Dark Sister (14 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

Morton
Briggs, dispensing law for Moore, Bray and Toot, was
the provincial English
solicitor manifest. A tangy, residual nicotine smell roosted in the weft and
warp of a suit shiny at elbow and butt; and the initial benumbed impression
this created was perfectly complemented by a minutely knotted, egg-stained tie.
A pair of tortoiseshell spectacles rested halfway along a large, puce-coloured
nose. The overall effect was of confidence and complacency imparted in equal
measure. Alex felt somewhat reassured.

Briggs' office was lined with books so heavy they were
obviously not designed for lifting from the bookcase. The last book on the
shelf,
Law Reports 1967,
had a binding faded on a diagonal up to the
point where the sun reached its finger on a daily basis. The gas fire of the
unreconstructed Victorian office generated a warm fug, and so did the bulky
presence of Briggs himself.

"No, I think we'll leave that for the time
being," Briggs said, twisting a pencil in his huge pink hands. "We
should save that for later. It might be our trump card."

"So you don't think she'll win custody at the hearing?"

Alex found Briggs' easy confidence infectious.

"Not at the initial hearing, I don't.
She
left
you,
don't forget that. We'll oppose the injunction on the grounds of
the children's interests. The judge will have little option but to preserve the
status quo while he asks for reports to be prepared by the Court Welfare
Officer. Then the real battle starts."

The real battle.
If Briggs imparted confidence, it didn't make Alex feel any less depressed.
He'd been appalled by this latest development. To his utter astonishment, an
apologetic stranger in a black raincoat had turned up at his door, and had
pushed a summons into his hands.

Alex had never before received a court
summons. "Do I have to accept this?" he'd spluttered, looking at the
envelope in his hand as if it was coated with cyanide.

"I'm afraid you already
have," said the process server over his shoulder, the hem of his raincoat
flapping as he retreated down the path.

He'd immediately picked up the phone
to tell Maggie what he thought of it. He regarded it as an almost irreversible
step on a downward spiral. When they could only communicate with each other by
employing professionals, they had nothing left.

He'd pleaded with her to no avail, and he went on
pleading. He'd apologized for striking her until he was sick of hearing the
wheedling sound of his own voice. He'd even heard himself offer,
preposterously, to accompany her on midnight walks under a moon of her choice;
though he'd qualified his pleading by insisting that she come home, live with
them, and behave like what he called a "proper" mother.

But she had adopted a siege mentality, he'd decided,
and the only way to deal with her was to starve her out. Starve her, that is,
of family affection by proscribing all physical contact with the children. Then
the solicitor's letter had landed on the mat, and stakes had been raised in a
way he'd neither anticipated nor wanted.

"How long will that take?" Alex asked Briggs dolefully.

"For reports?
Three
months at least."

Alex looked at Briggs and Briggs looked back across
the top of his spectacles. Then   the solicitor laid down his pencil
and pushed himself back in his chair
an
eighth of an
inch. Alex realized it was a signal: audience over.

Briggs escorted him to the door.  I’ll be in
touch," he said.

"Hello, stranger!" said Ash, when the bell
above his shop doorway tinkled. Maggie closed the door and as she turned the
light fell on her face. "You look like you've been in a fight!" Ash
laughed, seeing her fading bruises. Maggie just stared at him. Ash stopped
laughing.
"Oh, no.
You
have
been in a
fight."

Maggie sat down while he set the kettle to boil. She
had to wait while he dealt with a brief flurry of custom before she could tell
him. Ash took her hand, put it to his mouth, and kissed it.

"Bastard."

"Perhaps I deserved it, Ash."

"Don't say that.
Victim's
mentality.
All you did was
go
for a walk."

"He still thinks I've got a lover."

"And you still think he has."

"What makes you say that?"

The bell tinkled and another customer came in. It was
a young man who wanted to buy a set of Tibetan temple bells. "I'm
a
herbalist," Ash explained stiffly, "not a
campanologist."

"I get a lot of that," he said after the
young man had gone. But Maggie was still waiting for an answer to her question.
"Liz. She's a clever old bird."

"You've been talking to Liz? But I never said
anything to Liz about it."

"That's what I mean by clever. She picks up a lot
about what's
not
said by listening to what
is
said."

"And what does she say?"

"She says you've got it."

"It?
You
mean
the it
we're not supposed to talk about?"

"That's the one. Tell me about this grotty
bed-sit you're living in."

"It's not so bad. I'm enjoying the freedom. I can
do what I want for the first time in my life. I can please myself. That reminds
me, I have to make a new collection, herbs, plants, oils, everything.
From scratch.
From the beginning.
I've got loads to learn and lots of time. I want you to help me."

Ash did help her. He went walking with her. They
collected what they could from the hedgerows, and he told her what she could
expect in the spring. As for the more exotic herbs, he donated a quantity from
his own stock and refused to accept payment. Maggie felt she was abusing his good
nature, and in the end she forced him to accept a nominal sum.

He also helped her in the selection of her tools and
implements. She'd lost everything when Alex had thrown out her equipment
along with her herbs, so she needed a new knife, mortar and pestle and other
practical equipment.

Ash suggested she do things properly. He pointed out
that the equipment was represented by the Tarot suits: knife for swords, mortar
and pestle for cups, wand for batons and a pentacle drawn on an altar cloth. Why
not consecrate the full set at the same time?

Christmas was approaching. The city had been decorated
with lights. A grand tree stood in the marketplace. Ash shut up Omega one
afternoon so they could spend a couple of hours together shopping. The event
made her miss her children. Every previous Christmas shopping expedition she'd
cursed them for getting under her feet, yet now she wanted to fall over them.

