Hailstone (6 page)

Magda snorted. “Why should you even care if I was? You can’t stand me!”

John dropped the phone and put his foot on it. “Tell me the truth.”

Magda eyed her phone. Her lifeline
. Who cared? She could get another one. “What about you? Where do you go all the time, John? Have you got another wife hidden away somewhere? One who doesn’t turn your delicate stomach?”

He ground his heel into the phone. Magda winced, but as far as she could see, nothing broke. He was probably only scratching it up. The ringing continued and the cheeks above his beard went red, making him look like some kind of demented Santa Clause. “Who is he?” he yelled.

Magda decided to keep her cool. She kept his gaze so he’d know she wasn’t afraid. She took another cigarette out of her bag, lit it and took a deep drag. “Go fuck yourself, you fucking Jesus freak,” she said.

John had big hands. She’d never really noticed until that moment, when one hand smacked her across the face, sending her cigarette flying. The back of her head snapped into the wall. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pinned her there. John spoke into her ear in an ugly, thick voice she’d never heard from him before, but the shock of that voice was nothing to the shock of the blow. He’d never done that. Never. If he had, she’d have taken her gun and killed him with it.

“Your rebellion against me, Preacher and God stops now,” John hissed at her. “You’ll grow your hair long. You’ll learn to be a good wife and daughter. You’ll submit to Preacher’s teachings and my instructions. There’ll be no more cigarettes or alcohol or whoring yourself out to other men. You’ll become the woman Preacher promised me when I agreed to marry you.”

He let her go. Magda stumbled and fell on the street. She reached out, grabbed her phone off the ground and stuffed it into her bag.

“Understood?” John stood over her.

She nodded.

“Good.” He held out a hand.

Magda ignored the hand. She got to her feet on her own. She felt dizzy. The throbbing was out of control. She almost bolted out of the alley, but Preacher appeared behind John. She blinked; she couldn’t quite focus on him. Crap. Was she concussed again?

“That was very successful, despite the interruption,” Preacher said. He looked smug. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

Magda followed them down the alley. She did her best not to bump into the walls, although it wasn’t the easiest task. She barely noticed the distance, what with trying to stay upright, but when they reached the car she had to lean against it and take a rest. Preacher’s chatter hurt her ears.

“I see you took my advice on handling your wife, John,” he said. “It’s about time. I’ve never seen her this docile.”

Magda decided s
he’d have to shoot them both.

*

Magda sat in the corner of the couch, legs drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. It was as far away from John as she could get without leaving the room, which apparently he didn’t trust her to do. No, he’d insisted they watch TV together and eat takeaway. She wondered why she wasn’t allowed to drink coffee, but it was perfectly alright for her husband to force feed her saturated fat masquerading as fried chicken.

It wasn’t even interesting TV. At least, it wasn’t interesting until 7.30, when John changed the channel to a news program on a commercial channel nobody was supposed to watch unless Preacher happened to be on it.

Magda leaned forward to see better over her knees. At least she could focus now. What a surprise, there was Preacher in the newsroom, dressed in a neat black suit, hair all slicked back, looking like the greedy old televangelist he aspired to be. Facing him on the opposite chair was Adam, who managed to make a tailored red and yellow suit look stylish. Magda rested her chin on her knees and smiled.

“That man is a disgrace to Hailstone,” John said.

Magda glanced at Preacher. “Isn’t he though.”

The newsreader, a serious-looking man dressed as soberly as Preacher, took a seat between them and looked into the camera. “Welcome to channel 39 News, I’m Peter Baker. Tonight we have with us the spokespeople for the two sides of an issue that appears to have split the city of Hailstone right down the centre. Preacher Semple, to my right, is the driving force behind a campaign to make Hailstone a dry city; Semple and his
Congregation, who number in the thousands, believe alcohol is the source of a rising crime rate and social problems that plague the city. To my left is Adam Seymour, owner and spokesperson for Hells Bells Vodka, the business on which Hailstone was virtually built in the early twentieth century. Mr Seymour bought out the business five years ago and has since expanded it into export markets both around the country and internationally. Preacher Semple, Mr Seymour, good evening.”

Both men nodded. Adam winked at the camera. John grumbled under his beard; Magda smiled.

“Preacher Semple,” the newsreader said. “You claim the skyrocketing sales of Hells Bells vodka are the source of growing social problems throughout the city. What are you basing your claims on?”

