Elizabeth smiled and nodded and didn’t drink her tea. She thought to herself: is it tragic, to be so happy? Perhaps it is.
A shrill bell rang for lunch and Elizabeth stood up to leave. Her mommy reached out and held her hand, quite tightly. ‘Shall I tell little Clothes-Peg that you were here?’
‘What?’
‘The next time she comes, shall I tell her?’
Elizabeth felt her lungs constricting, as if she were going to suffocate. Panic attack, she thought to herself, stop it. She had seen the Peggy-girl herself, so she must have some reality. What made her feel so frightened was that others had seen her, too, and with each sighting the Peggy-girl took on even more reality, until –
Until the black shape in the snow took on reality, too. The beast, the black-hooded woman. And the thought of that filled her with such terrible fear that she started to shake and tried to tug herself away.
‘Lizzie – what’s wrong?’ asked her mommy.
‘I’m tired, that’s all, I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping very well. I feel, I don’t know, jagged.’
‘You need a gentleman friend, that’s what you need. You need somebody to take you out; somebody to hoof with. You should try the Kit Kat.’
‘Mommy, it’s lunchtime. I have to go. Lenny’s waiting for me.’
‘Lenny? Lenny Titze? Theodore Titze’s brother?’
‘Lenny Miller, mommy. You remember Lenny Miller. His family live on Putnam Street.’
‘Lenny Miller . . .’ her mommy mused.
She walked back along the corridor towards the reception area. As she did so, the dark-haired man stepped out of a side-corridor and confronted her. He was broadly built, good-looking in an inexplicably dated way, like a man from a 1920s magazine cover, with slicked-back hair and a casual cotton polo-neck, six o’clock shadow and a smile.
‘I saw you talking to your mother,’ he said. Warmly, but slightly sly.
Elizabeth stopped, and said, ‘Yes?’
‘I saw your sister talking to your mother, too.’
‘My sister?’
‘You do have a sister, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but she lives in California.’
‘I’m talking about a little sister. Ten or eleven maybe, always dressed in white?’
Elizabeth stared at him in dread. ‘You’ve seen her too?’
He nodded. ‘She comes here almost every day. She comes in, she talks to your mother, she walks away. She’s pretty:
Urgently, Elizabeth said, ‘I have to go. I have a friend waiting for me.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I’m sorry. I think I do understand. But I have to go. Really. I’m late as it is.’
Without taking his hands out of his pockets, the man took a neat step sideways, blocking her off, his loafers scuffing on the carpet. ‘Please, wait. You shouldn’t do anything rash. Your sister is something different, like me, which is why I ended up here, because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. At least I have the company of humans here, even if most of them are mad.’
Elizabeth took two or three deep breaths. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’ve enjoyed talking to you, but I really have to go.’
The man said, ‘I’m trying to tell you something, but I’m not making a very good job of it. I’m trying to tell you that your sister is alive, in the same way that I’m alive. I’m not what I seem to be; I’m not really me. I’m what I thought I was. For God’s sake, writers make worlds and stir up people’s imaginations and then they want them to forget about it? How can you forget about it? George Gershwin wrote music and we were all carried away and then what? Forget it? Forget you ever heard it? Forget it ever excited you?’
Elizabeth stood stock still and frightened. She wanted to hear what the man had to say; but on the other hand she didn’t. It was creeping too close to reality; it was closing the gap between what was unthinkable and what was totally terrifying.
The man said, ‘I used to believe in the green light, you know? I used to believe in that orgiastic future that year by year recedes ahead of us. We didn’t get there today, but that’s no matter. Tomorrow we’ll run faster, stretch out our arms further . . . And one fine morning – and that’s the way we beat on, boats against the current.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Will you let me pass?’
‘We all have to pass in the end,’ smiled the man. ‘These days, though, it looks like most people pass alone. When I was younger, it was different. If a friend died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the finish.’
‘I wasn’t talking about dying,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Hmh. Nobody ever is.’
Elizabeth waited patiently for him to move out of the way. After a few moments, he did. ‘I’m Jay,’ he told her, as she passed him by. ‘I’m Dave. That’s all I have to say. I’m really Jay.’ He said it with such earnestness, as if she should have recognized him, or at least pretended to recognize him.
He lifted his hands in mock-surrender. ‘There may be hundreds of Jays. Look in any bar. Look in any motel. Trashed, out-of-date, turning up at the same old parties, over and over and over. There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired. We share this world, Elizabeth, with everything we’ve ever imagined. I mean, let me ask you something: what makes us different from the animals?’
Elizabeth blanched; and shivered.
‘Are you trying to say that you’re dead?’ she wanted to know. There was no other way of asking him.
He stared at her and his eyes glittered. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think that it takes a dead person to know one.’
Without a word she walked on towards the reception area. She didn’t turn around, although she was conscious that the dark-haired man was watching her. Lenny was still sitting crosslegged on one of the chairs smoking, and reading an article about Korea.
Lenny looked up. ‘Hey, is everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’
‘Please, Lenny,’ she said, taking hold of his arm. ‘Please take me home.’
