Hailstone

by Nina Smith

  “Preacher.” She jerked her head at the lounge room. “John said you might come over. He’s in there.”

  Preacher nodded and went straight into the lounge room. Rude.

  Magda grinned when the door closed in her face. She knelt down and peered through the keyhole. She could just make out Preacher leaning over John’s shoulder to see the laptop. John didn’t look in a good way at all. They talked in low voices for a few minutes. She knew when they opened up the first porn file, because Preacher’s hair almost stood on end in shock. Then he started shouting.

  She retreated down the hall for a few minutes. The shouting got more frantic; she could hear John protesting his innocence. A thud made her flinch. Had Preacher actually hit him?

  Magda went back to the lounge room and opened the door. “Is everything okay?”

  “Look at this!” Preacher roared. His pointed finger quivered over the laptop, where a picture of a man doing something entirely indecent to another man covered the screen. “I can’t believe someone I took to my house and home could be leering at this filth!”

  “John?” Magda gave him a look of disbelief. Maybe when this was all over she’d go into the movies, she thought. Acting was too easy.

  “Magdalene, tell him,” John begged. “This is not mine. I would never have these things.”

  “Perhaps it’s some kind of accident.” Magda went over to the laptop and closed the image.

  Preacher calmed slightly. “An accident?”

  “You know, some kind of virus in the computer? I’ve heard you can get anything when you go on the internet.” Magda opened a different file. She covered her eyes. “Oh my God! John!”

  Preacher leaned over her shoulder and was confronted with a close up photo of an erect penis tattooed with a butterfly. “Magdalene, you are too innocent,” he said. “This filth is here on purpose.”

  Magda shut down the image and gave John her best look of betrayal. “John, is this what you do when you’re away from me?”

  “They’re not mine!” John grabbed for the laptop. Preacher pushed him away.

  Magda opened up Jonah Sand’s file. “This one is different, Preacher,” she said. “What does all this mean? Who’s Jonah Sand?”

  John groaned and put his face in his hands. Magda scrolled to the bottom of the page. Preacher leaned over her shoulder.

  “Suicide?” Preacher sounded subdued. “You had a suicide and you didn’t tell me?”

  Magda went down further and scanned the new article she’d pasted in there for the second time. “What’s this Centre they’re talking about, John? Is this why the police rang? Did you – did you run away from them?”

  “Police?” Preacher straightened. “John, what have you done?”

  “I was going to tell you,” John said. He retreated to the easy chair and nursed what must have been a pounding head. “Soon.”

  “Oh my God!” Magda yelled, as though she’d just figured it out. “This is what you were talking about! This is what you were going to do to me! Preacher, he killed this boy, and he was going to do the same thing to me!”

  “I didn’t kill him!” John yelled.

  “And I didn’t fund your trial so you could leave a body count!” Preacher roared.

  Magda pointed at the article. “Preacher it says here this woman was made to perform sex acts. John did you do this?”

  “Shut the hell up woman!” John cried.

  Preacher upended the table and sent the laptop flying across the room. “Do not speak to my daughter like that, sir!” His voice rose on every word.

  Magda got out of his way.

  “Do not ever speak to my daughter again!” Preacher thundered. “Get out of my house! You are banished from my Congregation! Go back to Gibson and face the consequences of your actions!”

  John stood up. He swayed, a little unsteady. “She’s my wife,” he said. “She comes with me.”

  “God will sanction this one divorce. Magdalene, go and pack his things.”

  FRIDAY

  Magda smiled at the ceiling. There was something about waking up knowing she’d never have to look at John again that just made her happy. Sure, divorce probably wouldn’t be as simple a matter as Preacher seemed to think, but for all intents and purposes she was no longer a wife and she intended to remain that way.

  She stretched. She’d gone out after Preacher finally left and no trace of John remained in the house, bought seven bottles of vodka and put them into all her favourite hiding places. Preacher never even knew she’d gone. She’d got a prescription and stocked up on valium too, and while she was at the chemist, bought some makeup so she could cover the bruises until they faded. There’d be no more of those. She was determined.

