Gemma almost finished the orange juice in one go; she hadn’t realised how thirsty she’d been.
‘Surprised he was allowed to have a dog in one of those places,’ she said.
‘Bloody thing hadn’t eaten for a week – except for its owner’s nose.’ Paulette laughed. ‘The fleshy bits, anyway.’
Gemma put the plastic bottle down, feeling suddenly queasy. ‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘You know Angie McDonald well, I hear,’ said Paulette.
‘That’s right.’
‘And Jaki Hunter.’
Gemma nodded.
‘What’s Jaki like?’
‘You don’t know her well? Don’t you work together?’ Gemma asked.
‘I’ve only been there a few months. Transferred out of my last job. Kicked out, really.’
‘How so?’
‘You know how it is. How long have you known Jaki?’
‘Quite a while,’ said Gemma. ‘She’s a smart woman. Got her ballistics certification just recently. You’re lucky to be joining that team.’
Paulette grunted. ‘Hope so. Don’t want to be transferred out again.’
‘Enjoy your shoes,’ said Gemma, moving towards the door. ‘Hope your kitchen’s finished soon.’
‘Yeah. Sorry about the mess. How old’s Jaki?’
Gemma frowned. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’
‘I mean, she’s already got her expert’s certificate, but she looks pretty young still. That’s what I want to do too. Hey, good luck with the pregnancy.’
•
Back home, her spirits still buoyant with her decision to have the baby, Gemma discovered that the Ratbag wasn’t in evidence, and he’d actually folded his blankets and sheets and stowed them behind one of the blue leather armchairs. Hugo was becoming a little more civilised, she thought. She thought of his neglectful parents, who didn’t seem to care where he was, as long as he wasn’t troubling either of them; of the heavy pressures on Maddison Carr, who’d run away from the stifling, pressure-cooker life her father, Dr Carr, had unwittingly described. ‘My daughter has everything she needs for a perfectly normal and happy adolescence,’ he had told Gemma. ‘She’s top in all her subjects, she’s also taken on French, the piano and swimming. She knows what’s expected of her. She’s had the best education money can buy.’
Then her thoughts turned to the unhappiness of Jade Finn. Another young girl whose world had been turned upside down. No wonder she was being difficult – her father murdered, her little brother fighting to live, her mother totally preoccupied. Gemma counted her blessings. Even her pregnancy had ceased being merely an object for concern and anxiety; it was now a huge potential. Steve still loves you, Angie had said. Maybe he’d be happy about the baby. Maybe he would give her just one more chance.
She was hungry, waiting for Angie’s arrival, and for once the thought of food didn’t turn her stomach. Together with the pure white bird that had landed almost at her feet, this too seemed like a good omen. Inside her body, a tiny being was throbbing away, expanding and growing into a real baby, a real person. Gemma placed her hand on her belly. In less than six months, a new human being would come into the world. As she gazed at the snowy fair-weather cumulus piling on top of the edge of the sea, she was filled with awe and wonder.
Her whole being sighed with relief. She’d stopped fighting it. She’d even said the words out loud to Paulette. She was going to have a baby.
•
Gemma and Angie sat outside in the winter sunshine and ate bagels with salad and Portuguese chicken. Gemma sipped a little of the champagne Angie had brought with her. She gazed out at a powder blue sky and junior navy sea. Pigeons flew overhead, heading for the rocky ledges that fell away to the softly surging breakers below.
‘If there’s any random breathtesting this arvo,’ said Angie, ‘I’ll race to the showers and refuse to come out.’ She downed a glass and sat back, blinking. ‘Congratulations, Gemster. I still can’t believe it! You, my best girlfriend, becoming a mother. Me, I’m not likely to ever have a baby.’
‘Which reminds me,’ said Gemma. ‘I want to hear about Trevor.’
A shadow fell across Angie’s face. ‘Trevor,’ she sighed, about to top up Gemma’s glass until Gemma put a hand over it. She refilled her own instead. ‘Life doesn’t always go according to plan.’