She went up to see her father first. In the grey afternoon light he was looking sickly-yellow, even his eyes were yellowish.
Nurse Edna said, ‘I’m worried about his kidneys. I may have to call in the doctor again.’
‘Is it serious, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. His heart’s still pumping and his lungs are clear, but if his kidneys fail – ’
Elizabeth stood close beside him with her hand over her face because she could smell death.
‘Father? How are you feeling? Tell me you’re feeling better.’
No response.
‘I saw mommy this afternoon. She’s not too bad.’
No response.
‘She’s not too bad, but she’s seen Peggy too.’
Yes. And, Yes.
‘There’s something else. I met a man at the clinic. He talked to me.’
No response.
‘He said he’d seen the Peggy-girl, visiting mommy. Do you want to know what he looked like?’ Yes.
‘He had dark hair, combed straight back. Good-looking but very louche. He said his name was Jay.’ No response.
‘You want me to say the alphabet?’
Yes. W, H, A, T, E, L, S, E, D, I, D, H, E, S, A –
‘I don’t know. He talked in riddles. But he said he saw Peggy talking to mommy, and he said that he was the same as she was. I asked him if he were dead, too, I don’t know why. He was talking to me, how could he be dead?’
A, N, Y, T, H, I, N, G, E, L, S, E
‘He said that he was always trying to reach the future. If you didn’t reach the future today, you could reach it tomorrow, so long as you ran faster and stretched out your arms farther. He said that we’re boats against the tide.’
H, E, W, A, S, D, E, A, D.
‘You really think so?’
Yes. Then Yes. Then Yes again.
He closed his eyes, and although Elizabeth waited and waited, he didn’
t open them again. He must be exhausted. Elizabeth stayed beside him for a while, and then kissed him and stood up. Outside in the garden, under the tarnished tureen-lid of the sky, the Peggy-girl was standing beside the tennis court, looking up at her. Elizabeth made no attempt to go closer to the window, and after a while the Peggy-girl glided away into the bracken.
Elizabeth was still staring out of the window when Lenny knocked softly on the door.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked her. ‘How’s the old man?’
‘I don’t think either of us are very well,’ she replied, without turning around.
‘I’m sorry.’ He came up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She reached up and patted it.
‘Do you believe that it’s possible for imaginary people to come to life?’ she asked him.
‘When you say “imaginary people” . . . ?’
‘I mean characters out of stories.’
Lenny shrugged. ‘I don’t see how that could be.’
‘Father seems to believe it. He thinks that the little Peggy-girl is Gerda out of The Snow Queen. He seems to think that dead people can come alive again, as characters out of books.’
‘Oh, come on now, Lizzie, he’s rambling. He was always interested in ghosts and haunted houses and witch trials, wasn’t he? He’s rambling; it’s gone to his head.’
‘I guess so. But what about the snowstorm? What about the photograph album? What about the Reverend Bracewaite and poor Dan Philips?’
‘Maybe that newspaper reporter was right. Maybe you have some sort of unusual talent for attracting blizzards.’
‘Oh, that was nonsense! And besides, I wasn’t there when the Reverend Bracewaite was frozen.’
Lenny pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know, Lizzie, I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind, trying to explain it. I think there is something here, but I think it’s more than likely to be Peggy’s aura. Do you know what I mean? Because Peggy was so young and so lively, she left something of herself in the house, and that’s what you and I have been experiencing. You’re her sister, so you’re much more sensitive to it than I am. You may even be acting like a receiver . . . you know, sort of a human television, picking up the thoughts and the feelings that Peggy left behind. Maybe I’m a little bit sensitive, too. Look at what happened to me on Guadalcanal.’
Elizabeth turned to look at him. He shrugged again and pulled a face. ‘I read about it in Reader’s Digest, Loved Ones Who Speak From Beyond.’
‘Well . . . maybe you’re right,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It certainly seems to make more sense than storybook characters coming to life.’
They were still standing silently together when Elizabeth’s father let out a thick rattling sound. Elizabeth immediately crossed to the bed and leaned over him. He didn’t seem to be breathing, and she couldn’t feel a pulse.
‘Call Nurse Edna!’ she said. ‘Quick, Lenny – call Nurse Edna!’
She turned back to her father and held his hand between hers. She knew already that there was nothing that she could do, that he was dead.
‘Oh, father,’ she whispered. ‘I love you so much. Don’t forget me, wherever you’re going. And please tell Peggy that she can rest now; that everything’s fine.’
A huge wave of grief overwhelmed her, and she sat down on the bed with tears running freely down her cheeks, rubbing her father’s hands, over and over, as if she could warm them.
4
Gold Sun
‘I do but tell you my tale – my dream.’
Fourteen
Laura climbed out of Petey Fairbrother’s bright yellow Jeepster and slammed the door. ‘Bysie-bye, Petey – thanks for the ride!’
Petey grinned at her, one eye squinched up against the sun. ‘How about later? Some of the gang are going over to Dolores’s Drive-In for hamburgers and shakes.’
‘I don’t know. It depends. Aunt Beverley has guests tonight. I think she wants me to stick around and socialize.’
‘Laura, you know that I can’t live without you!’
