The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

VI

AS SUCH TALES WILL do, the story of how Samuel Johnson had managed to ask a letter box on a date had made its way around the entire school by the time the bell rang to send everyone home.

“Hey, Johnson!” Lionel Hashim shouted at him as he made his way to the school gates. “I hear there’s a very good-looking traffic light over on Shelley Road. You could ask it to go to the cinema with you. Don’t try to kiss it, though. It might go red!”

Funny, thought Samuel. Really funny. His bag, and his heart, felt very heavy.

Outside the gates, Samuel’s pet dachshund, Boswell, was waiting. Boswell had the worried air of one who suspects that bad news is imminent, and its arrival has only been delayed by the fact that it’s looking for some more bad news to keep it company. A series of frown lines creased Boswell’s brow, and at regular intervals he would give a sigh. He was a familiar sight around the town of Biddlecombe, but particularly at the school, for Boswell was Samuel Johnson’s faithful companion, and was always present to greet his master when the bell struck four.

Boswell had always been a somewhat sensitive, contemplative dog. 15 Even as a puppy, he would regard his ball warily, as though waiting for it to sprout legs and run off with another dog. He displayed a fondness for the sadder types of classical music, and had been known to howl along to Mozart’s Requiem in a plaintive manner.

But recent events had given Boswell good cause to think that the world was an even stranger and more worrying place than he had previously thought. After all, he had witnessed monsters emerging from holes in space, and had even been injured by one as he attempted to save his master from its clutches. One of his legs had been broken, and ever since he had walked with a slight limp. Being a dog, although a very clever one, Boswell wasn’t entirely clear about the nature of what had occurred during the invasion. All he knew was that it had been very bad, and he didn’t want it to happen again. Most of all, he didn’t want anything to happen to Samuel, whom he loved very much, and so each morning, regardless of the weather, Boswell would trot along beside his beloved master as Samuel walked to school, and would be waiting for him when he emerged from school at the end of the day. A flap in the front door of the house meant that he could come and go as he pleased. Boswell’s duty was to protect Samuel, and he intended to fulfill it to the best of a small dog’s ability.

That day Boswell detected a change in Samuel’s usually sunny disposition. While some dogs might have made an effort to cheer up their master under such circumstances, perhaps by chasing their tail or showing them something that smelled funny, Boswell was the kind of dog that shared his master’s mood. If Samuel was happy, then Boswell was content. If Samuel was sad, Boswell stayed quiet and kept him company. In this, Boswell was wiser than most people.

And so the boy and his dog, each bearing some of the weight of the world upon his shoulders, made their way home, and had anyone taken the time to give them more than a passing glance, they might have noticed that both the boy and the dog kept their heads down as they went. They did not look in shop windows, and they avoided puddles. They did not seem to want to see themselves. It was as if they were frightened of their own reflections, or scared of being noticed.

People still occasionally shot funny looks at Samuel and indeed at Boswell, but not as often as they used to, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the funny looks they shot were of a general kind-“He’s an odd kid, and his dog makes me feel sad”-rather than the specific kind, such as, “There’s Samuel Johnson and his dog, who were involved with all of that demonic business that I’d rather not remember, thanks very much. Actually, now that I see them again, I feel a bit angry at them because I don’t want to be reminded of what happened, but by their presence here they remind me of it anyway, so I think I’ll just blame them for everything instead of the demons because it’s easier to be angry at a small boy and a smaller dog, and less likely to result in me being eaten, or whisked off to Hell, or some similarly horrible consequence.”

Or words to that effect.

Samuel had almost ceased to notice the reactions of other people to his presence, but that was not why he and Boswell kept their heads down. It was true to say that they did not want to be noticed, but it was not their neighbors in Biddlecombe who worried them. The individual who concerned them was much farther away.

Farther away, yet strangely close.

Most of us do not think very hard about the nature of mirrors. We see the reflection of a room, or of ourselves, in a glass and we think, “Oh, look, it’s the couch,” or “Oh, look, it’s me. I thought I was thinner/fatter/better-looking/uglier/a girl.” 16 But it’s not your couch, and it’s not you. It’s a version of you, which is why the artist René Magritte could paint a picture of a pipe and write beneath it, in French, Ceci n’est pas une pipe, or “This is not a pipe.” Because it’s not a pipe: it’s an image of a pipe. As Magritte himself pointed out: “Could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation. So if I had written on my picture, ‘This is a pipe,’ I’d have been lying!”

