Spirit by Graham Masterton Page B

died.
    There was no room in Mrs Patrick’s theology for a Peggy who was dead but not really dead at all.
    â€˜
Sad the man, mind the man, day after day
,’ keened Seamus. ‘
Flowers and clouds, flowers and clouds
’
    Then, abruptly, he stopped singing, and sat up straight, gripping the seat of the stool. His face was bright with inspiration. ‘Living snow flakes!’ he exclaimed, his thick lips shiny with saliva. ‘Dried stock-fish!’
    â€˜What holy gibberish,’ said Mrs Patrick, shaking her head.
    But Elizabeth sat and stared back at Seamus with her mouth open and her fingers tingling with fright and surprise.
    Because dried stock-fish was what the Lapland woman in
The Snow Queen
had used to write a letter to the wise Finland woman (‘paper had she none’); and living snow flakes had been the Snow Queen’s guards (‘their shapes were the strangest that could be imagined; some looked like great ugly porcupines, others like snakes rolled into knots with their heads peering forth, and others like little fat bears with bristling hair – all, however, were alike dazzlingly white – all were living snow flakes’).
    â€˜Seamus,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Seamus, who told you that?’
    But Seamus leaned back against the fireplace again, and carried on singing.
    â€˜He’s a poor boy,’ said Mrs Patrick, chopping carrots.
    Elizabeth found her mommy sitting in her bedroom with the linen blind drawn down to keep out the sunlight. It gave the room the appearance of an old sepia photograph. The bed was made but the quilt was rumpled where her mother had beensleeping on it. Sometimes she slept all day, day after day. At other times you could go into her room in the small, intense hours of the morning, and find her standing by the window in her nightgown, staring into the garden.
    Today, her mommy had dressed in a cream short-sleeved blouse and pale blue skirt, and pinned up her hair. She was sitting in her blue basketwork chair smoking a cigarette, her head wreathed in curls of smoke as if she were wearing an evanescent crown of thorns. She looked better today: her eyes were more focused.
    â€˜And what have you been doing, darling?’ she asked.
    â€˜We went to the cemetery to see Peggy. Then we had icecream at Endicott’s. Lenny wasn’t there, though. They’ve called him up.’
    â€˜You really like Lenny, don’t you?’
    Elizabeth blushed and nodded.
Like
him? Whillikers, she adored him! ‘He’s always so considerate.’
    â€˜You should always go for a
considerate
man,’ said her mommy, taking a last hard draw on her cigarette, and then crushing it out. Immediately, she picked up the pack of Philip Morris and shook out another, and lit it with fussing, jiggling hands. ‘To hell with handsome,’ she continued. ‘Do you know what I mean? You need the kind of man who doesn’t stifle you. The kind of man who lets you be yourself. Doesn’t . . .
disappoint
you all the time. Doesn’t dish you up nothing but tragedy. Doesn’t trap you with children in the back of beyond.’
    Elizabeth said nothing. She was used to this endless complaining about her mommy’s lost career. What was more, she quite liked the idea of ‘the back of beyond’. It sounded like somewhere mysterious and odd, where extraordinary things could happen. Maybe she ought to sign all her letters: ‘Elizabeth Buchanan, White Gables, Sherman, The Back of Beyond’.
    â€˜I’m beginning to feel like getting out,’ said her mommy. Shehalf-turned towards the shaded window, her cigarette poised. ‘It’s summer, isn’t it? I’m beginning to feel like getting out. Going for a walk, maybe. Sitting on the verandah. Clothes-Peg loved the summer, didn’t she? She never liked the cold.’
    Elizabeth said, ‘I think I may have some good news.’
    â€˜Good news? Good news about