The Testimony of Taliesin Jones (70 page)

'He said pomegranates always have six hundred and eleven
seeds,' he says. He starts to verify this. After counting about thirty he give
s
up
.
Jonathan, however,
lays the seed
s
out and start
s
arraying them in row
s
of ten on the
e
dge of hi
s
plat
e.
This annoys Taliesin
.
Why can
't
Jonathan accept the spirit of the story? From the
beginning of tim
e
broth
ers
hav
e
w
anted
to kill each other and now is no different
.
A
s
each ten i
s
called out Taliesin
considers smashing a pomegranate over The Empirical Seed Counter'
s
head. An argument is
brewing, one of those arguments that
s
prings up like a hot geyser through a thin crust of
earth. For five minute
s
n
o
one
s
ays anything as Jonathan counts. He counts on stubbornly,
moving (he thinks) closer to the answer. But however many he counts he will
miss the point, he won
't ge
t to the e
ssence.

'Six hundred and fourteen. And I swear th
at's a
ccurate!' he
announces
,
leaning
back in hi
s
chair,
sati
sfied.
He
pu
shes
the
emptied skin aside
.

'They
're
pr
etty
small, Jon
.
You cou
ld
h
ave
ea
sily
mi
s
counted,' his father
s
ay
s.

'Try it your
self
.
The
y're
in tens. I
definitely c
ounted
ri
ght.'

'Maybe no on
e's
ever both
ered
to check
,'
hi
s
mother
s
ays.

'You miscounted,' Talie
sin
say
s
.

'You count them th
en,
sucker,' Jon
athan r
eturns, pu
shing
the plate toward
s
him. 'Not now
,'
his father says
.
'
Do it later.'
'
Yeah but he ke
eps
coming out with
all this rubbish about

Adam and Eve and apple
s
and pom
egranates
and h
e
never checks it
.
He just believes
a
nything,' Jonathan says
,
getting mad now.

'It doesn't matt
er,
does it?
'
his mother suddenly
s
ays.
'
For heaven's
s
ake, does it re
ally
matter?'

'You
don't beli
eve
in that rubbish do you
?'
Jonathan
as
ks
his mother.

'
I don
't
know what to
believe any more,'
s
he says.

'Dad?
'
Jonathan asks.

Talie
sin' s
father shrugs his eyebrows and
e
ats the pomegranat
e
.
'
It tastes
nice,' he says. Taliesin's father i
s
still
unable to look up
.
His gaze keeps falling
alway
s
to hi
s
plat
e.
Onl
y
when
Taliesin's mother looks down do
es
h
is
f
ather
look up.

T
aliesin
looks at his mother and father. E
ve
and Adam
.
H
e
see
s
bits of
himself in both of them
.
He is linked to b
oth
of them b
y
blood
and flesh. But the
y
only mak
e
part of him
.
They
supply the parts, but the life, the spirit in him, come
s
from el
sewhere.
They didn
't
make that p
art
of
him
.
His mother brought him into the world
and hi
s
fath
er
plant
ed
th
e
seed,
but his spirit is not their
s
.
He isn't simply the
s
um
o
f h
is
parents
'
parts, destined to tread their paths. Hi
s
lif
e i
sn
'
t in their hands. His family cannot gu
arantee
him anythin
g
.
Lik
e
him
,
they are fallible, unpredictable creatur
es.
Despite their age and collective wisdom hi
s
parent
s
don't
seem to know what he knows
.
They haven't
ye
t caught
a
glimpse
of the light that he's been followin
g.
They
ar
e
not sure what to believe anymore
.
If only he could get th
em
to see what he sees and hear what he hears
.
This
i
s
h
ard
.
Hi
s
family
are the hardest people of all to convince of anythin
g.
They are thick skinned. They think they know him
,
he can
't
tell them anything new. They
dismi
ss
h
is e
xperiences
a
s
mundane and childish, as though they too
had b
een
through them once. They exasperate
him with their indiffer
ence.
But he know
s
he mustn't give up on them
.
H
e
must b
ring
tho
se
miraculous
he
aling
powers into his own home
.
'
You should
hear some of the crap h
e
com
es o
ut w
ith,'
Jonathan
says
,
nodding in Taliesin
's
direction.
'
He's
mixing with weirdos
.
That piano teach
er
of his for on
e.'
'You
don't know anything about him,' Talie
sin s
ays
.
'I know enough
.'
'Jon,
please. Leave it,' their mother
s
ays with
s
omething of
her old
authorit
y.
There
is
a
long
and painful gap while the last word reverberates
.

