

I said, “I wouldn’t have to do anything, would I? I mean. I could just watch.”

“Of course,” he said. “A lot of people just come to watch.”

“All right.”

“You don’t have to approve. But it’d be nice, I think, if my son understood who I really am. If you got to see me, once— the real me, I mean. Because who knows how much longer I have? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

“Don’t talk like that, please,” I said. “You’ve got years left.”

“If I’ve got years left,” my father told me, “this is what keeps me alive.”

We agreed to meet the very next day after I’d finished work. He’d take me to his club. I asked if it would be a problem I’d be wearing my office suit, and he told me, no— there wasn’t a dress code, and everyone liked a man who dressed smart.

Father was dressed in a suit too, nothing too formal, the jacket was a little faded. He explained that we weren’t going to a real club, not as such; it was the private residence of a Mr J. C. Tuck. I asked Father who this J. C. Tuck was, and he said he had no idea—it wasn’t forbidden to discuss your private lives, but it was considered a little crass. Father carried a plastic bowl full of guacamole. He said he’d brought enough for both of us, but if I chose to come again it’d be polite to get some refreshments of my own.

“This is it,” Father said at last. We were standing outside a pretty semi-detached house in a quiet cul-de-sac off the main road; the front garden was neatly mown; the path to the door was a crazy paving; the curtains were drawn. Father rang the doorbell. The noise it made was reassuringly mundane.

J. C. Tuck answered the door. He wasn’t wearing a suit; he looked comfortable in a sweater and slacks. “Welcome, welcome!” he said. He was about sixty, I think. He was tall and slim, and his silver hair was nicely combed; I guessed he was a solicitor, or perhaps a bank manager—he smiled with the gracious cheer of someone approving a loan. Father handed him his guacamole. “How lovely!” He introduced me, and said I was there to observe only—“How lovely, of course, you’re welcome!” He stood aside and waved us into the house, and it was only then I realised he was wearing a pair of tight black gloves. “Come through, how lovely, we’re about to begin!”

He led us into a large room. There was no furniture, but there were beanbags and settee cushions against the walls. Each of them was occupied—those men who weren’t lucky enough to find one squatted on the floor. Most of the men looked up as we entered, some of them smiled at my father and raised a hand in greeting. And their faces grinning wide in anticipation were wrinkled, the men were white-haired, or bald, their smiles showed teeth that were cracked or missing altogether. They were all so old; and when I looked at my father, acknowledging their hellos and smiling back in easy recognition, I realised how old he was too.

J. C. Tuck placed our guacamole down in the middle of the room, one of a whole army of bowls. There was salad dressing, and soup, and soft cheese—but it wasn’t all food, there was potpourri too, crushed roses and perfumes, and some liquid that looked suspiciously like urine. Tuck looked down at his collection and actually clapped his gloved hands together once in delight. Then he addressed the room.

“Welcome to you all,” he said. “I want you to be happy here. I want you to feel relaxed. There is no judgement in this room, you may do whatever you wish. I only remind you to respect the boundaries of others, which may not yet extend as broadly as your own. We have dips. And this evening we welcome some newcomers.” I thought he was talking about me, but he indicated a couple of elderly men in the corner of the room, and both were so excited, their eyes bulging out of shallow sockets at the thrill of it all. I thought they might have been twins. “Take care of them. Remember it was your first time once as well. Enjoy yourselves! Be happy! Have fun!”

And for all his fine words, for a moment I thought it had all gone horribly wrong. Everyone stared at him, reluctant to start. And then, around the room, I heard what sounded like faint clapping, and I thought they were giving him a rather half-hearted round of applause. And I realised instead that these old men were tapping at their fists, tapping hard until their thumbs popped out.

And then the sucking began. The men were putting their thumbs into their mouths, some of them were cramming them in so easily. There was one man opposite me who seemed to have no teeth at all and he was able to shove his whole hand in there. And then the slurping—and I realised how discreet my father had been in the restaurant those months ago, there was no need for such niceties here—there was the smacking of lips, and pops like little burps and farts, and the odd squelch as gobbets of saliva spilled out of their mouths and on to their chins.

My father sat next to me, slurping with just as much passion as the rest of them, his eyes closed to savour the experience—and then opening them and looking at me and, either disappointed by my reaction or merely disinterested, shutting them tight once again.

