Spirit (43 page)

‘You saw Mr Ward's brother, Billy,' said Elizabeth.

Eusebio nodded, without interrupting his hoeing.

‘In fact you've seen him more than once . . . and you've seen him at times when nobody else has seen him, apart from Mr Ward.'

There was a long silence. Ensebio continued to work, but Elizabeth could tell that he was doing nothing more than going through the motions. The sharp sound of his hoe blade echoed flatly in the warm morning air. ‘I take the peyote,' he said. ‘The peyote shows you spiritual sights, like tomorrow, and the dead who take on different shape.'

‘What's the peyote?' asked Elizabeth.

Bronco said, ‘It's a drug. The Indians extract it from the tubercules of the mescal cactus. When you eat it, it gives you extraordinary hallucinations, and makes you sensitive to all kinds of impressions, especially “colours. You can see plants grow. You can see the clouds go speeding past. You can see dead people, too; or so Eusebio says. The Indians used it as a medicine, but also to bring them visions. It's mentioned in some of the surviving Aztec manuscripts, and there are old Spanish documents that report its use all the way from Yucatan to Oklahoma. What interests
me
, however, is that it was used to slow down respiration, so that anybody who took it could see their dead relations. We could use it as a way of achieving the glamour, the shape-changing, without having to strangle ourselves.' He put his hand around his throat. ‘I don't really relish the idea of strangling myself.'

‘Do you really think it works?' asked Elizabeth.

‘I don't know. But Eusebio had been taking it when he saw “Billy”. My guess is, if
we
took it, we could take on fictional identities, too, and tell “Billy” to leave me be.'

‘What do you think, Eusebio?' asked Elizabeth.

He shrugged. ‘A spirit is not like a man. A spirit is hard to control. You can't say to a spirit, do what I say, because I'll punish you, you wayward spirit. What does a spirit care?'

‘But supposing we took the peyote ourselves, Mr Ward and me, and became spirits, and took on different shapes?'

‘Depends what they are, these shapes.'

‘Well, if he's a Cuban musician, supposing we were record producers, or something like that?'

Eusebio's mouth cracked into a mirthless laugh. ‘You sure have dreams and fancies, don't you?'

Elizabeth said, ‘That isn't a joke. Mr Ward's brother has been worrying him and stopping him from writing! We have to stop him, one way or another!'

Eusebio stopped working and leaned on his hoe. ‘You must find out the truth first, Mr Ward. You must find out who your brother has chosen to be. You can't take risks, in the spirit world. Not even little risks. If you appear there, and you don't have the power, you could be killed. Worse than that, your brother could catch your spirit-character, and never let you return to your body. You would be dead, and yet alive, and nobody could revive you.'

‘He'd be in a coma, you mean?' asked Elizabeth.

Eusebio thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘What you call a coma, yes. People who breathe, but never move or talk. They are visiting the spirit-world. Sometimes they achieve great things in the spirit-world, while their families and their friends sit by their bed and despair. There are three worlds, and there always have been. The world of the living. The world of spirits. And the world of the truly rested, the empty world, which is the world of absolute peace.'

‘That's where I want Billy to go,' said Bronco, emphatically. ‘The world of absolute peace. Then maybe
I'll
get some absolute peace.'

Eusebio took offhis hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His hair was straight and greasy, and curled-up in the back. ‘Mr Ward . . . I can bring you some of the peyote. But take my warning, okay? You find out who your Billy really is, before you start to go after him, or you could pay the price.'

They walked back to the house. In the distance, Camelback Mountain wavered and shifted in the morning heat.

‘What do you think?' said Bronco. ‘Do you think we're crazy?'

Elizabeth took hold of his hand. ‘Probably,' she said.

They were still walking, hand-in-hand, when Vita appeared on the verandah, wearing a flowery brown dress that made her complexion look paler and muddier than ever, twirling a parasol.

‘Johnson!' she called, in a high, imperative voice. ‘Johnson, we're fresh out of cinnamon!'

Bronco squished Elizabeth's hand, and let it go; but the meaning wasn't lost on her; any more than the difficulty of what they had to face.