  Her phone rang. Magda reached for it and frowned at the scratches. Maybe one trace of John remained. She flipped it open. “Hello.”

  “Hello gorgeous!” Adam sang down the line.

  Magda grinned. “Hey. What’s happening?”

  “I thought maybe you’d like to know there’s a rally happening in the square.”

  Magda made a face. “Yeah, because the last one was so much fun. Preacher didn’t say anything.”

  “This isn’t Preacher’s rally, darling. The rest of Hailstone is sick of your Daddy’s church forcing their beliefs down everyone’s throats. They’re protesting the new alcohol laws. I’ll be going by your street in ten minutes, want me to pick you up?”

  Magda leaped out of bed. “I’ll be at the corner, across from the church, okay?”

  Adam chuckled. “See you soon.”

  Magda hung up. She dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, smeared concealer over the marks on her face and put on lipstick. She pursed her lips and blew herself a kiss in the mirror. Everything was going to be different now. No more husband. No more letting Preacher control her life.

  She put on a big coat with a hood in case Preacher was out and about, locked the house – her house – and strolled down the street. She avoided the church. She even skirted the edges of the cold shadow it threw in the morning sun. She stopped around the corner; a white stretch limousine pulled over to the side of the road in front of her. Magda grinned.

  “Magdalene!”

  She flinched. She didn’t need to look to know Preacher had just come out of the church. She looked at the ground.

  “Magdalene where are you going?”

  The door opened. Magda climbed into the car.

  “Magdalene McAllister do not get in that car!”

  She shut the door and blocked out the sound of Preacher’s voice. She was in the biggest back seat she’d ever seen, all done in leather, with a bar fridge in the corner and a bottle of champagne on ice on the seat. Adam sat across from her. “Hi,” she said. “Can we go?”

  Adam grinned and knocked on the partition. Magda flinched when Preacher thumped on the window next to her. The car pulled away and left him behind, no doubt choking in near-apoplectic rage, from the look on his face.

  “Is he going to send the Congregation mafia after you?” Adam said.

  “Probably.” Magda bit her lip.

  “And your husband?”

  She grinned. “He’s not a problem anymore. Sorry about him, by the way. He took the phone off me the other day.”

  “I gathered.” Adam poured two glasses from the bottle of champagne. “So what happened?”

  “He hit me.” Magda scowled at her glass and took a sip. The bubbles tickled her throat.

  “And where did you bury him?”

  She snorted. “I didn’t. I put porn on his laptop and left it where Preacher would find it. Preacher did the rest.”

  Adam lay on the seat laughing for the next three minutes. Magda grinned at him. She thought about telling him the rest, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted to talk to Kat about it. Kat was the brainiest person she knew, she’d know what to do.

  Adam took a deep breath and wiped his eyes. “Seriously? You porn-bombed his laptop? Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you.
”

  Magda watched him over the rim of her glass. “Will Kat be at the protest?”

  “I sure hope so. The paper comes out on Monday, it’d be terrible if only the church rally was in it. Here we are.”

  The limousine pulled up outside city square and Adam and Magda alighted. “Is this yours?” Magda patted the roof of the car before it drove off.

  Adam grinned. “I wish. No, I just hire it when I want to go somewhere in a bit more style. Come on darling.”

  The square was once again filled with a crush of people, but the whole atmosphere was different. Instead of suits, collars and conservative skirts, the crowd was filled with colour. Girls wore short dresses, jeans, long flowing skirts, even tank tops. Preacher would have fainted at that amount of skin. The men wore jeans and cut-offs. Some had no shirts. One was swathed head to foot in a red, orange and green sarong. Even Adam added to the colour; he wore a Hawaiian shirt in which red and pink swirls clashed with a bright yellow palm tree. A girl balanced on the fountain wall and juggled. A man on stilts swayed above the crowd, his shock of red hair silhouetted against the blue sky.

