The Diviners

  “Mum!” Pique is frightened.

  Morag puts the child back again and applies Kleenex to her own eyes. This display she must not do. She must not. Will Pique retain this memory, years later?

  “It’s okay, honey. I’m not feeling very well today, that’s all.”

  “Want me to tell you a story?”

  “Okay. That would be nice.”

  So Pique tells the robin story, hardly garbling it at all.

  Morag wakens next morning with cramps. She has begun to menstruate. Relief. She feels as though she has fought the Crimean War singlehanded, and won. She might not have won, though. It was good luck more than good management.

  It may not be fair–in fact, it seems damned unfair to me–but I’ll never again have sex with a man whose child I couldn’t bear to bear, If the worst came to the absolute worst.

  She hopes she means this. It is not morality. Just practicality of spirit and flesh.

  The dark bruises on her breasts last only for a couple of weeks.

  Dear Ella–

  I knew you could do it, and I’m not at all surprised that the collection of poems has been accepted. Well, hallelujah! When does it come out?

  The novel progresses, slowly. It’s done in semi-allegorical form, and also it has certain parallels with The Tempest. Maybe I’m an idiot to try this, but it’s the form the thing seems to demand, so I’ve quit fighting it. I’ve got the first draft nearly done now, so don’t mind saying a bit about it, although it’ll take a lot of rewriting. It’s called Prospero’s Child, she being the young woman who marries His Excellency, the Governor of some island in some ocean very far south, and who virtually worships him and then who has to go to the opposite extreme and reject nearly everything about him, at least for a time, in order to become her own person. It’s as much the story of H.E. I’ve always wondered if Prospero really would be able to give up his magical advantages once and for all, as he intends to do at the end of The Tempest. That incredibly moving statement–“What strength I have’s mine own, Which is most faint–” If only he can hang onto that knowledge, that would be true strength. And the recognition that his real enemy is despair within, and that he stands in need of grace, like everyone else–Shakespeare did know just about everything. I know it’s presumptuous of me to try to put this into some different and contemporary framework and relevance, but I can’t help it. Well, hell, maybe it’s not so presumptuous, at that.

  Enough of this. Fan put on a display with Tiny (her python, if you recall) the other day, for Pique and me. I’ve always refused before. That snake is no friend of mine, although I admit it’s never damaged anyone. Pique, however, is totally unafraid. Fan put on her Princess Eureka outfit, which is a few gauzy bits of chiffon (mauve), some gold lace and a sprinkling of sequins. Also some mauve feathers stuck in a small turban-like concoction, which on Fan’s flaming hair looks pretty strange. So there she is, winding Tiny around her wrists and neck, and meantime gyrating her hips and belly, all the time complaining we aren’t getting the full effect because the oriental music on the record player doesn’t give the same atmosphere as the band at The Figleaf. Pique thought it was sublime. It is kind of impressive, too. Fan loved having such an appreciative audience. I think she’s actually quite fond of Pique now. I worry sometimes about Fan, though. Her nerves are terrible and her age is beginning to show. She says she never gives a thought to the future. I wonder.

  Christie’s getting so much older all of a sudden, from his letters. I write him oftener than I used to, and send him money when I can, but I don’t go back. I sometimes feel I should go and housekeep for him, but Ella, I can’t. I don’t want Pique to grow up there. And I can’t go back to Manawaka for myself, either. I want to find a home, a real one, but I don’t know where that would be. I’ve been feeling lately I’d like to go to England for a while–Britain, rather. Does that sound lunatic? I guess there’s something about London, as a kind of centre of writing, or something like that, and maybe it would be a disappointment but I just feel I’d like to go and find out what I can find out there–something I need to know, although I don’t know what it might be, yet. Also, and laugh at me if you will (okay, I know you won’t), I’d like at some point to go to Scotland, to Sutherland, where my people came from. What do I hope to learn there? Don’t ask me. But it haunts me, I guess, and maybe I’ll have to go. Not possible yet. Not enough money, and also I don’t really want to leave Fan alone just now.

