Her Fearful Symmetry (37 page)

Elspeth sat with her fingers on the planchette, looking at Valentina. To Valentina her expression seemed irritated, then thoughtful. LETS CONSIDER THIS LOGISTICALLY, Elspeth spelled. YOU WILL BE OUT OF BODY FOR DAYS-THERE WILL BE A FUNERAL-BODY WILL BEGIN TO ROT-THEN BODY IS IN CEMETERY-WE ARE HERE-MAYBE-WHAT IF YOUR GHOST ENDS UP ELSEWHERE-HOW WOULD BODY AND SOUL GET BACK TOGETHER-BODY WILL BE HORRIBLE-IN SHORT YOU ARE INSANE

“We’ll get Robert to help us.”

HE WONT DO IT

“He will if you ask him to.”

Elspeth felt deeply agitated.
Disaster, that’s what this is. The snake
,
the apple, the woman: it’s pure bloody temptation. It can only end badly. Tell her no. She can’t do it without you. If you refuse she’ll find a more sensible way to cope with Julia. No, no, no.
Elspeth became aware that Valentina was sitting very patiently, like a good schoolgirl, waiting for her answer.
Tell her absolutely not.

Elspeth put her fingers on the planchette. LET ME THINK ABOUT IT, she spelled.

V
ALENTINA SAT in the back garden drinking tea. It was a damp grey May morning, even earlier than she was wont to rise. The stone bench Valentina sat on was covered in lichen and the damp was getting through her dressing gown, an old quilted thing of Elspeth’s. She slid her feet out of their slippers and tucked her legs up so that her chin rested on her knees.

Elspeth sat in the window seat, watching her.

Valentina could hear magpies calling in the cemetery. Two of them settled on top of the wall and looked at her. They shifted from foot to foot. Valentina looked back at them, trying to remember the rhyme Edie had taught them:

Three for a wedding
,

Four for a child
,

Five for sickness
,

Two for joy,
she thought.
That’s good.
But even as she smiled to herself, three more magpies plopped down beside the first two, and a moment later they were joined by an especially large, shrieking magpie that landed in their midst and sent the others walking back and forth on the wall uneasily. Valentina looked away, then up at their window.
Is that Julia?
A dark form stood framed in the window against the darkness of the room, like a hole in reality. Valentina stood up and shielded her eyes with her hand, trying to see.
Elspeth? No, there’s nothing there.
It had been a disquieting thought, the dark thing in the dark…
No, it’s nothing. Elspeth wouldn’t be so…strange.

Valentina drank the last swallow of tea, gathered up her cup and saucer and spoon, and went back into the house.

T
HE LITTLE Kitten of Death was sleeping on Valentina’s pillow. It was afternoon, and sunlight slanted through the bedroom window, across the rug, up the side of the bed, not quite reaching the Kitten. She was almost white enough to blend into the pillowcase,
like a drawing of a polar bear in a snowstorm,
Elspeth thought. Elspeth stood in the sun, letting it pour through her, watching the Kitten sleep.
I want you.
Elspeth felt depressed. She had never thought of herself as someone who would kill a beautiful white kitten while it napped. But apparently she was that sort of person.
Don’t you worry, Kitten. I’ll put you right back.
Elspeth extended one hand tentatively towards the Kitten; she did not stir. She poked her fingers through the soft fur of the Kitten’s belly.
How did I do it, before?
She slid her fingers inside the Kitten, who made a mew of protest and turned but did not wake. Elspeth trawled unimpeded through hot blood, organs, bones, muscles. She was groping for that snick of immateriality; her fingers would recognise the Kitten’s soul because it was made of the same stuff as Elspeth herself.
Does it have a permanent location in the body? Or does it migrate? Last time it felt as though I’d hooked it with my finger. It was slippery like an avocado stone popping out.
The Kitten moaned and curled up tighter.
Sorry, Kitten. Sorry.
Elspeth moved her hand higher, into the lungs, and the Kitten woke up.

