A Nest of Nightmares

People of both sexes, most of them apparently in their teens or early twenties, milled around the room. Sheila noticed a very fat man in a kilt, with a plastic sword belted at his side, and a skinny young woman in a black knitted mini-dress, who might have been attractive beneath the layer of green paint she wore over all exposed flesh. But even the people not in costume – the boy reading a paperback novel on the floor, frowning in fierce concentration; the acned young man whose shirt-pocket bulged with different coloured pens; the girl talking into a tape-recorder – seemed to exist in some other, private universe, and even if she had found any of them the slightest bit attractive, Sheila could not have approached without feeling herself an intruder.

‘Excuse me, are you Sheila Stoller?’

Sheila turned to see an ordinary-looking teenager, a girl in blue jeans and a pink T-shirt, holding up a copy of Moonlight Under the Mountain in much the way that people in horror films presented crosses to vampires. She smiled with relief and pleasure. This was what she was here for, after all: to be the author.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Oh!’ The girl sounded surprised. ‘I thought – I don’t know – I thought you’d look more – like a writer.’

‘How is that? With thick glasses and a typewriter tucked under my arm?’

‘No, I thought you’d be more glamorous. Well, would you sign my book? Make it out to Lori.’

Sheila did as she was told. ‘Did you like it?’

‘Oh, I haven’t read it yet. I bought it because somebody told me it was sort of like Anne McCaffrey. I love Anne McCaffrey. I’ve read everything she’s ever written. I was hoping they could get her to come here, but . . . Thanks for the autograph. It was nice meeting you.’ She slouched away, leaving Sheila bemused. Was that it? Was that why she was here, to disappoint Anne McCaffrey fans and sign unread books?

She went back to the registration area to find Victoria and Grace, and was discouraged to find that even they were no longer interested in her. It was an effort to make them talk, and as she struggled she wondered why she was bothering.

‘So . . . Victoria, you’re interested in art. Do you plan to study it professionally, go to art school, or . . . were you an art major in college?’

Victoria looked at her coldly. ‘I didn’t go to college. As I told you last night. It wasn’t possible. We couldn’t afford it and mother couldn’t really do without me. Mother has problems with her health. As I told you.’

Sheila felt herself getting hot. She didn’t know how to apologize without making things worse. She should have been paying attention instead of daydreaming, as usual. ‘I’m sorry . . . I was tired last night, and . . .’

‘You were probably thinking of me,’ Grace said. ‘I went to college.’

‘And much good it did you,’ said Victoria. ‘You can’t get a job with your history degree now, can you? I’ve got a job in cosmetics, at Eckard’s Drugs. I get a discount on all my perfume and makeup. It’s a good deal. And it’s a pretty creative job, sometimes. It calls for someone like me with taste and a good eye for colour to tell the ladies what lipstick would suit them, and how to put on blusher to make the most of their own features. You should have seen the makeover I did for Grace! I don’t know why she doesn’t fix herself up like that all the time. It would only take a half hour in the morning, and it makes all the difference in the world.’

Grace was getting steadily redder, and glaring at her feet. Sheila tried to feel some sympathy for her, but was too repelled. Did she have to be so fat and her hair so greasy? Makeup would probably only aggravate her skin problems, but surely she could make some effort.

‘It might even help you get a job,’ Victoria went on. ‘If you looked more . . .’

‘Don’t want a job,’ Grace mumbled. She raised her head defiantly. ‘I need time to write.’ She looked at Sheila. ‘Don’t you? Don’t you need time to write?’

Before Sheila could think of how to answer, Victoria spoke for her. ‘But you also need to earn a living,’ she said. ‘You can’t sponge off your parents forever. You’re twenty-four.’

‘So? They don’t mind.’

‘But for how long? And how long before you actually finish your novel? You’re too comfortable; you think you’ve got all the time in the world. How many years have you been working on it? Three? Four?’

Sheila was beginning to feel Grace’s discomfort as her own, as if Victoria’s jabs had been aimed at her. This was a familiar, old quarrel, but it was nothing to do with her. She wouldn’t even try to break it up. She only wanted to get away and leave them to it.

Looking at her watch, Sheila said, ‘Maybe I should check into my room now. There doesn’t seem to be too much going on, and I’d like a chance to put my things away and maybe have a shower.’

Victoria and Grace looked at each other in a way that made Sheila’s heart sink.