“The School Friend” (1964)

This longish story by Robert Aickman is another of his many good ones—bland and straightforward on the surface, with churning undercurrents. Often, as here, somehow in the last third of his stories I feel like I’m in a dream. This one is about two women who became friends as young teens. Sally is precociously brilliant, raised by her father, who is an academic of some kind. Mel is the first-person narrator, gifted herself—a novelist, we learn, though presently, in her 40s, financially reduced to living with her parents again. There is a subtle but strong suggestion (she understands the illustrations in an edition of Petronius) that Sally has been sexually assaulted by her father. Even if that’s not the case, she’s under her father’s iron will, forced to spend her time doing housework or studying and little else. Sally and Mel go their own ways in their 20s and 30s. Mel follows Sally’s successful career from afar. Now in their 40s, they reconnect. Mel is living with her parents again and Sally’s father has recently died. Sally sends a postcard to Mel to invite her for a visit, even though they live within steps of each other. The picture on the postcard is Mitylene. I had to look into it to find out that Mitylene is the capital of the Greek island of Lesbos—another strong note of sexuality, submerged. Meeting again is a fraught moment in both their lives, at onset of encroaching middle age and perhaps predictable life crises. Then Sally has an accident which lands her in the hospital. She calls on Mel to check on her house and get things for her. It is Mel’s first time in Sally’s house, another strange note in this strange story. In the neighborhood where I grew up there was only one house I never entered. I was a little afraid of the matron who wouldn’t allow entry even to friends of her kids. It feels like something like that is going on in this story. Mel takes advantage of being in the house by herself to thoroughly explore it. All the things she discovers and what she and we the readers can make of them constitute the rest of this excellent story. Only Robert Aickman can make a situation like this work on so many levels at once. Something about this story is chilling and deeply unsettling, though it’s hard to put one’s finger directly on whatever that might be. In other words, it’s another great Aickman story.

Robert Aickman, Dark Entries
Story not available online.