Spirit (7 page)

‘How are doing, my beautiful young ladies?' he asked, taking Laura on to his bony knee, and jiggling her up and down. ‘You're feeling pretty low today, I'll bet.' Elizabeth was glad that she was too big to sit on granpa's knee any more. He reeked of camphor ice, which he used for his roughened, cracking skin, and tobacco, and death. The girls were always quite sure that they knew what death smelled like. They had only to think of granpa.

‘Let me tell you something,' said granpa. ‘Every time a child dies and goes to Heaven, there's another star up in the sky. You go out one clear night and look for yourself. You'll see our little Clothes-Peg, sparkling bright as can be.'

‘Bronco said that I might meet her in Havana,' said Elizabeth.

Granpa frowned at father. ‘What's the child talking about, Havana?'

Father gave an uncomfortable smirk. ‘Bronco – that's Johnson Ward, the writer. You remember
Bitter Fruit?
'

‘Darn dirty book, from what I recall,' said granpa.

‘Go on, girls, run along now,' father urged them. ‘Granpa and I have things to talk over.'

So it was that they dressed in their coats and their woolly hats and their gloves and their extra socks and their big wobbly-sounding black rubbers and let themselves out of the kitchen door, into the snow. Ampersand the cat glared at them in suppressed fury as the freezing draught ruffled his fur.

Laura carried a Macy's shopping bag, one of the bags in which they had taken home their funeral clothes, slung around her neck like a backpack. They marched around to the tennis court, singing Winnie-the-Pooh's cold toes song. The wind had suddenly dropped, and it had stopped snowing, although the sky was as grey as a Barre granite gravestone. The silence was huge. Elizabeth felt that if she screamed at the top of her voice, she could have been heard in Quaker Hill.

They traipsed to the very centre of the tennis court. Elizabeth looked around. ‘This'll do,' she decided. They began scraping up snow with their gloved hands. Then Laura discovered the nursery slate which father had requisitioned last summer for chalking up his tennis scores, and she used it as a makeshift shovel.

Elizabeth said, ‘It must be exactly the same size as Peggy, and it must look like her. Otherwise God won't know it's her, will He?'

‘God's supposed to know everything,' Laura retorted. Her cheeks were fiery red and there was a bright drip on the end of her nose.

‘I know He's supposed to, but He must have so many different things to worry about. You know, like the weather, and the Russians.'

It took them almost a half-hour to create the snow-angel. Elizabeth knew it was the right height because Peggy had come up to the second button on her coat; and so did this snow-angel. Laura rummaged in the Macy's bag and produced Peggy's brown beret and Peggy's bright red kilt and Peggy's brown tweed Saturday coat, all of which she had borrowed from Peggy's closet. They dressed the snow-angel and then they stood back to admire her.

‘Her face is too white,' said Laura. ‘And she doesn't have any hair.'

‘Statues always have white faces,' Elizabeth told her. ‘All the statues in the graveyard had white faces.'

‘She'd look much better with a pink face, and hair,' said Laura.

‘Well . . . let's go look in the shed.'

They walked back across the garden, and tugged open the door of the spidery, spooky shed, and ventured inside. It was so dark now that they could scarcely see anything, only the faintest of snow reflections shining through the spider webs. They groped around, giggling. In one corner, Laura found an old canvas bag, which had once been used to wrap up the roots of a cherry sapling. They also found some soft, oily cotton, which the gardener had used for cleaning the lawnmower.

‘This'll do, this'll do,' Elizabeth hissed.

Singing, ‘
how cold my toes, tiddely-pom
' in an off-key, falsetto duet, they returned to the tennis court. Elizabeth took off the snow angel's beret and carefully fitted the canvas bag over her head. Then Laura arranged the fluffy cotton on top; and Elizabeth replaced the beret.
Now
their snow-angel looked more realistic.

‘What about eyes?' frowned Laura.

‘We could sew buttons on.'

‘It's too cold for sewing. We could use stones.'

‘I have a better idea,' said Elizabeth. ‘We could heat up the poker in the kitchen range, so that it's red-hot, and burn two holes for eyes.'

‘Yes!' agreed Laura, excitedly. ‘A red-hot poker! A red-hot poker!'