  I look at Fan’s TV sometimes, and see the terrors of the outside world not diminishing but mounting, and I think–this will be Pique’s world, and how much worse will it have become by the time she is 32, as I am now? I recall how it was when I grew up, and I thought that was terrifying. This probably sounds pretty gloomy, but in fact I’m mostly fairly okay. Don’t worry–I’m a survivor, just as you are. Give my love to your Ma when you write her.

  Love,

  Morag

  Morag, unsatisfied with Prospero’s Child, but not knowing what more to do with it, submits it. It is accepted by the three publishers, Canada, America, England, and all three editors have many suggestions, some of which Morag furiously rejects and some of which strike an immediate chord of agreement. She goes back into it and does more work, at first not wanting to do anything, and later not wanting to come out until all the things which obviously need to be done have been done.

  The novel is finally published. Hank Masterson throws a party. Morag would rather have had the money it costs to throw a party, but does not say so.

  The reviews are mixed, as is their wont. Morag is still vulnerable, but about sixty percent less so than with the first novel. No one is going to please all the people, and who would want to? (Morag, actually, but now sees this as a comic-opera desire.) The thicker skin is beginning to grow. She begins to believe the good and the bad reviews about equally.

  “A revealing study of the independence complex and its final resolution.”

  “Yet another updating of The Tempest. Boring and contrived.”

  “The character of Mira shows an interesting development from a child-like state to that of a limited independence and the eventual possibility of spiritual maturity.”

  “Miss Gunn hitches her tiny wagon to too large a star.”

  “Sparse, tense writing, effective at nearly every point.”

  “Grossly over-written.”

  “The character of H.E. is a perceptive study of authoritarianism, while at the same time retaining his individuality as a human being.”

  “H.E. (a too-obvious play on ‘He’) is cardboard through and through.”

  Memorybank Movie: Princess Eureka

  Snapshot: Pique, age four, poses with Fan and Tiny. She looks a little anxious and also proud of herself, her hand gingerly placed on the python’s tail. Fan, looking frail and tired, grimaces humorously for the camera as she holds the snake’s head.

  Tiny’s first and last picture. That evening, about the time when Fan is due to take off for the club, Morag hears a scream from downstairs.

  “Mum, what is it?” Pique is terrified.

  “It’s okay, honey. I don’t know. You wait here, eh?”

  Morag dashes downstairs. No sign of Fan. The screams go on. The basement.

  “Fan, what is it?”

  Fan looks up. She is kneeling beside the snake’s cage. She stops screaming and begins to cry, noisily, hiccupping and snuffling. She looks ridiculous, except that it isn’t funny.

  “He’s dead, Morag.”

  “What?”

  “Go on up and phone Marilyn at the club, will you? Tell her I’m sick. No–may as well tell her the truth. Say I won’t be in tonight, and say why.”

  Morag does so, and then returns to the basement, pausing only to yell up the stairs to reassure Pique, who is now wailing.

  Fan is holding the lifeless reptilian coils on her arms. A live python is bad enough, but the sight of Fan cradling the now-defunct Tiny is enough to make Morag’s stomach turn over.

&nbs
p; “I thought he was poorly, just lately,” Fan says, “and I know I should of taken him to the vet, but that goddamn vet is so mean, Morag–always saying snakes aren’t his cuppa tea and that. Won’t hardly look at Tiny. So I never went. And now see what’s happened. It’s all my fault.”

  “Fan–it is not all your fault. You’ve had Tiny for more than four years, and heaven only knows how old he was when you bought him.”

  “I’ve had my innings with him,” Fan admits, calming somewhat.

  Then she puts the limp body back in the cage and looks up, fear in her eyes.

  “It was a gimmick, Morag. To stave off what was coming up even then–me getting too old for the dance bit. What’ll I do now?”

  What indeed? With her hard-masked makeup now runnelled with tears, Fan’s face looks like cracked glass. The burning auburn coiffure has come unstuck, and the curls are in messy disarray. Fan’s thin hands are shaking, and she looks old. Is it a crime to look old? In Fan’s business, yes.

