The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (38 page)

“Now,” said Mrs. Zing, “at least try a piece of Fancy's famous chocolate terrine!” She was slicing it up and passing dessert bowls down both sides of the table.

Cath was pale and silent, so Mrs. Zing continued. “The final thing we must explain is
why
we were gathering this information. There were two reasons, Cath, one minor and one major. The minor reason was this: You may find this hard to imagine, but your father, Nikolai, adored you. He was greedy for information about you—you are, after all, his eldest child, and his only daughter. So we compiled the information into regular reports, with photos affixed, along with the requisitions for certain funds—and this kept him happy.”

“And kept him happily sending us money to carry on,” Radcliffe pointed out.

At this, Listen accidentally interrupted by saying, in a disbelieving voice, “Nikolai Valerio?”

“But the
major
reason was that we wanted to make your life wonderful,” Mrs. Zing continued. “We wanted to give you gifts. We wanted you to have every opportunity, to be happy, and to develop your potential. So! Let's think of some examples, everyone!”

“Well,” said Fancy shyly, “Marbie is a great swimmer, but she never got swimming lessons when she was young. We thought you might have the same talent, and we wanted to make sure it wasn't wasted. So we
found a way to get rid of the mediocre swimming teacher you had—I remember us joking that we should trip her up so she'd break a bone! But we didn't do that, just got her another job offer—and replaced her with a former Olympic champion.”

“Any time you were sad,” said Marbie, “we tried to think of a present that might cheer you up—like a trip to Disneyland, or a puppy dog, or a movie pass, or a pair of designer sunglasses. And the same on your birthdays.”

“Nikolai gave you birthday presents too,” said Mrs. Zing. “But you probably never noticed them. He always got us to find out who your favorite singer was, and then he would write a song for you and get them to put it to music and release it on the date of your birthday. You remember Kylie Minogue's hit, “Blue-Eyed Blonde Beauty,” which came out on your twelfth birthday?”

“And there was that Eminem song on your twenty-first birthday,” said Marbie. “I loved that song. About the student at teachers college with the pet cat? Eminem added all the swear words though, which really annoyed Nikolai. I always wondered if you noticed the similarity to your life.”

“Not really,” whispered Cath. “I didn't listen to the words.”

“Shame,” said Mr. Zing.

“And we had
projects,
” added Radcliffe, “for more major things. I remember when we decided that it would be good to broaden your horizons, so we tried to put you in the way of trips or jobs in exotic locations such as Mongolia and Nepal! That was Project 53, wasn't it?”

“Project 55,” corrected Mrs. Zing.

“The funny thing about
that,
” continued Radcliffe, “was that your friends kept swooping in and stealing the offers! It just goes to show, you can't—”

“The spies were supposed to find out what you were unhappy about,” Nathaniel cut in. “Or what you really wanted. And then the family thought up ways to get those things to you.”

“Nikolai was also keen to steer you in certain directions,” added Mrs. Zing. “It wasn't just us. Occasionally, he would send an edict—a special request for us to concentrate on some aspect of your life. For instance, he wanted you to be refined—a woman of resources. It was his idea to get you horseback riding lessons, and that wine-appreciation course when you were older? Remember?”

“Ah yes!” said Radcliffe. “And he was so keen that you become a lawyer! His dream was for you to eventually become the managing corporate lawyer for the Valerio Empire! We tried
everything
to—”

“Anyway,” interrupted Marbie, “the challenge was how to get these things to you without being obvious.”

“That was the fun part,” agreed Fancy.

“We used scholarships, prizes, raffles, free offers—things turning up on your doorstep—anything we could think of.”

“The magazines were the stroke of genius,” smiled Mrs. Zing.

“Fancy wrote most of the content,” said Marbie, “and Radcliffe did the desktop publishing at work—we all thought up the competitions.”

“We tried hiding things in taxis,” said Nathaniel.

“But you kept not noticing them!” cried Radcliffe.

“Or when you did,” said Mrs. Zing, “you gave them to the driver. You were so honest.”

Cath was breathing in, ready to unleash a stinging attack, when she realized they had stopped looking at her. They were chatting animatedly among themselves, reminiscing.