‘What are you going to do about him?’ asked Gemma.
Angie shook her head. ‘Don’t know. I just never seem to get the right bloke. They all turn out to be duds. Most of the other women at work are married with children. But he has left his wife and he’s contacted me again. He must be interested.’
‘Interested in you or interested in a woman who’ll look after him?’
Angie shrugged.
‘Ange, I’m no champion at picking stable, appropriate men. I still seem to be in love with an unpredictable man who goes haring off I don’t know where half the time, and when he does turn up, he’s only in transit.’
Angie sighed. ‘Sounds an awful lot like Trevor.’
Gemma looked out to where a small, white-sailed boat was tranquilly ploughing through the sea, then brought her attention back to Angie. ‘That’s our problem,’ she said. ‘Kit’s always telling me I make choices that don’t actually support what I really want.’
‘That is so Kit! What the hell does it mean?’
‘She reckons there’s a disconnection between what I want and what I do in order to get what I want. Like you and Trevor. And, I have to say, like me and Steve. You say you want marriage and kids, but you hang out with men who don’t. Or can’t. Or are doing all that with someone else.’
‘What about Steve?’ Angie asked.
‘He’s never wanted kids. Told me he could never see himself as a married man with a family.’
‘So there’s not much point in hankering after him then,’ said Angie, with an odd expression that Gemma couldn’t read.
‘Do you think Trevor wants to do it all again?’ Gemma asked.
Angie shook her head.
‘Okay, then,’ said Gemma. ‘Then what do you think he wants?’
‘I’ve agreed to meet him again, that’s all,’ said Angie. ‘And have a drink. I’ve promised not to take my whip.’
Angie gathered up her jacket and briefcase and Gemma walked with her to the front garden.
‘I’ll come over later. Maybe after tea,’ said Angie. ‘And we can go through those cartons from Bryson Finn’s flat.’
Just as Angie was leaving, Gemma asked, ‘Is Paulette gay?’
Angie paused, her puzzled frown quickly changing to a grin. ‘I don’t think so. Why? You’re not interested, are you?’
‘She seemed very interested in Jaki. Asked me a lot of questions. But it could have just been professional. Jaki would be a great example to anyone new in the job.’
•
After Angie had left, Gemma went to her office and opened the envelope Angie had given her containing information about The Group. A photocopied flyer advertising the organisation was on the top. ‘Mr Sheridan Stark, channeller of Archangel Reziel, Angel of the Secret Regions and Supreme Mysteries,’ Gemma read, ‘will help you discover your true vocation. Maximise your potential!’
Gemma wondered if Grace was maximising her potential up there on the Central Coast. A session with an archangel might be just what she needed herself. More seriously, it could serve to connect her with Grace. She looked up through the window and saw Hugo coming down the steps from the road two at a time.
‘Come in,’ she said, opening the door for him. ‘You do seem to come and go a bit.’
‘Dad rang,’ he said. ‘I had to go back and help him with moving some stuff. Are you going somewhere?’
‘In a little while. I’m driving up to the Central Coa
st. And no, you can’t come.’
Hugo pulled out a packet of circular orange objects, covered in salt and spices. ‘Want one?’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I’ll mind the house for you. Okay?’
Gemma changed into a shirt and jeans for the journey to Gosford. When she came to button the shirt, she realised that the top button was straining. She checked in the mirror. It was acceptable, although she was showing more cleavage than she cared to when working. She grabbed a comfortable brown wool jacket and scarf, her briefcase and notebook, and, leaving the Ratbag happily set up with cable TV, headed out the door.
•
On the outskirts of Gosford, she stopped at a café for a cup of tea and raisin toast and found the roads on her map to take her to the property called Cana.
As she drove through the countryside, still green from coastal rainfall, Gemma started to feel apprehensive about what she was doing. What if Grace interpreted Gemma’s visit as an unwanted intrusion into her life? She had said quite clearly she didn’t want contact, that she was making a life that did not include Gemma or Kit.
