Forbidden Fruit (18 page)

‘These students,’ growled Trudi. ‘I do not like them.’

‘Oh?’ asked Therese. ‘Why? The music is nice.’

‘Music is nice,’ conceded Trudi. ‘But they talk nonsense. They say I may not eat sausages any more—or rollmops!’

We gasped. Trudi without her rollmops was unthinkable. She bought catering-sized jars of them and they were her constant refreshment and companion, as was a definite scent of smoked fish. Which was all right, because I liked smoked fish, and I could think of worse perfumes. Lucifer also had developed a taste for rollmops and had been known to kidnap them practically out of his proprietor’s mouth. Trudi nodded grimly.

‘Yes, they are a tad fanatical about meat is murder,’ Therese agreed. ‘Did you see that leaflet?’

‘Yes, and it frightened Goss into thinking she had breast cancer,’ I replied.

‘God, Corinna, the poor girl!’ Therese was gratifyingly shocked.

I nodded grimly in my turn and gulped my drink. I could still feel that thin little body shaking with sobs.

‘Rowan, he is all right,’ conceded Trudi. ‘He knows about plants. He came and helped me with the watering. Him, I don’t mind. Nice boy. That girl Bec, she seems sensible. But the blonde …’ She said something in Dutch which really didn’t need a translation.

‘Yes, I expect so,’ I said. ‘And she’s seducing my Jason.’

‘No!’ said both my listeners.

‘And I can’t imagine why,’ I confessed.

‘Because she can,’ growled Trudi. She opened her plastic box of travelling rollmops and offered them around. I took one and bit. Soft fish, hard onion, strong vinegar. Perfect with, as it happened, gin. Horatio scorned one, Lucifer stole one, and Therese politely declined.

‘Yes, but she must want something from him.’ Therese moved a little further away from the fish feast. ‘What can Jason do—I mean, apart from the obvious?’

‘He can cook,’ I replied. ‘But he was happy providing the refreshments anyway.’

‘Maybe they have a special project,’ said Therese, finishing her drink and giving me back the glass.

‘Time we get on,’ said Trudi, setting up the seagrass loom again.

I watched them repair the seat, idle and slightly fuzzy. Horatio curled up at my feet and appreciated the cool marble floor. The sun shone on the greenery. Presently I betook myself to the rose arbour, where the wisteria provided extra shade, and fell lightly asleep for an hour.

When I woke, the weavers had gone, leaving a repaired chair. Horatio was awake and standing on my lap, indicating strongly that it was time to go down to the apartment for his afternoon nap. I was disinclined to move. The air was still and heavy and full of sleep. Then I heard more voices—damn, the students had replaced the weavers. And I really did not want to encounter them again. I might be extremely rude, which would be unkind to the young and enthusiastic, as Daniel had said.

So instead of moving, I stroked Horatio into curling up on my lap again, and closed my eyes.

This meant that my hearing was sharpened. I was indulging in that most pleasant of vices, eavesdropping. And all without moving a finger.

‘Vaughan Williams’
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
,’ a rich, deep male voice stated. ‘It’s a wonderful piece of music and a lot of fun to sing.’

‘Needs a very strong bass or baritone,’ said Bec. I recognised her voice, definite and crisp. ‘You know, where it begins “This is the truth sent from above …” The first ten bars are unsupported.’

‘Yes, but we’ve got Rupe here, and Alexander, they could dominate any space,’ said an unknown female.

‘Or there’s Benjamin Britten,’ suggested a diffident male voice—that must be Rowan.

This suggestion was greeted with scorn.

‘Oh, puhleeze, not
Wolcum Yole
again!’ said the light cooing tone of Sarah.

‘Britten is a pain,’ Bec agreed. ‘All right, then, we need a string quartet and a very strong bass/baritone. Got the bass, check. Anyone know a string quartet?’

‘You mean, one which doesn’t need paying and will do a Christmas concert for beer and charming company?’ asked the rich male voice.

‘Rupert!’ exclaimed Sarah. ‘Don’t be so sexist!’

‘I didn’t say what gender the charming company had to be,’ he evaded.

‘As it happens,’ said the other deep voice, ‘I think I can find one. There are a lot of music students hanging out for a job. But we will need to pay them.’

‘Okay, Alexander. We’ll come up with something. Two carol gigs today,’ said Bec, clearly the organiser of this group. ‘Everyone got carol books? Concert dress with extra tinselly pin, provided by Sarah.’

