Spirit (13 page)

He
stank
, too. He stank like gas, and dead birds, and sour milk, and every smell that made you really sick.

She didn't look too closely. She was far too shocked, far too embarrassed. She was so frightened that she was making a mewing noise, like a locked-out kitten.

The man stopped pedalling his arms and tried to focus on her. His face was so swollen that he could hardly open his piggy little bloodshot eyes. His lips had burst, revealing livid crimson flesh.

‘
Oh Christ Jesus
,' he whispered. One of those hurrying, hurrying whispers.

‘What?' said Elizabeth, in dread.

‘
Oh Christ Jesus forgive me, forgive me.
'

‘What happened to you?' Elizabeth asked him. ‘Where's Mr Bracewaite? What's happened?'

The man pedalled his arms again; and Elizabeth realized that he was doing it because he was in so much pain.

‘
Forgive me Jesus for all of my sins, forgive me, forgive me.
'

He tried to catch hold of the hem of her dress with one of his terrible fingerless hands, but Elizabeth stepped back, not mewling any more, but trembling uncontrollably.

‘I'll call for the doctor!' she screamed at him. ‘It's all right! I'll call for the doctor!'

He reached out towards her, black-balloon-faced, a thing out of a child's worst nightmare. ‘Jesus Christ forgive me for what I did and spare me from eternal damnation, Father Son and Holy Ghost I never meant to touch her, I never meant to touch her it was love and love alone.'

Elizabeth couldn't speak. She backed to the door, quite unable to take her eyes off this blackened, swollen monster thrashing and begging and praying to Jesus for forgiveness.

She was seized with the terrible thought that he had spontaneously combusted, like Mr Krook in
Bleak House
– burned black, yet left the carpet and the furniture unscathed.

‘Jesus forgive me,' the monster begged. ‘Lord forgive me, my beautiful Laura, my beautiful Laura.'

Laura? Elizabeth couldn't understand what he was babbling about. What did Laura have to do with this swollen, repulsive man who was rolling about on the kitchen floor? Elizabeth had never seen him before; and actively prayed that she would never have to see him again. Maybe he had seen her once, and heard somebody calling out Laura's name, and assumed that she was Laura. Maybe they looked enough alike
for him to have muddled them up: there were, after all, only two years between them. She reached the door. As soon as her hand touched the handle, she flew arms-and-legs across the corridor. Her sandals pattered on the parquet. Then she was out through the study and bursting through the net curtains that covered the french windows and into the garden. She couldn't scream out. She was too breathless to scream out, her chest felt all squeezed in. All she could do was stand on the lawn staring at the windows hoping against hope that the black-balloon-faced man couldn't find the strength to follow her.

The black-balloon-faced fingerless man, oh criminy
.

Nothing happened for a long, long time. Nothing happened for almost a minute. The birds chirruped, the roses nodded, and their thick creamy petals dropped into the flowerbeds. She heard traffic on Oak Street, and the sound of a woman laughing.

She had to tell somebody. The man could be dying. He could be
dead
by now, and then she would have him on her conscience. His terrible swollen face would visit her in nightmares, whispering for Jesus to forgive him, and asking her accusingly why she hadn't called for help.

In the end, she made her way step by step back, drew back the billowing nets, and stepped back inside.

‘Hallo?' she called. ‘Are you still here?'

Silence. Then a sudden banging noise, which made her jump, until she realized it had come from outside, somebody slamming a gate.

She went to Dick Bracewaite's desk and picked up the phone. Almost at once, Lucy the operator gave her usual nasal response. ‘Sherman exchange, Reverend, and a very good afternoon to you. What number did you want?'

‘Lucy, this isn't Mr Bracewaite, it's Elizabeth Buchanan.'

‘Well,
hi
, Lizzie, how are you today? I saw your mom earlier. Good to know that she's getting so much better.'

‘Lucy – Mr Bracewaite isn't here but something terrible's happened. There's a man here, in Mr Bracewaite's kitchen, and he's wearing no clothes, and it looks like he's burned or something.'

‘This isn't one of your practical jokes, is it, Lizzie?' Lucy demanded, sharply. Elizabeth and Laura had regularly amused themselves last summer by ringing Lucy and saying ‘Is that the operator on the line? Well, you'd better get off quick, there's a train coming!'

