5
Strange Days
‘Can the flame of the heart expire
amid the flames of the funeral pile?’
Twenty
‘Here we are,’ said Bronco, turning into the driveway and pulling on the brake. ‘It isn’t much, but it’s home.’
It was two weeks before Christmas in Scottsdale, Arizona. There was only one cloud in the sky, a small heat-frittered fragment of white that Elizabeth would have described as a shrimp and Bronco would have called Mr Punch. They climbed out of Bronco’s ageing station-wagon, and Elizabeth looked around. Bronco’s house was a sprawling, ranch-style property set in ten or eleven acres of its own land, although most of that land was dust and heat-baked rocks. Off to the left of the house was a kitchen garden, with gourds and tomatoes and cabbages growing. The front of the house had been cultivated with spiky bushes and prickly pears and other desert shrubs. In the distance, Elizabeth could see the tawny hump of Camelback Mountain, and two or three circling buzzards.
‘I was grieved to hear about Margo,’ said Bronco, as he lifted Elizabeth’s suitcase out of the back of the station-wagon. ‘I never liked her, in particular. But she’s got fire in her belly; and that’s pretty rare these days. Most of the editors I meet are time-servers or sycophants. Did I ever tell you about the time that Harold Ross punched me on the nose? Those were the days.’
‘She should make a complete recovery,’ said Elizabeth. ‘She’ll have scars, of course. But she’s been talking to a plastic surgeon, and he’s really optimistic’
‘Strange thing to happen, though. A mirror exploding like that. I used to work in a bar once, and sometimes the beer glasses exploded of their own accord. They were moulded out of really cheap glass, under tension. Maybe that’s what happened to Margo’s mirror.’
‘Actually, I’m not so sure.’
They had reached the verandah steps. Bronco squinted at her from underneath the brim of his Panama hat. ‘What do you mean, you’re not so sure? Do you have some other theory?’
‘I don’t know. But the police said that the mirror was smashed into hundreds of triangular slivers, and that each sliver was identical. They said the chances of that happening were countless millions to one.’
‘It could have been the structure of the glass,’ Bronco suggested. ‘Sometimes crystals break like that, don’t they?’ He looked at Elizabeth’s expression and tilted his head to one side. ‘But you don’t think so, do you?’
‘I can’t be sure,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But Margo talked about a little girl wrecking her apartment, a little girl in a white dress, just like the Peggy-girl. And in the story of the Snow Queen, there’s a frozen lake, which the Snow Queen herself calls the Mirror of Reason, and the lake is broken into a thousand pieces, each of which exactly resembles the other – so that the breaking of them might well be deemed a work of more than human skill.’
Bronco looked at her steadily, but didn’t answer. Elizabeth said, ‘The day before Margo was hurt, she gave me a very difficult time at the office. I’d been editing that book Reds Under The Bed, and she criticized just about everything that I’d suggested, right in front of everybody.’
‘You think Peggy was punishing her, for embarrassing you?’
‘The same way she punished Miles Moreton, and the same way she punished Aunt Beverley, and those two movie producers who tried to take advantage of Laura.’
Bronco opened the screen door and they went inside. The house was single-storey, but it was spacious and cool, with that distinctive aromatic smell of oak. It was sparsely furnished, but it was obvious that Bronco and Vita had once been wealthy, even if they weren’t so well-off now. There were antique armchairs and antique sofas, and an inlaid bow-fronted cabinet filled with exquisite Dresden figurines. Over the wide stone fireplace hung a huge painting by Everett Shinn of a snowy night on Broadway, bustling with horse-drawn cabs and umbrellas and hurrying theatregoers; and on the right-hand wall there were two paintings of New York tenements by John Sloan, the most celebrated painter of the ‘ashcan’ school.
‘Vita’s having her afternoon zizz,’ Bronco explained. ‘She doesn’t like the heat; but then she doesn’t want to go back east, either, because of her arthritis.’
He showed her through to a large airy bedroom that looked out over several acres of sandy-coloured scrub, with a view of Camelback Mountain. It was prettily decorated with a brass bed and an antique bureau and a French writing-desk with a vase of sweet peas on it. Bronco set her suitcase down on the bed, and said, ‘Hope you like it here. Sorry as I am about Margo, I’m real glad they sent you instead. At least you understand what I’m trying to write about.’ He glanced shiftily sideways. ‘You understand about Billy, too.’
