The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

  Davo stepped outside to answer a personal call and Matthew returned to the office. The chair he’d borrowed from the tea room—to replace his swivel until Maintenance re-gassed it—was starting to bug him. Taking a break from charts on the screen, he leaned back and tilted his chair in the process—balancing it on its back legs only. Reverting to adolescence and that old precarious teetering trick, he placed his hands behind his head, levelled his elbows and linked his fingers.

  ‘And whaddaya think you’re doing, Weissler?’ Charlie was thunder­ing towards him with an unpleasant look on his face.

  Matthew scrambled to unlace his fingers, which now felt awkwardly stuck. In so doing, he lost his balance.

  His weight shifted, tipping the chair forward, then back and then forward again, and his knee banged against the underside of the desk. Bullseye. Right on the old injury, and not a single pain-clearing crystal in sight.

  Just when he thought the worst was over, the chair tilted further forward. Despite his rodeo rider’s determination to stay on, Matthew slid off.

  From under his desk he called to Charlie, ‘Sure is dark under here.’ And untidy. Dozens of screwed-up papers that had missed the waste-paper basket taunted him now, as did the expectation of Charlie’s next few words.

  Within his cubbyhole landing spot, he could feel the responding tremor of floorboards with Charlie’s retreating footsteps. The trading director’s voice filtered back to him in a deadpan roar. ‘My office, Matthew Weissler. Pronto.’

  <><> XXI <><>

  ‘My rabbit is the most wonderful creature in the world.’ The girl hugged small Fripso to her neck and choked back a sob. ‘Elf,’ she said, after whispering to Fripso. ‘I hadn’t intended to kill you. For the attack I apologise.’

  ‘Only meant to remove some of me then?’ Pieter was incredulous. ‘Why, that’s crueller than killing. Still, you are a body-king daughter after all.’

  ‘Body king? Whatever that is, I am no such thing. I am of Gold’s Kin.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. Of gold skin.’

  ‘Again you are incorrect. I am of Gold’s...’ The girl shook her head. She smiled ever so slightly. ‘Ah well. If you insist. What is a body king though? Is it an insult to my family? I expect it’s no term of endearment.’

  ‘Neither,’ said Pieter throwing the rabbit a wink.

  The animal gazed across at Pieter with half-closed lids, appreciative of the attention after his prison had collapsed around him. Pieter’s Kindness Merits enabled him to listen to some of the rabbit’s thinking.

  ‘My wish has come true. One of the Brumlynds has freed me! Now to shake off my captor, who I must admit has endeared me to her in the way she worships my very existence.

  ‘What a brave thing Pieter has done, smashing my jail open without prior thought to his own security! My only memory of the ordeal is a dream about my hillside blanketed in buttercups. I awoke to the faraway echo of crackling wood. The tapestry roof-cover of my prison was whisked away and there, behind a mere skeletal reminder of my too-small enclosure, and surrounded by the dazzling light of morning, stood Maleika’s heroic son.

  ‘I shall pay special attention to Pieter’s conversation. I must observe any signals concerning our escape. In the meantime I shall savour the last of my coddler’s affection.’

  Turning to the maiden, Pieter attempted an interpretation of the term he’d used. ‘A body king idolises his body. His physical vehicle alone is all that he believes he is.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ snapped the girl. ‘We are far more than that! We have a magnificent palace, we have hundreds of slaves, and we have a dragon font and regular banquets where we eat more than we need. As for myself, I have tapestries and gold spun linen and...and my rabbit.’ Momentarily she lifted the little creature nestled at her neck as a dramatic way of demonstrating to Pieter that this was who she meant.

  Pieter’s heart wept for her. He knew that among all she considered she owned, Fripso was the dearest to her. And sadly, she was yet to learn he was the one thing mentioned that couldn’t be possessed. The elf would delay this sorry news until he found exactly the right words.

  ‘Friend,’ he began good-naturedly—it was best not to make an enemy of an axe-wielding materialist—‘you state things outside of yourself. Outside of your body. All these are physical still, just as the body is.’

