Be careful. She may write you into being
Elspeth looked through the window to the patio. It was
nearly dusk. All day, the sky had been leaden with the promise of snow that had
not come.
She turned and looked down the long table; she was seated at
its head.
“It’s still not a white Christmas,” she said.
“Doesn’t the snow have to fall on the Air Ministry roof or
something?” asked her son. “Anyway, who cares.” He raised his glass. “To Mum’s
30th.” He had dined well and was swaying a little. I should really talk to him
about that paunch, she thought.
“I’ve just had my 90th, dear,” she said. She smiled.
“No, no, your 30th book,” he replied. He raised his
glass. “To the 30th fine murder mystery from the Queen of Crime, Elspeth Gordon.”
 |
| Portrait of Lady Hanne Sophie Louise Wiborg (1903), by Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) |
“Indeed,” grunted her other son. “To However You Slice It.”
“Though it’s rather grisly,” said his wife. “Your
murder victims have ghastly deaths, darling. I mean – well – an industrial
bacon slicer?”
“You really should read Ngaio Marsh’s crime stories, dear,”
said Elspeth. “A life model knifed from below while posing – that was Artists
in Crime, I think. A chap boiled alive in a mud bath. And she had a sheep
farmer turn up in one of her own bales. She called that one Died in the Wool.
She makes me look an angel of compassion.”
“Well I thought the bacon slicer was really sick, Great-Aunt
Elspeth,” said her great-nephew.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” she said. “You make me
sound like a stuffed animal in a glass case in the Natural History Museum. Do
you mean sick as in wicked, dear? Modern English is so wonderful.” But her eyes
were twinkling.
She looked down the length of the table. The light in the
room was soft; there was a faint gleam from the crockery and wineglasses, the
latter smeared with fingerprints. The white tablecloth was stained a little
purple or brown here and there with spots of wine or gravy. Between the plates
and bowls lay the detritus of Christmas dinner; crumpled paper hats,
serviettes, a gimcrack whistle from a Christmas cracker.
Her gaze fell on faces. On her left, granddaughter Ellen,
slim, pale and redheaded, in a peasanty blouse, her boyfriend Moses towering
above her, his long black hair tied back, wearing a colourful Ghanaian
shirt. Ray, her son, 60 now and flushed
with wine, a tax accountant who practised in Manchester and said to be
successful yet somehow Elspeth was never quite sure. Beside him his wife Tina,
small, already shrivelled at 55, ungenerous. The night before Elspeth had
watched, unseen, as Tina moved from room to room examining the paintings and
hangings and the Art Noveau figurines. Once or twice Elspeth saw her take her
phone and photograph an item then appear to upload it as if seeking information
or an evaluation.
Opposite her was Ray’s brother Jeff, Elspeth’s second son;
broad, muscular, blonde, with short cropped hair, an engineering firm in
Nottingham, and debts, about which he thought Elspeth knew nothing. Opposite
him was his wife Liz, small, fearful; Elspeth thought she could see the shadow
of a bruise on her cheekbone. Beside her sat Elspeth’s two youngest grandsons
and her great-nephew, just into their teens, spotty, awkward and restive. Now
and then their parents frowned at them.
“I am a detective writer,” she said, loudly, firmly. “And I
have made a deduction.”
The table fell silent.
“My little grey cells tell me that the youngest of us are
anxious to leave the table. I have deduced that they wish to watch the Dr Who
Christmas Special.”
“May we, Aunt Elspeth?” asked her eldest grandson. “It
sounds really – well…”
“Sick?” said Elspeth. Her smile hovered. “All right. If you
can work out how to work my new television, which is more than I can do. Why
don’t the rest of you go through and sit down too? I shall finish my wine and
join you later.”
There was a scraping of chairs. Almost everyone left the
table; they formed an untidy gaggle and funnelled themselves into the living
room next door. The dining room was left in peace. Elspeth remained, not quite
alone; on her right sat her granddaughter, Lisa, 18 and awkward in a tee-shirt
and jeans and Doc Marten boots, her blonde curls streaked with green and mauve,
her nose stud and nose ring shining dully, a jewel pierced through her cheek.