‘Where did they come from?’ asked Alexander. He had a faint and attractive accent—Russian, maybe?

Sarah sounded pleased. ‘That craft lady, Therese, she showed me how to make them. Aren’t they cute?’

‘If you make up a tray of them, we might be able to sell them,’ suggested Rowan.

‘A good idea. Janeen, how are your plans for our festival coming along?’ Bec again.

‘All right, if I can store stuff in Rowan’s fridge.’

‘Of course,’ said Rowan.

‘Then that’s it. The mall at three, ladies and gentlemen,’ Bec concluded. There were the sounds of getting up and collecting hats and finding bags.

I gave them time to get away before I moved. As they went they sang their little song to massed giggling.

Horatio was now insistent about going home, so I went.

No Daniel in my apartment, no message. I rang his phone and got voicemail again. Where was my tall, dark and handsome? Well, I still had the missing Brigid’s diary to look through. I might as well do that.

With some reluctance, I opened the files and began to read. More complaints about Reverend Hale and his doctrine. I logged out of the blog and googled the Holy Reformed Temple of Shiloh. As I read, my eyebrows rose.

Jesus was a rich man? Jesus had a big house? If Jesus had lived now, he would have a Cadillac? Jesus hates sick people and cripples?
Stands to reason, brothers and sisters, that Jesus doesn’t want to look at the world through blind eyes
, it said.

Funny, that was what I had always thought he did. I read on, boggling.

Jesus died and took on the nature of Satan? Then as Satan he threw down Satan? Then he rose from the dead as a man and thus we are all of the nature of Jesus? Wait just a moment. I might not qualify as a devout Christian, in fact I probably didn’t qualify as a Christian at all, but I had sat through enough church services, quietly reading my Bible when the sermon because too tedious. That wasn’t what it said in the book, was it? Wasn’t Christ conceived as a man, because God wanted someone to experience humanity so that he could understand it, like the demigod Heracles before him? And that conception was all he needed to do to redeem us, apart from dying horribly? I remembered the Professor talking about it.
Ave
wipes out Eva, he said, meaning that the conception of Christ demolished the sin of Adam and Eve.

The website was confidential in that greasy, unreliable way of a man who is selling you a stolen car and picking your pocket at the same moment.
When God says to me, I am, I just smile, children, I just smile and I say, I am, too
.

Where was the Spanish Inquisition when we needed it? This was poisonous stuff. I felt quite shocked, and was also shocked to find that there were still things that I found—well, shocking. Why did these people want to be Christians? Why take a reasonably satisfactory religion and deform it like this? Why not make up their own, as L Ron Hubbard had done?

I had a nasty taste in my mouth. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

Poor girls, to have to listen to this drivel endlessly. Not even the smarmy claims of universal love could make anyone feel better about the Holy Reformed Temple of Shiloh. I diverted myself with a fantasy of what their welcome would be like in hell.
I pictured a very large and obscenely ugly demon saying, ‘Come in, Reverend, your place in the pit is all prepared.’

It was getting late. Dinner. Horatio had kitty chow (the expensive fish one which he really loves) and I made myself a steak sandwich, as I had already thawed two steaks. I put Daniel’s back into the fridge. No word. No message. And it was getting dark and I had to go to bed soon.

I read more of the diary. The poor girl knew that something dreadful was happening to her, but she didn’t seem to know that it was pregnancy.

I’m swelling up
, she wrote plaintively.
I asked Mum if I could see a doctor because I’m sure it’s a tumour. She didn’t want to hear me. Mum never hears what she doesn’t want to hear. Two hours of Rev Hale’s TV show today. Luckily I was thinking out a thing about functions. I know what my sister was doing. She was making up another story about Lucinda de Vere (she’s eighteenth-century English, based in Bath). Or Giacommeta di Lupa. She’s fourteenth-century Venetian, or is it Florence? I wish I had her imagination. While Rev Hale is going on about God in man, Dolly just flies off to the Doge’s Palace. As she says, we have to sit there but no one can make us listen. But maths only takes me so far. Tomorrow I’m going to try chess problems. Sandy got me a book of them.

Poor girl, I thought, wiping my plate with my last crust and clearing the table. The fourteenth century in Venice had been a very unstable and dangerous period. Much more fun than the twenty-first.

