Suzerain: a ghost story

by Adrian John Smith

  So where's all this going? It's moving towards this. The bad thing. Which is the day, a month or so later, that Juanita asks Frank for a favour. She's in a jam, Juanita. She wonders if Senor Costigan can help her out. Her brother's sick, and she needs to visit him, etc etc - which Frank thinks is a lie, but doesn't care. He's damned if he can recall any previous mention of any damned brother, but if Juanita wants to party or screw around or whatever it is she wants to do, then that's just fine with Frank. The pertinent fact here is that Juanita has no-one to look after Paco and Luisa for the night. Which is where, maybe, Senor Costigan might be able to help. A month or so ago Frank would have had his reservations, but Moira has proved as good as her word, so he's not anticipating one of her Friday night scenes. More than this, she's been friendly to both Juanita and the kids on the couple of occasions that they've met since that day at the pool. (And, later that day, when Frank tells her the plan, she makes a big fuss about how much fun it'll be to have kids around the place.) Anyhow, the point is, Frank agrees.

  He turns out the guest room, checks the freezer for burgers and buns, checks the cupboards for salsa and relish - a real, all-American deal. On top of this, he finds some movies they might like to watch. Juanita drops them off at seven. Moira leaves the house at eight, saying, sorry Frank, but she's got a couple of things to do. I'll be back by midnight, she says. Frank just shrugs. You've got to do what you've got to do. It bothers him though, but only because it's the first time in a while that she's done this. Research, she says. Well, Frank tells himself, that could be.

  Anyhow, by nine o'clock, Frank's forgotten about Moira. It's a swell evening. Frank cooks cheese burgers on the barbecue while the kids play in the pool. He wears an apron to keep the grease off his pants and a chef's hat just for the hell of it. He's also got the Grateful Dead blaring out of the stereo just so that Limp Biscuit-loving asshole of a neighbour can hear some real fucking music.

  After they've eaten, they watch a movie. He lets Paco and Luisa stay up till eleven - because that's what uncles are supposed to do. Right? But by twelve o'clock, all three of them are asleep. (Frank, who hadn't done so much as even smoke a cigarette while the kids were awake, has a quick belt of scotch or two before turning in.)

  What Frank remembers about what happens next is this: he's woken in the night, there's something heavy on him, pinning his hips to the bed. Then, there's a rattle of metal on metal which Frank knows, though he's barely awake, is a chain rattling against the metal frame of the bed. The drapes are drawn back and there's a moon and in the moonlight he sees Moira, straddling him, her face swooping down, her lips clamping onto his, her strong fingers suddenly pushing so hard against the side of his skull he thinks the bone will crack. And then something seeps into him, pours down his throat like smoke. Smoke that somehow tastes of sea-water. There's music - not out there, in the night, but inside his head. It's a girl singing, and it's the most beautiful voice Frank has ever heard. Like one of those sirens in the Greek myths is how he thinks about it now. And then he hears her speak - My husband, she says, my love. But it isn't Moira. It's like a voice coming out of a tunnel. After this, or maybe before - it's all mixed up - there's a visual flash of that damn cabin up in Canada. He sees Moira cowering in the corner, pretty much as he'd found her - piss-stained pants and all - except this time, when she looks up, she's smiling at him. Yes, she says. Yes. But somehow, this isn't Moira either. And then … after that, a black, dense … something, fills his mind, pouring out of Moira and into him. Like dropping ink into a beaker of water. And that's it. Frank's gone.

  When he wakes, there's sunlight in the room. He feels drowsy in a dreamy kind of way. There's a slight headache behind his eyes - mercifully though, he's woken with his back to the window. He feels like he used to after a weekend of R and R. Or like he did in Madrid that time, the morning after the night Maria had got some Tai stick from Sidney, that asshole. Which is to say he feels like he's been doing drugs. He thinks about the whiskey. He has to admit that they were fairly generous belts. And he doesn't have time to think about it any more, because Moira's there, handing him a glass of OJ.

  Well, well, sleepy head, she says.

  Frank just grunts, takes the juice. He's as thirsty as hell. Then, far side of the whiskey, he remembers Paco. He remembers Luisa. Holy shit! he says. What's the fucking time? Spills juice all over his wrist.

