Sunday, February 6, 2022

Reading Ramsey Campbell: "Lost for Words" (2021)

"Lost for Words" is a funny, gruesome take on the vampire theme. Its protagonist, narrator Roy Stafford, works at a local branch of Texts and has a story appearing in the new anthology Vampiric Visions. His agent wants to see an outline for a novel about his character, Barney the vampire. (That's Barney, not Varney).


Roy's problem is that he is too accommodating: vampires love finding accomodating people. 


At a book signing:


            "What did you want in your book?"

     "Roy Stafford." It sounds as if he means to put me in, but he's reading my name from the cardboard strip propped up in front of me. "To Charles Vane," he says. "From one writing soul to another."

     "You're a writer too."

     "More than some," he says as if I've insulted him. "You'll be seeing my name."

     How much does he look like a writer? You could say his broad flat whitish face resembles a page on which his features have left plenty of space for information. His small thin mouth gives nothing much away, and maybe wariness has shrunk his eyes, while his dinky nose renders his big nostrils comical. I'd note all this on my phone to use somewhere, but I don't want him to see. Instead I say "I can write what you said."

     He splays his copy of Vampiric Visions so wide at my tale about Barney the vampire that I hear the spine crack. As soon as I've inscribed the book he snatches it and sticks out his free hand for a shake. It's so loose and spongy that I could imagine it absorbs anything it finds to assimilate, another image I should store for future use. He caresses my inscription before licking his fingertips, which have picked up ink. "Thanks for the words," he says. "I'll take care of them."


Vane will "take care" of them alright.


Over the following days, as he tries to outline his novel proposal and assist demanding customers at Texts, Roy slowly falls apart. He views words as parts of his anatomy, and the supply dwindles quickly.


"Could you help? My daughter has been searching for a book."

     "What's it called?"

     "That's what we're here to ascertain. Betsy, tell the gentleman what you know about it."

     "Some friends go to the seaside and there's a fairy in the sand who grants them wishes."

     I know the book. I can get the name from my mind. "I see a gang like her," I tell the woman, "and the thing that comes along."

     "What on earth are you saying about us?"

     "Not you. Like her." I poke a finger at the girl. "Her," I say louder. "Some of them."

     "I assure you she would go nowhere near a gang. Kindly make yourself plain."

     "I'm trying, you stupid—" More words come out and get louder. There's quite a lot of them, just not ones children are supposed to hear. The woman pulls the girl away from me as Terry gets here. She's going to talk to him, but he's quicker. "Go home, Roy," he says. "Go now and wait till you hear from me."

     Maybe he doesn't mean leave the thing I was pushing along, but he can have it. I get my coat from the room with all ours in, and I'm off out when the girl says "Look, mummy, there's the book." I see her run to get Five Children and It off a table. It's not her fault her mother's all the things I said. She can have her book, and I can do mine now, because I'm not at work.

     Except I can't. When I try to think about it all I get is what I wrote in Charles Vane's book. No use going home yet, so I go to the trains. Going, I talk to Asha. "How's it developing?" she says.

     "It'll come." I mustn't run out of words till I know "What's Charles Vane's, the place he lives in?"

     "Why do you need his address, Roy?"

     "Got something for him."

     A quiet bit and then "Let me find it for you."

     I need to say another thing. "Was his book about words being magic?"

     "What makes you think that?"

     "I got close to him."

     "I shouldn't get too close, Roy." Stops and says "It was more about words being vampiric, stealing all their victim's thoughts and everything that makes them human. It didn't really work."

     "Oh yes it did."


The apocalyptic social embarrassments of The Overnight (2004) are here condensed with droll brevity and joined to the cracked stream-of-consciousness narrative 

delerium of "McGonagall in the Head" (1992).  "Lost for Words" is a tour de force performance.


Jay

6 February 2022


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From: Penumbra No. 2 (2021): A Journal of Weird Fiction and Criticism


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