Elspeth snatched her hand back.
She can’t see you.
But the Kitten was uneasy; she arched her back, looked around warily. She padded to the edge of the bed and listened. The flat was quiet; Julia and Valentina were out. Elspeth could hear Robert hoovering his kitchen. The Kitten circled and settled at the foot of the bed, front paws crossed, chin resting on them, eyes slitted. Elspeth sat beside her and waited.

A few minutes later the Kitten closed her eyes. Elspeth watched her sides rise and fall. The tip of her tail twitched.
Gently.
Elspeth stroked her head; she liked that when Valentina did it. Now it only made her flick her ears in annoyance.

The Kitten went back to sleep. Elspeth raked her fingers through the little white body in a quick swiping motion, the way the Kitten might bat at a toy. Something caught-the Kitten’s body slumped into itself like a cake collapsing-and Elspeth was holding a furious clawing, biting Kitten.

If she scratches me, can I heal?
Elspeth imagined her ghost skin in tatters, and threw the Kitten onto the bed. They stared at each other. The Kitten hissed loudly. Elspeth was startled.
If I can hear her..?
She said, “It’s okay, Kitten,” and held out her hand. The Kitten backed away, hissing. She turned, jumped off the side of the bed and disappeared. Elspeth flew over the bed just in time to see a white haze dissipating by the bedside table.

What now? How can I put her back now?
Elspeth thought of Valentina and despaired. She curled up next to the Kitten’s limp body.
Come back, Kitten. I was only practising…Oh dear.
The Kitten looked quite dead. Her eyes were half-open and the third eyelids had slid across. She looked like a feline alien. Her small pink tongue protruded, her head hung over her paws at an uncomfortable angle.
I’m sorry, Kitten. I’m so, so sorry.

Where could she be? Was she even in the flat? Perhaps the Kitten had gone to prowl the back garden, or to be a little white cloud stalking the cemetery for the ghosts of sparrows and tiny frogs. Perhaps she would become a ghost kitten that haunted the dustbins of South Grove. Elspeth stroked the Kitten. Even her fur seemed to have lost its liveliness. She pushed her fingers into the Kitten’s side and was startled at the change: there was life in there, but it was the life of the things that break down the body. The micro-organisms that consume every dead thing had already been unleashed inside the Kitten.

Elspeth pulled her hand out and sat up.
This isn’t going to work, Valentina. Not the way you think it should. By the time the body got through a funeral, the rot would be well under way. You’d die of putrefaction. You’d die of your own deadness.

Elspeth let herself thin and spread out into the air. She was ashamed that she’d killed the Kitten for the sake of a stupid idea.
I should have known better. Poor Kitten.
Elspeth went and curled up in her drawer. She stayed there feeling awful and monstrous, berating herself and wondering what everyone would think of her cruelty. The answer was nothing at all, because no one except Valentina would have any clue what Elspeth had done.

I
T WAS JULIA who found the Kitten. It was her first death; her only thought was for Valentina; she wished that this might not be, that somehow the Kitten might wake up, that Valentina would never find out. But Valentina was only subdued. “Oh,” was all she said when Julia told her.

Julia found a hinged wooden box in the servant’s room. It had once held silverware but now had only empty spaces for utensils lined with pale green velvet. The silver had been a wedding present for Elspeth and Edie’s parents. It had vanished in a burglary in 1996. Julia wondered briefly why anyone would keep an empty box which had so completely lost its purpose. She carried it into the bedroom and placed it next to the Kitten’s body.

Valentina opened the box. “I don’t think she’ll fit,” she said.

“Maybe if she was more fork-shaped. Wait, I think this lifts out,” Julia said. The old glue gave way as Julia ripped the insert away from the box. This released a fierce mouldy smell. Valentina made a face and pulled her shirt over her nose.

“We’ll put catnip in with her. And wrap her in something pretty.” Julia went into the dressing room and came out holding a blue silk scarf that had been Elspeth’s. Valentina nodded. Julia spread it out on the bed. Valentina gathered up the Kitten and placed her on the scarf. She kissed the top of the Kitten’s head. The Kitten’s body felt a little stiff. Valentina wrapped the scarf over her and put her in the box. The Kitten seemed more dead in the box than she had laying on the bed; the lump under the silk was utterly still and pathetic. Valentina closed the lid.

