The man with his head on fire

Last night I took one of the pills the doctor prescribed for me. It put me to sleep all right, but then I dreamed, and this dream was no improvement on the kind I'd been having without benefit of medication.

I was standing on the dock at Avilion, with the broken, greenish ice of the river tinkling all around like bells, but I wasn't wearing a winter coat-only a cotton print dress covered with butterflies. Also a hat made of plastic flowers in lurid colours-tomato red, a hideous lilac-that was lit up from inside by tiny light bulbs.

Where's mine? said Laura, in her five-year-old's voice. I looked down at her, but then we were not children any longer. Laura had grown old, like me; her eyes were little dried raisins. This was horrifying to me, and I woke up.

It was three in the morning. I waited until my heart had stopped protesting, then groped my way downstairs and made myself a hot milk. I should have known better than to rely on pills. You can't buy unconsciousness quite so cheaply.

But to continue.

Once off the Queen Mary, our family party spent three days in New York. Richard had some business to conclude; the rest of us could sightsee, he said.

Laura did not want to go to the Rockettes, or up to the top of the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Nor did she want to shop. She just wanted to walk around and look at things on the street, she said, but that was too dangerous a thing for her to do by herself, said Richard, so I went with her. She was not lively company-a relief after Winifred, who was determined to be as lively as was humanly possible.

After that we spent several weeks in Toronto, while Richard caught up on his affairs. After that we went to Avilion. We would go sailing there, said Richard. His tone implied that this was the only thing the place was good for; also that he was happy to make the sacrifice of his own time in order to indulge our whims. Or, more gently put, to please us-to please me, but to please Laura too.

It seemed to me that he'd come to regard Laura as a puzzle, one that it was now his business to solve. I'd catch him looking at her at odd moments, in much the same way as he looked at the stock-market pages -searching out the grip, the twist, the handle, the wedge, the way in. According to his view of life, there was such a grip or twist for everything. Either that, or a price. He wanted to get Laura under his thumb, he wanted her neck under his foot, however lightly placed. But Laura didn't have that kind of neck. So after each of his attempts he was left standing with one leg in the air, like a bear-hunter posing in a picture from which the slain bear has vanished.

How did Laura do it? Not by opposing him, not any longer: by this time she avoided clashing with him head-on. She did it by stepping back, and turning away, and throwing him off balance. He was always lunging in her direction, always grabbing, always grabbing air.

What he wanted was her approval, her admiration even. Or simply her gratitude. Something like that. With some other young girl he might have tried presents-a pearl necklace, a cashmere sweater-things that sixteen-year-olds were supposed to long for. But he knew better than to foist anything of this sort on Laura.

Blood from a stone, I thought. He'll never figure her out. And she doesn't have a price, because there's nothing he has that she wants. In any contest of wills, with anyone at all, I was still betting on Laura. In her own way she was stubborn as a pig.

I did think she'd jump at the chance to spend some time at Avilion-she'd been so reluctant to leave it-but when the plan was mentioned, she seemed indifferent. She was unwilling to give Richard credit for anything, or this was my reading. "At least we'll see Reenie," was all she said.

"I regret to say that Reenie is no longer in our employ," said Richard. "She was asked to leave."

When was that? A while ago. A month, several months? Richard was vague. It was a question, he said, of Reenie's husband, who had been drinking too much. Therefore the repairs to the house had not been carried out in what any reasonable person would consider a timely and satisfactory manner, and Richard did not see any point in paying out good money for laziness, and for what could only be termed insubordination.

"He didn't want her here at the same time as us," said Laura. "He knew she'd take sides."

We were wandering around on the main floor of Avilion. The house itself appeared to have dwindled in size; the furniture was covered with dust cloths, or what was left of the furniture-some of the bulkier, darker pieces had been removed, on Richard's orders I suppose. I could imagine Winifred saying that nobody should be expected to live with a sideboard festooned with such chunky, unconvincing wooden grapes. The leather-bound books were still in the library, but I had a feeling that they might not be there much longer. The portraits of the prime ministers with Grandfather Benjamin had been deleted: someone -Richard, no doubt-must finally have noticed their pastel faces.

Avilion had once had an air of stability that amounted to intransigence-a large, dumpy boulder plunked down in the middle of the stream of time, refusing to be moved for anybody-but now it was dogeared, apologetic, as if it were about to collapse in on itself. It no longer had the courage of its own pretensions.

