Free The Count of Eleven by Ramsey Campbell Page B

anecdotes. Tine,” he repeated, and was resisting a temptation to add “Like the films’ when the manager said “So alone.”
    “How do you mean? We’ve never been more together.” In the midst of this Jack realised what the manager had actually said, and tried to sound, with little apparent success, as though he were joking. “Another loan,” the manager amplified.
    “Unfortunately. Or I should say fortunately, I hope.”
    An expression too swift to be intelligible passed over Mr. Hardy’s face as he leafed through the Orchards’ file. “I assume you still intend to take up the mortgage that was offered.”
    “When we’ve settled where we want to move to. Decided, I mean, not settled there.”
    And the loan you used to buy out Mr. Edge is still outstanding.”
    “I explained the situation, you remember. I used my redundancy money from the public library to set up business with him, and if you hadn’t lent me the money when he decided to get out, Fine Films might have been for the chop.”
    “Right On Of New Brighton, as it was then.”
    “So it was, poor thing. Not my idea, I assure you,” Jack said, and choked off a guffaw, having belatedly heard that the manager’s tone was approving. “Mine was Fine Films.”
    “Not quite the successful concept you hoped it would be.”
    “Maybe I should have stayed with my first notion and called it Cine Qua Non. Or maybe you’re right, maybe I was aiming too high. You might say it was lucky that Fine Films turned into Fire Films.”
    When the manager’s demeanour made it plain that he wouldn’t say any such thing Jack succeeded in controlling himself. “Most of the titles that are coming up for auction on Wednesday are ones people keep asking me for. It would only be a temporary loan until the insurance stumps up. I just need to be able to write a cheque.”
    He was praying that Mr. Hardy wouldn’t advise him to use his credit card. There was no need for the manager to know about the theft, since it was unlikely to prejudice him in Jack’s favour. “Excuse the redundancy. Of course all loans are temporary. It’s the entire stock of a video library that’s being auctioned.”
    “Which might suggest that the video-hire industry has passed its peak.”
    Jack clutched his wrist in order to refrain from slapping himself across the forehead. “I’d be crazy not to buy at the price the auctioneers are expecting. If the titles don’t move, which I know they will, I can sell them at a profit even you would approve of.”
    Mr. Hardy raised his head and gazed at him, and Jack’s lips twitched. He wasn’t going to be able to keep mum for much longer. “Here’s another nice mess I’ve got myself into, I know.” He was opening his mouth, and trying to think of something less disastrous to say, when the manager said “I suppose we’ll have to give you the chance, but I personally very much hope that this time you’re sure what you’re doing.”
    “How can you doubt Honest Jack Orchard?” Jack almost said, and “Trust me and my friend in my pocket.” He contained himself while Mr. Hardy passed him forms to sign, but as soon as he was out of the bank he released a whoop and capered about in the entrance. He walked home grinning, now and then clapping his hands. Most of the people he met returned his grin, except for a woman in a hat pinned purple turban, who flinched back. “Mad but harmless,” Jack assured her.
    He phoned the news to Julia, and waited impatiently for Laura to come home so that he could tell her. Because the bank was lending the Orchards more than he could imagine paying at the auction, he felt that it would be safe to celebrate that failing to do so would be to distrust their luck. They dined at Chaplin’s in Birkenhead, where the comedian mimed in photographs on all the walls. Later Jack and Julia made love more slowly and thoroughly than they had for months.
    When he wakened in the morning his cold had departed, leaving a metallic