  “First thing, come upstairs and I’ll fix you a drink, Fan. We’ll think later.”

  Fan permits herself to be led up into the kitchen. Morag shoves a strong rye and water into her hands and then goes upstairs to tell Pique the bad news.

  Pique sobs.

  Morag has the feeling that everything is both ludicrous and frightening. Pique is finally prevailed upon to be brave, and Morag goes back to Fan’s kitchen. Fan has finished the drink and is pouring another. She is now dry-eyed, calm to a chilling degree.

  “Well, that’s me finished,” she says.

  “Fan, that’s crazy,” Morag says, without conviction. “There must be something else–”

  “Like, for example, what?”

  Morag does not know.

  “Well, look, you can’t do anything until you go back tomorrow and see what’s what.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Fan says.

  An hour later, both fairly drunk, they bury the snake in the garden.

  “I feel like a murderer concealing the victim,” Morag says.

  “If I sell this house and somebody digs up this when they’re planting potatoes, it’ll sure give them a turn,” Fan says with a small burst of unbalanced laughter.

  Next day, Pique and Morag make a headstone, as Pique thinks this would be a suitable thing to do.

  Fan dances no more. Neither, fortunately, does she find herself out of work. She tries to talk her way into a cigarette-girl job, but without success. She finally goes to work in the coat-check room, demotion being preferable to starvation. She no longer brings men home. One day Morag, on the balcony, sees Fan in the back garden, burning the Princess Eureka outfit.

  As a result of the advance royalties on Prospero’s Child, Morag’s finances improve to some extent, and she begins paying Fan more rent. Fan protests, but only a little. She no longer pretends never to think of the future, now that she no longer has one.

  “Someone for you, Morag,” Fan calls up the stairs.

  Morag goes down and it is, unbelievably, Brooke.

  Her first thought is to wonder if he has read Prospero’s Child. Her next thought is that Pique is crayoning upstairs in her colouring book, and Morag is uncertain whether it would be right for Brooke to see the child. Would it hurt him? Would it make Morag feel a guilt she does not truthfully feel?

  “Brooke! Why? And how did you know where I was?”

  “From your publishers. How are you, Morag?”

  “I’m–fine.”

  How are you? I am fine. Like a letter a child might write home. Brooke looks the same. No older, except for some few lines on his forehead and around his eyes. As handsome, as impressive as ever.

  “We just happened to be in Vancouver,” Brooke says, “so I thought I’d look you up and see how things were with you.”

  “We?”

  “My wife and I,” Brooke says carefully. “She’s out in the car. May we come in for a minute? We can’t stay long.”

  “Certainly. Of course.”

  Brooke’s wife is younger than Morag, although probably not much so. Her name is Anne, and she is slender and extremely well turned out. Subdued but very smart crimson wool dress, high-heeled shoes, fair hair in a smooth bouffant hairdo, small gold earrings. Morag suddenly realizes that she herself is wearing black slacks which need dry-cleaning, and a white turtleneck sweater which sags all over, having stretched at the last washing. Her hair straight, halfway down her back. Circus freak.

  Both Brooke and Anne sit rather uneasily on the edges of their chairs. Now, of course, Morag wants Brooke to see Pique.

  “This is my daughter. Pique, this is–an old friend of mine, Brooke Skelton. And–Mrs. Skelton.”

  Pique says a desultory Hi and returns to the pink house with purple chimney which she is creating.

  “Do you like it here, Morag? You’re getting along all right?”

  Brooke is, she sees, genuinely concerned, whatever other motives he may have had.

  “Fine,” she says quickly. “Fan’s not really a landlady. More a friend. She’s in kind of bad shape right now. Her snake’s just died.”

  Good heavens–why babble on about that?

  “Snake?” Anne says.

  Morag explains. Brooke smiles, but somewhat forcedly. They stay barely fifteen minutes and refuse a drink. Brooke does not say whether or not he has read the novel. They depart, as politely and mysteriously as they have arrived.

