'Bobbo'

I continue my running review of Uncertainties III with a very British story. Rob Shearman does a superb job here of combining realism with bizarre horror in a first-person tale about a horror writer. The author in question has a rather low opinion of Robert Aickman, the Bobbo of the title. All the usual criticism appear - pretentious, obscure, boring and so forth. But then our author goes away for a short break to work on an old-school werewolf story (for an anthology called Scary and Hairy), and odd things begin to happen.

Staying a hotel Shearman's narrator finds an inscribed copy of Aickman's first solo collection, Dark Entries. The book - worth quite a bit, of courses - it simply shoved among the airport paperbacks on the shelves of the hotel dining room. Not surprisingly our hero offers to buy it. It's not for sale, so he tells a pack of lies about being a relative of Aickman to get the book for nothing. Then the hotel owner visit the author in his room and begins to talk about Aickman, her one-time lover, and quiz the narrator about his admiration for Bobbo...

At this stage we're still in the very British realms of comedy crafted from dishonestly, confusion, and acute social embarrassment. Things become more serious as the mysterious woman explains that she had a child by Aickman, the younger Bobbo. He, too, is a writer. But he can never come out into the light. The narrator is taken to meet Bobbo, in pitch darkness, hearing nothing but breathing and a strange noise, feeling nothing under his hand but wetness. Later he makes love to Bobbo's mother. Later still, Bobbo tries to pay him a visit.

I enjoyed this tale immensely, partly because it captures much of Aickman's appeal while appearing to reject his school of strange horror.