They went back to the kitchen, much to Ampersand's disgust. Laura kept guard while Elizabeth heated up the poker. Then they rushed out with it and Elizabeth jabbed it into the snow angel's canvas face. With a sizzle and an acrid smell of burning, two black-circled eyes appeared.

‘And a mouth, too!' said Laura, jumping up and down. ‘Quick! Make her a mouth!'

When they had finished, they stood and admired their snow-angel, and then Elizabeth said, ‘We ought to pray.'

They knelt in the snow even though it was wet and bitterly cold, and Elizabeth squeezed her eyes tight and said, ‘Dear Lord, this is our memorial to our dear sister who we loved. Please see it and bless it and make Peggy into an angel.'

‘Amen,' said Laura, and sniffed.

By the time the girls had tugged off each other's boots and hung up their snowy coats and hats, the funeral guests were beginning to leave. Father and mommy were kissed and hugged again and again, and there were sorrowful faces and tears and slapping of backs and extraordinary yelps of grief, many of which might have been inspired by Mrs Patrick's punch. All the same, it was a sad, disassembled moment.

As they stood at the foot of the stairs, however, dutiful and pale in their mourning dresses, Elizabeth and Laura could sense a general feeling of relief. Peggy had been laid to rest, thank goodness, and her soul had been commended to God – whether she reappeared as a twinkling star or a Cuban girl in
the Plaza de Armas or as nothing more than a gradually fading memory, less and less distinct as the years passed by.

Dear Peggy, thought Elizabeth. I hope you can hear me. I hope that God has seen our snow-angel, and taken you up into heaven.

They all returned to the living-room. Father said, ‘Thank God that's over.' Through the open doorway, they could see Mrs Patrick noisily clearing up the dishes. Mommy lifted her veil and her face looked puffy and bruised, as if she had been punched. ‘I need a drink,' she told father. Without a word, he went to the cocktail cabinet and poured her a gin. He was about to close the cabinet again, but then he turned to Elizabeth and Laura, and smiled. He poured each of them a tonic water with rock-syrup and a maraschino cherry; and winked. ‘Cocktails, at your age? Whatever next!'

Mommy said, ‘I don't know whether I'm glad it's over or not. I feel as if she's been tugged right out of my arms, just ripped away from me. My beautiful littlest baby.'

Tears streamed down her cheeks and she made no attempt to wipe them away. Elizabeth took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and cautiously handed it to her. Mommy stared at it for a while as if she couldn't think what it was, then dabbed her eyes.

‘I don't understand how life can be so cruel,' she said. ‘I gave up everything! I gave up my youth! I gave up my career! Wasn't that enough, for God's sake?'

Father said nothing but stood on the opposite side of the room, watching her cautiously. She wandered around the living-room, drunk and distracted, touching the walls for support, and also to reassure herself that she was still here. Then she went through to the dining-room, and sat down opposite Mrs Patrick.

‘You've been such a help, Mrs Patrick,' she said. ‘A Godsend! I don't know what I would have done without you.
No! I mean it. I don't know what anybody would do without you.'

‘It's all shoulders to the wheel in times of trouble,' said Mrs Patrick, scraping plates.

Seamus came up, unsteadily balancing a trayful of punch glasses.

‘You, too, Seamus,' mommy blurted. ‘You've been wonderful.'

‘Times of terrible,' said Seamus. ‘Salt mole lord's eye.'

Mommy groped a cigarette from one of the boxes on the table, but didn't light it. She sat with her head bent for a long time, not smoking, not drinking. Father said quietly to Elizabeth and Laura, ‘Perhaps you'd better think of taking your bath.' There was a sense of danger in the room; a feeling of adult unpredictability.

Suddenly, mommy raised her head. She stood stock still for just a moment, and then she approached the window seat and stared at her own reflection in the night-blackened glass.

‘
David
,' she said, in the oddest of voices.

‘What is it?' asked father.

‘David, there's somebody out there, in the snow.'

Father peered into the dining-room. ‘Margaret? That's just your reflection, darling.'

‘No, no it isn't. There's somebody out there! David, there's a child, standing in the snow!'

Father said, ‘How can there be? There are no other children for miles.'

‘There is! David, there's a child!'