  ‘Are they really?’ she said in surprise.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Pieter prolonging his ‘friendly’ face. ‘Your riches, you see, are not you, nor is your body. Your body—’

  ‘I know all that.’ She cast a guilty glance to the side. ‘Elf, I have no desire to end your existence, and I have already offered you my apologies. I was dreaming. A nightmare had me in its grips. I could have sworn there was a monster in the corner.’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘I expect you are not at all monstrous.’ She set Fripso down, ran to her window, took note of a sundial in the courtyard and gasped. ‘Goodness! Dear Sol is almost at two degrees. I must ready myself for the Four Seasons Ball.’ She hastened to the end of her chamber where a smaller room was partitioned off with gilded bars and opened one of its gates. ‘I wonder now, elf, whether I could ask for your assistance. One of my minders has placed my dancing slippers on that shelf at the far wall of my clothing quarter, and I can no longer reach them. You are greater in height than me. Would you be so kind as to...’

  ‘Say no more,’ said a gallant Pieter. He stepped into the alcove, the rabbit at his heels, and strode towards the shelf.

  He halted when hearing a clang and a click.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Fripso said. ‘Ah, no! Oh dear.’

  The maiden was now by her canopied bed, placing the key to her clothing-quarter in a box that shone of tawdry gems.

  ‘She has trapped us here,’ said Fripso, eyeing the indoor gates that had closed behind them. ‘The cunning creature is imprisoning us both!’

  Chapter Seven

  Standing beside Charlie’s desk—he’d not been invited to sit—Matthew recalled the stomach-churning apprehension, which, since contact with the crystal, had remarkably grown wings and left him.

  Charlie threw down Matthew’s spiral-bound reports, one after another, chanting in robot tones when each one hit the desk, ‘Not good enough, not good enough, not good enough...’ as though they were worm-infested apples failing a quality test. Charlie raised his eyes to Matthew. In a voice that rang of sarcasm he said, ‘What’s up? You in love or something?’

  It was quite the opposite. What he’d always believed had given him emotional security was nothing more than an illusion.

  Charlie’s account of these fruitless efforts was jaw-dropping. Matthew drew in a breath to explain, but words escaped him. What had happened?

  He went back to his desk, checked the reports, found Charlie’s complaint to be abysmally justified and shook his head in despair. ‘I need a holiday,’ he said with a groan. And to top it all off, he was resorting to one of Bernadette’s insipid whines. How had he managed to mangle a task he’d been competent at for years? Checking his staff’s updates was something he did meticulously. Nothing escaped his eagle eye, and that was the easy part of the job! How could he have got it so wrong this time?

  He returned to Charlie’s office and said, ‘I can’t believe I approved those. I’m as disappointed at this as you are.’

  Charlie frowned at him, a reaction that usually inspired a certain amount of ire. Today it felt comical.

  Did Charlie ever realise how crazy this all was? The threatening act towards subordinates...the mandatory flexing of seniority muscles. Matthew had done it all before with his own team. It was a role. Just a role the corporation insisted they play.

  The eagle sculpture on Charlie’s desk seemed to be frowning too.

  Could Dalesford have messed with his mind when he’d handed him the crystal? Knowing no-one else had seen that flash of light was more than a little unsettling. Matthew remembered back to an event when he was fourteen and living in the UK. His parents ha
d taken him and his brother to a hypnotist show in Leeds. For weeks afterwards he’d puzzled over how the showman had manipulated semi-sleeping volunteers into doing the strangest of things before commanding them to forget it all upon waking. Bernadette frequently acted as though he’d done something awful to her, and yet he had no recollection of having done anything. This, of course, had been going on well before meeting Dalesford.

  He had to acknowledge he wasn’t his usual self. The recent disjointed yet freakishly connected experiences had disturbed his equilibrium. What about the night he’d slept under a tree in the park and stumbled across a bat that turned into a bird? And a small boy with a big attitude in a forest he’d never seen before? He’d put it down to someone spiking his drink. He’d secretly blamed Harrow, probably because Celia inferred Harrow was ‘on something’. If the guy were indeed guilty of substance abuse, he wouldn’t be wasting anything on Matthew. If Harrow were known for anything, it wasn’t for his generosity.