Extracts from the Zing Garden Shed (Burnt Fragments)

M
INUTES OF
ZFS M
EETING
, M
AY
1994

• F
  AND
  M
  BOTH ADAMANT THAT
  C
  SHOULD BE READING
  Vogue
  RATHER THAN
  Dolly
  IF SHE WANTS TO BE “COOL”
  
• F
  HAS NOTICED THAT
  C'
  S SKIN IS BREAKING OUT AND THINKS SHE SHOULD TRY
  C
  LEARASIL
  D
  AILY
  F
  ACE
  W
  ASH
  
• R
  SUGGESTS A DOOR-TO-DOOR MAKEUP CONSULTANT OFFER FREE ADVICE AND FREE SAMPLES
  
• R
  ESOLVED THAT SUBCOMMITTEE BE FORMED, CONSISTING OF
  

M
INUTES OF
ZFS M
EETING
, J
ANUARY
2003

• M
  THINKS WE SHOULD HAVE A
  P
  ROJECT TO MAKE HER WEAR MORE BLUE—THINKS SHE LOOKS GREAT IN BLUE, AND IT BRINGS OUT HER EYES
  
• F
  PROPOSES A PROJECT TO GET HER TO TRY
  P
  ILATES, SAYS SHE HERSELF NEVER HAS TIME TO TRY IT BUT
  

S
URVEILLANCE
E
QUIPMENT
—C
ONSIGNMENT

S
UNGLASSES WITH HIDDEN CAMERA, TRANSMITTER, AND RECEIVER
.

R
ETAIL
P
RICE
: $450

Y
OUR
F
REQUENT
B
UYER
P
RICE
: $435

Cath was feeling pale.

She sat with her chair a little distant from the table, and her chin a little distant from her neck. The Zing family's words meandered along, while her forearms stung faintly and her vision blurred.

“Here,” said Fancy, quietly sliding the milk jug toward her. “Coffee stays warmer if you add the milk straightaway.”

“Does it?” said Cath, strangely calmed for a moment by this practical hint.

Fancy nodded. “The milk is like a small, white blanket.”

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Zing, from her end of the table. “I've forgotten the chocolate strawberries! Hang on there while I get them.”

Everyone watched as she crossed the lawn, and listened to the gentle thud of the back door closing.

The family set down their coffee cups and watched Cath.

“I still don't believe any of this,” said Cath. “I wouldn't believe it at all if I hadn't seen that garden shed. But just pretending it's true, I have a question. Okay, I can see that you might decide to keep an eye on a baby when you give it up for adoption, but why keep going? Why didn't one of you
stop
this? I'm grown-up now. I've got a job. Why did this go on for so long?”

“Well,” said Radcliffe heartily, “for one thing, there wasn't really anything
illegal
about it. And to be perfectly honest, it was a lot of fun! All the exciting subterfuge and espionage and so on!”

“Nothing
illegal
about it?” Cath turned an icy gaze on Radcliffe. “You think there's nothing illegal about planting cameras in my apartment and stealing my medical records, do you?”

“We prefer not to think in terms of the legal/illegal paradigm,” murmured Fancy.

“You didn't know it was happening, so how could it hurt you?” Marbie cut in. “Also, it was all
for
you. It was to protect you because, you know, if it had come out that you were Valerio's daughter, you'd never have had a normal life. The media would have watched you more than we ever did,
and
they'd have put it in the papers. We only put it in the garden shed.”

“Maybe that was my decision to make,” Cath said. But she said it halfheartedly: Something Marbie had said seemed oddly familiar, and was making her uncomfortable.

“We gave you a lot of presents,” Radcliffe pointed out.

“The thing is,” said Marbie, “you became part of our life. You were the person we took care of on Friday nights.”

“Right,” agreed Radcliffe. “Once you get your filing system up, it's hard to stop working on the files.”

“And we couldn't give you up,” said Fancy. “We just couldn't. We loved you.”