Preacher cleared his throat. “Peter, these are not claims. These are facts. Every day members of my
Congregation report to me the scourge they witness on the streets and sometimes in their own families. I myself have had the trauma of witnessing my own daughter’s slide into alcohol addiction.”

Magda scowled.

“Crime rates all over the city are up,” Preacher continued. “People don’t feel safe. And it’s not just the alcohol that causes the problems, there’s also the promotion of immoral lifestyles.”

The newsreader cleared his throat. “Let’s keep on topic, shall we?” He turned to Adam. “Mr Seymour, what do you have to say in reply to Preacher Semple’s claims?”

Adam pursed his lips and took a moment to think. “Firstly Peter,” he said, “I’d like to give you some of my own facts and figures. Hells Bells Vodka employs exactly 9,085 people, directly and indirectly, representing about a third of the city’s population. We export our product all over the world, and the income from that returns directly to Hailstone to support not only all those jobs, but numerous private businesses. We also sponsor local charities and run four food vans in the city to support the homeless population.”

“Who wouldn’t be homeless if they had no alcohol,” Preacher interrupted.

“That’s not entirely true, Preacher,” Adam shot back. “People become homeless for a variety of reasons, among them the bigotry of families turning them out because they’re different. I wonder how many of those homeless have families that belong to your Congregation?”

“Every individual in my church is given the opportunity to mend their ways and lead a godly life,” Preacher said.

“And as for your crime statistics,” Adam continued, “I wonder what the statistics are on domestic violence that is not fuelled by alcohol in the city? I’m reliably informed there are more than a few wives and children in certain parts of the city suffering violence from husbands and fathers and too afraid to speak out because of church rules.”

“That’s an outrageous accusation!” Preacher’s eyes bugged. “Especially from someone who lives a filthy, immoral lifestyle like you! Once alcohol is removed from this city, your damaging influence over our children will be gone too!”

“I wonder what’s more damaging, Preacher, a person who refuses to hide their differences, or a fist in the face?”

“Gentlemen,” Peter said. “Please, let’s get back on topic.”

Magda got up.

“Where are you going?” John eyed her.

“Bed. I can’t watch any more of this.” Magda left the room before he could argue.

She went straight to her bedroom, locked the door and swallowed a pill from a stash in the closet.
Then she buried her face in the pillow and tried to sleep.

Thursday

Magda sat on the kitchen table and drank vodka. The door was locked, even though John had gone out earlier. She was amazed he’d left her alone. She’d downed three pills since she got up two hours ago. She’d gone into the bathroom and looked at fresh bruises on top of fading bruises on her face. She was a mess. Of course she wouldn’t go anywhere, looking like this. She couldn’t face Kat. She didn’t dare go to Adam. She thought about Joseph’s black eye, and the mayor addressing the
Congregation, and the burning Hells Bells Vodka poster. These people should all be put in jail. The whole thing was completely insane.

She drained the last drop of vodka from her bottle and ditched it at the sink; the glass smashed.

Magda swung her legs off the table. She unlocked the kitchen door and listened to the house. Silence greeted her. Good.

She went to the front door and locked it. Preacher had a key, so she shoved the hall table up against it too. “Alright John,” she said to the empty house. “There’s no way you’re squeaky clean. What is it you do?”

She started in the lounge room, but it was clean, of course, he wouldn’t leave anything in there; the kitchen was her domain, so that was no good either. She tentatively pushed at his bedroom door and found it unlocked.

They’d never shared a room. Of course there’d been a fumbled coupling or two early in their marriage, but he was as repressed as all the other men who thought the sun shone out of Preacher’s rear end, and she had little use for men.

She closed the door behind her. She’d never even come in here, not once in ten years. When John was away she preferred to pretend he didn’t exist. When he was home she still preferred to pretend he didn’t exist. The room was nothing out of the ordinary; he’d made the bed. The floor was neat and tidy, the curtains drawn. There was a cross on the wall.

She pulled out the drawers in his bureau. Nothing there but
neatly folded socks and underwear. God, could she have been forced to marry a less interesting man?

Magda went to the built-in wardrobe. The doors slid open, same as hers, onto shelves and hanging space. She rifled through his clothes, searching for anything hidden at the back, before turning her attention to the tops of the shelves. She patted the area down with one hand and found a briefcase. She lifted it down, followed by two shoeboxes. Apparently that was it.

