Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother by Ramsey Campbell

one.”
                 The
large clock on the wall said twenty-five to one; the minute hand sprang up a
minute. Before she knew what she was risking she said, “Has David told you all
about me?”
                 If
he had, she could say, “Well, you can see that’s not me,” laughing, passing it
off as a joke, she didn’t mean any harm, please let her go now, only a joke.
But the man said, “All he said was that if a girl came up she’d be for him.”
                 “Aren’t
men conceited?” She was beginning to enjoy the game even though she felt
light-headed, almost weightless. She floated to the easy chair opposite the
man. The clock’s hand twitched, as if the nostrils of its winder holes were
tickling. Twenty-three minutes. “Have you worked here long?” she said.
                 “Since
you were in your cradle, I should think.”
                 She
toyed with a magazine that had perhaps been confiscated. HE CUT UP YOUNG
VIRGINS AND LAUGHED. His Potency Came From Not Having Orgasms. “You must have
been here when Christopher Kelly was,” she said, gazing blindly at the
magazine.
                 His
bright sharp eyes were scrutinizing her. “What do you know about Kelly?”
                 “Well, er ,” she said. She had to chance it.
                 “David,”
she said.
                 “David
wasn’t here then.”
                 “No,
someone told him about it. Perhaps you did.”
                 “I
shouldn’t be surprised.” He’d completed his scrutiny; she managed to look up.
“That terrible boy,” he said, shaking his head. “These children today are bad
enough, but I don’t think anyone who was here then will ever forget him. I only
hope he had no lasting influence on the other children. He had too many
friends, that boy, he was always riding someone else’s
bicycle. He shouldn’t have been allowed into an ordinary school at all. That’s
not our job, that kind of case.”
                 She
nodded eagerly. Perhaps he would tell her something new about Kelly; he might
even give her a cue to ask to look at their records. “I pity whoever had to
deal with him after he left us,” the teacher said. “And his
poor grandmother having to look after him by herself, oh dear. Do you
know, I think he was even worse when he came back. ”
                 “Came
back here?” Her surprise was showing. “To this school?”
                 “That’s
right.” He frowned at her. “Why are you so interested in Kelly?” he said
sharply.
                 “Didn’t
David tell you what I do?”
                 “He
told me nothing. Not even your name.”
                 “It’s—”
(Oh God, a name, a name!) “It’s Clare,” she said. “I’m a teacher too. That’s
why I’m interested.”
                 “Haven’t
you a surname?”
                 She’d
anticipated that; she grabbed the last name she could remember having heard.
“Clare Barrow,” she said.
                 “And
you’ve come into teaching? May God protect you, then. The law won’t. Or are you one of those who don’t believe in upsetting the
little dears? Let me tell you, I used to teach them more with a clout round the
head than half of these people teach them in years. But now it’s oh no, you
might damage their poor little brains. Brains! Half of them haven’t got any,
and most of the rest are warped beyond repair. These days they’re sending them
up from the junior school not even able to read. And as for
spelling, oh dear me. The teachers want teaching themselves these days.”
                 “Have
you tried teaching a class of thirty-five lately?” Clare said furiously. “Maybe
if they gave us enough staff for a sensible pupil-teacher ratio, you wouldn’t
have so much to complain about.”