The painting in question, from 1929, is called The Treachery of Images. (Treachery, meaning to trick or deceive, is another great word, especially if you roll that first r on your tongue and really stretch it out: “Trrrrrrreachery!” you can shout, in a demented way, while waving a sword and alarming the neighbors.) In other words, you can’t trust images, because they’re not what they pretend to be.

Samuel had become very familiar with this concept, and not in a good way. He had begun to suspect that mirrors were very strange indeed, and that, far from simply providing a reflection of this world, they might in fact be a world of their own. 17 He felt this because very occasionally he would glance at a mirror, or the window of a shop, or some other reflective surface, and he would see a figure that should not have been there. It was the figure of a no-longer-quite-beautiful woman in a floral dress. It was Mrs. Abernathy.

For Mrs. Abernathy, Samuel had decided, walked in the world of mirrors. She couldn’t get back into this world, but somehow she could see into it by moving behind the glass. Samuel had caught glimpses of her in the mirror of his bathroom cabinet, in the glass of his front door, even once, most peculiarly, on a spoon, where she was distorted and upside down. She seemed to prefer to come at night, when the windows were dark and the reflections more distinct in the glass, as though the clarity of her own image in turn made the world at which she gazed easier to discern.

And each time her eyes were filled with a blue light, and they burned with her hatred for Samuel.

Samuel’s mother greeted him from the kitchen as he opened the front door and dumped his bag in the hall.

“Hello, Samuel. Did you have a good day?”

“If, by good, you mean embarrassing and soul-destroying, then, yes, I had a good day,” said Samuel.

“Oh dear,” said his mum. “Sit down at the table and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”

What was it about mothers, wondered Samuel, that led them to believe all of the problems of the world could be solved with a nice cup of tea? Samuel could have walked in with his head under his arm, blood spurting from his neck and his back quilled with arrows, and his mother would have suggested a nice cup of tea as a means of salving his wounds. She would probably even have tried to rub some tea on his severed head in an effort to stick it back on his shoulders.

But the funny thing was that, more often than not, a cup of tea and a consoling word from your mum were enough to make things at least a little better, so Samuel sat down and waited until a steaming mug of tea was placed in front of him. It really did smell good. He could almost feel it warming his throat already. Today had been bad, but perhaps tomorrow would be better. Tea: our friend in times of trouble.

“Oh bother,” said Samuel’s mother. “We’re out of milk.”

Samuel’s forehead thumped hard against the kitchen table.

“I’ll go,” he said.

“There’s a good lad,” said his mum. “I’ll have a fresh cup waiting for you when you get back. Will you get some bread while you’re at it? I don’t know: even with your dad gone, we’re still getting through as much food as ever.”

Samuel winced. He didn’t know which hurt more: to hear his mother grow sad when she talked about his dad’s absence, or to hear her remark upon it so casually. His mother seemed to notice his discomfort, for she moved to him and enveloped him in her arms.

“Oh, you,” she said, kissing his hair. “I don’t mind you eating. You’re a growing lad. And your dad and I, well, we’re talking, which is something. I’m not as angry with him as I was, although I’d still hit him over the head with a frying pan given half the chance. But we’re okay, you and I, aren’t we?”

Samuel nodded, his eyes closed, taking in the comforting smell of flour and perfume from his mother’s dress.

“Yes, we’re okay,” he said, although he wasn’t sure if it was true.

His mother pushed him gently away, and held him at arm’s length. She looked at him seriously.

“There’s been no more, um, strangeness, has there?” she asked.

“You mean demons?”

Now it was his mother’s turn to look uncomfortable.

“Yes, if that’s what you want to call them.”

“That’s what they were.”

“Now, I don’t want to get into an argument about it,” said his mum. “I’m only asking.”

“No, Mum,” said Samuel. “There’s been no more strangeness.” Not unless you include glimpses of a woman with her face stitched together, staring out at him from mirrors and glass doors. “There’s been no more strangeness at all.”