Resurrectionists (32 page)

“So you never lived as a family? Together?”

“No. He didn’t even know about me until I was ten. He sent me loads of expensive toys every Christmas thereafter, tried to put me in a good school, paid my rent for two years while I lived in London.”

“But you never formed a bond?”

Sacha laughed. “No. And not for his want of trying. He always phones when he’s going away, tells me I can come and use the place. So I come. I invite friends, I eat all his food, I push his phone bill sky high

– which reminds me, if you want to call Australia, please do – and I always leave dirty dishes in the sink. And he keeps on inviting me.” He drew the curtains closed once more and led her away from the window.

“Come on, I’ll show you your bedroom.”

He gave her the master bedroom, which had its own en suite. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored wardrobe door as she dumped her suitcase on the bed. A mess.

“I might unpack my things and have a shower,” she said, her hands going self-consciously to her hair. “I feel all grimy from travelling.”

“Sure. Use a lot of hot water. I’ll organise some dinner.”

“Great.”

He left, closing the door behind him. A long, steamy shower should clear her head.

She took her time getting dressed again, brushing her hair and applying the tiniest bit of mascara. Just the right amount to enjoy dinner alone with Sacha in a fancy apartment in London.

When she emerged from her bedroom, Sacha was kneeling in front of the stereo flicking through a CD

rack.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for some music to put on.”

She joined him, glancing at the CDs. Mostly syrupy, middle-of-the-road collections of love songs.

“Slim pickings,” she said.

“These are mostly Claire’s.”

“Claire?”

“Dad’s wife. My twenty-six-year-old stepmother. Hey, why don’t you provide the music?”

“Me? What with?”

He leaned back on his haunches and pointed at the piano. “You can play, can’t you?”

“Yes, but not well.”

“Go on.”

She stood and moved to the piano. Playing music in front of somebody, even Sacha, could never make her uncomfortable. She’d been born into it.

“Okay, you asked for it.”

She flipped the lid up and did a quick scale to get a feel for the keyboard. Then launched into one of her old exam pieces, a Bach prelude which was fast and fun to play. When she finished she looked up.

“You play beautifully,” he said.

“No, I play
adequately
. You should hear my mother play. It would tear your heart out.”

“Are you better at cello?”

“A little. I mean, yes, of course I’m good at it. I do it for a living. But I’m never going to be a principal player, or a solo artist. My parents are really disappointed in me, though they’d never admit it. I’m sure they would have preferred to have a child prodigy. After all they gave up for me.” She picked out a little melody on the keys, watching her own fingers as though they didn’t belong to her. There was a long silence. Eventually Maisie filled it. “I just have no real passion for it.” She looked up. He was watching her, listening.

“What do you have a passion for?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’m empty at the core.”

“I don’t believe that.”

She shrugged. “I
want
to have a passion for something. Maybe this psychic stuff will work out for me. I could be passionate about that, I’m sure.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but at the same moment the doorbell rang. “Hang on,” he said, going to the door. He pressed the security buzzer to let whoever it was into the building. “That’ll be our dinner,” he said.

“Great.”

“I should warn you, a couple of my friends will be coming with it.”

“Oh?”

“I called Shaun and Curtis while you were in the shower and told them to bring a couple of pizzas over. Hope you don’t mind.”

Mind? Why should she mind? Just because she felt she was finally
talking
to him, and now the house would be full of a familiarity that she wouldn’t be a part of …

Sacha opened the door and a few seconds later two men around his age burst in with loud greetings and pizza cartons.

Maisie was introduced as a “friend from

Australia”. She couldn’t figure out if that bothered her or not. Shaun was tall and bespectacled, with fine white hair razor-cut close to his scalp. Curtis was a curly-haired bear with a stupid grin.