After the first bout of thumbsucking was over, some of the men shuffled over to the finger bowls in the middle of the room. They’d stick in thumbs still wet with spit, they’d scoop out generous portions of mayonnaise or hummus. And some of them would lick their thumbs dry, holding them up like ice-cream cones—others would thrust the whole sticky mass straight into their mouths. And then, cupping their thumbs so nothing would drip to the carpet, they’d return to the throng—they would offer their thumbs up to the other men to suck, and those men would break away from their own and instead take inside their mouths these strangers’ thumbs all laden high with goodies.

And there, still standing, taking no part in the proceedings but smiling as if with love and pride, was J. C. Tuck. He caught me looking at him and winked. I looked away.

One man approached my father. He offered him a thumb covered with apricot jam. My father smiled and shook his head. I was relieved by that, at least, that there were depths to which my father would not stoop. Then the man offered him his other thumb, and it was dripping with guacamole, our guacamole, and my father nodded eagerly and took the thumb into his mouth in one gulp. A man to his side lifted my father’s left hand, and began sucking on his thumb; my father didn’t even appear to notice. A man to the other side took his right thumb—and my father was blind to it all, all he cared about was licking every trace of crushed avocado away, licking that thumb clean and then licking still further—and with his arms spread out and supported by the elderly men guzzling at his side Dad looked like a starfish or Jesus on the cross in beatific bliss.

I made myself turn from him. Politely awaiting my attention were the two elderly brothers. They didn’t say a word; they smiled hopefully.

“No, thanks,” I said.

I got to my feet and left the room. I went out into the back garden and took some deep breaths of air. It was spattering with rain, just a little. I didn’t mind.

There was no way to leave the garden without going back through the house; I decided to stay there for a bit.

I heard a voice behind me. “Embarrassing, isn’t it? Watching other people enjoy themselves?” And I turned around, ready to meet the challenge. But there was no challenge, the words were not unkindly meant—there was J. C. Tuck, and he was smiling at me.

“I didn’t see you joining in either,” I said. “Is that what the gloves are for, to keep people away?”

“Ah,” said Tuck, and he smiled wider, and I thought it was a sad smile. “I think my thumbsucking days are over. I have other tastes now.” He reached into his pocket. “Cigarette?” he asked.

“Thanks,” I said. I lit one. I had to light his too, he couldn’t manage with his gloves on. He held on to my hand gently as I steadied the flame.

“You should come back inside,” he said. “You might like it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “No, I’m not that… I have a wife.”

“So? Lots of the men here have wives. You’re not cheating on them, you know. You’re only tasting. Are you cheating on your wife if you taste a nice sandwich?” He pulled on his cigarette. “Here you don’t even have to swallow.”

My own cigarette was getting damp. I tried to pull on it too, but no matter how hard I tried there was no draw to it. I threw it away. “How long has my father been coming here?”

“I don’t notice such things,” he said. “That he’s here now is all that matters, sharing the bounty. It’s a good place. Anyone can come here and be free.”

“In which case, why is everyone here a man? And old? And white?”

Tuck shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t know. You should ask all those young negro girls. I’m sure we don’t discriminate.”

“I think I would like to go now.”

“Your father wanted you to see this. Why do you think that was?”

“I don’t know.”

“The thumb,” said J. C. Tuck, “is the most remarkable part of the human body, you know.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”

“It’s the thumb which separates man from the animals,” said Tuck. “The opposable digit, which allows us to wield tools, to make something better of ourselves. Without our thumbs we would be nothing. The thumb is the greatest gift God gave us. And just because he loves us so, he gave us a second one, on the other hand, as a spare!”

“I don’t really believe in God.”

“I can see you’re not a man who believes in things.” He smiled at me, to show he wasn’t blaming me for this—if anything, he pitied me. “You’re an individual, yes? But what gives you the key to your individuality? The thumb. You know your fingerprints are unique. And the thumbprint is that uniqueness writ large. Thicker and wider and prouder than any mere finger.” He leaned into me, and I wanted to back away, but I didn’t dare somehow, and his voice was now so calm and gentle. “Do you know why babies like to suck their thumbs?”

“Um. To feel secure?”

“Because they know. Because at the very core of us, before civilisation moulds us and corrupts us, when we’re still pure and newly born, we know. The thumb is sacred. They tuck it away into their mouths to mother it, to comfort it and keep it safe. Why else would you think God designed the tongue so that it would fit so exactly around it?”

I looked down at my thumb. I didn’t want to. I felt compelled to.

“When did you last suck your thumb?” J. C. Tuck asked me.

