Spirit (10 page)

‘Mack Pearson said that boot camp wasn't so bad,' said Lenny. ‘The only part he hated was the haircut.'

‘Will you write me?' asked Elizabeth. She had the strangest feeling – a feeling that she had never experienced before. She knew that she
liked
Lenny. She had always liked Lenny, and Lenny had always liked her, even when his friends ribbed him for going around with a girl. But now she couldn't keep her eyes off the way that he raised his suntanned hand to the apple tree, and the way the sun shone through his hair, and illuminated his eyes like two perfect circles of palest agate.

He was almost godly; and a soldier, too. He reminded her of a picture in one of her books of an armoured
condottiero
, one of the mercenary soldiers of sixteenth-century Italy. She had fallen in love with this
condottiero
when she had first seen him. He looked so beautiful and so brave. And now she began to understand that she had fallen in love with Lenny. In fact, she must have gradually been falling in love with him for a long time, if love meant that he was flawless, and wonderful, and that she couldn't bear the thought of him going away.

‘What's the matter?' he asked her. ‘You're looking all goofy.'

She felt her cheeks burn. She hoped that he couldn't read her mind! ‘I was just thinking, that's all,' she flustered. ‘I was just wondering how long you were going to be away.'

Lenny shrugged. ‘We do six weeks' basic training at Fort Dix . . . then who knows? It's all pretty secret. We're not allowed to tell anybody anything. You know . . . “even walls have ears”.'

They walked back to the house. Mrs Miller said, ‘How about some cookies and some milk, Lizzie?'

‘No thanks, Mrs Miller. I'd best be getting home.'

‘Give my good wishes to your folks.'

Lenny took her out to the street. ‘Guess this is goodbye for a while,' he said, taking hold of her hand, and squeezing it.

‘You will be careful, won't you?' she begged him. ‘You won't
drink too much beer, and puke?' She paused, and then she said, ‘You won't
die
, will you?'

He leaned foreward and kissed her, not on the forehead, not on the cheek, but directly on the lips.

‘I'll be careful,' he promised. ‘And I'll write, too.'

Mrs Miller was calling from the house. ‘Lenny! Which pants did you want pressed?'

‘Coming, mom!' he called back. Then he said, ‘You bet your cotton socks I'll write.'

He turned, and went back down the side of the house, leaving Elizabeth standing on the sidewalk with her eyes wide and her lips still fizzing with the sherbet sensation of Lenny's kiss. He had kissed heron the actual lips! He must love her! Or nearly love her, anyway.

And she loved him – she loved him, she loved him, with all of her swelling heart.

She walked dreamily back along Putnam Street, staying under the dark aromatic shadow of the elms. Already she was inventing a story in her head about a showjumping star who falls in love with a soldier. The soldier is wounded in the Pacific, and sends her a message that he has been killed, so that she won't have the burden of marrying a man so terribly scarred. One day she wins the highest international show-jumping trophy, and makes a speech in which she dedicates the trophy to all the boys who never came back from the war, and especially to her lost love. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she says that she can never love another man, ever. At that moment, her terribly-scarred lover comes hobbling out of the crowd amongst whom he has been covertly watching her, and they are passionately reunited. She promises to use her prize money to restore his looks, and they have six children and fourteen horses and live deliriously ever after.

Elizabeth decided to call her story ‘The Spoils of War'.

She was nearly at the end of Putnam Street when she saw a small girl in a white cotton frock walking towards her. She was out of the shadow of the elms now, and the street was dazzlingly bright–so bright that the girl appeared almost to be walking in a fog of reflected light, kind of
out-of-focus
.

The girl had a very pale face and intensely blonde braids – braids so blonde that they were almost silver, so that she looked very Scandinavian, Finnish or Lapp. Elizabeth didn't take very much notice of her at first, because she was too involved in ‘The Spoils of War'. But there was something about the way in which the girl was walking that suddenly caught her attention. She seemed to be
gliding
, rather than walking, as if the sun-bright sidewalk was covered with ice.

As she approached, Elizabeth slowed, and stared at her. For some ridiculous reason, she began to feel alarmed, although she couldn't think why. She knew just about every single kid in the whole of Sherman, and Boardman's Bridge besides, even kids as young as this one, but she had never seen this kid before. Maybe she was visiting, with her parents. Maybe she was lost.