  Relax, Frank, Moira says. They're gone. Everything's cool. Juanita picked them up an hour ago. Jesus, they must have worn you out. You know what time it is? It's noon. Juanita said to tell you that her brother is much better now. She looked as if she'd had a hell of a good time. She also said that you're a very special man, but I'm not supposed to tell you this. Frank? Are you fucking our maid?

  Hell no, Frank says. Listen, he says, did we … did we get up to anything last night? You came home in the night, right?

  Frank, Baby, she says, I wanted to. I was so goddamned horny. That numbskull Finny - have you met Finn? - he was showing one of his lesbian biker flicks. A nice edit job. Listen, there's this -

  Oh Christ, Frank says, spare me the detail. What happened when you came home?

  I came in here to wake you up and you did wake up - do you remember?

  I think so, Frank says. You had a chain.

  The handcuffs, she says. Remember them Frank? I had plans for us. But you, sexual power-house that you are, you went right back to sleep. In fact, you were in a goddamned coma. Maybe tonight, if you're less soporific. (She says all of this not unkindly)

  Maybe, Frank says. What he's thinking though is this, that there’s something in his nerves. His body. His cock and balls.

  That was Saturday.

  Sunday morning, Frank's sitting in his sun-bed out on the patio. He's drinking orange juice with a shot of lime in it and trying to shake off a hangover. One of the things that he and Moira do when they're getting along is drink too much. He'd taken her out to dinner - he wanted her input on an idea for a story he'd had that very afternoon - and they'd drank too much wine. Then they'd hit a bar and drank too many cocktails. Blue moons and Shoot-the-moons and fall-over slammers. After that, they'd had too much coke and not enough sex. He'd forgotten about the night before - or chose not to think about it, except that, before they'd left for dinner, he'd phoned Juanita to apologise for not seeing the kids off in person. Before he'd hung up, she'd said: Senor Costigan, make my apologies to your wife please. For that - what you say? - little scene this morning. They miss their mother, that is all. Which Frank knew nothing about. When he asked Moira over dinner, she'd just said that Paco wouldn't speak, and that the girl got into a crying fit and wouldn't stop. Neither one of them ate her scrambled eggs, she'd said, in a mock-hurt tone. I slaved over those fucking eggs, she said.

  Anyhow, so Frank's on his sun-bed - which he's positioned so that his head's in the shade of the acacia tree - and there's nothing much going through his mind except that he's trying to decide whether or not he can smoke a cigarette without losing his breakfast, when Juanita's beat-up station wagon pulls up the drive. Frank sits up. He's smiling, forgetting his hangover for the moment, thinking that Juanita has maybe left something belonging to the kids at the house, or maybe she was working close by - she has more than just Frank's house to clean - and thought she'd drop by to thank him for his child-sitting services face to face. He's thinking that he'll offer her coffee, maybe a transgressive bloody Mary. He's also thinking how they'll laugh off the gentle chiding Juanita might give him over his choice of movie - though he'd earlier taken Babe out of the rack, they'd ended up watching Predator. (He just hadn't been able to help himself, and only now, belatedly, is he seeing a possible connection between the movie and the "little scene" Juanita had mentioned. And never mind that in their neighbourhood murder was as regular as the moon.) Before Frank's stirred himself from the chair though, Juanita's slammed the door on the station wagon and she's striding - fucking marching - toward Frank like she means business. Frank has time to think that he's never
seen her wearing a dress before and then he sees the look on her face. He's sitting up by now, but that's as far as he gets because that look has pinned his ass to the sun-bed - he's fucking glued to it. And that look…. that look tells Frank that he's dog shit. That look tells Frank that he's fucking dead. Or that he's going to wish that he's fucking dead. And by now, Frank's smile is most certainly dead.

  Before he can say a word, she slaps him. Frank drops the glass, which, wouldn't you fucking know it, smashes all over the damn place. But to hell with the glass because now she's raining down blows, her hard little work-worn hands clenched into fists. Frank's got his hands up by now, trying to ward off the blows, but he's making a piss-poor job of it. Frank, as we know, has been to war. Frank's survived in movies. Frank's no wimp. But the sheer unexpectedness of it, the sheer, out-of-the-fucking-blueness of it, has gotten the better of Frank.

  You fucking monster! she yells - screams at him. You filthy fucking monster. She spits in his face, pulls at what hair he's got left. Scratches him. Diablo! She screams.

  Christ, it was like something landing on Frank out of nowhere - like some asshole had tossed a bob-cat over the fence just to fuck up Frank's day.

