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Post by dem on Oct 18, 2018 15:09:39 GMT
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Tales from the Shadows (Kimber, 1986)  ionicus
Night Sister
Acquiring a Family
Shades of Yesterday
The Passing of an Ordinary Man
The Carrier
Long, Long Ago
The Rational Explanation
Clavering Retreat
The Man on the FrameI've started in on this one; while I haven't found anything fantastic yet, neither has there been anything awful. In fact, "Run for the Tunnel", about the disappearance of a wife, and "The Passing of an Ordinary Man," about the disappearance of a husband, make perfect, contrapuntal companion pieces. The former is romantic, while in the latter RCH puts forth his more antagonistic view of marriage. In the former the mystery is solved; in the latter, the solution is revealed to one character, but not to the reader. Whether RCH chose not to reveal the secret as a matter of tasteful restraint or because he couldn't actually come up with an explanation is a matter for debate, but whatever the reason he did end up with a story a notch or two above his usual on this point alone. "Acquiring a Family" felt familiar, and I still don't know if I read it years ago in the Year's Best Horror volume, or if the ending shares a device with another RCH story from a paperback collection. I'll take a stab at it and guess it's "No One Lived There" from The Unbidden. Not bad either way, and possibly one of his best. More after I read the rest. Still working on this one because I can't seem to finish "Long, Long Ago"--I can't read more than a few pages of it without falling asleep. Don't know if I'm only trying to read when I'm already sleepy, or whether the story is that soporific. It may take me a few more days to get through the remaining eleven pages! : On Monday July 6th 1986, Joan Mary Herbert disappeared in full view of her boyfriend, Raymond Jacques, and two signalmen while rushing through a side entrance to a railway station. A distraught Raymond vows to find her. A clue is provided in George Darnley's eighteenth century MS, Gleanings of an Idle Fellow, which records the strange tale of "the Future Girl," an indecently attired woman who appeared as from nowhere on a busy Kent thoroughfare on March 12 1735. Night Sister: Demented and vindictive, Old Martha sics the ghost of her psychotic sister upon her fellow patients in Room 12 of the Glyn Memorial Hospital. The spectre picks them off until only the youngest, Ruth, remains .... Acquiring A Family: On the death of an uncle, 53 year old Miss Celia Watson inherits his lovely home and enough money to ensure she can live out her days in comfort. Life would be perfect were it not for a crushing loneliness: "She should have had children if only their production had not necessitated a rather revolting physical function." How delightful for her, then, that this house is haunted by five ghost infants who gradually reveal themselves until they're all gathered around her bed. But the Reverend Rodney knows the sinister history of this spectral brood , and his well-meaning intervention sets in motion a dreadful chain of events .... Introducing this story in Years Best Horror XV (1987), the Karl E. Wagner wrote: "Like Robert Bloch, Chetwynd-Hayes frequently mixes horror with humor, as anyone who has read or seen The Monster Club will attest. However, I don't think Acquiring A Family will leave you laughing."
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Post by dem on Oct 20, 2018 11:34:33 GMT
The Passing of an Ordinary Man: Meet Harry Wheatland, the archetypal RCH inoffensive, irredeemably "average" suburban wage slave. One night Harry takes a walk on the common, exchanges a few words with a neighbour (SPINSTER LAST PERSON TO SEE NUDE MAN), and seemingly vanishes from the face of the earth. Ethel, his overbearing wife, never gives up hope that one day he'll return as mysteriously as he disappeared - and so, in a roundabout way, it proves.
Agree with Burl that Passing of an Ordinary Man and Run For The Tunnel make for a tidy pairing. The earlier story references something called "Famous Vanishments" by Ambrose Bierce (perhaps author means Mysterious Disappearances, whose The Difficulty of Crossing a Field and An Unfinished Race are likely inspirations. "Passing ...." also has more than a touch of David Nobbs' The Death of Reginald Perrin about it).
RCH on a decent run of form.
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Post by dem on Oct 21, 2018 22:42:11 GMT
Another cheap holiday in middle class suburban Hell.
Clavering Retreat: 'Highwayman's Retreat,' 27 Sinclair Avenue, Clavering, Kentish Downs. Home to Fred and Gladys Buxton and their lonely, depressed, teenage daughter, Pat. From childhood, Pat's only friend has been the ghost who lives in a tree in the garden, but it's only in recent weeks he's made himself visible, and then only for fleeting moments. "You must want me to walk in the garden very, very much, so that it will really happen," he encourages, after which he can protect her, take revenge on those who cause her hurt.
It's yet another of those stories in which, to quote Burl, "RCH puts forth his more antagonistic view of marriage." Ineffectual Dad - cowed to the point where he'll do anything to keep the domestic peace - leaves Pat to her own devices. Harridan wife/ mother, resentful of her daughter's youth and good looks, jumps to the conclusion that she has been carrying on with a boy, and hates her all the more for it. When a bedraggled Pat returns home one morning having spent the night in the crook of the tree, Gladys Buxton slaps the girls face and insists on meeting her lover. We never get to find out how that turns out but the smart money is on "not well."
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