‘No joke, Lucy, cross my heart.'

‘All right, then, don't you fret. You just leave the house now, quick as you can, and stand outside to wait for the sheriff and the ambulance. I'll call them now, directly.'

‘You'll be quick, won't you? He looked like he was dying. All of his fingers were dropped off, it was awful!'

‘Don't you fret, Lizzie. Put down the phone now and go wait outside. Don't try to do nothing for yourself, you can only make it worse.'

Elizabeth hung up. She stood in the study for one long moment, listening for any moans or cries from the black-balloon-faced man. Then she left the rectory and walked quickly around to the roadway. She stood by the railing, confident at first, feeling almost heroic. But as the minutes passed, and the oak trees rustled over her head, and the cloud shadows darkly dreamed their way across the sidewalk, she began to feel light-headed. By the time that Sheriff Grierson's big Hudson Six came wailing around the intersection with Oak Street, its red light flashing, she was seeing everything in negative, and the blackness was spangled with stars.

Doctor Ferris came out of the hospital room and closed the door very quietly behind him. He was a lean man of nearly sixty, with the look of a concert violinist rather than a country doctor. He had a large, deeply-pored nose, in which his glasses
had made two reddened impressions, and eyes that were slightly too near together and unexpectedly cold. He was wearing a baggy linen suit, his pockets bulging with everything that a country doctor and a pipe smoker and a whittler and an amateur birdwatcher could ever need. He didn't really play the violin: he only looked as if he did.

Sheriff Grierson was making friendly conversation with Sister Baker, who liked to think that she bore more than a passing resemblance to Lana Turner, although her starchy uniform was filled with the equivalent of Lana Turner-and-a-half. She didn't know that was what Sheriff Grierson liked about her so much. He was a big man himself, wore an XXL of everything, and liked his pie, and women who spread out some, instead of those mean pinched-up looking ones.

Doctor Ferris folded his glasses and said. ‘It's the Reverend all right, no doubt about it. I saw the birthmark on his back when he visited me before, for his kidney-trouble.'

‘Well I'll be . . .' said Sheriff Grierson. ‘Is he going to survive?'

‘Doubtful, I'd say. Very, very doubtful. That's dead, all of that black area. Gangrenous. We'd have to operate to see how deep it goes, but you can see what's happened to his fingers and toes. Dropped off. And all the flesh on his face is liable to drop off, too. I'm amazed he isn't dead already.'

‘The Lord's will, I guess,' said Sheriff Grierson. ‘What do you think happened to him? How'd he get all gangreeny like that?'

‘I know
what
happened to him, Wally. The trouble is, I can't understand
how
it happened.'

‘What are you trying to tell me? He wasn't murdered, was he? Poisoned or something?'

Doctor Ferris shook his head. ‘The Reverend Dick Bracewaite is suffering from severe frostbite. Worst case I ever came across.'

Sheriff Grierson stared at him. ‘
Frostbite?
'

‘I know,' shrugged Doctor Ferris. ‘Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it, frostbite on one of the warmest days of the year. But that's what it is. Not just frostnip, either, which makes your affected skin go dead white. This is your real hundred per cent turn-you-black frostbite.'

‘How could that possibly be?' asked Sheriff Grierson; and Sister Baker said, ‘
Frostbite?
Where does anybody get themselves frostbitten in the middle of the summer?'

‘I surely don't know,' said Doctor Ferris. ‘The only thing I can think of is that somebody abducted him and locked in him a cold-store and then brought him back again, but I think the likelihood of
that
having occurred is just about next-to-nil. I saw him myself mid- to late-afternoon, fourish maybe, and the nearest refrigerating plant that could have froze him to this extent is over in New Milford. Then again somebody could have stripped him naked and poured liquid gas all over him, oxygen or nitrogen maybe, but the Lord alone knows how much gas anybody would have needed to cause this much frostbite.'

‘That doesn't make any sense, either,' Sheriff Grierson put in. ‘Why go to all the trouble of killing a fellow with liquid gas when you can shoot him or strangle him or knock him on the head?'

‘I don't know,' said Doctor Ferris. ‘I have to admit that I don't have a single sensible explanation.'

‘Did he talk to you at all?'