‘Have you seen him recently?’
‘Three days ago, when I went into Phoenix to buy some typing-paper. I told myself, “Come on, Bronco, Lizzie’s coming to help you, you’ve got to help yourself.” So I went into Phoenix to buy some fresh typing-paper. Best quality onionskin.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was standing in the stationery store when I looked in this narrow mirror that was advertising pens, and there was Billy, standing out in the street watching me. He wasn’t a ghost. Leastways, he wasn’t transparent. He was just as real as you or me. Standing in the sunlight, watching me. And do you know what he did? He wagged his finger from side to side, like I was doing something wrong, like I shouldn’t be buying typing-paper, like I shouldn’t write at all, or even think of writing.’
Bronco paused, and lowered his head. ‘He talked to me before. He said I shouldn’t write any more. One book like Bitter Fruit was quite enough. If I tried to do it again, the critics would have my guts for breakfast. Especially since Bitter Fruit was so damned long ago. I was a young blade then. Daring, you know? Outspoken. What am I now? Just a dried-up old geezer with writer’s block and a nagging wife.’
Elizabeth said, ‘He’s protecting you. He doesn’t want to see you get hurt.’
‘Yes, but that’s the whole point of doing anything, isn’t it? That’s the whole point of living. If I never wrote another book, because I was scared of what the critics might have to say about it, I might just as well blow my brains out and have done with it.’
‘It’s the same with me and Laura,’ Elizabeth nodded. ‘Every time that somebody upsets us or hurts us, even if they’re only thinking about it, like Dan Philips must have done . . . Peggy calls up this Snow Queen thing and tries to kill them. I think she means well, goddamnit, but you can’t live your life in cotton wadding, can you? You have to take risks. You have to be hurt. Otherwise – you’re right – you might as well be dead.’
Bronco rested a hand on her shoulder and looked down at her with deep paternal kindness. ‘You know something, Lizzie? I always loved you, when you were little. You were wise, you were clever, you had so much imagination. Now you’re a woman and I love you still.’
She smiled and took of hold of his hand and squeezed it. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed having a father in her life.
‘You and I and Laura, we all have the same problem to deal with,’ he said. ‘We’ve buried our dead, but we haven’t yet laid them to rest.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Why don’t I give you a half hour to rest and freshen up, then we can talk some more? How would you like a drink? I mix a mean Pisco Punch.’
‘I’d like that.’
After Bronco had left her, she unpacked her clothes and hung them up in the large Spanish-style closet. Then she took a long shower in the small green-tiled bathroom next to her room, a ceramic fish the size of a grouper grinning at her. She towelled herself and looked in the mirror. She thought that she was putting on a little weight. Too many take-away lunches in the office; too many pasta suppers. She was still reasonably trim, however, and if she worked hard while she was out here in Arizona, and didn’t drink too many Pisco Punches, she could probably get back to her ideal avoirdupois.
She had been shocked about Margo –
especially when she had found out the details of what had happened. Margo had talked about ‘cold, terrible cold, and a little girl in a white dress who floated.’ The police and the doctors had put her description down to trauma, but Elizabeth had been convinced that the Peggy-girl had been exacting her revenge. She had been doubly convinced when Laura telephoned, the very next day, with the news that Aunt Beverley was seriously injured, close to death, while Chester and Raymond had been found at six o’clock in the morning, suspended in Chester’s totally-frozen swimming-pool like crushed flies in amber. The police had put their deaths down to a ‘vicious attack with a knife or other sharp-bladed instrument by persons unknown, followed by freezing due to pool equipment malfunction.’ A warning had been published to all owners of Safe-T-Pump heating units to vacate their pools immediately in case of any dramatic lowering of temperature.
