He and Mo ended up on the veranda, by the light of a guttering torch. ‘Strange times, you know, Frank,’ said Mo. ‘One day you think you know exactly what the world is all about; you think you got all of your parameters fixed. You got steady work, you live in a nice place, you got your family all around you. Then God comes along and says, “Excuse me, may I remind you that you’re stuck by your feet by an invisible force to a ball of unstable rock which is hurtling around in a total vacuum, and that you’re obliged to share this ball of unstable rock with millions of demented people, many of whom don’t use deodorant, and some of whom would like nothing better than to pocket all of your possessions, torture your pets and blow your head off. Not only that, everything that makes this situation bearable, like cheeseburgers and whiskey and reasonably priced cigars, is going to shorten your life, and in any case you’re going to die anyhow, half-blind, half-deaf, in wet pajamas, in Pasadena.”’
Frank swallowed beer and wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘I guess that’s one way of looking at it.’
He told Mo about the séance. Mo was beginning to sober up now, and he listened and nodded and occasionally patted his sweaty face with a balled-up tissue.
‘You’re sure this wasn’t your imagination working overtime? After all – what – it’s only been ten days now since Danny died. Don’t kid me that you’re not traumatized, too.’
‘I saw him, Mo. Or whatever spirit it is that’s pretending to be him. I just don’t understand what it’s all about.’
‘Not everything in this life has to have a logical explanation, Frank. Look at my family. Quod erat demonstrandum.’
‘I never hit Danny, though, Mo. I never bruised him, I never made him bleed.’
‘Of course you didn’t. But look at it this way. Maybe this spirit is using Danny to get your attention.’
‘What?’
‘Your folks never had much money, right, and when you were a kid you didn’t have any confidence, and you kept doing things like the time when you were trying to impress that girl and you sneezed that huge green booger on to the back of her hand. But if you personally went on television and whined about your miserable childhood – you, Frank Bell – who would want to know?’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Poor old hard-done-by Frank Bell! Nobody would want to know, would they? But in Pigs you’ve invented Dusty and Henry, and when Dusty and Henry get embarrassed, or upset, or make idiots of themselves, people can identify with them, right? The audience feel empathy. “Gee, that was exactly the way I felt, when I was a kid.” That’s why the show’s so goddamned popular.’
‘You’ve lost me, Mo. Maybe you need another drink.’
‘No, no, listen! Maybe this spirit is doing the same thing. If he appeared to you like he really is – some dead guy that you’ve never even met – you wouldn’t be interested in his childhood, would you, no matter how much he was knocked around? But he’s pretending to be Danny, because you care what happens to Danny, like your audience cares what happens to Dusty and Henry. In spite of yourself, when you see Danny, even though you know that it’s not really him, you can’t stop yourself from feeling protective.’
Frank thought about that, and then shrugged. ‘I guess that’s as good a theory as any. But that still doesn’t tell me why.’
Mo raised his glass. ‘“Ah, what is man! Wherefore does he why? Whence did he whence? Whither is he withering?” Do you know who said that? Dan Leno. Do you know who Dan Leno was? And don’t say Jay Leno’s kid brother.’
‘I was right. You do need another drink.’
They went back into the living room. The arguing was even louder. The pianist was playing ‘Isn’t it a Lovely Day?’ and Mo’s mother was singing along in a high, breathless screech.
‘My mother,’ said Mo proudly. ‘She could empty Carnegie Hall in three minutes flat.’
He was woken up at six twenty-five the next morning by the telephone ringing. He picked it up and said, ‘Astrid?’
‘Mr Walker? This is your six thirty alarm call.’
‘You have the wrong room. This is Frank Bell in 105.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir! You have a nice day now.’
‘You too,’ said Frank. He turned over and tried to get back to sleep but the room was already filled with sunlight and outside the gardener was noisily hosing down the pool. He had only drunk three or four beers at Mo’s party but he still felt blurry-headed, as if he had a hangover.
He kept thinking about what Mo had said. He could very well be right about this spirit that was masquerading as Danny. But that still didn’t answer the question of why, or what it was that the spirit was trying to tell him.
At six fifty-one he got out of bed and spooned some dark roast coffee into the percolator. Then he took a shower, although he turned the water off three or four times and listened, because he thought he heard the phone ringing. This was ridiculous. Here he was, a grown man, a well-known TV writer, a husband and a father, waiting for some girl to call him and tell him how he was going to spending his weekend.
He sat on his balcony drinking coffee and eating a toasted muffin with apricot jelly. He felt unsettled – not only because Astrid hadn’t called, and he still couldn’t get in touch with Nevile – but because he didn’t have any writing to do. This was the first weekend in three years when he hadn’t been pushed to finish a new episode of Pigs. He had already blocked out a new storyline in which Dusty had at last won the heart of the classroom beauty, Libby Polaski. Ever since episode three, Dusty had harbored fantasies about sitting on the banks of the Thick Silty River with Libby, picking the scabs off her knees and eating them. ‘At the age of twelve, that’s about as close as you’re going to get to oral sex.’ But now there was no point in writing any more.
Maybe he could work on a series about a man whose son was killed, and the son’s spirit comes back to help him sort out his tangled love life. Half tragedy, half bittersweet comedy.
Maybe Astrid would call.
By noon, nobody had knocked on the door and the phone had remained silent, so he decided to drive to the ocean. It was a warm day but a strong wind was blowing from the west, and the clouds were tumbling over each other in their hurry to get to the mountains.
Frank didn’t know if he had expected the old man to be there or not, but he had been sitting on the beach for less than ten minutes when he appeared, in his duck-billed baseball cap and purple T-shirt, dragging a moth-eaten gray mongrel behind him on a length of string. The old man stopped about twenty feet away and took off his cap and scratched his scalp.
‘All on your own?’ he said, his eyes narrowed against the wind.
‘I was, until now.’
‘Well, Frank, we can’t always expect other people to do what we want them to do. Sometimes we have to realize that we’re not the sun, and that other people, they’re not our planets.’
‘I took your advice.’
‘Oh, yes? And what advice was that?’
‘I kept on putting one foot in front of the other, but I still don’t know where the hell it’s taking me.’
The old man chuckled and sniffed. ‘Have patience, Frank. You’ll find out where you’re going, sooner than you think.’
He was sitting on the edge of the bed on Sunday evening, taking off his socks, when there was a frantic knocking at his door.
‘OK, OK! I’m coming!’
He opened the door to find Astrid standing there. Her hair was messed up and she had two crimson bruises under her eyes. She was hugging a dark-blue sweatshirt around herself as if she were cold.