‘He said, “Forgive me” just the two times, and that was all.'

‘That's what he kept saying when they were carrying him out to the ambulance.'

‘Oh . . . one thing more,' said Doctor Ferris. ‘He said, “girder”. At first I thought he was trying to say “murder”, but he said it again, and it was definitely “girder”.'

Sheriff Grierson thoughtfully rubbed the side of his neck. ‘Girder, huh? That's not much to go on.'

‘Could be referring to a construction site,' Doctor Ferris suggested. ‘Or maybe a girder bridge.'

‘The bridge over the Housatonic at New Milford is a girder bridge,' said Sister Baker.

‘Practically ever darn bridge between here and Canada is a girder bridge,' Sheriff Grierson retorted. ‘I don't know . . . I've got a bad feeling about this one. This one feels like a headache with an upset stomach, and it's going to take more than Speedy Alka-Seltzer to cure it.'

‘You want to see him now?' asked Doctor Ferris, and Sheriff Grierson nodded.

Doctor Ferris opened the door and led the way back into Dick Bracewaite's room. The windows were closed to keep the temperature high, and the smell of gradually-thawing flesh was overpowering. Two nurses were attending to him: one wrapping his arms and his legs in warm hospital towels, the other bathing his blackened, swollen face. Both nurses wore red rubber aprons, and facemasks.

Sheriff Grierson pressed his hand over his face. ‘God almighty,' he said, and then he retched.

‘Of course the gangrene didn't smell so bad when he was cold,' Doctor Ferris explained. ‘If he's still alive when we've finished thawing him out, we can rub him down with a little boric acid ointment mixed with eucalyptus. Helps to subdue the smell.'

Sheriff Grierson approached the bed. Dick Bracewaite's eyes were closed, and his breathing was catchy and irregular. Sheriff Grierson stood watching him for a while with his hand still clasped over his mouth and nose. He had seen plenty of bodies in his years as sheriff of Litchfield County. He had seen people who had burned to death, people who had drowned, people who had blown their chins off. He had even seen people who had died of frostbite, children and vagrants caught out by a sudden snowstorm. But he had never seen anybody who
looked like this: puffed up and black like a slowly-collapsing pig's bladder.

However the Reverend Bracewaite had sustained his injuries, whether by accident, or self-mutilation, or by the hand of somebody who wanted him dead, his very flesh had been killed, even when his soul and his spirit were still alive. His face was dead, his arms were dead, his legs were dead – yet, miraculously, the man himself was breathing.

Sheriff Grierson glanced at one nurse, and then at the other. The first one had wide china-blue eyes.

‘Okay if I talk to him?' Sheriff Grierson asked.

‘You may if you care to. But he probably won't reply.'

Grierson reluctantly took his hand away from his face. ‘Rever'nd Bracewaite!' he called, like a man calling a shy cat. ‘Rever'nd Bracewaite! It's Sheriff Grierson here, Wally Grierson. Want to talk to you some, if you're compost mentis.'

Dick Bracewaite opened his tiny, swelled-up eyes. He stared at the Sheriff for a while. Then he whispered, ‘. . . irder.'

‘What?' Sheriff Grierson demanded. ‘What did you say? Did you say “murder”, or did you say “girder”? Come on, Rever'nd Bracewaite, I have to know!'

But Dick Bracewaite was already subsiding. His chest heaved up and down, and his breathing sounded like somebody scraping rough twine over cardboard. He coughed up a fine spray of blood. He coughed again. Then he stopped in mid-cough, and then he died.

Sheriff Grierson stood up straight. He looked at the nurses in their surgical masks and the nurse with the wide china-blue eyes batted her eyelashes at him.

‘Guess that's it,' said Sheriff Grierson, tugging up his belt. ‘Guess that's no more Sunday sermons for a week or two.'

The next morning, while the streets of Sherman were still filled with sun-golden mist, the Sheriff drove back to St Michael's
and parked outside the white-painted railings. He walked up to the front door of the rectory and rang the doorbell, and waited while the Reverend Bracewaite's housemaid came down to answer it. She was a small woman with false teeth and a brunette wig which looked as if it had originally been made for a woman much bigger and much darker. She wore a floral housecoat and a dry, wrinkled expression of intense dislike.