Silent Children by Ramsey Campbell Page B

shop. His grey hair sprawled over the collar of an old tweed jacket, his fists bulged the pockets of a baggy pair of slacks the brown of dried mud. The fists jerked against his hips as he darted through a gap in a selection of taxis to the concrete island in the middle of the road, and from there to the crowded pavement. His large loose face, the redness of which was concentrated in the eyes and the nose swollen out of shape, bent heavily toward Leslie's advertisement in the bottom corner of the window full of Ives and Copland and Bernstein and Glass, then his gaze swung to meet hers as he pushed the door inward.
    Her stomach tightened, yet she felt relieved. He was here to be confronted at last—he was more than just an impression that she was being watched. She'd suffered intermittently from that since the wordless phone call almost a fortnight ago; she'd begun to feel watched both inside and outside the house; and yesterday she'd been so convinced she had been followed to work that she'd spent too much of the day watching the street and growing tense whenever anyone seemed about to enter the shop. Now he had, and Melinda would hear whatever he had to say for himself, and if anything threatened to get out of hand they had company, a man of about Leslie's age who was peering at a leaflet he'd slipped out of a box from the secondhand rack. He didn't look up as the red-faced old man jabbed a finger at her, bestowing a smell of stale tweed. "Can't you do better than that?" he said in a voice that was mostly effortful breath.
    She remembered how his displeased gaze had moved from her notice to her. She straightened her back and planted her hands on the counter. "What would you suggest?"
    "Where do you think you are?"
    Even if Leslie hadn't had enough of questions, Melinda had. "We're in our shop, and so are you. If there's something definite we can help you with—"
    "You're in Britain. Better than that, you're in England. If you're supposed to be dealing in serious music, what's all this American stuff doing in your window?"
    Leslie swallowed a laugh that might have come out hysterical. She was reflecting how much of her sense of the world her situation had invaded when he began to wave his hands as though invoking the kind of music he approved of, not the Copland ballet score that was dancing in the air. "It's beyond a joke. It's taking over," he complained. "There's nothing to see in Leicester Square but American films and American restaurants and hot-dog vans for people who talk like Americans and spell like them too, I don't doubt. We need a few laws to keep what's left English," he told the customer who'd abandoned squinting at the tiny print of the compact disc leaflet and was regarding him wide-eyed. "Don't you agree?"
    "Excuse me, sir, but I don't think I'm the person to ask."
    Leslie snorted and covered her mouth, but the revelation of an American accent only enlivened the interrogator. "You people come for the Englishness, don't you? Aren't you here to get away from everything you left at home?"
    "Makes sense to me."
    "Of course it makes sense," the tweedy man said as though the American had dared to contradict him. "You won't claim you enrich us, will you? Except with tourist money. I'll give you that."
    "Me personally? I'm not sure I'd even—"
    "Not you personally, but let's take you if you insist," the man said, turning his back on Leslie and Melinda as they managed to interrupt only each other. "You won't have written any"—he flailed at the dance overhead— "music, will you?"
    "Just a bunch of books."
    "Ah, books. Works of American literature. May I ask what kind of a name you've made for yourself and with what?"
    "While there was a market for it I wrote horror."
    "Most American of you," the tweedy man said, and confronted the women. "Do you feel you must bow to the market too?"
    Leslie waited long enough to be sure of sounding calm. "I can't speak for this gentleman, but I think we've had enough of