I was getting restless. I wondered if Uncle Solly, who had mysterious connections, had sent Daniel on one of his little missions. But no, one of the nephews or nieces who ran the New York Deli would have called me. Sister Mary might know. That meant waiting until midnight, because I did not know where Sister Mary hung up her habit and stored her sensible shoes. And I had to get up at four to run my bakery.

I tried the phone again. Still on voicemail. What if something very bad had happened to Daniel?

That thought sent a chill all through me. I shook myself and read the next diary entry.

I can’t talk to Mum at all. Dolly agrees that something is wrong with me. I don’t want to bother Sandra. She already does a lot for us that could get her fired. She gave Dolly a plate of oven-baked chips yesterday. I can hear the exercise bike going as Dolly tries to burn off those calories. It isn’t fair, the way we are treated. It looks all right from the outside. Nice house, people would say. Nice clothes. At least Dolly’s clothes would be nice if they weren’t pink. Expensive school. They wouldn’t be able to see how hard our life is. Hours of Rev Hale. No dinner if we argue. Virginity checks. Mum is a fanatic and Dad isn’t here most of the time and when he is he is bored with all of us. He doesn’t seem to like me anymore, either. The parents only smile at each other when they have meetings and gatherings and then only because the Holy Temple won’t let anyone get divorced unless Rev Hale or Rev Putnam tells them to. It would be nice if they divorced. Except I bet we’d have to go with Mum. That would be worse. If it could get worse.

I had a strong sense of doom. Sometime, fairly soon in this diary, it was about to get much worse. Horatio settled down into his after-dinner spot for a snooze. I turned on the news, watched briefly, and was about to turn it off. Afghanistan, Darfur, floods in India. Disasters all over. Riot in King Street. Oh—wait! I snatched my finger off the
OFF
button.

‘A mysterious band of graffitists have been active in the city for the past week,’ said the newsreader, suppressing a smile. ‘Their target is not a band or a political statement. Their tag is freegans and they correct spelling and change the position of apostrophes in public signage. Mr Tregend, lapidary, of The City Rock’s, was outraged to find that someone had scaled his roof and blacked out the apostrophe in his sign.’

I laughed aloud. Those freegans. Have to love them. That City Rock’s sign had annoyed me for years.

‘Mr Gorgious, of Melbourne Art Hairdresser’s, has had his apostrophe amputated. Inspector Clamp, of the Victoria Police, said that although some people might think that this was funny, it was still vandalism and would be punished if the freegans were caught on security camera.’

That would be right. I had seldom met police persons with a sense of grammar.

‘The freegans are expected to deliver a statement tomorrow, according to an email received this afternoon. Meanwhile, police advise shopkeepers to lock up carefully and have their grammar checked by a reputable English teacher.’

The ABC did have a sense of humour. Bless them.

Considerably cheered, I read some more of Brigid’s diary. We were approaching a time when her pregnancy must begin to show. I wondered how a girl in the twenty-first century who got such good marks for science could not know the mechanisms by which one became pregnant. But she seemed to have no idea.

I’m swelling up more, it must be some sort of cancer. Anna said I must be pregnant and asked me if Sean was the father and they all giggled. I hate them. As if I’d let that beast Sean anywhere near me. He dumped me
because
I wouldn’t. And Anna would.

Well, that about did it for Sean, even though he was captain of the cricket team. Must be Manny.

Fortunately Brigid had other things to think about, like exams. The diary was forgotten as she completed her common assessment tasks and wrote essays. And got more pregnant, of course, until the moment when she had given up on her mother and decided to appeal to her father for help. A miscalculation of catastrophic proportions. The account of it must have been written several days later.

It isn’t fair, it isn’t true! I can’t be pregnant! I can’t! And Papa is so angry with me! I’m shut up here and can’t go out and the school is being told I’m sick and will send and mark my work and I get taken to the exams under escort. I’m not allowed to speak to anyone. It isn’t fair! Why is God doing this to me? Is it because I used to fall asleep listening to Rev Hale? And Mum just stares. I think she’s gone mad. But they don’t know I’ve got a second mobile phone. They never understood the internet. I’m not cut off from the world like they think. They won’t even let Dolly see me. But Dolly’s brave, she can climb out of her balcony window and up the supports to mine. She’s just gone. She can’t work it out either. It’s not fair!