‘Please,’ said Mrs O’Ryan.
‘I don’t know where she is,’ I said, softening slightly.
‘I don’t care where
she
is,’ said Mrs O’Ryan. ‘She is only the vessel. Where is the child, Shiloh, the Son of Peace?’
‘I don’t know that either. Your husband might.’
For the first time I felt that there was an actual thinking person behind those china-doll eyes.
She shook her head. ‘My husband? Why?’
‘He’s the father of the child, isn’t he? It isn’t the boy who has been guarding and protecting your daughter, I know that.’
She blinked. The tall man rubbed his mistreated hand. I was about to turn the corner into Flinders Lane and get out of this nasty situation when she said quickly, ‘Yes, yes, Don is the father, now where is the baby?’
‘Not so fast.’ I had noticed that hesitation. ‘If it isn’t your husband, who is it?’
‘Do you need to know?’ she croaked.
‘No, it’s none of my business,’ I agreed, and started to move away. As I took a pace or two, I put it together. The ‘virginity’ tests. Falling asleep listening to the Rev Hale. Her mother monitoring her menstrual periods. Surely not. Surely not even fanatics would be capable of something this loathsome. Even those mythical Satanists that the FBI could not find would choke on this notion.
I turned back. Acquaintance with Daniel, Sister Mary and the Soup Run clients had broadened my mind. Now it was so broad that it resembled one of those blasted plains Milton was so good at describing in
Paradise Lost
.
‘You didn’t,’ I said. I really couldn’t believe it. A mother inseminating her own daughter to give birth to the child of a shyster evangelist? Ridiculous, Corinna. You have been working too hard lately.
Mrs O’Ryan just stared at me.
‘We should leave this godless company,’ said the tall man. I could tell I wasn’t going to get a Christmas card from him, unless it was one which ticked.
‘How did you do it?’ I had to ask, even though I knew I wouldn’t like the answer.
It was as though I had startled her into confession.
‘It came in a sealed frozen package of biological material from the Reverend himself,’ she said, hands clasped in awe. ‘I put her to sleep three days in a row in her fertile period. It almost didn’t work!’ She giggled. It was the most grotesque thing I had ever seen. I felt sick. ‘It was the last dose which did it. She is and was a virgin throughout, as the prophecy requires.’
‘Why did you pick Brigid?’
‘She’s a better specimen than the other,’ she told me flatly. ‘Slim, comely, just as the Father requested.’
‘So he knew about this?’
‘Of course. He is divinely guided,’ she replied, with perfect self-assurance. ‘Then she ran away, then we couldn’t find her, and now … she has the Son of Peace, and we need him! I have the passports ready. I can leave at any moment and carry him to his Father on Earth. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened …’
I had had enough, and more than enough. I addressed the tall man. ‘Take her home and call her doctor to give her a good sedative,’ I told him. ‘I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of Brigid or the baby. And if I had, I would never tell you—never. You’re insane, and you’re criminal, and …’
I had nothing else I could think of to say, so I walked quickly away. I fell into the bakery and slammed the door and bolted it and dropped the night bar as well. The girls paused in mid-mop and stared.
‘Someone did try to rob you?’ demanded Kylie, wiping her wet hands on her sopping bosom. They had rather overdone it on water and disinfectant. The air was redolent of Pine-o-cleen.
‘No, just an unpleasant encounter … Well done, ladies, that is a nice job. Here is your Christmas bonus.’
‘Merry Christmas!’ they chorused, and I let them out through my apartment. The bakery door was staying barred. Though I did unbolt the little cat door, in case the Mouse Police wanted some air in the early morning. I was not going to be rising at four am for some time.
Or so I had thought. When the shot rang out at four am, Daniel’s army-trained reflexes had him out of bed and into a pair of shorts and sandals and at the door, listening, before I woke properly.
‘Car backfire,’ I insisted.
‘Pistol shot,’ he replied.
‘No, don’t be silly …’ This was beginning to resemble a scene from
Romeo and Juliet
. ‘Oh, all right.’
I hauled myself to the floor and found my own sandals. We opened the door. Insula was silent, as it usually was at that hour. Then, gradually, I could hear voices coming from under me. Not from my bakery, which was locked as tight as a drum. Therefore, from …
‘The cellar,’ said Daniel. ‘I think I’ll just creep down and find out what’s happening before we call the cops.’
‘All right, but you aren’t going alone,’ I insisted.