The girl came gliding nearer and nearer on white-sandalled feet, until she and Elizabeth were face to face. The sun was so strong that Elizabeth had to squinch up her eyes. Even then she didn't seem to be able to focus on the girl's face.

The girl stared up at Elizabeth with perfect composure. ‘Hallo, Elizabeth,' she said. Her voice was oddly tinny, as if she were speaking on the radio.

‘Do I know you?' asked Elizabeth.

The girl gave her a blurry smile. There was something familiar about her – something
so
familiar that Elizabeth began to feel seriously frightened. How could she be so familiar, when Elizabeth had never met her before?

‘Are you lost?' Elizabeth asked her.

The girl shook her head. In some peculiar way, she had managed to pass Elizabeth by, while at the same time never
taking her eyes away from Elizabeth, nor turning her head. Elizabeth could feel the sun beating hot on the top of her head, and yet the girl herself seemed to give off the faintest of chills.

‘Do I
know
you?' Elizabeth repeated.

The girl was already gliding away. She was swallowed by the shadows of the overhanging elms, until all that Elizabeth could see of her was a white dress and gliding white sandals. How did she walk like that? It was so strange, like a waking dream, right here on the corner of Putnam Street, on a normal afternoon.

Deeply immersed in the shadows, the girl turned around just once. Her pale face was completely expressionless, yet she was obviously trying to communicate something.

But what?

Elizabeth slowly continued her walk towards Main Street, frowning in perplexity. Why had the girl seemed so familiar? It was almost as if Elizabeth had known her all her life; and yet she knew for sure she hadn't.

It was only when she reached Main Street and saw the sign across the street saying Walter K. Ede & Son, Mortician, that she was seized with the most horrific of thoughts. She turned, and stared back down the street, and she was so frightened that she felt as if centipedes were crawling in her hair.

‘Peggy,' she whispered. Then she screamed out, ‘
Peggy?”

 

 

Laura was already in the billiard-room when Elizabeth got back. She was sprawled lanky-legged on the sofa eating a sugared doughnut and leafing through a copy of
Glamour
. She didn't look up when Elizabeth came into the room and dumped her schoolbooks on the end of the coffee table.

‘Well?' said Elizabeth.

‘Well what?' retorted Laura, aggressively.

‘Well – what do you think I ought to do?'

‘What do I think you ought to do about what?'

‘Your story, of course. That's what.'

Laura gave her a sulky, challenging stare. ‘
Be
a snitch. Go on. See if I care.'

‘But Laura, it was so
rude
. Where did you learn all of those words?'

‘I just heard some of the boys talking, that's all,' said Laura. She pushed almost half of the doughnut into her mouth at once. ‘They're always saying things like pecker and muff.'

‘It's awful.'

‘Why should it be awful?' said Laura, with her mouth crammed. ‘You say “woodpecker” don't you? And women say they wear muffs in winter, and nobody gets upset.'

‘That's different. You shouldn't write stories like that.'

‘Says who?'

Elizabeth was about to answer when the door opened and her father came in. He had become thin as a rail and very grey, like a man who has been standing for hour after hour in a shower of fine wood-ash. The girls had grown used to his emaciation and premature ageing; but his appearance was a
constant reminder of Peggy's death; as if her shadow had fallen across him for ever. He still spoke just as firmly, and the Candlewood Press was doing reasonably well, and making a bit of money, but losing Peggy had taken so much of the meaning out of his life.

‘Hi, Elizabeth,' he said. She went up and put her arm around his waist. His sand-coloured trousers drooped because he was so thin. He scarcely ate, and wouldn't touch drink these days because it gave him nightmares. Nightmares of snow, nightmares of ice. Nightmares of Peggy rising out of the pool. ‘How was school? Do you have much homework?'

‘Only geography, the Rockies, and that's easy.'

‘Listen . . .' he said. ‘I had a call this afternoon that granpa's sick. I have to go to New York tomorrow. I really have to. Do you think that you two could stay home and take care of mommy for me?'

‘Is granpa going to die?' asked Laura.