They searched all afternoon through Billy's room. His gramophone-record collection, his clothes, his books, his half-completed diaries. Some of the bits and pieces they found were unbearably sad, especially the photographs: a young man laughing, a young man squinting at the sun.

‘We'd only moved here four months before he was killed,' said Bronco, leafing through some jazz magazines. ‘I bought a motorcycle . . . I'd always wanted a motorcycle, but there wasn't much point in having one in New York. Billy asked me if he could ride it, and like a fool I said yes. He came off at the very first curve, doing sixty miles an hour, and hit a telegraph pole. Broke his neck, killed him instantly.' He was silent for a long moment. ‘It was all a long time ago. I think I could have forgotten it, if Billy would let me forget.'

‘Didn't he ever read any books?' asked Elizabeth, more to break the mood than anything. ‘There's only magazines here.'

‘Sure, he did sometimes. Maybe I should look in my study.'

They walked across the living-room to Bronco's study. Vita was reclining on the sofa with a glass of weak Russian tea, reading
McCall's
. The blinds were drawn, which meant that she was suffering from a migraine. Bronco blew her a kiss,
which she vaporized in mid-air with one of the most withering looks that Elizabeth had ever seen.

‘This doesn't look very much like writing a novel to me,' she remarked.

‘Oh, it will be,' Bronco assured her. Elizabeth didn't trust herself to say anything at all. She had never met a woman so hostile and sarcastic – yet a woman who never stopped complaining that she was so helpless, so sick, so starved of sympathy.

They went into the study. It was an L-shaped room illuminated with white, watery, reflected light. Its longer walls were lined with hundreds of books, some leather-bound, some paper-jacketed, some exquisite, some torn. Facing the window stood a large leather-topped desk. An Underwood typewriter was neatly positioned in the centre of the desk, and a stack of typing-paper was neatly positioned next to it. It was a still-life which completely illustrated writer's block, without the need for a caption.

Elizabeth said, ‘You take the top three rows, I'll take the bottom three.'

They patiently made their way along the bookshelves, their heads tilted to one side so they could read the titles on the spines. Elizabeth had never come across such an eclectic selection of books in her life:
Spanish Drama Before Lope de Vega
was squashed in between
The Mesolithic Settlement of Northern Europe
and
The Beast In Me – And Other Animals
by James Thurber.

At last, Elizabeth came across a thin book called
Nights in Havana
. She tugged it out, and held it up. ‘Ring any bells?'

Bronco took it and leafed through it. ‘It's certainly not mine. Here's a note in Billy's handwriting. And look – ' he held up a ticket for a Duke Ellington concert in New York. ‘He must have been using this for a bookmark.'

Elizabeth said, ‘If Miles was right about the glamour, we
should read this book, and see what character Billy has chosen to be. Then we should choose characters of our own . . . characters who can tell him to leave you alone – or
persuade
him to leave you alone, at the very least.'

Bronco nodded. ‘Why don't you read it first, while I try to get some writing done? Do you fancy a Pisco Punch?'

‘No thanks. A little too early for me.'

Bronco stared philosophically at his typewriter. ‘You're right. I shouldn't have one either.'

Elizabeth reached up and kissed him on the cheek. Oh, go on, have one, if it helps to get you started. If there's one thing I'm determined not to do, it's to give my boss your twenty thousand dollars advance back.'

While Bronco pecked hesitantly at his typewriter, Elizabeth sat on the verandah outside his window and started to read
Nights in Havana
. It was a novel set in Cuba in the early days of Batista's dictatorship. The hero was a young idealist called Raul Palma who was trying to free his father, who was imprisoned on suspicion of murdering one of Batista's right-hand men. Only one person knew who had really killed him, a beautiful prostitute called Rosita, and she was too frightened to speak out. The plot was hackneyed; but the scenes of Havana's sleazy night-life were unforgettable, the pimps along the Paseo, the brothels and the bars, and always the constant throb of sub-tropical heat and mamba music. The character of Raul Palma was inspirational, too. He was lean, he was good-looking, he was driven by reckless political commitment. Elizabeth liked Rosita, too – childish and beautiful but soiled by poverty.