‘Fair enough. You take the phone, it’s on speed dial, just press this button. Stay behind me,’ said Daniel, and as he was the expert on creeping up on people, I agreed.
The front door was wide open. I left it open. We might have to get out in a hurry. The voices were coming from the cellar, all right. They sounded angry. The lift was not a good option, as it might deliver us into the middle of a gun battle. So we slipped down the stairs. Daniel could move like Horatio. I just tried not to clump. There was a dim light below. When we reached the bottom, we were transfixed.
There, in front of me, was a Christmas crèche in real living colour. There was the deep hay, the Virgin Mary cradling the child, there was Joseph leaning protectively over her. There was the baby ox and the baby ass, and the only surprising note was the freegan T-shirt of St Joseph and a large Dutch bunny stretched out at the Virgin’s feet.
We had found Brigid and Shiloh, the Son of Peace. And so had the enemy.
Frozen against the stairwell, almost within touching range of Daniel, was Rowan. Lined up against the Holy Family were Charlotte, her husband, Don, and three men in black suits with
white shirts. And guns. One was carrying, incongruously, a child’s safety capsule to go in the back of a car. It was blue.
‘Give us Shiloh, the Son of Peace,’ said Charlotte.
‘Or what?’ demanded Manny.
‘Or I’ll have them shoot you,’ said Charlotte. She might have been discussing a charity luncheon. ‘Both of you. The baby is born, we don’t need Brigid anymore. She was but the vessel as are all women.’
‘This looks bad,’ I mouthed to Daniel. He nodded, eyes searching for a way out. The moment stretched and broke.
‘No,’ said Manny.
‘Hang on,’ said Rowan. He was so terrified that he was shaking, which was reasonable. ‘You’re Americans, aren’t you? You can’t carry guns in Australia like this, a gunshot will make the whole building call the cops. You can’t just shoot people.’
‘If it is God’s will,’ said the tallest man (and I hoped his thumb still hurt), ‘then it will be done.’
Then I thought of something. I nudged Daniel and asked a question. Then an idiotic bloom of a laugh started in my solar plexus and strove to be free. I motioned Daniel back as I strode forward into the path of the guns, which was the only thing which sobered me.
‘Me again,’ I said to Charlotte.
‘You again,’ she said. ‘As you see, I have found the Son of Peace, and he is mine.’
‘Brigid?’ I raised my voice a little. ‘Show them the baby. Strip the child and bring it forward and show them their Son of Peace.’
Brigid looked confused. She didn’t really know me.
‘All right,’ said Manny. ‘Go on, Brigie.’
Brigid put the baby down and stripped off gown and nappy, then wrapped it again and brought it forward to the men with
guns. The baby began to cry. As Brigid turned, exhibiting the child to each man, each one bowed his head, put away his gun and turned and went out of the cellar. Charlotte dived forward to see what they had seen.
The child was red and ugly as are all babies, though some hair was on its head. Its little body was fully displayed. One could see the eyes travelling down the ribby chest to the genitals, and note what was missing. Curves. A cleft. No penis. Brigid’s baby was a girl.
I hadn’t even asked about the gender, because I am not interested in babies. I had assumed, as Charlotte had assumed, that the child conceived in such a manner must be a boy, must be Shiloh. And here was a girl baby, a frail vessel, a failure. I started to laugh.
Then, deserted by her allies, Charlotte clawed the baby from Brigid’s grasp, dropped it into the safety capsule, and ran like the wind.
Daniel ran after her but Rowan was ahead of him, long legs flashing in the semi-dark, up the steps and through the foyer and into Flinders Lane. Charlotte was desperate and fast, and she would probably have got away if Heckle, nursing old injuries, had not chosen that moment to issue from the cat door and avenge his missing centimetre of tail one more time.
Charlotte came down with a bone-breaking crash. Rowan was just close enough to catch the baby capsule before it hit the cobbles. Then time stood still. Rowan righted the capsule and opened it.
From inside came an aggrieved wail.
Heckle licked his paw and washed an ear with a satisfied expression, sneered lightly, then returned to the bakery, tail as straight as a taper.
Sheer relief made me laugh, which made Daniel laugh,
which dragged in Rowan. Mrs Pemberthy opened her window and screeched, ‘Is that you drunks again?’, which made us laugh more.
Finally we hauled Charlotte up. I held her with her hands behind her back and was rather hoping that she might fight. We returned to the cellar. Rowan carried the baby to Brigid, who examined the baby all over in the manner of a mother cat before redressing her and placing her in the basket which was doing duty for a cradle. Manny embraced them both.