Despite her distress, however, Elizabeth was glad that she was here. If she could help Bronco to exorcize Billy, then maybe she and Laura could find a way to rid themselves of Peggy. She was no longer ‘poor little Clothes-Peg’. Apart from being dangerous, Peggy’s protectiveness was seriously interfering with their lives, right or wrong. Peggy seemed to feel that they needed shielding from everything harmful, from pain, from betrayal, from hypocrisy, from everything that could possibly spoil a fairy tale life: ‘grown-up and yet children – children in heart, while all around them glowed bright summer, warm, glorious summer.’
She dressed and went through to the sitting-room. Vita was sitting on one of the sofas in a sackish cocoa-coloured robe, looking pale and freckly and very much older than Bronco. Vita was one of those women who was never completely well. She suffered from migraines and allergies and colds, not to mention a long-running comprehensive ‘out-of-sortsness’ that prevented her from attending any party or dinner or social gathering which she didn’t wish to go to, and even a few that she did wish to go to. She would always want to leave early, especially when Bronco was laughing and flirting and really enjoying himself; and even when he was attentive to her and well-behaved, she carried herself with such bloodlessness that nobody would have been surprised if he had one day strangled her, and thrown her body in the Arizona Canal.
She was a very thin, bony woman, Vita, with an almond-shaped head and contemptuous, almost Oriental eyes. Her hair was scraped back and fastened firmly with a diamanté clasp, although a few strands always contrived to escape her control, and form a wiry dancing-troupe on top of her head. Her nose always looked as if it were undecided: shall I be blobby, or shall I be pinched? and so it was both, or either, depending on how you looked at her. In the 1930s she had been wildly romantic, and deep, and written poems that wrung people’s souls; but then she had lost Bronco’s first and only baby, and with it, her ability to have any more children. On that morning, eighteen years ago, she might just as well have died. Bronco had once said of her, ‘There’s no damn accounting for what makes life worth living for one person, yet not for another. I didn’t care for babies, not particularly; but for Vita, giving birth was everything.’
As Elizabeth came into the room, Vita drawled, ‘So you’re here to squeeze blood out of a stone, are you?’
‘Hello, Mrs Ward. I’m Elizabeth Buchanan. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.’
‘I made yours, my dear, when you were lying in a crib. As did Johnson.’ She made no attempt to conceal the implication that Bronco was old enough to be Elizabeth’s father.
Elizabeth said, ‘I can’t remember that far back, I’m afraid.’
Vita picked at the hem of her robe. ‘I was sorry to hear about your father,’ she said. ‘For all of his weaknesses, David was a true gentleman.’
‘Weaknesses?’ asked Elizabeth, tartly.
‘Well, one doesn’t like to criticize the dead. But he could have gone so far. That little publishing house . . . really – ’
‘That little publishing house brought out some great works of literature. Not to mention all of those supernatural books; all of those books on ghosts; and spirits; and hobgoblins.’
Vita gave her a slanting shrug. ‘That’s precisely my point. David could have done so much better, if he had stayed in New York. And look at Johnson. He’s no better. One of the greatest novelists who ever was, sitting out here in the back of beyond, drinking whiskey and waiting for inspiration.’
Elizabeth kept her peace. Bronco had told her that Vita made a sport of needling people, as if she could somehow provoke them into admitting that her present suffering was their fault, instead of hers. All she said was, ‘Johnson’s been suffering from writer’s block, that’s all. It happens to hundreds of writers.’
‘Oh, yes, and of course it had to happen to Johnson.’
‘Why not? Bitter Fruit was sensational. Now everybody expects him to produce another novel, the same but different, the same only better. He may look tough, he may talk tough, but he’s sensitive, and proud, and he’s terrified of failing, that’s all.’
Vita gave her a tight, masklike smile. ‘I have been married to him for quite some time.’
‘I know,’ said Elizabeth. ‘And that’s why I’m sure you know what he’s capable of writing, given the confidence.’
Vita was about to reply when Bronco came into the room, carrying a champagne bottle and three glasses. ‘Hey . . . let’s crack open some bubbly,’ he said. ‘Let’s celebrate.’
‘Celebrate what?’ asked Vita.
Bronco opened the bottle and filled their glasses. ‘Better times,’ he said. ‘Times without memories, times without ghosts.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ smiled Elizabeth.