‘How come? You managed it before you met me.’
‘Sure, but I forgot.’
She leaned over the side of the car and kissed him on the nose. ‘You keep on breathing, you eat three times a day, you don’t forget to drink your orange juice, and you don’t forget to fall asleep at night.’
‘That’s living?’
She kissed him again. ‘That’s better than being dead.’
She walked up the concrete path. She was one of the dishiest girls in college. With her curly blonde hair and her broderie anglaise blouse and her pink-and-green striped dirndl skirt she was the epitome of teen chic. On her first day at college, the seniors had collectively voted her Miss Heavy Breathing 1951. She had been dated every weekend – although Petey Fair-brother had always been her favourite. Apart from being very tall and athletic, with a sun-bleached crewcut as flat as the deck of the USS Missouri, his father was Jack Fairbrother the movie director, and he had been able to take Laura on the sets of six or seven new movies.
Laura went up the two concrete steps to the front door and opened it. Inside, she could hear Aunt Beverley talking loudly, and smell cigar-smoke. She dropped her bag in the hallway and peered at herself in the mirror. She thought she was putting on weight. The strawberry malteds were beginning to take their toll. She blew out her cheeks so that she looked even fatter. God, what a podge. She placed her hand on her heart and swore to God that she would cut out milkshakes for ever, or at least a week.
They had moved twice since Laura had first come to California. After two landslips, the house overlooking Santa Monica Bay had needed shoring-up with reinforced-concrete foundations, and a whole new deck. Aunt Beverley had decided to cut her losses, ‘screw the view’, and bought a house in Westwood. But only seven months later, when they were barely unpacked from the first move, a friend had sold her his two-bedroom bungalow on Franklin Avenue, within spitting distance of Hollywood Boulevard. It was much smaller than the Santa Monica house, and less secluded than the West-wood house, but it had large, airy, whitewashed rooms, and a cramped courtyard tiled in aquamarine and yellow ochre, and a riot of flowers and tropical plants. Laura missed the ocean, but she liked the location better, because most of her friends lived much closer, and she could hang out at Schwab’s and the Hamburger Hamlet where all the movie hopefuls congregated.
Laura found Aunt Beverley sitting outside in the greenish glow of her fringed sunshade, wearing a fuchsia romper suit and a crimson headscarf and sunglasses. She was drinking aquavit and pineapple juice, and smoking a cigarette. Opposite her, smoking a cigar, sat a leonine grey-haired man in a custard sports coat and white yachting slacks. He was handsome, in an ancient kind of way, like a stone head of Alexander the Great.
‘Oh, Laura, you’re back,’ Aunt Beverley enthused. ‘Chester, this is Laura. Laura, this is Chester Fell.’
‘Oh, hi,’ smiled Laura, holding out her hand. ‘I’ve heard of you.’
Chester gave her a deep, warm, self-satisfied smile. ‘Good to know that I’m not a nonentity,’ he replied.
‘Chester’s casting for his new picture,’ said Aunt Beverley. ‘He’s been looking for fresh new talent.’
‘I see,’ said Laura. She sat on one of the gaudy sun-chairs, spreading out her skirt. She picked up a handful of salted almonds from the dish on the table, and began to nibble them in a picky, affected way, keeping her eyelashes lowered. She knew that Chester was looking at her, and sizing her up, and she liked the power of ignoring him. A California quail fluttered down and perched on the trellis, and watched her eating.
Chester glanced up at it, and said, ‘You like an audience, don’t you?’ His voice was deep and rumbly, like distant thunder.
Laura said, ‘I like to act.’
‘I saw you in Shanghai Ritz, playing the cocktail waitress.’
‘Yes,’ smiled Laura, still without looking at him. ‘I had two lines in that. “Sir wants an olive?” and “Don’t you dare touch
me.” ’
‘I remember,’ said Chester. ‘You were excellent. Fresh and innocent, without being clumsy.’
‘That’s not what the reviews said about me,’ Laura remarked.
‘What did the reviews say about you?’
‘They didn’t say anything. I was never mentioned.’
Chester laughed. A humourless ha-ha-ha. He brushed cigar ash off his slacks, and then he looked at Laura very seriously. ‘You have the right kind of face for the movies, did you know that? The cameras go for exaggerated eyes, short straight noses, distinctive jaws. You ought to see most of our so-called stars when they come off set. They’re the weirdest-looking bunch of people you ever saw in your life. But put them in front of a camera, and – they’re magic’
‘You’re not saying I look weird, are you?’ asked Laura. She was conscious of Aunt Beverley making her ‘shush, don’t make a fuss’ face, but she was sure that Chester wouldn’t be upset. Men were never upset with her, except when she refused to kiss them or go to bed with them or see them tomorrow. She was always in control, and she never forgot it.
‘Of course you don’t look weird,’ Chester flustered. ‘All you look is pretty and young and fresh as a daisy.’
‘She’s such a darn tease,’ said Aunt Beverley, through clenched teeth. She clenched her teeth so often that it was amazing that she hadn’t bitten her way through hundreds of cigarette holders, instead of two or three.
Spirit Page 21