'It's all ri
ght
for y
ou,
isn
't
it
?'
Jonathan sa
ys,
more aggressively than he intends.
'
You're not around
.
You don't have to
put up with it.' He
g
ets up
a
nd walk
s
into the kitchen.

His mother
s
tarts to cry
.
Hi
s
f
ather
gets up to clear the plates away. Jonath
an
must be sorry
because he comes back and helps clear the pl
ates
away
.
Taliesin takes his mother's hand
.
It is hot from
emotion and she squeezes his hand to communicate an understanding b
etween
them
.
She
s
tarts to cry mor
e,
and as she cries sh
e
repe
ats
the word
s,
'Oh God, what have
I done?' Then she
s
tarts to apologize for everything she's ever done it
s
eems -thing
s
that she
s
houldn't even be
sorry for. She recite
s
a lit
any
of things
:
furniture
,
leaving
,
not being happy
, c
rying
.
Sh
e
even
sa
ys
so
rry for sa
ying s
orry.

His father doesn
't
know h
ow
to r
eact.
He can only say, 'Don
't
be silly
.'
Jonathan
s
ays sorr
y
for making a thing about the seeds.

'
It's not that
,'
she
sa
ys
.
'
It's not th
at.' A
nd
she looks ahead, into the wall as if seeing a reflection there
.
'
She doesn't
seem to like what she sees ther
e, y
et she
holds her gaze and fixes it. Taliesin thinks of Eve again
.
That moment when she realized she'd done wrong
to pick the appl
e
or the pomegranate or
whatever it was
.
That moment she r
ealized
she had no one else to blame but herself
.
Her mother is blushing apple red with that same
shame and while sh
e
sobs, he places his hand
upon her back and makes the sign of the cross
,
praying
for her to feel forgiven.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘H
EY
W
O
RM
,
C
aesar w
ants to see
y
ou
.
He told m
e
to com
e a
nd
ge
t
yo
u
.
'
A
g
leeful Hooper
delivers this mess
age.

'
What does h
e w
ant me for
?'
Taliesin asks,
thinkin
g
that
thi
s
i
s s
ome
sor
t
o
f joke
.

'
I dunn
o
.
But he wants to see you now, right awa
y i
n hi
s
offic
e
.
'

'Y
eah
,
yea
h,
w
e believe
y
ou,' Luc says. Hooper doe
sn't
flin
ch.
H
e o
nly r
epeats
his message
.
Seeing that Hooper i
sn't
h
oaxing,
T
aliesin
s
ets
off through the corridors to
s
ee the he
admaster, wo
ndering
what crime he could possibly have committed
.
H
e
mulls over the possibilities. Perhaps Caesar is suspici
ous o
f the m
eetings
taking place
beneath The Tall Tre
e
ev
ery
Frid
ay
lunch break. Or maybe Mr Davies has lodged th
e
u
sual
re
ading-in-class
complaint.
The walk to the headmaster
's
offi
ce
takes T
aliesin
through the old part of the school
,
p
ast
th
e
dining hall and
along polished corridors now scuffed b
y
lunch-scurrying feet. He passes teachers and pupils and l
ooks i
nto their faces to
see if they know of his crime (for it surely i
s
a
crim
e)
.
Caesar'
s
door is ajar.
Taliesin knock
s
li
ghtly,
h
alf
hoping th
at
he won't be heard
.