She took the case and the boxes over to the bed. The first shoebox had photos in it. Their wedding photos. Charming. She’d worn a long white dress and a heavy veil to cover the bruises Preacher gave her when she tried to run away the night before. The veil had to come off after the vows, and then everyone had pointedly ignored her puffy eyes and split lip and told her she looked beautiful. The memory still made her want to slap people.

There was a picture of John and Preacher outside
some building. The two had taken a trip out of Hailstone once, years ago. Best week of her life. Then a bunch of people she didn’t recognise. An old woman. His mother, perhaps? He never spoke of his family. Groups of people in suits. They all looked like they belonged to the church, but she didn’t know the faces. A young girl. A middle-aged man. The young girl triggered a memory. Had she gone to school with her? Magda could remember a girl who looked like that who’d left the church, years and years ago, but a name eluded her. Maybe she should stop killing brain cells.

She pushed the photos aside. The second box wasn’t much more help; just a bunch of keepsakes, the kind she’d expect a bearded old man to have, keys and school medallions and an old bullet.

The briefcase wouldn’t open. Magda shoved the two shoeboxes back into their places and took it out into the kitchen, where she jimmied the lock open with a screwdriver she kept in the back of the drawer behind the spoons. She’d learned to break locks almost as soon as Preacher had taken to locking her in places as a kid.

She lifted the lid on the briefcase. Interesting. He kept a laptop in there. Magda switched it on and waited for the operating system to load.

Password. She scowled. He really did have something to hide. What would a man like John use as a password?

God,
she typed in, but it didn’t work. Neither did
Jesus,
or
God is great
. She typed in
Satan,
just for a change of pace, but that didn’t work either.
Congregation of the Holy Bible
was just as useless. Magda tried her own name, and Preacher’s, to no avail.

Preacher McAllister,
she wrote in, just because anything was worth a try. The screen blinked and the desktop loaded.

“John McAllister, who’d have thought it?” she murmured.
It kind of made sense. Why else would he have agreed to marry her ten years ago, if not to establish himself as Preacher’s successor?

She brushed her fingers over the mouse pad to move the cursor to the documents folder. It took a moment to open up.

Magda frowned at the list of files. They were all names, none of them names she knew. She opened one at random; Miranda Tyson.

The file contained a head and shoulders shot of the same young girl as the photo in the shoebox. She was pretty, in a pale, serious kind of way, and wore a drab grey collar high around her neck. Miranda Tyson. Magda remembered her now. She’d been a lot like Joseph, a church teen who rebelled at every opportunity until her parents sent her away.

So why did John have a file on her?

Magda read down the page. The file listed her age as 27, which would be right.
Condition: Drug Addict,
insolent,
it said.

Then there were a whole lot of words Magda couldn’t for the life of her understand.

Miranda has made great progress since undertaking the experimental program,
the file said, right at the bottom of the page.
Despite being one of the first subjects to undergo the treatment, and one of the most difficult, she no longer uses drugs of any kind. She is meek and obedient and praises the word of God. She has stayed on at the Centre as an assistant.

Magda shuddered. Great. No doubt another one of Preacher’s little pet outreac
h projects, although it was odd he hadn’t based it in Hailstone.

She read more files. Brian Page, 42, had been cured of alcoholism and Sarah Michaels, 34, of a problem with anger. Amanda Wales had gone in for promiscuity. Magda looked closer at the picture. “Amanda?” she murmured. The same Amanda who had failed so spectacularly to cure her of being a bad girl?

Magda listened to the house for a moment; silence. She breathed a sigh of relief. All of the files she’d read so far said the people had stayed on as volunteers and assistants. Whatever this program was, it sounded like a one way ticket.

She opened up another file. Jonah Sand, 18. His condition was listed as
immoral lifestyle choice.
Magda felt ill, but she clenched her teeth and read on.

Jonah entered the program at the request of his parents,
read the paragraph at the bottom of the page.
He showed early promise under the ministry of the program’s foremost counsellor, John McAllister, but later showed signs of rebellion. A more intensive series of sessions was implemented, but Jonah could not be brought into corrective behaviour patterns. Counsellors were unable to prevent the suicide. Lawsuit pending.

Under that, the death was dated as happening just a week and a half ago.

Magda rubbed her head. The throbbing was back. Something here was really, really, off. John, a counsellor? And was Amanda a typical result of his counselling? How could she not know about this? Surely Preacher wouldn’t sanction something that pushed kids to suicide. Surely not.

Magda shut down the file and put her head in her hands. Well, this was something, but she didn’t know if it was enough. She wondered what exactly had driven Jonah Sand to suicide. It wasn’t hard to imagine. Her hands shook against her face.

