Spirit (33 page)

‘I don't understand.'

‘Hans Andersen wrote for adults long before he started writing fairy stories for children. In fact, he didn't particularly enjoy writing fairy stories, but they were so successful that he didn't have any choice. When they were first published, a lot of critics said that his stories were too morbid for children. They read like children's stories, but they're aimed at adults. He was a Scandinvian. You know, gloomy and dire. The Snow Queen was based on one of the daughters of Loki, the great Nordic incarnation of evil. Loki was like Satan to the Norse people. He frightened them so much that they wouldn't make any sacrifices to him, or build any temples in his honour, in case he appeared to thank them. His first wife was called Embers and his second wife was called Ashes. Even today, when Danish housewives hear the fires spitting, they say that Loki is beating his children.

‘His third wife was called Augur-boda, which means Anguish-boding. She had three children, the first of whom was Hel, the queen of the underworld, who gave her name to the English word “Hell”. Hel was thrown out of the celestial kingdom of Odin, and according to legend she was given “nine unlighted worlds to rule, a queen and empress over all the dead.” The people who lived in Hel's palace were criminals and sinners, and anybody who had died without shedding blood. The Norse people had the greatest contempt for anybody who died in bed. You were supposed to be warlike and valiant, and die by the sword.

‘Hel was supposed to have been responsible for the Black Death. The Danes said that she mounted her white, three
legged horse and travelled the length and breadth of Northern Europe, spreading disease. She was also supposed to be responsible for any death by freezing or frostbite. In other words, Hel, the daughter of Loki, was the original model for the Snow Queen.'

Laura said, ‘She's only a legend, though, isn't she?'

Miles blew out smoke. ‘Your sister Peggy is only a fairy story.'

‘You're trying to suggest that Peggy has been reincarnated as Gerda; and that Hel has been brought to life, too?'

‘You want my serious opinion?'

‘Of course!'

‘Then my opinion is that it's all impossible, that none of it could happen, and yet it has.'

Elizabeth stood up, and walked to the window, and looked out of the snowy yard. The black Labrador was standing by the frozen birdbath, watching her with garnet-coloured eyes.

‘How do we put her to rest?' she asked.

‘I don't know,' said Miles. ‘I'm an author. I'm a psychologist. A dabbler in this and a dabbler in that.'

‘I have to put her to rest. She's going to haunt us for ever, if I don't.'

Miles looked at Laura, and made a face which meant, what can I do, I've told you everything I know. Laura said, ‘Maybe you should move out to California, Lizzie. I'm sure that Chester would give you some screenwriting work.'

‘No,' said Elizabeth. ‘I don't want to run away. Why should I? Loki, Hel, they're only stories, aren't they? Stories can't hurt you.'

‘Lizzie,' said Miles, as gently as he could. ‘I think you ought to understand that they can; and often have done; and will again; and that of all the stories your sister could have chosen to imagine,
The Snow Queen
is one of the most frightening. The name of Loki may be unfamiliar to you, but the name of Satan
isn't, is it, and we're talking about the same kind of manifestation. If Peggy has imagined herself to be Gerda, then she has imagined the Snow Queen, too, because the Snow Queen is essential to Gerda's struggle. Without the Snow Queen, Gerda is nothing more than a little girl who presses hot pennies against frosty windows so that she can see the street outside.

‘You've seen the Snow Queen. You've seen her for yourself, and her name is Hel.'

They buried their father with the simplest of ceremonies. A biting north-westerly wind was blowing from Canada, and sizzles of fine snow blew over the open grave.

Elizabeth and Laura were amazed how many people came. Mary Kenneth Randall, the novelist, in a wheelchair, pushed by an ever-complaining black woman. Eugene O'Neill, the playwright, looking old and cold and miserable. Ashley Tibbett, the essayist, emaciated and yellow and dying himself from lung cancer. The humorist S.J. Perelman, who used to challenge David Buchanan to martini-drinking contests at the Algonquin, and usually won. Marianne Craig Moore, the poetess who wrote
The Pangolin
. Frederic Nash, better known as Ogden, but on a day like this short of any witty verses.

