Tom went into the kitchen to make another mug of Maxwell House. It could not go on forever, he reminded himself. With his palms flat on the benchtop while the jug boiled, he looked out at the low evening sun. A nylon half-curtain was strung across the window. He noticed that the play of light magnifi ed the weave and overlaid the fabric with a faint moiré sheen.
He had returned to his essay when a sound fi ltered through his concentration. After a moment he carried his mug across the room and stood close to the wall. He could hear the canned merriment that greeted each quip, but what had captured his attention was the loose, round noise of his mother’s laughter. It was the rarity of the phenomenon that was striking. Tom couldn’t remember the last time he had heard her laugh like that with him.
With the ad break the volume went up and Iris fell silent. Still her son stayed where he was, resting the side of his head against the wall. From time to time he blew lightly on his coffee. When it was cool enough to drink he went back to his work.
Tom had left Nelly at the Preserve and was walking home, attended by a dwarf-double shadow-printed on walls, when he thought of the skipping girl. She had seemed corpse-like, deprived of animating light. Now it occurred to him that her neon had served to cloak the grubby relationship between buyer and seller with obscuring magic. With it switched off, she no longer dazzled her observers but displayed herself for what she was.
A silky, elongated column came into view on the opposite side of the road. It wavered before a window that was sprayed with stars of frost and promised Gift Solutions; Tom watched it rise and sway.
He dodged cars and a grim, lycra-ed cyclist. ‘Mogs!’ he called. ‘Mogs!’
‘Tom! What a super surprise!’ Under the brim of her pale straw hat, Mogs was gold-dusted across the nose.
She was saying, ‘I must say you do look well.’
Tom said, ‘A wonderful thing happened yesterday.’ He said, ‘Coffee?’
‘Well, I ought to be getting back to the gallery-’
But he had seized her arm, above its cuff of shining bracelets.‘There’s a place just past the lights.’A story has no meaning until it is told, and Tom was an Ancient Mariner, brimful of narrative. It overflowed and merged with the changeful kaleidoscope of the street, the cyclist’s turquoise rump poised above his saddle, a six-foot koala jangling a bucket of coins, the silver loop glinting on the lid of the manhole at Mogs’s sandalled feet. ‘Come on,’ said Tom. He considered reaching up and licking her freckles.
‘That’s the most amazing story.’ Mogs’s eyes were glittery. ‘It’s
just so Incredible Journey, plus plus.’
She asked, ‘And he’s all right?’
‘Seems to be. Exhausted, of course. And frighteningly thin.’
‘Oh, the poor love.’
‘He was walking so slowly. Barely moving.’ Tom said, ‘We could have missed him so easily. A few minutes later and we’d have been gone. I’m not sure he’d have had the strength to follow.’
‘Don’t, no. That’s so what you mustn’t do.’ Mogs raised her voice over the industrial gargling of the espresso machine. ‘Once you start thinking what might have happened, there’s no end to the horror. He did find you, the brave old thing.’ She blew her nose resolutely on a paper napkin. The green jewel flashed on her fi nger.
A waitress asked, ‘You guys right there? More coffee? Another wheatgrass?’
‘Oh-no thank you. That was just great.’
‘Just the bill, please.’
Mogs, gathering up bag and hat and sunglasses, said, ‘You know, I’ve always meant to try this place. Isn’t that clock perfect? And these butterfl y coasters. Brilliant.’
The bill arrived on a hexagonal plastic saucer, khaki with narrow orange triangles around the rim.
‘ Carson comes here,’ went on Mogs.‘Rory likes it.’ She fi tted her hat over her glossy crimson head. ‘It’s so sweet, him and Rory, don’t you think?’
‘I guess.’ Tom was thinking, Sweet!
‘Oh, awfully sad, too, of course. You’re absolutely right.’ Mogs said, ‘I mean, I simply can’t imagine it, can you? Not being able to acknowledge your child?’
Tom had his wallet out. He went through the business of selecting a note and placing it on the saucer, actions he accomplished with the slow deliberation of a dream. Then he said, ‘Mogs, what are you talking about?’
Moments passed. Then, ‘Oh, lord. Oh, how frightful. I mean I just assumed …’ Mogs tugged on a pigtail. Her long cheeks were very pink. Tom realised that he had before him one of those rare specimens not enlivened by the dissemination of scandal.
He said, ‘Just tell me.’
‘It’s only talk. Nothing at all certain,’ wailed Mogs.
Tom waited.
‘I’ve heard-well, one or two people seem to have this notion that Carson is Rory’s father. Not that Rory has the least idea.’
The waitress picked up the saucer. Mogs said, ‘You know, I’d love a glass of water.’
‘Still or sparkling?’
‘Tap would be super.’
When she had drunk it, Tom said, ‘Why would they be keeping it under wraps? Who’d care now?’
‘Rory’s coming into money. Quite a lot, apparently.’ Mogs’s tone was apologetic, as if the sheer size of the sum made for questionable taste.‘One of those inheritance trust things. From his father’s peop- no, gosh, isn’t it a muddle? What I mean is, from the Atwoods.’
In the street she said again, ‘It’s really only speculation. I mean, I always just sort of put it together with the way Carson is about Rory. But that could so easily be Carson. Such a sweet man. And if you know nothing about it-well, that tips it quite the other way.’
She stooped; pressed her cheek to Tom’s. ‘Lots of love to darling Nelly. And hug that brave dog for me.’ Her skin smelled of childhood: ironing and wooden rulers.‘The love we have for them,’ said Mogs. ‘Sometimes it’s almost frightening.’
In India, the Loxleys had lived half a mile from a large Hindu temple. It was neither ancient nor celebrated, but its tall gopurams, gaudily painted and ornately carved, delighted the child Tom’s eye. Pilgrims and sadhus and tricksters passed through its gates, generating noise and emotion. Now and then an elephant would sway forth from its fastness.
If Tom happened to pass the temple in the company of his grandfather, the old man would speak of primitivism and barbaric rites. Sebastian de Souza pointed out men with iron hooks in their flesh; described a reeking stone block where goats were sacrificed. If he caught his grandson looking towards the temple, he would slap him. He referred to fi lth, meaning the celestial and animal couplings depicted in the carvings as well as the rosettes of dung in the street, when it was in fact the busy little stalls selling coconuts and holy images and garlands of marigolds that had attracted the child’s interest. In this way Tom’s pleasure in the place was smudged, and the temple became associated in his mind with fear.
In his tenth year, the stories of Catholic missions he heard at school inspired in Tom an evangelising fervour. He longed to save a soul. He selected Madhu, a six-year-old whose family occupied a modest room in the de Souza mansion. In her gapped smile, he detected malleability. There was also the consideration, only half formulated but nevertheless present, that her low social status would protect him from serious repercussions should the enterprise go awry.