By the time she had reached the climax of the novel, Elizabeth was sure that Billy had taken on the character of Raul – and, if that were true, she was convinced that Rosita could persuade him to leave Bronco alone. Raul was ready to
risk his life for Rosita, shielding her with his own body from the vicious, corrupt chief of police, Captain Figueredo.

She had almost finished the novel when she heard Bronco calling her. ‘Lizzie! Lizzie, can you hear me? Come here, quick!'

She closed the book and went inside. Bronco was waiting for her by his half-open study door. His face was ashy, and lined with tension. ‘Tell me you can see what I see.'

He opened the door wider so that she could step inside. She did so, very hesitantly. She passed so close to Bronco that she could smell his cologne and the rum on his breath. Sitting beside Bronco's desk, his chair tilted back on two legs, sat a young sallow-faced man in a faded grey shirt and voluminous black trousers. His eyes were bright and glittery and very amused, although he wasn't exactly smiling. He was handsome in a cheap, matinée-idol way, with black greased-back hair and a large gold pendant around his neck.

Elizabeth approached him cautiously. The young man followed her with his eyes, although now and then she glanced quickly at Bronco, as if to make sure that he wasn't up to any funny business. The atmosphere in the study was stifling. The air was so humid and hot that Elizabeth found herself perspiring, and she had to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand.

‘This is Billy,' said Bronco, tensely. ‘This is my brother, back from the dead.'

‘
Buenos dias, senorita
,' said Billy, although he didn't get up.

Elizabeth nodded. There was some unearthly quality about this young man that frightened her very much. Although he was sitting in Bronco's chair, he wasn't quite sitting in it, he looked as if his image were
superimposed
on it. His voice didn't quite synchronize with his lips, either, and there was a strange unsteadiness in the way he moved.

‘Something is worrying you,' Billy suggested.

‘You worry me. You should leave your brother alone. He has work to do.'

‘I am protecting my brother. Besides, who are you to tell me what to do?'

‘Your brother doesn't need protecting. Your brother can protect himself.'

The young man laughed, a blurry, indistinct laugh that had no real humour in it. ‘My brother will be hung, drawn, quartered and stretched out to dry. My brother will be safer if he keeps his peace.'

‘Perhaps your brother doesn't want to be safe.'

Billy shook his head. ‘I have to protect him. He never took care of me; but I must take care of him.'

Elizabeth looked down at Bronco's typewriter. So far this morning he had typed only a single sentence: ‘They knew what time the bus would arrive.'

Elizabeth turned back to Billy. ‘You're Raul, aren't you? Raul Palma.'

The young man's eyes darkened, and his face turned serious. ‘Maybe you should mind your own business. Johnson is my brother, not yours.'

‘Maybe you should leave him in peace.'

Billy stretched out his left hand and placed it on top of Bronco's typewriter. ‘So long as my brother risks his dignity, then I will be here to protect him. You can't make me abandon my duty.'

His hand trembled, and his eyes stared at Elizabeth in fury. She took one step back, then another. As she did so, the sheet of paper in the typewriter began to darken, and curl at the edges. The next thing she knew, it had spontaneously burst into flame.

Still Billy stayed where he was, his lips clenched tight, daring Elizabeth to challenge him, daring her to cast him out. Amid the paper-smoke that burnt the nostrils, Elizabeth
turned away, and took hold of Bronco's arm, and led him away out of the room, and closed the door.

Bronco said, ‘You saw him, didn't you? You saw what he's been doing to me?'

‘Yes,' said Elizabeth, and held up
Nights in Havana
. ‘He's Raul Palma, a revolutionary in the time of Batista. That means that you and I will have to take the peyote, and hunt him down in Havana, and persuade him to leave you alone.'

‘You really think it's possible?' asked Bronco, taking the book and flicking through the pages.

‘I don't know,' said Elizabeth. ‘But if we can't get rid of Billy, then we can't rid of Peggy; and we have to. We really have to.'

‘Gotcha,' Bronco nodded.

 

 

The afternoon was eerily silent. Vita had gone to bed to nurse her migraine. Elizabeth was sitting out on the verandah, correcting proofs, while Bronco lay some distance away, stretched out on a basketwork sun-lounger, reading
Nights In Havana
and sipping Pisco Punch.