When she spoke one could see her tongue also had a small pearl-like jewel
attached. It had occurred to Elspeth that other parts of Lisa’s anatomy might
also be pierced; she had decided she did not need to know, but the thought that
made her chuckle inwardly and she wondered whether there might yet be another
book. A demon tattoo artist, perhaps, or cosmetic piercer whose business was a
front for some terrible crime, or was murdered by someone whose intimate
piercing had gone horribly wrong. The possibilities started to accumulate, and
she took a moment to hear Lisa’s voice.
She snapped out of her reverie.
“Do you not want to watch the Dr Who Christmas Special, my
dear?” she asked. “I understand that is what people do. In my day we went to
Midnight Mass instead.”
“Actually,” said Lisa, “I was wondering if you would like
some tea?”
It occurred to Elspeth that no-one else had asked what she
would like.
“Will you have some too, dear?” she said. “There is some
Earl Gray in the cupboard, I like that. And there are some herbal teas too, if
you would prefer those.”
Lisa was not long. She had made tea properly, in a teapot,
and had found the nice china that had belonged to Elspeth’s parents. “I did
wonder if I should use these,” she said, with diffidence. “I wouldn’t want them
to get broken.”
“No, don’t worry,” said Elspeth. “I have reached the age
when it is time to use these things.” And she realised the girl understood
exactly what she meant.
“Everyone was asking today what you are going to do in
life,” she said. “I think you found it quite hard, didn’t you? I could see you
drawing your head into your shell, like a Galapagos tortoise.”
“Except you, Gran. You weren’t asking.”
“That’s because I know you don’t know. You will find out in
time.”
“Yes.” She looked back at her grandmother, who sat
ramrod-straight, beautifully and simply dressed in a silk blouse, a cameo
brooch fastening it at her throat; it was a translucent image of a profile
against a pale blue background. Lisa wondered who it was.
“Do you like killing people off in your books, Gran? People
seem to think you do.”
“Oh, yes,” Elspeth replied. “It really is enormous fun.”
“How did you start doing it?”
“As a young woman I was, I suppose, rather comely and was
surrounded by boys. Most were not safe in taxis or had halitosis or were
crashing bores. I started to imagine how one might dispose of them. I had to
find out all about poisons and quicklime and things. It was quite difficult.
There was no Internet then, you see, we had these things called libraries.” She
raised her cup to her mouth then held it there, thinking. “That’s how it began.
I wanted to kill bores, but not in real life because that means lots of
paperwork. So I wrote.”
She looked up at her granddaughter, who was smiling. She
realised she hadn’t seen Lisa smiling much, not since she was a child, but she
was now, her head on one side.
“But you like people, Grandma,” she said. “You like writing
them. And they’re not always bores. They can be lovely sometimes. That’s why
you write really, isn’t it? You like humans and you want to write them into
existence.”
“Yes,” said Elspeth. “Yes.”
“You were looking at everyone around the table today,” said
Lisa. “You were wondering who they really were, weren’t you? Their hopes and
dreams and what will happen to them. You were writing their stories.”
“Yes. Including yours, of course. But you mustn’t be afraid.”
“I am sometimes, Grandma. I don’t know what lies ahead.”
“No. That has yet to be written.”
They sat in silence for a minute and then Lisa said: “Gran!
Look!” She turned. It was dark now, but beyond the glass the snow was falling,
thick, slow. “Look!” she said again. “Look, it’s a white Christmas!”
“Why, so it is.”
They turned their chairs around and sat side by side, so
they could watch the snow.
“From the time we are born,” her grandmother said, “we are –
do you know what we are? We are characters in search of a plot. Every one of us
will find the one in which we were meant to be.”
“Will I?”
“Oh yes. As surely as Falstaff or Ariel or a Prince of
Denmark. Don’t be afraid.” And Lisa felt a hand rest gently on her arm.
They watched the snow settle on the patio outside, a glimmer
at first, thickening to a silent carpet of white.
Elspeth isn't real but Ngaio Marsh was. Find out more about her and the other Queens of Crime.
And...
Read more of Mike's short fiction.