Mr. Zing cleared his throat. Everyone turned to him, a little surprised. He had hardly said a word for the entire meal. “It's like this,” he said, holding out the palms of his hands. “Some people like to change things by casting them in a different light—by telling the right stories about them. Let's say, for example, a man has a midlife crisis. He thinks he's destined for greater things than a family, and he runs away to a one-room apartment in West Ryde. Let's say his wife makes that event into something else. Let's say she calls it an
artistic mission,
a trip to Ireland to write novels. Now, take a look at that! He's not a selfish, depressed fool
anymore; he's a man with a dream. See what I mean? Call a thing by a different name, and you change it.”

Even the kookaburra was surprised into silence.

“You mean lie about it?” Cassie whispered.

“Okay,” continued Mr. Zing, pretending not to hear Cassie, and clearing his throat again. “Now let's say this woman gives up her baby. Oh, she does it for all the right reasons—she thinks she's giving the baby a better life; she's struggling to feed the two kids she already has, what with her no-hoper husband; and she knows she can't afford another child. She thinks she's saving her family, but the fact remains, she gives away her baby. So, let's say she calls this event something else—a
Zing Family Secret.
A complicated secret with corporate structures, subterfuge and spies, a secret that is all about watching over the baby,
taking care
of the child. Let's say we ever put a stop to that? We might have had to see what it was.”

Quietly, he pressed out his final words. “It was a bribe, Cath. She gave up her baby, and they paid her off. That's what it was.”

Somewhere, in the bush behind the fence, a whipbird commenced a long, suspenseful
toooooo
that ended in a sharp
whip crack.
Then the back door slammed and Mrs. Zing emerged with the strawberries.

Although Maude set out to be scrupulously honest in her narration of the Zing Family Secret, she did not tell Cath everything. For example, she did not tell her that, once Cath had been transferred to Valerio's people—after which the Zings returned home from the seaside—Maude ignored the garden shed for weeks.

Instead, she lay in bed, and only got up to do the ironing. David slept on the living-room couch at this time. He made sausages and tomatoes for dinner each night and did the girls' homework for them.

In the bedroom, Maude lay still with her eyes open wide, exhausting her imagination by forcing it to hold, steady on her chest, the image, weight, fragrance, and warmth of her baby girl. A soft little cat pressing itself ever closer.

When she did fall asleep, she dreamed that she was standing in the basket of a hot-air balloon. Behind her was her baby in a bassinet, and Maude, without pausing, gathered up the bassinet and tipped it over the side. A parachute opened as it fell, and Maude caught her breath:
The child is saved!
But then she saw that the parachute was upside down. The bassinet crashed to the ground and was smashed to pieces.

Day after day, Maude lay in bed, snapping in and out of this nightmare: the balloon, the bassinet, the baby rushing to the ground. Each time she woke in horror at the sound of the crash, and each time she sobbed,
I changed my mind, I changed my mind, I changed my mind.

One night, waking from such a dream, she regarded the circle of the moon through her bedroom window.

I have given my child away,
she thought,
but the dream means more than that.

Why,
she asked herself now,
did I do it?
The answers rushed to her at once: You were on the verge of bankruptcy! You couldn't afford a third child! The child was born of scandal! You gave her the gift of a normal life! It was
all for the child.

She stared at the moon, and blinked. It was so sharp-edged, she realized with a start, it would sever the tendons in your hands if you reached up to hold it. The sharp edge cut into her soul, and she thought:
It was for the money.

That was the reason.

She had thought herself on the verge of a life of balloons and adventures with Nikolai Valerio. She had believed that the baby was her ticket into that life. Instead, the baby had frightened her dreams away.

She remembered sitting on the couch in that house by the sea, her average husband beside her, profoundly depressed at her romantic loss, and resentful of her unborn child. Nikolai's men sat opposite and promised her immense wealth.

Well, at least I could be rich. That much I deserve.
The thought had flickered across her mind. She remembered throwing the thought away, and gathering sensible reasons in its place.

What she saw now, however, was this: By accepting Nikolai's offer to conceal the birth of their child, she had agreed to live in a fictional world in which she herself was wealthy, but her child did not exist.

I accepted a bribe to deny my child's existence.

It was like realizing she had murdered her own baby.

