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Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke began it all. They loosed the witch-giant. They saw Narnia being made. They got the magic apple, and they brought the first King and Queen to Narnia. Frank and…Hannah? She can’t remember that part, the names keep slipping like wet fingers on glass, but she recites all that she does remember.
Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke began it all. Then Lucy climbed into a wardrobe for some reason or other, and suddenly she and Edmund and Peter and Lucy were Kings and Queens.
Their mother had given them some old clothes to play dress-up with, when they were little. Lucy and Susan had played at Princesses, Lucy looking rather silly and small in a sea of flouncy white petticoat and silky yellow blouse. It wasn’t very Princess-like, but Lucy imagined she looked very grand and Susan supposed that made it all right. For herself, she had the best dress (she was older, Lucy didn’t mind, it looked better on Susan). It was a floorlength velvet dress that swished soft as rose-petals falling when she moved. It was red – deep and dark and dusky as the wine they drank at Cair Paravel. It only had a few bald spots – Susan could almost forget about them, if she pulled the dress a certain way. She’d needed that dress to play properly, without feeling silly and self-conscious. But sometimes she looked in the mirror and imagined being Grown Up instead. She would pile her hair up high with her hands and bite her lips until they looked pinker and she would practice looking shyly into the mirror from under lowered eyelashes. And there she was, all Grown Up. It was much easier to find Grown Up Susan than Princess Susan.
But she had been a Princess – no, not a Princess, a Queen. Queen Susan. Lucy stepped into the wardrobe – Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke had started it all before, of course – but Lucy stepped into the wardrobe and made them Kings and Queens.
It wasn’t surprising they’d played at being Kings and Queens that summer. She and Lucy had played at Princesses, when they were little. And of course, with the war, with mother and father away, with being sent to a strange house, to a strange guardian, it wasn’t surprising that they’d wanted to be powerful, to be able to take charge of an imaginary country the way they couldn’t take charge of their own lives. James had told her that, once. They’d been at a party – Susan remembered the whoop and whirl of the music, the giddy laughter, the sting of the wine she’d been drinking. White wine that made her tongue ache for something richer and sweeter and older that she had never even tasted. She’d curled her achy feet under her on the seat and listened to James pull Narnia to pieces, like her mother had cut up the red dress for scraps, when Susan got too big for it. She’d felt a little bit the same, listening to James, but he had laughed – he had a nice, deep rumble of a laugh – and in the glow of the party lights he looked very handsome. Queen Susan was a long time ago and Grown Up Susan was right there. She curled up next to him and let him put his arm around her shoulders.
Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke began it all. Lucy climbed into the wardrobe. Susan had dozens of admirers, heaps and heaps, ready to kill for her, sacrifice themselves for a smile, take her to parties, buy her chocolate and flowers and stockings. Peter was the High King. Edmund was just – he always ate the fudge from the chocolate boxes, even when Susan knew he wanted the Turkish Delight. There was Caspian, they’d helped put Caspian on the throne – and then came…Riler? Rastigar? She wished she’d listened to that awful Scrubb boy when he’d talked about Narnia, instead of laughing at him and fixing her hair.
Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke began it all. Lucy climbed in through the wardrobe. Peter killed the werewolf. Caspian came after, when King Peter and Edmund and Queen Lucy and Susan were nothing but stories. Stories about bravery and justice and talking animals and really, it was a nice way to pass a summer.
She still puts on her make-up, every morning. Smoothing the powder over her face, she thinks of the ice-witch, her pale pale beautiful cold features. She still goes out, walking in heels that make her knees ache more than a whole night dancing at Cair Paravel. She still fixes her hair, piles it up high on top of her head. Every time she looks in the mirror, she can see how pretty she is – pretty, but as far away as Princess Susan.
Every night she shuts herself in a wardrobe, face clean and hair loose, with only the littlest chink of light showing (because even now she knows it is silly to lock yourself into a wardrobe).
She nuzzles against the clothes in the wardrobe. Sometimes it is Lucy’s thin, summery skirts with their green grass smell. Sometimes she can feel the thicker, rougher material of Peter and Edmund’s good jackets against her forehead. She never feels the softness of furs because mother threw away her old fur coat when it got moth-eaten, a long time ago.
Even with the door slightly ajar, it is always fairly dark in there, dark and stuffy. Her voice comes back to her, she can hear her breathing, harsh and loud.
“Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke came first. They loosed the ice-queen. They got the magic apple, they brought the first King and Queen to Narnia. Lucy got there through the wardrobe, and Edmund and Peter and Susan followed. They all became Kings and Queens. Caspian was a King too. They helped him.”
Sometimes, only sometimes, when she says this a few times and shuts her eyes tight (it is always easier to believe in stories if you have your eyes closed), she almost believes it, like she could almost believe she was Princess Susan when she was little.
Sometimes, that doesn’t work, and she repeats, over and over again, “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, Aslan, Aslan, Aslan.” But at times like those, the words are flat and lifeless as their pretend games that summer.
But she keeps trying, even though she can feel the back of whatever wardrobe she is in, flat against her shoulders. Even though she will never feel soft fur around her face. Even though she does not believe in Aslan.
She needs Narnia. She needs it to be real, even though she cannot believe in it. She tries until she thinks her heart will burst, in a stuffy wardrobe with her eyes shut tight, imagining Lucy and Peter and Edmind in the most beautiful forest, in the most beautiful clothes, having the most wonderful times.
If Lucy and Edmund and Peter are in Narnia, they are only having an adventure and they will be back soon. You cannot stay in Narnia forever.
“Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, Aslan, Aslan, Aslan, Aslan, Aslan,” she says, over and over, before finally her voice breaks down and she buries her face in one of Lucy’s skirts and cries.
Because she knows the truth, that Narnia and Aslan are pretty names, but they are empty. They are pretend, and while they are nice, nicer even then many real things, the fact remains – they are not real, the way that wardrobes are real, or being Grown Up is real, or train accidents are real. It is like having a perfectly splendid imaginary pet – no comfort at all when your friend has a happy panting real puppy.
No loss at all if you lose it, while losing something real hurts for a very very long time.
She takes one more deep breath. “Aslan, Aslan, Aslan,” she whispers.