Vita said, ‘Oh, yes? Well, I’ll drink to a long-overdue admission that Johnson’s no damned good, and that it’s time for him to find himself a real job.’
Elizabeth protested, struggling to keep her temper. ‘Your husband needs confidence, not criticism, Mrs Ward. Creating a book . . . that’s even more difficult than giving birth to a baby.’
Immediately she wished that she had stitched her lips up, rather than use that analogy, but it was too late. Vita was already arching her head back and rolling her eyes and forming her retaliation on her tongue. ‘Implying, I suppose, that if Johnson can write another novel, I should have managed to bear him a child?’
Elizabeth said, ‘No, that wasn’t the implication. And if I was clumsy, talking about babies, then I apologize.’
Bronco said. ‘You don’t have to apologize,’ and held her hand. ‘It wasn’t your fault, what happened to our baby. But if you can help me write another novel – well, that’ll be something worth doing, won’t it?’
Elizabeth turned to Vita and tried to tell her in one sympathetic look that she understood what her irritations were, what her fears were. But Vita turned her face away, her mouth drawn in, her cheek twitching, and Elizabeth had to recognize that Vita was impossible.
Bronco gave her a wistful smile and said, ‘Come on, Elizabeth, let’s bury the dead. Let’s think about tomorrow.’
At one o’clock in the morning, when the moon was shining baldly through the shutters, Bronco knocked softly on the door of her bedroom and whispered, ‘Lizzie? You awake?’
She lifted herself on her elbow. ‘Yes, I’m awake. What do you want?’
‘Thought you and me could talk, that’s all.’
‘No, Bronco, we can’t.’
He softly closed the door and sat on the end of her bed. ‘It’s been a long time, Lizzie, since I held a woman close to me, for all of my reputation.’
She reached out and touched his hand. ‘I know that, Bronco. But we can’t.’
‘You’re diplomatically trying to tell me that you don’t find me attractive, is that it? You’re trying to let an old geezer down gently?’
‘It isn’t that.’
‘Then what is it? You don’t want to hurt Vita’s feelings? Vita has no feelings, believe me. She used to be a siren, but now she’s a Gorgon, and Gorgons are best avoided, you know that, less’n you want to turn to stone.
’
She kissed him, and he still tasted of cigars and spice and cleanliness, the way he had when he arrived in Sherman for Peggy’s funeral. ‘You’re a man and you’re very attractive, but I’m here to work.’
‘Work? That’s all you think about? It’s the middle of the night!’
‘There’s something else. Any man who threatens me, any man who even approaches me . . . well, think what happened to Dan Philips and Miles Moreton. I’m fond of you, Bronco, I really am. But I’m afraid. Supposing the Peggy-girl comes after you. Supposing she freezes you, the way Dan was frozen. I couldn’t bear it, Bronco – especially if it was my fault.’
Bronco nodded. ‘All right then,’ he said, at last. ‘But let me ask you one thing: once we’ve dealt with Billy, once we’ve dealt with little Clothes-peg.’
She kissed him again. ‘Once we’ve dealt with both of those, then you can take me out to dinner and tell me how much you love me. Do you remember Dean in Bitter Fruit, what he said to Cory? “There’s no such thing as love, Cory . . . there never could have been, not if what I feel for you is love. Antony and Cleopatra, what did they have? Sweat, and empire-building, and snakes. Romeo and Juliet, don’t make me laugh. Calf-love, and nagging parents, and faded flowers. Casanova? Dick-sores, and hangovers, that’s all.” ’
They finished the quotation together, in soft and hilarious unison. ‘“But what we have is love. Cory. The love that’s lit by glowing cigarettes and dome-lights, the love that joins our outlines together, so that we’re one single Rand McNally, so that nobody who drives through the dark can ever tell where Cory ends and Dean begins.” ’
Bronco looked at her, his eyes glistening. ‘You’ve got a memory,’ he said.
‘How many times do you think that I read Bitter Fruit? Only as many times as the rest of my friends, and more.’
Bronco stood up. Elizabeth thought that he was looking very old; but then she was older, too.
‘Goodnight, Lizzie,’ he told her in a husky voice; and closed the bedroom door.
Spirit Page 32