It was impossible to miss Cana because of the large billboard near the entrance to the property. ‘Trade your anxiety for God’s certainty’ it said in big letters surrounded by smiling, happy faces. Behind these, golden rays shone from a huge angel holding seven golden candlesticks, a horizontal ‘8’ – a symbol of eternity – floating above him.
Gemma took a deep breath, said, ‘G’day Reziel’, and drove over the cattle grid and up the dirt road to the farmhouse. Cana was set on rolling farmland and several horses looked up from their grazing as she passed. As she approached the house, she pulled out her video camera and filmed the building and its surroundings. A kneeling woman was weeding a large rose bed in front of the house, and hens picked around a garden that ran along the northern length of the long, low homestead surrounded by a verandah. Another sign, on the right-hand side of the house, indicated Reception, an arrow pointing towards the back of the place. Gemma put her camera down and drove slowly towards the arrow, then got out, struck by the quietness of the afternoon. The birds were silent and only the lightest breeze lifted the leaves of a nearby pepper tree. In the deep peace of the moment, she experienced an odd sense of dislocation and for a second wondered where she was and what she was doing. Then she followed the direction of the arrow, passing a collection of vegetable beds and herbs in pots until she came to a fly-screened door in the middle of the long enclosed verandah.
‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Anyone here?’
A long moment passed before she heard footsteps and then the door was opened by a woman of indeterminate age, whose pale face, high-necked shirt and long skirt reminded Gemma of the painting American Gothic. A black scarf tied hair back from a face as plain as an Arnott’s arrowroot biscuit.
‘Peace be with you,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ said Gemma. ‘My name is Gemma Lincoln and I’d like to have a session with . . .’ She paused, not quite knowing how to phrase it. ‘With the Archangel.’
The woman gave her an appraising look. ‘Have you made an appointment?’
‘No,’ said Gemma. ‘But I wanted to inquire about a session – maybe even about becoming a member of this community. I was impressed by some of the teachings of the Archangel. The teachings and prophecies about the end of days. Your website intrigued me.’
The woman’s face brightened and there was the hint of a smile on her thin lips.
‘Yeshwa’s teachings on the end of days?’ she asked.
Gemma nodded, although she had no idea who Yeshwa might be. ‘Actually, a friend of mine is part of your community,’ she added. ‘Grace Kingston.’
The woman frowned. Not such a good move, thought Gemma.
‘She is here, isn’t she?’ she went on. ‘I had a letter from her just recently.’
The frown deepened. ‘Oh,’ said the woman. ‘You’d better come in then.’
Gemma accepted and stepped inside, following her guide. Along the verandah, several bunk beds hung with towels and clothes indicated a dormitory, but the woman went through a door into a dark interior. Gemma blinked, but even when her eyes adjusted, the space she’d just entered remained dim. It must have been the chapel or assembly area, a large internal room with chairs against the walls, a central table covered in a white cloth and the eternity symbol in some sort of metal on a stand surrounded by seven golden candlesticks in which candles burned. At the end of the room, and surrounded by white and gold drapes, hung a huge painting of an angel.
‘Reziel?’ Gemma asked.
‘Yeshwa had it painted, from the Archangel’s own description of himself,’ said the woman. ‘Plus his own visions.’
Gemma nodded as if she understood that was the usual way of it.
A large purple banner ran around the walls like a broad picture rail, and Gemma swivelled round to read its embroidered words: ‘Babylon the great is fallen: and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.’
‘What did Grace Kingston say in her letter?’
Gemma brought her attention back from unclean and hateful birds and stifled her immediate response, which was ‘None of your business’. If she said the wrong thing, this could make things difficult. ‘She told me a little about Yeshwa and how happy she’s been since she came here and received Archangel Reziel’s personal message for her.’