Maude wrote the entire Spell Book on her bedroom floor that night.

She typed with trembling, urgent fingers, knowing that her words were frenetic. She had to write spells that would bring Cath back to life. She had to undo her denial.

The story of Cath began, she recalled, on the day that her husband, David, telephoned a taxi and left her (
A Spell to Make Someone Decide to Take a Taxi
). Then she had discovered the pie-chef job in the
Trading Post
when looking for a new vacuum cleaner (
A Spell to Make a Vacuum Cleaner Break
). She had won the boat-scene role in the film when the leading lady fought with the director (
A Spell to Make Two Happy People Have a HUGE Fight over Absolutely NOTHING
) and in such a way the affair had begun. The affair had ended, effectively, when Nikolai asked the set supervisor to send her an artificial rose (
A Spell to Make Someone Give Someone a Rose
).

At this, Maude had plunged into despair.

She had yearned to be seen, to be acknowledged as Nikolai's true love, and had fantasized that that reporter might find more concrete evidence of their affair: a note in a jeans pocket; a sock in the hotel laundry (
A Spell to Make Someone Find Something Unexpected in a Washing Machine
). She had been furious with Nikolai, and imagined him eating chocolate cake laced with walnuts, so that his lips would swell like balloons (
A Spell to Make Somebody Eat a Piece of Chocolate Cake
).

The filming moved to Lord Howe Island. Rebekka was flown in, and those famous publicity shots were arranged. Nikolai and Rebekka, laughing together, barefoot among the bees in a meadow. The tender shot of Nikolai carrying Rebekka in his arms, anxious eyes on her throbbing toe (
A Spell to Make a Person Get Stung by a Bee
).

She had received the first offer from Nikolai's agents while staring at those photos in a magazine. The offer seemed innocent enough. “Get your husband home from Ireland,” the agent suggested, “and we'll send your family on a holiday by the sea.” It was too late in her pregnancy
for David to be plausible as the baby's father, but the agents wanted Maude's marriage resumed, so that the reporter would lose interest in her. (It never occurred to them to doubt her story that David was actually in Ireland.)

Why not?
she thought despondently.
If Nikolai is rescuing Rebekka from bees, I, at least, deserve a holiday.

So she telephoned David at his apartment and asked him to come home. He only came, he admitted afterward, because he was low with a fever and sore throat. Otherwise, his pride would have kept him there until his elusive invention was complete (
A Spell to Make Someone Catch a Cold
).

Once at the house by the sea, of course, the agents had arrived with their briefcases. The final deal had been made.

Now Maude paused again. She had re-created the circumstances of Cath's birth and Maude's betrayal. But she needed one more spell. She needed a resolution. It was too late to get her baby back. All she could really do for Cath was to carry out the terms of her agreement. She would secretly keep an eye on her and send reports to Nikolai.

No!
she thought, suddenly dizzy.
No! I will do
more
than keep an eye on Cath! I will watch her
constantly!
I will find ways to solve Cath's problems and guide her through her life. I will not spend a single cent of that money on myself or my family!
All of it would be for Cath!

Her family's focus from now on, she decided, would be Cath. This secret would become their center.

To achieve this, of course, she would need her family intact. She and David would have to be a loving couple, loving parents, once again (
A Spell to Make Two People Fall in Love Again
).

She wrote the final spell. She stapled the pages together with lime green cardboard, folded at the edges for a cover, and printed the words “SPELL BOOK” on the front.

This book, she thought, would bring Cath back to life. But it would
also re-create her own heartbreak and loss. For Cath, she wanted the opposite. She turned the book over and wrote on the back cover:

This Book Will Make You Fly, Will Make You Strong, Will Make You Glad. What's More, This Book Will Mend Your Broken Heart.

She climbed into bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The next day, she set to work painting the garden shed and writing lists of potential recruits. She forgot about the Spell Book, and it got lost somewhere, probably mixed up with Marbie's schoolbooks.

She also forgot her revelation of that night. Within days she was convinced that she had given Cath away in order to protect her. If anyone had dared to suggest she had done it for the money, she would have thrown a potted plant at their head.