“I don’t know.”

“So long ago,” whispered Tuck. “A time of comfort, so far away.” I don’t know why, but I felt my eyes begin to prick with tears. “It’s all right,” said Tuck. “Bring your thumb home. Suck your thumb for me now.”

I put my thumb in my mouth. It didn’t feel especially comfortable; it certainly didn’t feel like it had been brought home. My tongue lolled around the intruder awkwardly; it wasn’t really sure what to do with it.

“Not like that,” said Tuck. “Let me show you.”

And his gloved hand reached for mine, he drew it away from my lips and towards his. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t bite.” And he opened his mouth and pulled my thumb inside.

The first thing I noticed was how warm his mouth was, warm like a bed on a frosty morning, warm that was cosy and nice. And it was such a big mouth—mine had been all teeth and tongue, and half-chewed food most probably, there was barely room for my thumb at all—but in Tuck’s mouth the thumb could roam wide and free, the plains were vast and empty and my thumb for the taking. Tuck clamped my thumb gently to his soft palate with his tongue. The soft palate yielded like a sponge, the tongue was firm and it knew its business and it brooked no argument, it kept me pressed there and then it stroked me—it didn’t lick, it was nothing so uncouth, it flexed and flexed again, it seemed to pulsate.

And then, so soon, it was over. He pulled me out of his mouth, his lips pressed hard so they slid against my skin.

“Was that all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “And now then. Maybe you would do a little something for me.” He began to tug off his glove.

“You want me to suck your thumb?” I asked.

“No, as I say, my tastes have changed.” And he lifted up his hand.

There, on the end, was now just a stump. It cut off abruptly above the knuckle. There were tooth marks, some fresh too, there were still traces of blood—I saw little specks of bone.

“I like to chew,” he said.

He brought it up to my face, that stub of raw meat, and I wasn’t going to open my mouth, I wasn’t, but I had to breathe, and I felt my lips part. “Share the bounty.”

“Let him go,” said my father.

J. C. Tuck didn’t take his eyes off me for a moment, his face now so close to me I could taste that warm breath once more. The warmth that was so cosy. “Get back inside,” he said genially enough. “You’ll get wet.” And it was only then I realised that it was now raining very hard indeed.

“Let him go.” Father sounded frightened. He sounded as if he would run away at any second. “He’s my son. I brought him here to know me better. To understand. I…” I thought he had stopped, so did Tuck, who gave his attention back to me.

“He’s my son,” said my father one last time.

Tuck didn’t move for a moment. Then he looked down at the ground, and he stepped back from me. “Then go home,” he said softly. “Both of you.” And he went indoors.

Father and I held back in the garden for a minute, we didn’t dare follow. I went to my father and I smiled. He smiled back weakly. There was a line of guacamole on his chin.

It was raining heavily as we walked to the tube station, but Father was in no hurry, and I didn’t feel I could rush him. I took his hand. He held on to me, but there was no grip to it. I looked down at him, and thought once more how old he was.

“What am I going to do now?” he said at last.

“There’s still cricket,” I said. “There’s still Wodehouse.”

We reached the station. And he looked so sad, and I opened my arms wide for him and took him in a hug. I kissed him. I kissed him on the top of the head, and then I kissed him on the cheek.

“I’ll call you,” I said.

He nodded, and he turned, and he went.

When I got back home, Peggy was watching television. I settled down on the sofa next to her. When the commercials came on, she spoke to me. “Your Dad all right?”

“I think so.”

“Did you have steak?”

I realised I hadn’t eaten all evening. I wasn’t hungry. “Yes,” I said.

We watched the programme together. And I suddenly felt a rage inside me, that this was what our lives had become, that the love I knew we still had for each other had become so passionless. There was a time we could barely keep our hands to ourselves, and now—this, just this. And I wasn’t sure whether the rage was at her, or at myself. And then it passed.

I took her hand. She held on to it happily enough.

A few minutes later, I raised her hand to my lips. She let me do so. It was a dead weight. It had no will of its own. I kissed it gently. I put the hand back.

I waited until the commercial break. And then I raised her hand to my lips again. But this time I took her thumb inside my mouth. And it filled my mouth. I had never realised how large my wife’s thumb was.

At last I released her. And I lowered her hand gently back to her side. She didn’t say a word, she seemed a world away, a world of washing powder and furniture discount sales.

The programme ended. “Shall we watch another?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.” So we did.