  A knock on the open door, and Charlie’s assistant stepped in to deliver another stack of reports.

  Dalesford a hypnotist and Harrow a drink spiker! Matthew staved off a chuckle. Looking for someone else to blame was hardly helpful.

  The assistant left, and Charlie opened his office door, saying to Matthew, ‘Anyway, we’ll discuss this later. I’ve got a meeting at six.’

  Matthew headed back to his desk. ‘I’ll get these patched up.’

  And then the dreaded words arrived. ‘No. Get on with other things. I’ll give them to Adam Harrow.’

  Of all other trading managers Charlie could have issued the work to, he’d had to settle on that good-for-nothing slime. Just like Adam Harrow to get in the Board Director’s ear about inheriting Charlie’s role. Two seats would have been set out for Harrow no doubt. One for him, the other for his overblown sense of entitlement.

  Harrow with the Nordic good looks and selective charm that women fell for time after time. Harrow who believed the starving throughout the world were meant to starve. Said with conviction they’d dug their own graves.

  Matthew recalled the last time he had to endure the bloke’s unstoppable arrogance when he’d witnessed him chatting up the girl with the seductive eyes. The poor girl had fallen for it of course, as they all did. Matthew had wanted to shout out to her about Harrow slinking into the tea room a week or so earlier to announce in a barely audible mumble that he’d got engaged. Five minutes before asking this girl if she were single he’d been phoning his fiancée to advise he’d be home in the next half hour.

  Despite the annoyances of his own relationship, Matthew could never do that to Bernadette. Having once been on the receiving end of infidelity, he knew being cheated on was the worst kind of hurt. He also knew Bernadette would never do that to him. Loyalty at least was something they had going for them. But Matthew couldn’t see a future there anymore. The only honourable thing to do was to tell his wife he was no longer happy.

  Outside Charlie’s office, Matthew caught himself pacing and stopped.

  I could always leave, he thought.

  Surprised by the impulsiveness of the idea, he promptly dispelled it. His loyalty had taken on an urgent voice, was telling him he had to shield his team from the inevitable havoc Adam Harrow would cause if armed with extra power. It told him in a growl that he was expected to do the right thing by an employer who had only ever rewarded him with advancement, and yet something else, something like an elusive wisp of muted silver sunshine, was insisting he break free of the game.

  He turned and strode back to his desk. Conan Dalesford’s mention of escaping ‘corporate tyranny’ had been lurking in the back of his mind since the plane trip home. It had since increased in decibels, a jingle blaring at him like a feel-good commercial for jogging shoes.

  In his imagination he revisited Conan and Jannali’s ocean-green foyer. A recollection of the crystal’s blast of silver light spun seamlessly into the haunting echo of a pipe made from reed.

  The eagle’s sombre words were dancing about him now in starlit streaks. Do you plan to waste the remainder of your life as well?

  Freedom.

  Emerging from a treadmill of a dream.

  Waking up. Wake up, Weissler. A sound-bite of Harrow’s voice, cold and imperious.

  Wake up! The forest kid’s voice cancelled Harrow’s out, fortified with the same self-certainty yet infinitely kinder. Just wake up, Matthew.

  It struck him then, a resolution to his endless obsessing. A dawning of possibility. A sudden insight into how he’d been tripped up by his narrow definition of security. A flash of realisation. An epiphany.

  He returned to his workstation. ‘What’s stopping me?’ he said.

  * * * *

  While Charlie met with the human resources manager, Matthew emailed admin with a request. Remembering the mess he’d discovered under his desk, he reached for a post-it note and scribbled down the words: Cleaner, Please don’t miss the floor and initialled it.

  An hour later, Matthew was back in Charlie’s office.