‘Now,’ said Daniel grimly, ‘if you will just sit Mrs O’Ryan down over there, Corinna, and you sit here, Mr O’Ryan, we shall have a conference.’
‘How many charges, do you think?’ I asked Daniel as they complied.
‘Oh, at least eight—sexual penetration of a minor, rape, using a drug to procure sexual access, assault occasioning serious injury, assault with a firearm, assault in company, kidnapping, false imprisonment … ten years’ jail, I think.’
‘Fifteen,’ I said.
‘Split the difference,’ he said generously. ‘Twelve and a half.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Mr O’Ryan. He was looking battered, as those who are hopped on by a whole tribe of freegans often do.
‘Not to mention the aggravating factors, like breach of trust,’ Daniel continued. ‘Did you tell Brigid how the Child of Peace was conceived, Charlotte?’
‘Just now,’ said Brigid. I had not heard her speak before. She had a calm, quiet voice, which was amazing, considering the circumstances. ‘No one believed me that I hadn’t … that I hadn’t. You know that? They all nagged me all the time: who is the father? They all thought I was a liar and a slut. You did that to me,’ she told her mother. ‘And you let her do it,’ she said to her father.
‘Well, now, we have a negotiating position,’ I said. ‘What do you want to do, Brigid?’
‘I’m not sure, what are my options?’ she asked coolly.
‘We can call the cops and get everyone involved arrested, and then there will be a trial and your parents will probably go to jail.’
‘But then it would be in all the papers,’ she said.
‘Yes. And the social services might not let you keep the baby, if you are unsupported until Manny gets another job. Or we can offer your father the rich man’s traditional way out of trouble.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Manny.
‘Money,’ said Daniel. ‘Shall we say, purchase of a house, to be chosen by you, services of suitable carers or nurses, rooms for your sister Dolly, living allowances?’
‘Sandra,’ said Brigid. ‘Sandra would come. I miss Sandra.’
‘She misses you,’ I told her.
‘Manny, what do you think?’
They went into a huddle, the baby in the middle. I realised that the traditional blue and white of the Virgin Mary was a long white broderie anglaise nightdress and Meroe’s azure wrap, which had gone into hospital with Brigid. I also realised that the presence of the animals explained the girls volunteering to clean and using so much disinfectant to cover the stockyard smell. It also explained Jason’s equivocation about Bunny. They had all been in on this scheme. But that could wait.
‘How did the heavies get in?’ I asked Rowan.
‘I was coming back from the concert, and they stuck me up at the door,’ he said. ‘I was sure I was going to drop the baby!’
‘But you didn’t,’ I told him. ‘You don’t do everything wrong, Rowan.’
‘No, I don’t, do I?’ he asked. This thought brought a smile. ‘That cat Heckle,’ he said. ‘He used to trip me on purpose, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and explained about the paperboy and the missing piece of tail.
Meanwhile Mr O’Ryan had not moved or said a word. Charlotte appeared dazed, which was good. I got up and went to examine the animals. The calf was the calf from the department store crèche, though now it was being fed milk from an oversized bottle. The ducks and chickens were those ducks and chickens, though the ducks now floated in the filled rinsing trough, heads under wings, and the chickens were asleep on an improvised roost. And the donkey was Diligence, advancing in hope of more carrots. Those vegans had liberated the animals from the Christmas display and hidden them in my cellar. I did wonder what had happened to the goats and the sheep. I asked Rowan.
‘They weren’t meant to be here at all,’ he assured me. ‘But the man Sarah had arranged, his truck broke down on his way back from taking the goats and sheep to the farm, and he couldn’t get back in time. He’ll be back in two days to take them away. We couldn’t leave them there, Corinna! They were suffering!’
‘Yes, they were, and as long as you can keep Mrs Pemberthy out of the cellar it will be all right,’ I said. ‘They were suffering. I was wishing there was something I could do, and you did it. Ah. The conference is beginning again.’
The Virgin Mary produced a notebook—this was a very modern crèche—and wrote busily. Then she handed it to me. Daniel and I read it over. Seemed reasonable. A house. Sandra and Sandra’s salary. School fees. A car and driver when required. Rooms and allowances for both Brigid and Dolores. Daniel’s fees. Nothing for Manny. I queried this. I am an accountant, after all, as well as a baker.