Somebody else came, a little late. A huge black Cadillac trundled up to the cemetery gates, as silent as any of the hearses, and a stocky wide-shouldered man climbed out. He wore a black overcoat with an astrakhan collar and he walked with a silver-topped cane. The Reverend Bullock was already intoning the words, ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .' as the man reached the graveside. He took off his hat and stood bareheaded while David Buchanan's casket was lowered into the frozen ground. His hair was no longer the colour of peanut-brittle, more like rusted steel; and his moustache was droopier; but it was Johnson Ward all right, no doubt about it, the once-notorious author of
Bitter Fruit
.

He waited until the ceremony was over, and then he stepped forward and dropped something into the open grave.

Elizabeth circled around the back of the mourners.

‘Bronco,' she said.

‘Little Lizzie,' he said. ‘My favourite balloon-popper.'

He kissed her, and he still smelled spicey-clean. ‘I'm so pleased you could come,' she said. ‘I haven't seen you since – '

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Not since we buried your little Clothes-Peg. Maybe we should stop meeting at funerals.' He looked down at the grave. ‘That father of yours, he was so dear to me, do you know that? It was a joy to write for a publisher like him, even if he couldn't pay much money. He cared so much for what he did.'

He took out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. ‘Do you know what I threw in his grave? The pen he lent me, the first time I ever met him. A woman came up to me in Jack & Charlie's and asked me for my autograph. That was the first time that anybody had ever asked me, and I didn't even have a pen, so Davey lent me his. I offered it back to him, but he said, no, keep it. You can give it back to me when people stop asking for your autograph any more. Well, they don't. They don't even know who I am, half of them. Those days are long gone; and now Davey's gone, too, and he can have his pen back.'

Elizabeth took his arm. ‘Surely you're working for us now, aren't you? Margo said you were writing a new novel, all about Arizona.'

Bronco shrugged. ‘I'm supposed to be, in fact, I'll probably have to. I've spent the advance already.'

‘When's it due?'

‘The end of the year. Not much hope of that.'

‘How much have you written?'

He lifted his leather-gloved hand, as if he were framing a cinema shot. ‘I've written, “The Sun Worshippers, by Johnson Ward”. Then I've written, “Chapter One”. Then I've written,

“Pearson sat in the middle of a day with no shadow. He had women on his mind. Women and liquor, but mostly women.” '

There was a long pause. They were walking downhill from the gravesite now, arm-in-arm. The wind blustered in their ears.

‘Is that all?' said Elizabeth.

Bronco gave her a keen, tired, paternal look. ‘That's it, little Lizzie, balloon-biter extraordinaire. But don't you tell Rossi, or she'll have my guts for banjo-strings.'

‘You're blocked, that's all. You can get over block.'

‘Unh-hunh, this isn't block. Billy's been calling.'

‘Billy?'

Bronco glanced over his snow-dandruffed shoulder. ‘I told you about Billy. He was my brother, the one who died. I met him in Cuba and now he keeps appearing in Phoenix. How can I write when my dead brother keeps pestering me?'

Elizabeth pulled Bronco to a halt. ‘Are you serious?' she demanded.

He stared at her and his eyes were wild. Of course I'm serious, for Christ's sake. He never leaves me alone. Vita thinks I've gone crazy.
I
think I've gone crazy. I try to write and he sits in my room and stares at me, and interrupts me, and talks to me, and tells me how careless I am, I shouldn't have let him die, I shouldn't have made any money, I don't have any talent, I'm a failure. He's always there, goddamnit.'

‘Have you spoken to anybody else about it?'

‘I have a gardner. I've talked to him about it. Actually I had to, because he saw me arguing with Billy, and asked me what was wrong.'

‘Did he believe you when you told him who Billy was?'

They had reached the funeral cars. Laura and Lenny came over, Lenny clapping his hands against the cold.

Bronco said, ‘Funny thing . . . I only told him that Billy was my brother. But he said, “You shouldn't go messing with dead people. Dead people will try anything”.'

‘Somebody must have told him that your brother had died. Maybe Vita.'

‘But what would
you
assume if you saw me arguing with somebody in the garden and I said it was my brother? You'd assume it was another brother, wouldn't you? You wouldn't think that it was my
dead
brother!'