Sacha pulled out a couple of bottles of wine, and the four of them enjoyed a feast on the lounge room floor, accompanied by much raucous laughter and reminiscing about past girlfriends, school mates, and teenage misdeeds. Maisie was excluded from most of it. She smiled in all the right places, answered all the dumb, jokey questions about Australia (no, she did not have a pet kangaroo; no, dingoes rarely take babies; no, Ramsay Street is not a real place), and generally managed to be sociable. When it grew late and it looked like Curtis and Shaun weren’t going anywhere, Sacha told them they could sleep on the floor and brought them blankets and pillows. Eternally grateful for her own bathroom and a door with a lock on it, Maisie wished them all goodnight and went to bed to sulk.

“No lights on at Sybill’s house, Reverend,” Tony Blake said over the phone.

Reverend Fowler sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He was an early riser, so he was often in bed and fast asleep by eight-thirty. Nobody ever understood this, and sometimes unapologetic callers would ring as late as ten o’clock. “Is that right?”

“I went up and shone my torch in a couple of windows. Kitchen, laundry. Not a sign of life. Not even the cat.”

“She’s gone away before and come back,” the Reverend replied.

“But she did say she’d leave after Christmas.”

“That’s right.”

“We need to do something, this time,” Tony said.

“We need to get in touch with the family and offer to buy the cottage. That way we can bulldoze it if we want.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“You know I’m right. Do you still have the contact number for the solicitor in York?”

The Reverend yawned. “Yes. Yes I do. I’ll call him on Monday, make an offer on the place.”

“I’m sure it would be for the best. No more new people, Reverend. It’s too much trouble.”

“Of course, Tony. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

“Goodnight, Reverend.”

The Reverend replaced the receiver and rearranged himself under the covers. He was still freezing, could feel his toes like ice in his bedsocks. Perhaps he should have run away to Australia with the girl – warm oceans and sunny parks. If it were warm he could relax, he wouldn’t have to keep his shoulders hunched so tight against the cold. Maybe he would get there some day. Maybe there would be a time when he was too old to be useful any more, and he could spend his last days in the sun. Thinking about his salvation.

“What are your New Year’s resolutions, Maisie?”

Maisie looked up from her drink despondently. Curtis and Shaun had simply refused to go home. Even worse, Curtis now appeared to have developed a crush on her. The two of them were squeezed into an Irish club in Fitzrovia. A man was smoking a cigar practically in her ear. She couldn’t breathe, and Shaun and Sacha had disappeared to buy cigarettes nearly an hour ago. Given that midnight was only twenty minutes away, she was understandably pissed off.

“I have none,” she muttered.

“So you’re perfect already?”

Ha ha. You’re so funny.
“I just don’t believe in them.”

“My New Year’s resolution is to travel. Maybe I should come to Australia. What do you think?”

“I think I need another drink.”

“I’ll get it for you.” He was off to the bar before she could protest. She turned to peer out the front window. Where the hell was Sacha? Why had he stranded her in this awful place – the
Riverdance
soundtrack had been on a loop since ten-thirty – with his awful friend and an awful feeling that he didn’t have the slightest care for her comfort or happiness? In her imagination, this evening had been so different. It had been dinner for two someplace nice, a stroll through the streets, Trafalgar Square at midnight, and a kiss. And, goddammit, that would be the only kind of kiss she was allowed because it was sanctioned by the clock ticking over into the New Year, which only happened one second a year. One second in the year, and he wasn’t even going to be there. Fuck him. Fuck them all.

“Here’s your drink.” Curtis was back.

“Thanks,” she said, not meaning it.

“Nearly midnight.”

“Where the hell is Sacha?”

“They’ll be back, don’t worry.” He took a swig of his beer and smiled. “Don’t you trust me?”

“What?”

“You’re awfully keen for Sacha to be back.”

She shook her head, sipped her drink. “I don’t know you that well. I’d just prefer it if he were here.”

“I’m pretty nice once you get to know me.”

“Look, I’m sure you are, it’s just –”

“Maisie!” This was Sacha, enveloping her suddenly from behind with his leather sleeves and pressing his cheek momentarily to hers. His skin was icy.

“Where were you?” she asked, immediately

wishing she could call back the exasperated demand. He stood back. “We had to walk for ages to find the right brand, then Shaun decided he wanted something to eat. Sorry. I thought you’d be safe with Curtis.”

“Yeah, safe and sound,” she replied.