But she also liked being with Ash. He was so unlike
Alex, this tall man with the ready humour. Christmas shopping had always made
Alex irritable and stressed; Ash turned it into a game, always ready with a
quiverful
of words for the people serving them. They might
come across a griper or a complainer in the marketplace press of Christmas
shoppers, and he could turn their mood with the right words. Not clever words,
not smart words, but just the right words.
Stroking words
which would dispel provocation and restore perspective.

The approach of Christmas also meant the approach of
Winter Solstice, Ash explained. "The twenty-first of December.
Shortest day.
It's the same festival, when you think about
it.
Just older."

Maggie remembered Alex telling her that religion had
its own archaeology, layers of different ages built on the same site.

"That's when we should consecrate all this
stuff," said Ash, meaning the knife, mortar and pestle and other
equipment.

"The twenty-first.
That's the day of the custody hearing."

The custody hearing took place in the depressing
precincts of the county court. Maggie was talking to her solicitor when she saw
Alex come in with his.

"Is he any good?" said Maggie

"Bumbling and inefficient," said Ms.
Montague, fiddling with an earring, "but quite nice."

Alex saw Maggie whispering to a woman in a dark suit
in the waiting area. He stopped Briggs as they came through the door. "Is
that her solicitor?"

"Montague?
Yes."

"What's she like?"

"Arrogant and incompetent," said Briggs,
pushing his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose.
"But
otherwise a decent sort."

Despite this composite of incompetence and
inefficiency, the court managed to deal with the issue in
under
six minutes. The judge would not uphold an injunction over the property but
issued a restraining order "protecting" Maggie from further assault.
He ruled for the status quo pending reports to be submitted by the Court
Welfare Officer. A date would be fixed for another hearing. Maggie, declining
the opportunity to return to the house, was granted access to the children on
two days a week.

"What I told you," said Briggs to Alex,
gathering his papers.

"What we expected," said Montague to Maggie,
clipping her briefcase shut.

Leaving Maggie and Alex to wonder why they'd even
bothered to attend. Maggie expected Alex to wait behind afterwards. She thought
he'd at least want to talk. He didn't.

The six-minute experience tipped Maggie into a deep
trough of depression.

Ash
did his best to take her mind off it.

"Why the Winter
Solstice?"
Maggie asked as they drove. She stared bleakly through
the passenger window into the pitch dark outside. Spots of rain dotted the
windscreen.

"Because now
the days will get lighter.
It represents progression toward the light.
A' good time to consecrate these things."

"Can't you do it for me?"

"You make your own dedications."

"Who shall I dedicate them to?"

"Don't ask me things for which you already have the answer."

It was approaching midnight. They
got out of the car and began walking across the shadowy heath. Low cloud
obscured the moon. The wind screeched around the stunted bushes and buffeted
the rocks. It flapped the hems of their coats.

"It's fucking freezing," said Maggie, stumbling along the
path.

"You chose this place."

"I suppose I owe her one here.
Doesn't your wife mind you running around the heath at this time of night?"

Ash treated the question as
rhetorical. They reached the standing stones and it started to rain. Maggie
laid out her equipment: altar cloth, knife, mortar and pestle, and the hazel
wand she had cut and stripped from the hedgerow a few days earlier. Ash stood
looking at his watch. He wouldn't let her start until midnight. "If we're
going to do this at all, let's do it properly. I'm just glad there's no one
here to see us."

At midnight Ash lit the
paraffin-soaked brand he'd brought with him. It looked dramatic. It sent
shadows running for cover behind the standing stones. Spots of rain hissed on
the flame.

"What shall I say?" cried
Maggie, her wet hair plastered to her head.

"Make it up," said Ash.
"It really doesn't matter."

"Have I really got to say it
aloud?"

"Oh, yes."

Maggie squatted. She reran the
events of the day, and for the first time allowed her depressive feelings to
roll over and through her, like a storm cloud passing over acres of fertile
fields. Tears pricked her eyes, but somewhere in that moment she found words.
Words of power.
The rain battened on her tears as she
offered up each piece of equipment in turn, each to the four points of the compass.
She dedicated them and asked that they be imbued with power in return. Ash
stood in the circle, patiently but self-consciously holding the flaming brand
aloft until she'd completed the cycle.

She was drenched. The cold and the
rain took hold of her. They penetrated her clothes and eased their way into
her. They possessed her bones. It was like being entered by a spirit, but it
was elemental cold and rain. She had a momentary sensation of damp heat at her
lips, breasts, and vagina. She shivered. It was a deep, earth-charged spasm.

"Finished?"

She nodded. Ash put out the flame.
Maggie collected up her equipment, wrapping them in the soaked altar cloth,
then came over to stand beside Ash.

They stood in the silence, the
rain still falling. Then it fell harder, very hard, bouncing high off the
stones.

"Well," said Ash.

"What do we do now?"

"We go home, of course."

During the drive back, Maggie sat in silence.

"What is it?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm
disappointed," she said. "I expected something to happen.
To feel something more.
To see something.
Anything.
But she just wasn't there tonight."

"Oh no, she was there all
right."

 "Well, I didn't feel
her."

"No. She takes her gifts very
modestly. But she was there all the time. You'll see."

 "How will I see?"

 "Oh, I
dunno
. She'll give you something back in return."

Two days later, Alex agreed to let her have the
children for an extra afternoon. He was taking them to his parents' house in
Harrogate, where they would spend Christmas. She wanted to give them their
presents before he spirited them away. She took them to a burger bar—which
previously she'd always strictly refused to do—and bought them everything they
asked for.

The time came for Alex to collect them. He piled the
kids in the car and turned to her before leaving, pulling a gift from his coat
pocket. Whatever it was, it was beautifully wrapped in expensive red-and-green
paper and trimmed with gold thread and a golden bow. It had a label: To Maggie,
love from Alex xxx.