The house was still. Magda reached for the vodka, but the bottle was in pieces in the sink. She swallowed a pill instead. She took the laptop over to her house computer and swapped the network cords from the internet Preacher didn’t know she had to the laptop. There was no problem getting the machine onto the web; it was all set up.

Magda pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes and thought about what she was about to do. She typed in a few search terms. Sex toys. Boobs. Bums. Male on male. She wished she had more vodka to numb the feeling that this time she was going too far, but she didn’t. She saved a few choice pictures to John’s folders.

When she was happy she had enough pictures, she typed Jonah Sand into the search engine.

A list of news articles came up. She scanned the first of them.

Police in the eastern City of Gibson are investigating alleged abuse at a Christian outreach centre after the suicide of Jonah Sand,18, who was reportedly admitted to the Centre for controversial anti-gay therapy.

Mr Sand jumped from the roof of the three storey building.

The Centre, which has been operating for eight years at a property outside the city, is battling allegations of abuse from Jonah’s parents and some former clients. One former client, who refused to be named, claims she was manipulated by a counsellor into performing sex acts as part of her treatment.

Police have temporarily closed the centre and are questioning current and former clients, along with staff.

Centre management declined to comment.

Magda pasted the contents of the article into Jonah’s file. Then she closed down the laptop, unplugged it from her modem and went and replaced it in the case. The motions seemed so ordinary they frightened her. How odd, to be frightened by the banal when you’d just found out your husband was responsible for a death. Why wasn’t he back there in Gibson, talking to the police? Had he run?

She took the case into the lounge room and shoved it under the couch. She turned on the TV to distract herself, but the Mayor’s pudgy face on the news just disturbed her more. She was about to flip channels when his words caught her attention.

“In a world first experiment, Hailstone City Council will consider by-laws to ban drinking in public places, al fresco bars, restaurants and other family friendly places,” Mr Georgiou said. “The city will also put higher rates on properties where alcohol is produced and charge a levy on all alcohol sales. The measures are designed to reduce growing alcohol-fuelled social problems in the city and make Hailstone the number one destination for families.”

“Jesus Christ.” Magda turned the TV off. “This city’s going to hell.” She scowled at the blank screen. All this social experimentation was scaring the bejesus out of her.

She sighed when John’s car pulled into the driveway. She moved the table away from the door, unlocked it and went back to the kitchen to clean the broken glass out of the sink. She put one of her pills on a saucer and crushed it with a knife. The last bottle of vodka was hidden under the sink; she poured a measure into a glass and took a swig.

John walked in just as she emptied the last shards of broken glass into the bin. He sat at the table. “I’m glad to see you home,” he said.

“Where else would I be?” she turned on the kettle to make two cups of chamomile tea.

“I never know, with you.”

The silence stretched out between them. Magda blocked his view of the cup with her body and emptied the powdered valium into the mug. She poured some of the vodka in there for good measure and added the rest to her own before setting the two cups down on the table.

She sat facing him and put her chin on her hands. In ten years, she’d thoroughly avoided conversations with her husband, or even having a good, proper look at him. The beard had always seemed just a little creepy. The worn, pitted skin and the flaring nostrils made him look old. His hairline receded from the forehead and thinned even more on top. She tried to imagine him bullying a teenage boy enough to force him to suicide. Or mistreating the trust of a young girl and forcing her to sexual acts. Or fleeing from the police. Looking at him now, she couldn’t imagine him doing anything more dangerous than reading from his prayer book. But yesterday, when he’d hit her, that was a different matter.
You’ll become the woman Preacher promised me when I agreed to marry you,
he’d said. Was he planning to try his freaky counselling on her?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” John took a sip from his tea.

Magda widened her eyes to give the impression of innocence. “Like what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“John, I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” she said.

He nodded and avoided her eyes.

“Maybe you were right. Maybe I haven’t made enough of an effort to be a good wife to you.”

That took him by surprise. His eyebrows shot up.

Magda took a sip of her tea. The vapour of the vodka soothed the faint throb in her head. “I just don’t know how,” she said. “The urge to be bad overwhelms me. When you go off and leave me alone I don’t know how to resist it. Please understand, John, I don’t want to be this way. I need your help.” She looked right at him with her best honest expression. If Preacher was right and God existed, she’d go to hell on the strength of the lies she’d just told alone, but doing this kind of thing was getting easier and easier. All she had to do was wing it.