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‘Wow...’ Rosetta tried to mask her underwhelm. Royston’s comment that the characters in Our True Ancient History were now reincarnated, and alive and well in 2008, felt decidedly far-fetched. Royston was right, but only in his tongue-in-cheek reference to her not being able to believe all that.
‘It feels like a truth to me,’ Royston said. ‘Lillibridge hinted at this on the book’s fourth page.’
‘He did?’
‘Check back to before the prologue. The verse Lillibridge wrote is highly insightful.’ In his signature drone, Royston added, ‘It’s all coming together, it really is. What if we actually already know these characters? What if they’re not only reincarnated, but somehow connected with our little Sydney book group?’
Rosetta gave Royston a sideways hug, luxuriating in the mohair fluffiness of his cardigan. ‘I’ll never dispute Elysium Glades once existed in Norway, and I love the idea of The Silvering. Not so sure about sprites and Gold’s Kin returning to new lives here in human bodies. And as for reincarnation...’ She hesitated. ‘Well, I mean...’
After Royston laughed off her scepticism and related a couple of Conan Dalesford’s more modest prophecies, he climbed into his car, started the motor, gave an affectionate wave, then zipped off into the darkness.
Royston’s parting words about Matthew remained with her. Sounds like you really fancy him. She didn’t of course. And even if she did, there was no harm in silently and anonymously admiring someone married. Quite different to working on attracting them, as the woman who ensnared her ex-husband had. As for Angus, he’d been equally selfish, too wishy-washy to walk away. How convenient, to suffer from Cheater’s Amnesia, an impaired ability to remember he had a wife and baby who loved and needed him.
The other words of Royston’s lingering in her mind was his speculation that their tiny book group was ‘connected somehow’ to the ancient history Lillibridge conveyed. For Rosetta, it didn’t ring true.
Trying to imagine what Pieter and Eidred and Maleika would be like if reincarnation were real and if they were in this world today, Rosetta floated inside. She dashed to her bedside table and with great care picked up the book that she’d read and loved as a teenager. Back then she’d seen it as an interruption to her important task of reading every ’80s teen romance ever written, but it had brought something precious to her, some awareness that she was more than just her personality.
Conan Dalesford had said Royston was ‘a being with unlimited potential’, but wasn’t everyone a being with unlimited potential? Perhaps every person in this current point in time was shackled by shrunken memory-banks that cancelled out recollections of worlds beyond.
She ran her hand over the hardcover of the 1920s edition of Our True Ancient History—the copy she’d been borrowing from Royston until her order from the Antiquarian arrived. She skimmed her fingertips over its matt roughness and tarnished sunken title, and went over Royston’s conversation with Conan Dalesford.
According to Royston, Conan had found a way of breaking down ‘the memory divisions’ initially put in place by body kings. Royston had said, with an enraptured smile, that Conan had the ability to remember each of his ‘incarnations’ on Earth and was referred to by many as a ‘fully realised being’. He’d been visited by his past ‘selves’ who’d prompted him to welcome them into his consciousness. He’d then apparently melded with these selves, and absorbed the valuable skills, talents and wisdoms gleaned from each particular life.
Rosetta opened the book and breathed in its familiar woodsy fragrance. She couldn’t help wondering whether all Conan Dalesford’s ramblings were just philosophy-speak for the multi-faceted expressions of the self. Interactions that life demanded meant different selves were accessed and swapped over frequently. Everyone relied on varying shades of their personalities to make it through each day, as workers, as parents, as lovers, or thinkers or dreamers. Conan Dalesford’s nod towards rebirth might have been nothing more than a metaphor, a fancy way of espousing postmodernism.
She turned over the cover-page. There it was. The tiny verse in the front of the book Royston had told her to read. How could she have missed it previously? The verse was preceded by an introduction.
Perhaps the people whose lives you are soon to learn of, dear reader, will return to the Earth in future times.
Let us be fanciful for one small moment, and allow ourselves to suppose that an important silver-coded link will be embedded within their Christian, middle and last names:
The silv’ring link
’Tween he and she
Is little more than ‘i’ and ‘e’
If not as such
Then ‘o’ and ‘r’
Within each name these rascals are
The page had evidently been Conan Dalesford’s inspiration for concluding sprites and body kings were living in the here-and-now. According to a linguistics professor Royston had emailed last week, the reference to ‘rascals,’ had probably been a wry substitute for the term ‘letters of the alphabet.’
Rosetta turned to Chapter IV where Maleika explained its meaning to her clan:
‘The Silvering is a time of repair in the extreme future. It is expected to occur when the gold-tainted illusion of greed equalling lack and lack equalling greed has multiplied to an unbearable point.’
What, in the sprites’ ancient world would have been considered the extreme future? Centuries? Millenniums? The 1700s when Lillibridge was alive? Perhaps The Silvering had already happened. Perhaps not. Kindness was certainly not the present currency. If it were, children would not be dying of starvation.