  Next thing? Next thing is Moira. Still in her bathrobe, her hair wet from the shower. No make-up. A regular Sunday morning look. She wraps her arms around Juanita from behind - as if she going for the Heimlich manoeuvre, maybe trying to force all the fire from her lungs. She tries to pin her arms - and Moira's strong for her build - but Juanita, well, Juanita is as mad as hell and, after kicking at Frank a couple of times, she shucks Moira off, slaps her, calls her a bitch. Where the fuck were you?!! she screams. Fucking monster and his fucking whore. I hope you both burn, she says. I hope you fucking burn. She spits on Frank a final time, then she leaves, churning up the gravel and leaving behind a cloud of dust when she spins the station-wagon around. All you could hear after that was a lawn-sprinkler close by and the light, Sunday-morning traffic down on the highway. And then, a question from Moira: Frank, are you sure you haven't been fucking our maid?

  It boils down to this. Moira gets dressed. Moira gets in her car, heads downtown to find Juanita. There's no point Frank going - this is something which doesn't even need discussing. Frank, meanwhile, is enjoying neither sunshine nor shade. No, Frank's wincing from the sting of the antiseptic lotion he's applying to a scratch on his cheek in the bathroom mirror with a piece of toilet tissue. He studies his face for signs of the monster. The Diablo. He finds neither. Just the hung-over, weary, and nail-lacerated face of a man in his fifties who is not having a good day. Jesus. The only thing he can think of is that damn stupid movie - which he feels guilty about. Frank's the kind of guy, other peoples’ kids, they bring him down to their level. And what would you sooner watch if you were a goddamned kid, camped out overnight with Uncle Frank at his house in the hills? Predator, or a stupid fucking story about a talking pig? But talk of stupid, that was stupid. Stupid, fucking stupid. He goes through it in his mind - by this time he's pacing up and down in the shade under the tree, nursing an ice-cold vodka and smoking a cigarette. There's a severed arm, sure. A guy gets his brains blown out by a tree-hugging, barely visible alien. Sure. Arnie says "mother-fucker". Sure. Bad, bad, bad. Should have known better. Should have been more fucking responsible. Sure he should have. But monster? Diablo?

  The combination of the pacing and the vodka helps him feel a little better. Helps him get some perspective. It was a bad start to the day, but he's had worse days. There's the kid, say, on the paddy-field road with the top of his head flipped off like a breakfast egg. That's what he's thinking - that he's had worse days - when Moira comes home. But when he sees the look on her face, he knows that isn't true. This day's going to be as bad as they come. A real fucking peach.

  She stops short of the acacia tree, as if she won't share any shade that's been contaminated by Frank's presence. Doesn't take off her sun glasses. Frank, she says, what did you do to those kids? Those children?

  Nothing, Frank says. Absolutely nothing. He already knows it's not just - not even - the movie, but he says it anyway. Christ, he says, it was only fucking Predator.

  Predator? Moira says. Oh, that's just fucking beautiful. Did you touch them Frank? Did you make them touch you?

  Did I what? Frank says. Is that what she's saying?

  The truth Frank. Did you show them what a great, big man you are?

  Frank looks at her steadily. His heart's beating like a fucking drum, but he looks her right in the eye. I did not, he says. And I would not.

  Okay Frank, Moira says. Should I believe you? I don't know. You don't know everything about me. That's fair to say. Why should I know everything about you? But here's the deal, husband dear. That low-life piece of Spanish trash says that you did touch them. That you exposed yourself. And she wants money Frank. That, or she goes to the cops.

  Fuck the cops, Frank says. Listen, you saw them yesterday morning. Did they look to you as if they'd been … But he can't say it. As if anything bad had happened to them, he substitutes.

  To tell you the truth Frank, the boy - the boy was very quiet. And the girl - that "little scene" you mentioned? - the girl was fucking hysterical.

  At the back of Frank's thinking there's this: Oh yeah? Then why didn't I wake up. What did you do to me Moira? What happened to me when you kissed me? But in the hard, blue-sky reality of the sunshiny morning, the memory dissolves like a dream. She's eight years old, for Christ's sake, he says. Kids that age cry all the fucking time.

  Not here Frank, Moira says. Not when they're with their Uncle Frank. Not unless Uncle Frank shows them a side to him they haven't seen before. And you know what? She only became hysterical when I suggested they should stay over again some time soon.