  Why? To see if I really was all right? Or only to allow me to see his wife? I could have asked them into Fan’s livingroom. I didn’t have to take them upstairs. But I had to show off Pique.

  They have had to hurt one another, evidently, this one last time.

  Brooke, forgive me. May we forgive one another for what neither of us could help.

  Memorybank Movie: Songs

  Snapshot: After this year, the album will not be so meticulously tended. But now the colour prints are still pasted in, and the place and Pique’s age written in white ink on the black page. Pique, 5. Begonia Road. Pique is a round-faced sturdy child, her pink apron-dress somewhat incongruously frilled at the shoulders. Pique, like Morag, is scarcely the frilly type, but at this stage she favours frills and Morag is afraid of inflicting psychic damage by discouraging this trait, out of which she will no doubt grow. Morag (age thirty-four, but this is not written down in white ink) sits beside Pique on the front steps, wearing a green summer dress. They are both smiling hesitantly at the person behind the camera, who has just refused to have his own picture taken.

  Morag hears the doorbell, and goes out into the upstairs hall to listen.

  “Does Morag Gunn still live here?” the man enquires.

  “What’s it to you?” Fan is growing more suspicious, paranoid almost, and now opens the front door on the chain, initially, to see.

  The man’s soft husky voice changes, rasps.

  “Listen, lady, I asked you a simple question, there. Is it yes or no?”

  “Oh,” Fan says suddenly. “You must be–”

  “Yeh,” Jules says. “I am.”

  Morag runs down the stairs, and then stops, all at once uncertain. He is standing in the front hall. Fan, eyes watchful, stands in the doorway of her livingroom. All three are held for an instant in suspended animation, waiting.

  Jules has aged in five (no, nearly six) years. He must be thirty-seven now. His hair is as black as ever, a little longer than before, and he wears it combed back, like a mane. His body doesn’t look any different–still only the beginning of a belly above the wide lowslung leather belt. He wears jeans and a brown shirt open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up. It is his face which looks now more like the face of Lazarus, the narrowed eyes seeming more sunken than before, the bones more obvious, the lines in the skin etched deeper.

  What is he thinking of her, of how she looks?

  “Aren’t you even going to say hello?” he says.

  Morag goes to him then, but still with uncertainty, not doing what she wants to do, which is to hold him tight
ly. What if he does not want her to hold him? When she touches him, however, and catches the warm dust and salt sweat smell of his skin, she forgets to wonder what he is thinking of her. They hold one another with strength, not kissing, just holding together, but Morag can feel his sex stiffening inside his jeans, and her own sex responding.

  “I take it,” Fan says, disappearing into her livingroom, “that you do know this guy, then.”

  Unclinch, and they both laugh.

  “She’s upstairs?” Jules asks.

  “Pique? Yes.”

  “That’s what you call her?”

  “Yes. Skinner, I couldn’t call her, every day, by the–”

  “Okay, okay,” he says quickly. “You don’t need to go into it. What’d you say of me, to her?”

  What indeed? Many things, beginning when Pique first learned language.

  “Oh hell,” Morag says, “it’ll probably sound like shit to you. I told her you had to be away because you had to sing songs for lots of people–a person has to put things kind of simply for a little kid–and maybe someday you’d sing them for her. I guess I’ve told her a few lies, like saying you’d written and asked after her. Maybe I’d have done better just to say it was my idea to have her born, mine only–”

  Jules reaches out and takes her right wrist in his hand.

  “Sure, Morag,” he says. “She’s yours, all right. But she’s mine too, eh?”

  They’re mine, them, there. Lazarus at the fire. Lazarus, snarling his pain, a stranger in the place where he lived his whole life. Lazarus, dead at fifty-one. Will Morag tell Pique all she knows of Lazarus, or of Christie, for that matter? How will the tales change in the telling?

  “Yes. She’s yours, too. Come on up.”

  Pique, Morag now sees, is stationed quietly in the upstairs hall, listening, peering through the stair railing. Pique’s eyes are very wide and serious, and it is impossible to tell what she is thinking. She looks straight at Jules.

  “I know who you are,” she says.