  ‘I’m sorry this had to happen.’ Charlie’s tone was grim. ‘You’ve been a great asset to the bank, Matthew, but with your background in finance and law you’ll have no trouble finding another financial management role.’

  ‘Or a legal one,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Or a legal one, yes.’ Charlie strode across to where Matthew stood, clamping a hand on his back as they went to exit the office door. ‘Eleven years, Matt! Tell you what. Don’t decide yet. Think it over tonight and we’ll have a chat about it in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not doing this lightly,’ Matthew told him. ‘The decision won’t be any different tomorrow.’

  ‘Concerning those reports. Your staff members let you down badly.’

  ‘Absolutely not, Charlie. If I were to do any blaming, I’d blame it on stress.’ Matthew stopped short of the door and turned to his boss. ‘But I take full responsibility for having stuffed up.’

  ‘I can’t persuade you to stay?’

  ‘Resigning has been on my mind for some time now, to be honest.’ The truth was his restlessness had crept up on him only recently, having begun the day he’d discovered the eagle sculpture on Charlie’s desk. Associating eagles with that sudden urge for freedom had been strengthened further—courtesy of the shape-shifting bat—although fatigue-related sleepless dreaming signalled the need for swift action. It had to be treated seriously.

  He reached for the office door and opened it. The door, as though ripped from his hands, crashed shut. He stepped back to see Charlie, red-faced and fuming, leaning against the handle.

  ‘For Chrissake,’ Charlie exploded. ‘Whaddya think you’re doing?’

  ‘What did you think? I was opening the door!’

  ‘You’re throwing your bloody future away, that’s what you’re bloody-well doing!’ Disgusted snort. ‘For five years I’ve been grooming you for my role! Five f***ing years!’

  Matthew looked down at the puffed-up trading director and realised with a shock that it wasn’t rage twisting Charlie’s features; it was anguish. He planted a hand on his boss’s shoulder. ‘It’s okay, mate. It’s okay.’

  ‘What’s getting to me, Matthew, if you must know, is this.’ Charlie’s voice lowered. His words were hurried and urgent. ‘I’m retiring in six months. Six months and all this is yours. Maybe, as a mentor, I haven’t encouraged you enough, but when it comes to leading GM teams, you’re one in a thousand. The sky’s the limit for you here.’

  A fire engine siren in George Street screamed through the silence.

  Sweat beads had settled across Charlie’s forehead. ‘And you know who’s lined up behind you.’

  A lot had happened in the past hour. Matthew had conquered a grimy fear. The threat that once taunted him, of Adam Harrow snatching the promotion he’d continually striven for, had vaporised like steam from the tea-room urn.

  He’d feared loss of control. What he’d failed to realise until now was that he’d lost contro
l long ago in succumbing to that fear.

  Weirdly enough, now that Charlie’s trading director role was almost imminent, the thought of rising higher felt strangely unexciting, like having neared the crest of Everest only to decide he’d rather be in the tropics.

  It was clear to Matthew, but Charlie would never understand. How could he, from that vantage point? ‘There’s more to life than the corporation,’ Matthew said.

  Charlie sank into a rapid slouch and hissed out a sigh, reminding Matthew of a deflating bicycle tyre. ‘Fair enough.’ Charlie glanced away. Smiled down at the carpet. He swung open the door. ‘I’d rather not say you’re right, Weissler, but maybe you are, in some other reality out there.’

  <><> XXII <><>

  ‘First Fripso and now Pieter,’ said Maleika. ‘Dear, dear! Both of them missing and no sign of their whereabouts. They’re nowhere in sight in the Dream Sphere. When am I to make any progress?’

  Kloory stared solemnly at the ground. ‘It is a mission of importance for them,’ he told his mother. ‘Perhaps they don’t want to be found just yet,’ but Maleika thought otherwise.

  They sat awhile by the campfire in silence. Fireflies, intent on the blaze beneath them, zipped about the rising smoke.

  ‘I know we will see our Pieter again,’ Maleika said. ‘He’s a loyal member of the clan. He would not abandon us without warning.’