  Magda shed her coat and left it in a corner. This crowd had placards too, but they didn’t frighten her like Preacher’s had. No references to Satan whatsoever. Our lives, our choice, some said. Keep religion out of law, said another, but her personal favourite was carried by the guy in the sarong. Get your religion out of my face.

  A man carrying a video camera on his shoulder stopped in front of Adam. A woman with slicked-back hair and bright red lipstick thrust a microphone in his face. “Mr Seymour, is it true you organised this rally yourself?”

  Magda ducked out of the way and stood behind the camera.

  “Darling, I heard about it on facebook like everyone else,” Adam said.

  “But isn’t it in your business interest to promote a gathering like this?”

  Adam lost his grin. “It’s in my interest to ensure personal freedoms are safeguarded in Hailstone. If one religious organisation is allowed to push to revoke people’s right to drink, what rights will be next?”

  “But don’t you agree that the new laws will protect our youth from homelessness, prostitution and violence?”

  “No I do not. If young people want to drink they’ll find a way regardless of the laws. If people are innately violent, they will turn on others with or without alcohol. Maybe you should look at domestic violence within the Congregation. What channel are you from?”

  “This is 3CE Christian TV,” the woman replied.

  “Oh really?” Adam pursed his lips and looked into the camera. “Bottoms up darlings,” he said. “Come on, Mags.”

  Magda moved into the crowd with him. When the urge to squeal with laughter faded, the throbbing returned. “You probably shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

  “Done what?” Adam waved to people and kissed the cheek of a young man they passed.

  “Taunted them like that.” Magda waited for him to catch up. “I mean, it was funny, but I don’t trust them.”

  “They’re Christians, Mags, what are they going to do? Pray for me?”

  Magda thought about Jonah Sand, but Adam looked so happy being here in the crowd, centre of attention, she didn’t want to bring him down. “Never mind,” she said. “I’m going to look for Kat.”

  “Okay darling! Come find me later and we’ll go partying.”

  Magda pushed her way into the crowd. She went and sat on the fountain wall where the girl had been juggling. She’d gone now. The crowd was dense, but no more so than the Congregation’s rally had been. That alone made her nervous. Somebody made speeches over a loudspeaker and the crowd yelled responses. Somebody on the other side of the Square had a boombox belting out music; people danced. The atmosphere was more like a carnival than a protest.

  She stood up on the wall and looked out over the heads of the crowd. A line of police cars were parked along the road at the edge of the square. Blue uniforms moved among the crowd.

  Magda sat down again. The throbbing in her head was like a drumbeat. She fished in her purse for a pill and swallowed it dry. She wondered if it was her imagination, or if the valium just wasn’t having the same effect it used to. She swallowed another one.

  A lull in the crowd made her look around. A policeman had grabbed the loudspeaker off the person addressing the rally. His words boomed out over the square.

  “Please disperse and go to your homes,” the policeman said. “Under city ordinance number 52C, this gathering is illegal. Please disperse and quietly return to your homes.”

  Magda jumped to her feet. She hadn’t been around for the end of the church rally, but she was damn sure this hadn’t happened there. She could almost feel the anger ripple through the crowd.

  “Hell no, we won’t go!” yelled someone near the policeman.

  The chant spread through the press of bodies like a grass fire. Magda balanced on the fountain wall and yelled with them. In church, when the Congregations’ voices swelled up together singing hymns, she never joined in. She never joined the prayers or the responses either; she just observed how the sound of voices chanting in unison seemed to lift people.

  Now she understood. The crowd’s anger coursed through her veins like electricity and she felt like she was finally part of something. Even when the police strode into the thickest part of the crowd and started arresting people, she kept yelling.

  Somebody tugged on her hand.

  Magda looked down. She jumped off the wall and grinned. “Kat! You’re here!”