The woman leaned closer, her eyes narrowed, apprehensive. ‘Did she happen to say what the message was?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Gemma. ‘But Grace also suggested that there was no better way to use my money than to invest it in my spiritual wellbeing.’ Gemma kept her face serious and businesslike, despite the threat of a smile in the muscles around her mouth. ‘She said that Reziel’s teachings would be sure to assist me.’
‘That’s so true,’ the woman exclaimed. ‘When I first came here, I knew nothing about my own personal divine script. Now I know I’m on the path. All I have to do is listen to Reziel.’ The suspicious expression returned. ‘But we were under the impression that Grace had no family or close friends.’
‘Apart from me, I think that’s quite true,’ said Gemma.
‘Just one moment, please,’ said the woman, disappearing through another doorway. ‘Wait here.’
Gemma did so, looking around. The walls were covered in murals, alternating between idyllic impossibilities of lions frisking with lambs and children and scenes of apocalyptic destruction. Flaming comets ignited buildings in a painting next to another mural of people gathered around the shining eternity symbol, now covered with grapevines. Gemma didn’t like this place one bit.
She was wondering about unclean and hateful birds and was about to open a large book lying on a chair when a sound made her turn around. Above her, seven lights in the form of silver stars suddenly lit the room so that the gliding figure approaching her, robed entirely in white, glowed like a lamp. Together with his long hair and flowing robes, the features of the draped figure bore an unmistakable likeness to the large portrait of Archangel Reziel.
‘I am Yeshwa,’ said the man as he approached. ‘Prophet and witness of God, humble servant of Archangel Reziel. Peace be with you until the end of days and beyond.’
‘Hello,’ said Gemma, unable to match such a greeting, ‘I believe you’re the proprietor of this place.’ This must be Sheridan Stark, Gemma thought.
‘Spiritual leader,’ he said with a smile that Gemma couldn’t read. ‘Our sister Gretel has said you are interested in our group and already know one of our number?’
‘That’s right,’ said Gemma. ‘Grace Kingston.’
‘And how do you know Grace?’ he asked, still smiling.
‘She’s a friend,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I fear t
here’s been a little misunderstanding on your part.’
‘Not at all,’ said Gemma. ‘I understand perfectly why I’m here. I had a letter from her.’
‘A letter. That may be so,’ he said, ‘but we don’t have any family or friends in the world any more, Miss Lincoln. Not once we’ve joined The Group and received our personal message from Heaven. No friends except the friends among The Group and no family except the family of God.’
Gemma noticed Yeshwa’s eyes were flickering between her cleavage and a point just a little to the left side of her head – as if someone was standing there. She even turned sharply, half-expecting Gretel’s presence just behind her, but she was alone with Yeshwa.
‘You see,’ said Yeshwa, ‘Grace has been informed of your presence. But she has the right to decide with whom she will connect. And the fact is, she doesn’t want to see you. I’m very sorry to say you’ve wasted your time.’
Yeshwa’s manner was obsidian courtesy, perfectly well-mannered and implacable. His eyes continued their peculiar trajectories between her cleavage, her own eyes and the point just to her left.
‘And now,’ Yeshwa continued, ‘I must excuse myself. Our sister Gretel will show you out.’
‘But my reading . . . I want to hear my message,’ Gemma managed, noticing that Yeshwa’s gaze was now firmly fixed on her cleavage.
‘It’s a little unorthodox without an appointment,’ Yeshwa smiled at her condescendingly now, ‘but then, heavenly entities are very different from us. I’m just getting the message that we could waive the usual regulations for you.’
‘That sounds hopeful,’ said Gemma.
‘Are you aware that you have a very powerful presence that accompanies you?’
‘Not as such,’ she said vaguely, biting back a bad joke about body odour.
‘This presence indicates that if you were to undergo a clearing ritual, you could perhaps receive Reziel’s wisdom and see your friend.’ Yeshwa’s eyes moved to the point behind her left shoulder. ‘Because then you would truly have a relationship based in truth, rather than illusion.’
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