Their father shook his head. ‘It's his heart. His heart's weak. He has to have tests for his blood pressure.'

‘It's all right,' said Elizabeth. ‘We'll look after mommy.'

Their father ruffled her hair. ‘Thanks, Lizzie. I'll call the school before I leave, and tell them why you're taking the day off.'

‘Okay, sure thing,' said Elizabeth.

‘Mommy should have a nurse,' Laura protested.

‘Laura –' Elizabeth retaliated. But her father said. ‘Ssh, she's probably right. It's just that I can't afford a nurse right now. Besides, you know how difficult your mother can be. Too difficult for most nurses.'

He was about to leave when Elizabeth said, ‘Father – '

Laura sat up and glared at her furiously, staring daggers. Long-bladed daggers with elaborately-decorated handles, just like the cartoons.

But Elizabeth had no intention of telling her father about
Laura's story. She wasn't a snitch by nature; and, besides, she would have found it far too embarrassing. But she did want to tell him that, somehow, she had met Peggy on Putnam Street on the way back from Lenny's house – that she hadn't exactly
looked
like Peggy, but she was almost certain that she was. After all, hadn't Bronco's dead brother looked like a Cuban? It didn't matter what people looked like, surely, so long as it was still
them
.

The body is simply the costume of the soul
, that's what Dick Bracewaite had told them, in church last Sunday.

Maybe, if her father knew that Peggy was still walking around, it would put his mind at rest – give him hope, and peace. Maybe it would brush off all those ashes of guilt that made him appear so grey.

‘Lizzie, I really have to run.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Elizabeth. ‘It's nothing.' Nothing that she could possibly articulate, anyway. She was mature enough to realize that if she told him and he didn't believe her, his pain would be even more difficult to bear. And, just at that moment, she wasn't at all sure that she believed it herself.

There were two hours to spare before supper, so Laura went off to call for her friend Bindy on Sycamore Street and Elizabeth sat in the kitchen with Mrs Patrick while Mrs Patrick finished off a chicken potpie. Seamus was there, too, sitting on his favourite stool next to the range, his head leaning against the tiles, softly singing a nonsensical song.

The kitchen was filled with warm marmalade-coloured sunlight, which fell in shafts through the steam and flour dust. Elizabeth traced patterns in the flour with her finger.

‘Your father's a poor suffering soul,' said Mrs Patrick.

‘I know,' Elizabeth agreed. She looked over at Seamus, who was still nodding and singing. His voice was a thin, tuneless whine.

‘Is he worse?' she asked Mrs Patrick.

Mrs Patrick nodded, and gave Elizabeth a sad and wistful smile. ‘Dr Ferris said he'll have more fits. I like to think that it's the fairies. They loved him so much that they want him back, to play with him some more.'

Elizabeth listened to Seamus singing for a little, and then she said, ‘Mrs Patrick – do you think it's possible for people, when they're dead, to be other people, and walk around, and meet their old friends?'

Mrs Patrick was about to put the potpie in the oven. She turned around and stared at Elizabeth in the strangest way. The open oven was so hot that Mrs Patrick's forehead was beaded with sweat.

‘What made you say that, child?'

‘I don't know. Something I saw.'

‘What did you see?'

‘A little girl, that's all. She didn't look like Peggy and yet she did. And she looked at me so queerly. And she said, “Hallo, Elizabeth”, quite plain, as if she knew me.'

‘Where was this?'

‘On Putnam Street: I was visiting Lenny. He's had the greeting, and he has to go to Fort Dix tomorrow.'

‘The dead go to Heaven, child, to sit with Our Lady and Our Lord Jesus Christ.'

‘But you said that Seamus would go back to the fairies.'

‘There are fairies in Heaven. There is anything a soul could want in Heaven.'

Elizabeth had the feeling that this conversation was going to get her nowhere at all. Mrs Patrick was a Catholic, and while she may have been a very superstitious Catholic, and believed
in elves and piskies and all sorts of supernatural larkings-about in hedgerows and underneath toadstools, she was still sure and certain that her Redeemer liveth, and his Blessed Mother, too, and that it was They alone who set us down on earth when we were born and scooped us back up again when we died.