So demoralising, said Winifred, how dusty everything was, and there were mice in the kitchen, she'd seen the droppings, and silverfish as well. But the Murgatroyds were arriving later that day, by train, along with a couple of other, newer servants who'd been added to our entourage, and then everything would soon be shipshape, except of course (she said with a laugh) the ship itself, by which she meant the Water Nixie. Richard was down in the boathouse right now, looking her over. She was supposed to have been scraped down and repainted under the supervision of Reenie and Ron Hincks, but this was yet another thing that had not taken place. Winifred failed to see what Richard wanted with that old tub-if Richard really longed to sail, he should scuttle that old dinosaur of a boat and buy a new one.

"I suppose he thinks it has sentimental value," I said. "For us, I mean. Laura and me."

"And does it?" said Winifred, with that amused smile of hers.

"No," said Laura. "Why would it? Father never took us sailing in it. Only Callie Fitzsimmons." We were in the dining room; at least the long table was still there. I wondered what decision Richard, or rather Winifred, would make about Tristan and Iseult and their glassy, outmoded romance.

"Callie Fitzsimmons came to the funeral," said Laura. We were alone together; Winifred had gone upstairs for what she called her beauty rest. She put cotton pads dampened with witch hazel on her eyes for this, and covered her face with a preparation of expensive green mud.

"Oh? You didn't tell me."

"I forgot. Reenie was furious with her."

"For coming to the funeral?

"For not coming earlier. She was quite rude to her. She said, ‘You're an hour too late and a dime too short.'"

"But she hated Callie! She always hated it when she came to stay! She thought she was a slut!"

"I guess she hadn't been enough of a slut to suit Reenie. She'd been lazy at it, she'd fallen down on the job."

"Of being a slut?"

"Well, Reenie felt she ought to have followed through. At least she should have been there, when Father was in such difficulties. Taken his mind off things."

"Reenie said all that?"

"Not exactly, but you could tell what she meant."

"What did Callie do?"

"Pretended she didn't understand. After that, she did what everyone does at funerals. Cried and told lies."

"What lies?" I said.

"She said even if they didn't always see eye to eye from a political point of view, Father was a fine, fine person. Reenie saidpolitical point of view my fanny, but behind her back."

"I think he tried to be," I said. "Fine, I mean."

"Well, he didn't try hard enough," said Laura. "Don't you remember what he used to say? That we'd beenleft on his hands, as if we were some kind of a smear."

"He tried as hard as he could," I said.

"Remember the Christmas he dressed up as Santa Claus? It was before Mother died I'd just turned five"

"Yes," I said "That's what I mean He tried"

"I hated it," said Laura "I always hated those kinds of surprises"

We'd been told to wait in the cloak room The double doors to the hall had gauzy curtains on the inside, so we couldn't see through into the square front hall, which had a fireplace, in the old manner, that was where the Christmas tree had been set up We were perched on the cloak-room settee, with the oblong mirror behind it Coats were hanging on the long rack-Father's coats, Mother's coats, and the hats too, above them-hers with large feathers, his with small ones There was a smell of rubber overshoes, and of fresh pine resin and cedar from the garlands wreathed around the front-stair bannisters, and of wax on warm floorboards, because the furnace was on the radiators hissed and clanked From under the windowsill came a cold draught, and the pitiless, uplifting scent of snow There was a single overhead light in the room, it had a yellow silk shade In the glass doors I could see us reflected our royal blue velvet dresses with the lace collars, our white faces, our pale hair parted in the middle, our pale hands folded in our laps Our white socks, our black Mary Janes. We'd been taught to sit with one foot crossed over the other-never the knees-and that is how we were sitting The mirror rose behind us like a glass bubble coming out of the tops of our heads I could hear our breathing, going in and out the breath of waiting It sounded like someone else breathing-someone large but invisible, hiding inside the muffling coats.

All at once the double doors swung open There was a man in red, a red giant towering upwards Behind him was the night darkness, and a blaze of flame His face was covered with white smoke His head was on fire He lurched forward his arms were outstretched Out of his mouth came a sound of hooting, or of shouting.

I was startled for a moment, but I was old enough to know what it was supposed to be The sound was meant to be laughter It was only Father, pretending to be Santa Claus, and he wasn't burning-it was only the tree lit up behind him, it was only the wreath of candles on his head He had his red brocade dressing gown on, backwards, and a beard made out of cotton batten.

Mother used to say he never knew his own strength he never knew how big he was in relation to everyone else He wouldn't have known how frightening he might seem. He was certainly frightening to Laura "You screamed and screamed," I said now "You didn't understand he was just pretending"

"It was worse than that," said Laura "I thought he was pretending the rest of the time"

"What do you mean?"

"That this was what he was really like," said Laura patiently "That underneath, he was burning up All the time"