  “I’m here.” Kat shifted the strap of her camera bag. “And I’d prefer not to be, this is getting unpleasant. Come with me. I can get you out of here without getting arrested. No wait a second.” She plucked the camera from her bag, hopped up on the wall and snapped pictures of a knot of people nearby who struggled with a police officer. Several more uniforms joined the fray and people were forced to the ground and handcuffed.

  Magda watched the scene in disbelief. It felt like she was watching it on a screen. This kind of thing just didn’t happen in Hailstone.

  “Okay, I’m good now. Card’s full up though.” Kat hopped down from the wall, swapped out the memory card with a new one and then put her camera away. “Let’s go.”

  Magda went. Anything to get away from the sounds one man made when the police aimed capsicum spray at him. She and Kat dodged through the crowd. The carnival atmosphere was all gone; people had panicked. Some were in it for the fight. Others tried to get out of the square.

  “This way, there’s another exit.” Kat aimed for a narrow alley that would take them out to the cafe strip, but no sooner had they reached it than a knot of policemen closed in.

  “Hey!” Kat yelled. She and Magda went back to back. Kat waved a press card at them. “Listen, I’m just here doing my job. We’re leaving quietly, like you said.”

  Magda wasn’t sure they were even listening. Two policemen moved in and grabbed each of them. A hand in the middle of her back sent her sprawling into a wall; she could see Kat in a similar predicament, still arguing, while the cold metal of handcuffs closed around her wrists.

  Magda was hustled into the back of a police van. She landed on the bench seat next to several others and watched through the open door while an officer took Kat’s camera and removed the memory card.

  “Hey!” Kat yelled.

  Magda looked at him hard. She was sure he was one of the Congregation.

  The officer dropped the camera on the ground. It bounced; several plastic pieces flew off it. Magda winced.

  “Asshole!” Kat yelled. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  He shoved her into the back of the van with the rest of them and closed the doors.

  Kat landed next to Magda. The van lurched into motion.

  Magda looked sidelong at her. “What the hell?” she said.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” But rather than looking as angry as Magda had expected, Kat grinned. “I’ve stil
l got the pictures,” she whispered. “And the paper will replace the camera.”

  “You swapped the cards.” Magda bit her lip. Damn, she liked this woman.

  “Lucky or what? It’s in my back pocket.”

  *

  They were crammed into a cell with twenty other protesters at the police station. They came for Kat soon after and told her she was free to go; Magda watched her follow the policeman down the hall and disappear. She’d said she’d try and get Magda out too, but Magda knew Preacher had probably already been called. She ignored the others as best she could. They were still angry and busting to fight the police, but she was just frightened. She’d never been arrested before. Preacher would be furious.

  Finally they came for her. A young policeman she knew damn well went to church every week led her from the cells and into the station. He showed her her pills in a zip-lock bag. “We’ve confiscated these,” he said. “They’ll be sent to the laboratory for testing.”

  “They’re valium.” Magda sighed. “I have a prescription.”

  He leaned forward. “Magdalene you know Preacher says these kinds of things are not allowed,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be the one to tell him his own daughter is using drugs.”

  “Legal drugs,” she said though clenched teeth. “I’m thirty years old. I have a right to use prescription drugs without his say so. Especially when they prevent me from being a complete psychological basket case.”

  “I know what goes on in your family,” he said. “The whole Congregation does. If you’d just put yourself in Preacher’s hands, things could be so much easier.”

  Magda tilted her head and looked at the man. He was younger than her, fresh-faced, not long out of police school. Preacher actively encouraged the young men of the Congregation into the academy. She thought maybe she understood why. “Preacher’s hands?” she said. “Do you have any idea what’s waiting for me at Preacher’s hands when I get home?”

  “We must all face the consequences of our actions.”

  “And when I turn up to church on Sunday covered in bruises and you all mutter about how clumsy I am, what then?” Magda unclenched her teeth and moved away from him. “You’re all the same. Get on with it. I’d rather be home waiting for Preacher to hit me a few more times than talking to a gutless, brainwashed idiot like you.”