The twins went downstairs and stood in front of Robert’s door, not speaking. Valentina held the box. When Robert opened the door, he said, “I’ve been thinking and I think we should bury her in the back garden.”

“Why?” said Julia. “There’s a whole cemetery on the other side of the wall. It’s silly to have a family crypt and not be able to put her in it.” The twins walked into Robert’s flat but then stood in his front hall as though about to leave again. He shut the door.

“There are some quite good reasons why that won’t be happening. First, you don’t have a proper coffin for aboveground interment, so that would get ugly. Next, animals aren’t permitted to be buried in Highgate Cemetery, it’s a consecrated Christian burial ground.”

“Not even Christian animals?” asked Julia.

“What if we got the right kind of coffin?” asked Valentina.

Robert said, “We’ll bury her next to the garden wall and have George carve her a little gravestone. She’ll be two feet away from the cemetery and you can visit her any time you want to.”

“Okay,” said Valentina. She felt numb. She needed to talk to Elspeth, but Elspeth was nowhere to be found.

The three of them went out into the back garden. Robert fetched a spade and some gloves. After consulting with Valentina he began to dig a hole. Though the box was not large, he dug down three feet. When the hole was finally big enough he had a new appreciation for the burial team at the cemetery;
Thomas and Matthew could have dug
that grave in ten minutes, and here I am getting blisters and covered with sweat.
He laid the box carefully at the bottom of the hole.

Julia said, “Shouldn’t we…say something?”

“A prayer, do you mean?” asked Robert. He glanced from Julia to Valentina.

Valentina said, “Goodbye…Kitten…”
I love you. I’m sorry…
She began to cry. Robert and Julia looked at each other, uncertain, each trying to allow the other to comfort her. Julia made a gesture with her hands:
Go for it.
Robert stepped towards Valentina, gathered her to him; she was sobbing now. Julia turned away. She walked to the house and up the fire escape. As she opened the door she looked down and saw Valentina clinging to Robert. Robert was watching Julia.
He looks uncomfortable. Like somebody gave him a present he didn’t want but has to pretend he likes.
Julia went into the flat and left them to it.

For two days everyone avoided one another. Elspeth stayed in her drawer reproaching herself; Robert put in some time at the cemetery with the burial records; Julia rose early and went out without saying where she was going; Valentina hung around the flat and tried to work on her shroud dress. She found it difficult to concentrate, and the logic of the pattern continued to elude her. Robert had helped the twins order a new television, which arrived the day after the Kitten’s funeral. Valentina abandoned the dress for
Antiques Roadshow
and a documentary about Islam. Martin had no clue that anything was amiss, and happily worked on his crosswords and practised standing on the landing. He could stand there for ten minutes now without incident; he was considering actually walking down the stairs.

Valentina was eating her dinner and watching
EastEnders
when Elspeth finally emerged. She sat a few feet away from the television, invisible to Valentina, trying to think what to say. The programme ended. Valentina turned the TV off and began to clear away her dishes. Elspeth followed her to the kitchen and then to the bedroom, agonising.

Valentina said, “Elspeth? I know you’re there.”

Elspeth touched her fingers to the back of Valentina’s hand. Valentina went into the front room and sat down at the Ouija board. “What happened, Elspeth?”

HORRIBLE MISTAKE I AM VERY SORRY

“I didn’t want you to really kill her, you know?”

I KNOW I TRIED TO PUT HER BACK SHE WOULDNT SHE RAN AWAY

“Is she here now?”

I CANT SEE HER

“If you see her, will you please let me know?”

IT MAY TAKE TIME FIRST SHE WILL BE LIKE A CLOUD

“Okay.”

I AM SORRY

“Me too. It’s my fault, Elspeth, I shouldn’t have suggested it.”

BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN

“Yeah, I guess.” Valentina stood up. “Elspeth, I’m tired. I have to go to bed now.”

GOODNIGHT

“Goodnight.” Valentina left the room. Then Elspeth heard her brushing her teeth.
So much for that,
Elspeth thought.
Perhaps it’s just as well.

The following morning Julia found Valentina in the back garden. She was sitting on the bench in the sun, staring at the little mound of earth over the Kitten’s grave.