Laura came up and took hold of Bronco's arm. ‘My favourite risqué novelist,' she said, kissing his cheek.

‘My,' smiled Bronco. ‘You sure have grown, little Laura.'

Now Margaret Buchanan came down the shovel-cleared pathway in a wheelchair, wrapped in a dark plaid blanket. Seamus was pushing her, although Seamus didn't look well. His cheeks were as pale as kitchen soap and his eyes were red-rimmed. He wore a black woolly hat that gave him the appearance of a big, mollycoddled toddler. He stopped beside them but he didn't say anything. A shining drop swung from the end of his nose.

Margaret wore tiny circular sunglasses and a wide black hat. Her mouth was pinched. ‘I don't know why David had to go on such a cold day,' she complained. ‘He always used to be so considerate. But now he's gone, goodness! isn't he making a meal of it?'

Laura said, ‘Come on, mother. There's some hot food back at the house. You'll feel better when you've had something to eat.'

But Elizabeth took out her handkerchief and went up to Seamus and wiped his nose for him. He didn't look at her. He didn't say anything.

‘Are you all right, Seamus?' she asked him, gently.

He gave her a quick sideways glance, but still he said nothing.

‘Is there something wrong?' coaxed Elizabeth. ‘Have I done something to upset you?'

He paused for a very long time, chewing the cold morning air as if it were gum. ‘Daren't say,' he replied, at last.

‘Daren't, or won't?'

‘I know what happens to them who dares to say.'

‘Those who dare to say what, Seamus?'

He rolled his eyes. ‘Daren't say, nohow. Just daren't say.'

‘Well, what happens to them, when they dare to say this thing that you daren't say?'

‘Get kissed,' said Seamus.

‘Kissed? Kissed by whom?'

‘If I give you more kisses, I shall kiss thee to death.'

Elizabeth shivered. Seamus was quoting from
The Snow Queen
again; he seemed to be obsessed by it; but Elizabeth knew what he was talking about. The Snow Queen's kisses were as cold as a glacier, and her mouth could drain out the very last warmth from anybody's heart.

Seamus saw how alarmed she was, and caught hold of her sleeve. ‘You can't blame us! You can't blame us! I do love you, even though I daren't tell!'

Elizabeth stared at him. ‘Is
that
what you daren't say? That you love me?'

‘Ssssshhhhhh!' hissed Seamus, in a panic, pressing his finger to his lips, and spraying spit everywhere.

Margaret turned around and looked up at him disapprovingly. ‘It's bad enough with it snowing, without you spitting on me, too. Come on, take me to the car, I'm cold and I'm tired of this wheelchair. I never knew a wheelchair-pusher to fidget so much. Backwards and forwards, all though the funeral. I thought I was going to be seasick.'

Seamus pushed Margaret away, and then Miles Moreton came up, and took off his hat, and offered his condolences. ‘I'll miss him, you know, more than I can tell you. He was a brother, just as much as a publisher.'

‘Thank you, Miles,' said Elizabeth.

‘By the way . . . I hope I didn't frighten you too much yesterday, with all my talk.'

‘Not at all. At least you gave us some kind of explanation for what's been going on.'

‘I did some more reading about it,' said Miles. ‘Apparently there
are
ways in which you can exorcize somebody whose imaginative consciousness has been haunting you. People have tried it, from time to time.'

‘Can we talk about this later?' asked Elizabeth. ‘I don't want to keep everybody waiting in the cold.'

‘It's very simple,' Miles enthused. ‘It's merely a question of choosing a character of your own . . . a character who's capable of dismissing the character who's been troubling you . . . and
being
that character, and – '

‘Come on, Lizzie!' called Laura. ‘We're freezing to death out here!'

Elizabeth touched Miles's arm. ‘I'll talk to you later on. Thanks for coming. My father would have appreciated it no end.'

 

 

That evening, when all the rest of the funeral guests had left, Elizabeth, Laura, Bronco and Miles sat by the fire and drank three bottles of red wine between them. The house was huge and hushed; and every now and then they heard that distinctive threatening creak which means that there are too many tons of snow on the roof.

‘You ever had such weather in autumn before?' asked Bronco, his necktie loosened, his feet propped on the stool in front of the fire.