Without warning, mommy's voice suddenly swerved up to an hysterical pitch. She turned around and stared at all of them with her eyes wide and all of the blood emptied out of her face. Father tried to go to the window but she came stalking back into the living-room, pushing him out of the way. She reached the kitchen door. ‘It's
Peggy
!' she screamed at him. ‘Don't you understand? It's
Peggy
! She's come back to me!'

Elizabeth was overwhelmed with dread. She clasped her hand over her mouth and couldn't do anything but gasp for breath. Laura squealed, ‘Mommy! Mommy!' But mommy was already wrestling with the key in the back door, and before they could say anything else, she had rushed outside. Through the kitchen window they saw her hurrying across the gloomy garden towards the tennis court, her black veil flying behind her. It was like watching a character in a frightening movie.

‘Mommy!' wailed Elizabeth, catching her breath. ‘Mommy,
don't
!'

‘What is it?' her father demanded. ‘Lizzie, what is it?'

They ran outside. ‘Mommy,
don't
!' called Elizabeth, in terrible distress; but it was already too late. Mommy was screaming, ‘Peggy! Peggy!' and running across the tennis court to the small, silent snow-angel in its beret and tweed coat.

‘
We
made it,' sobbed Elizabeth, miserably. ‘Laura and I made it.' And father said, ‘Oh, God,' and broke into a run.

Mommy rushed up to the snow-angel and then she suddenly stopped, and stared at it in horror. She must have encountered its face, its sack-weave face with its empty burned-out holes for eyes and its grinning black raggedy mouth. She swayed from side to side, and then she dropped to her knees in the snow and she let out a scream that was almost inhuman. ‘
Peggy! Peggy! Oh, my baby! Agggrrrhhhh
!'

Before father could reach her, she had rolled herself over in the snow, and then up on to her knees, and launched herself at the snow-angel in a frenzy of frustration and grief. She pulled off its beret, tossed away its hair, and ripped its face apart with both hands. She clawed, screeching, at the figure's body, digging out snow as if she wanted to dig out its heart. Then she dropped to the ground and lay flat on her back, shuddering, choking, in a jerking, convulsive fit. Elizabeth could see her eyes roll up into her head and her neck swell: and her feet kick
so hard against the ground that one of her black high-heeled shoes flew off. Elizabeth didn't have to be told what to do. She turned around and ran back to the house as fast as she could.

‘Mrs Patrick!' she screamed. ‘Mrs Patrick! There's something wrong with mommy!'

As Mrs Patrick came bustling out, wiping her hands on her apron, Elizabeth ran to father's library and picked up the telephone. Silence. The telephone was dead. Frantically, she jiggled the receiver-rest up and down, and screamed, ‘
Hallo! Hallo! Help! Help us! Emergency! Hallo! Hallo
!' but the phone stayed dead. Too much snow. The lines between Sherman and Boardman's Bridge must have come down, the same way they had last year, and the year before.

Elizabeth ran back to the kitchen, just in time to meet father and Mrs Patrick, swiftly and grimly carrying mommy into the house.

‘Will she be all right?' begged Elizabeth, as they laid her on the living-room couch in front of the fire. ‘I tried to call for the doctor but the phone won't work.'

‘Just watch her, keep her warm, make sure she's breathing,' father told Mrs Patrick, ignoring Elizabeth altogether. ‘I'll go bring Doctor Ferris myself.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Mrs Patrick, sorrowfully. She chafed mommy's hands to warm them. ‘Oh, Mr Buchanan, this is a tragedy, and no mistake. What a tragedy, God help us.'

There was nothing Elizabeth could do but stand beside the couch and watch mommy twitch and mutter, her eyeballs roaming underneath her closed eyelids like caged bears. Laura came in and took hold of her hand.

‘O Holy Mother, smile on us now when we need You,' said Mrs Patrick. ‘You were a mother, too, remember, O blessed Mary. You were a mother, too.'

Elizabeth squeezed Laura's hand tight. ‘Don't worry,' she whispered. ‘Everything's going to be all right,' she said; even
though she had a terrible feeling that she had probably told one of the biggest lies of her life.

 

 

On the day that would have been Peggy's eighth birthday, 15 June 1943, Elizabeth and Laura took their best friend Molly Albee to the cemetery; and they laid fresh white carnations on her grave. They stood with their heads bowed and their eyes squeezed shut, praying for Peggy's soul, and trying as hard as they could to remember what Peggy had really looked like.