  It's a lie, Moira. A filthy fucking lie. And you know it, Frank says. He's getting a little mad himself now, letting it come, letting it overwhelm the shock.

  Well, Moira says, either way you're fucked. She goes to the cops, Frank's fucked. True or not, Frank's fucked. You don't need me to tell you how a thing like that sticks to a reputation. And with your associates? Remind me Frank, what was it Frenchy did to that stupid little Swedish girl? My advice? Pay the bitch. Then get a new maid. An ugly one with no goddamned brats. Okay?

  How much does she want? Frank says.

  Relax Frank, Moira says. Nothing we can't afford. Twenty grand. Jesus, what a cheap bitch.

  Twenty, Frank says. That all? Hell, why not give her thirty?

  Which is sarcasm of course. It's not that long ago, don't forget, that Frank wasn't a millionaire. He realises, with some bitter amusement, that twenty grand is the price of the used SUV that Juanita had told him about. Nice and shiny, needs new tyres. Muchas gracias Senor Costigan.

  You've got no choice Frank, Moira says. You want me to deal with it?

  Frank doesn't answer. Instead, he says: Moira, do you believe me or not?

  You know what that bitch said to that? She takes off her sunglasses for the first time. She says: Frank, to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit one way or the other. Okay, I'll deal with it. Meanwhile, why don't you clean up that glass before someone stands on it?

  Then she turns and walks toward the house. She stops, turns back to Frank. I'm hungry, she says. Can I get you anything?

  But Franks catches sight of the basket ball, which is turning very slowly in a corner of the pool. Which breaks his heart. No, Frank says, I'm going back to bed. Which he does.

  Suzy (Summer 2004)

  The next morning Suzy comes home to find Karen in the bath, submerged to her bottom lip in a drift of bath foam. Karen's eyes flicker open to little more than slits to register Suzy's presence. Then they close again, her lashes gummed and clumped with sleep and bath-water.

  Hi Karen, Suzy says.

  Hi, Karen says, sleepily.

  Suzy sits on the closed lid of the toilet. She lifts the mug of tea from the corner of the bath. She takes a sip, finds that it's cold, pulls a face and sets
the mug back down. She listens while Karen tells her that she's been ill, but she doesn't really take it in. With Karen, there was always something, and it was always curable in the same way. She rolls up her sleeve, plunges her arm deep into the water between Karen's thighs. Karen sniffs, adjusts the position of her head as Suzy's fingers nestle flatly against her labia. Her mouth forms an odd, intense smile, down-turned at the edges, as Suzy works at her until she begins to groan, her head rolling side to side against the porcelain. Her hand emerges to grip the side of the bath, her knees rising from the foam. The water becomes animate, begins to slosh, climbing one end of the bath, then the other. Through fluttering eye-lids, Karen favours Suzy with a slitted glance of appreciation, gratitude, surrender. When she comes, she seizes Suzy's wrist, making the most of her perfunctory orgasm. Then she coughs and spits out the bath foam she's inhaled.

  Suzy hands her a towel and she wipes her mouth. Good morning Susan, she says, the sweat beading her forehead. Jesus, can you open the window, I can barely breath.

  Using one end of the towel to dry her hand, her arm (even though her sleeve is now wet) Suzy opens the window. The steam rolls out into green shade. A horse clops past in the road. I'm going to make some coffee, Suzy says, you want some?

  Mmm, Karen says, that would be good. Her eyes have closed again.

  Suzy puts on the kettle and sits at the kitchen table while it boils. She rubs at her temples, trying to stop the humming-bird flutter at the edge of her thoughts. She grasps for some coherence, some narrative of the night before, but finds only fragments, dark and intense, floating in a fugue. Because of the blue pill. She had no complaints. She still feels the burn of body-memory throbbing and purring through her even now, sober, making coffee as she is, morning sun in the window as it is. Throbbing and purring, trying to figure out what to tell, how much to lie. She knows that she won't - can't - correct the first lie, which was that she'd seen Moira's class advertised on the noticeboard at the church, when, in fact, she'd met Moira in town. She (Suzy) had been standing outside of a second-hand book shop in the shade of the beam and plaster façade, looking at an FLX Harley parked against the curb. There was a sticker on the oil tank which said: FUCK YOU - I RIDE A HARLEY.