Shaun lit up a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke which headed straight into her face. Her eyes were already stinging and she despaired of ever getting her clothes to smell fresh again. The closer midnight drew, the hungrier Curtis was looking at her. She hoped she didn’t look like that at Sacha.

She gazed out the window once more as the other three shared a joke about somebody she had never met. The world seemed to shiver in the bitter midwinter cold outside. A few people moved past, collars up against the wind, hurrying to be somewhere special or just to find a warm place to see the new year in. She had the most peculiar feeling of distance, almost as though she were watching herself from afar. What was she doing here, so far from home? It had been a new year for ten hours back in Brisbane. Her mother would be awake already, clearing Christmas leftovers out of the fridge, wiping down the shelves before she made her first breakfast of the year. Perhaps her father was awake too, reading a spy novel in bed. Adrian was probably trying to sleep off his late night in the sticky heat of morning. With an empty space next to him where she was supposed to be.

“. . . Maisie?”

“Huh?”

Shaun was asking her something. “Do you have any resolutions?”

“Oh. Curtis already asked me that. No.”

“Well, if you change your mind it had better be quick.”

Somebody had started a countdown at sixty

seconds. Other voices joined in, until it seemed everybody in the whole place was chanting.

“Thirty-two, thirty-one . . .”

As undetectably as she could, she inched away from Curtis.
Please don’t let him get me.
She could see his shoulders lean forward for the pounce out of the corner of her eye.

“Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven . . .”

Sacha glanced at her with an unsteady smile. He had been drinking since seven that evening. In fact, all of them had. Maybe that was why her head was throbbing slowly.

“Five, four, three . . .”

She leaned close to Sacha, felt the proximity of his body like a promise.

“Happy New Year!” the chorus cried.
Auld Lang
Syne
sprang from nowhere, everybody was singing along with the bits they knew.

“Happy New Year, Sacha,” Maisie said.

“Happy New Year, Maisie,” he replied. For an alltoo-brief moment his lips were on hers, then she felt herself pulled into Curtis’s arms. She deftly out-stepped him and grabbed hold of Shaun: he smelled much better. Around them all, people were singing, laughing, squealing, hugging, kissing, blowing party favours. Streamers descended from everywhere. Shaun passed her back to Sacha who put his arm around her briefly, then reached instead for his drink. She had already forgotten how it had felt to kiss him.

They stumbled home about an hour later. Curtis and Shaun had taken it for granted that they were staying the night again. Maisie tried to cheer herself with the thought that at least she wasn’t alone like at Christmas. But next time she went on a voyage of selfdiscovery, she would have to make sure she planned it not to coincide with the major festive holidays.

“Goodnight,” she called to all of them and none of them particularly, disappearing into her bedroom.

“Goodnight.”

“Happy New Year.”

She locked the door and went to the bathroom to wash the stink of smoke out of her hair. When she emerged into the bedroom once more, in her robe, towel-drying her hair, she was surprised by a gentle knock at the door. Not Curtis, she hoped.

“Who is it?” she called, leaning close to the door.

“It’s Sacha.”

She checked her robe wasn’t gaping and opened the door a crack. “What is it?”

“Can I talk to you a second?”

“Sure.” She let him in and closed the door behind him. “What’s up?”

“I’ll get rid of them tomorrow.”

“Sorry?”

“Shaun and Curtis. I know they’ve outstayed their welcome with you.”

Was it that obvious? He must have thought she was an unfriendly bitch. “Don’t kick them out because of me. They’re nice guys, I like them.”

“No. We came here so that we could spend some time working on developing your psychism. We can’t do that with them around. We need to be alone together.” His breath smelled faintly of rum.

“I suppose you’re right.”

“So they’ll be gone tomorrow morning.” He

paused for a second, as though debating telling her something else.

“Is there something else?”

“Um . . . yes. This is a little embarrassing, but Curtis insisted I ask.”

She groaned inwardly. “Ask what?”

“He thinks you’re beautiful and wants to know if there’s any chance for him.”

“No. There’s no chance for him. I’m not

interested.”