Could it be possible the extreme future was soon to come about?
Closing the book, she contemplated the names of each of the ancient people documented in it. Pieter, Eidred and Maleika each had ‘e’ and ‘i’ side-by-side in their names, while Orahney, Croydee and Kloory each had ‘o’ and ‘r’.
The phone rang. Rosetta rose, then sat back down at the thud of Izzie’s eager footsteps and her voice echoing in the hall. ‘Oh, hi! Yes, I’m fine. Sorry about the mix-up.’ Her voice loudened. ‘Hey, Mum! Charlotte Wallace’s mother is on the line.’
‘So glad she’s okay,’ Diondra said, once Rosetta gave a quick account of Izzie’s return. ‘Dominic ran out of time. His Port Vila flight left at ten, so I was going to call Matthew.’
‘Matthew?’
‘Matthew Weissler. Dette’s husband. I thought he and Sara might be able to go and look for her. I’ve been caught up, unfortunately.’
‘Dette Weissler is Sara Belfield’s mum?’
Diondra’s tone became accusatory. ‘Didn’t you know that?’
‘Well, no. See, Izzie and I know Sara through her dad, Grant Belfield.’
‘You don’t know Dette?’
‘I don’t know her well. I’ve met Dette twice now, but neither of her girls was with her. I guess I didn’t make the connection because Grant always refers to his girls’ mother as Bernie.’
‘Bernadette is her full name.’
‘Yeah, I see that now. Ha! How funny!’ Rosetta couldn’t resist laughing. To think that one of the unnamed daughters Dette mentioned at the nannying interview had been Izzie’s school buddy! ‘Dette would be in Vanuatu by now, would she?’
‘She’s there for another week.’
‘Sara and Laura’s mum! Such a surprise! I happened across Dette a couple of weeks ago at her husband’s retire—’
‘Glad Izzie’s safe and sound. Have a lovely evening.’ The call ended in an irritable click.
Not long after, the phone rang again.
A familiar husky voice said, ‘How are you? Got time to talk to a telemarketer? I sell socks.’
‘Craig,’ Rosetta roared. ‘Great to hear from you! What was your trip to Alice Springs like? And how’s that “secret project” of yours going?’
Craig summed up his trip in a few words and neatly dodged the second question by launching into another topic.
Falling i
nto a flippant mood while chatting to her old buddy, Rosetta scribbled down her full name on the telephone pad: Rosetta Sophia Melki and circled the i’s e’s o’s and r’s it contained.
Craig’s girlfriend had already told him about the Adam incident. He asked how she was bearing up.
Halfway through saying she was taking it very well, Rosetta interrupted herself with: ‘How could I have been so naive?’
Craig, in a stream of swear words, constructed a colourful description of Adam. Finally he said, ‘Despite shenanigans from that joker, though, how are things?’
‘Izzie stayed out longer than she should have and I was scared to pieces, but she’s home now, so as you can imagine I’m happier than ever, although the cat’s pregnant, the house is being sold on us. Crystal Consciousness has gone bust. Car’s still with the mechanic.’
‘You’ve been evicted, Rosetta? That’s terrible.’
‘Craig, I can’t even bear to talk about it.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And Izzie doesn’t know yet. I’ll tell her tomorrow.’
‘Okay, but remember I’m here if you need help with anything. I’ll help move you; that’s no problem at all. Just give me plenty of warning.’
‘I can always rely on you, Craig. You’re a gem.’
‘And as for the cat getting knocked up...well, that was preventable, Rosetta.’
‘Oh, really? I’m sorry, but I don’t remember asking for a lesson in veterinary science. Knowing it’s preventable and not being able to do anything about it are two different things you know.’
‘I know, I know. No need to get narky. Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t afford to get Sidelta desexed?’
‘I couldn’t have worried you with that. It was my responsibility to come up with the cash and I stuffed up, but no matter how hard I try saving, random expenses always crop up.’
‘And wipe out your non-surplus income? When are you gonna realise I’m here for you? I know you wouldn’t have accepted it as a gift, but what’s wrong with asking for a loan? Think of me as a benevolent bank manager. I love lending money to the people I love! Anyway, what I was phoning about might at least remedy one of your worries. How’d you like a smooth-running vehicle for the next month? I have to go back to the Northern Territory.’
‘Your BM? For the time you’re in Alice Springs?’ Rosetta took the phone from her ear, squealed and ran on the spot, then said into the receiver, ‘I’ll delay any further enthusiasm until after you assure me you’re covered for Comprehensive.’
‘Covered for Comprehensive, but not for deafness caused by an excitable woman’s squawks. Eadie told me your car broke down on the freeway.’
‘It’s a junk heap. Insists on making a spectacle of me by breaking down wherever the traffic’s heaviest.’
‘Mine can tide you over till you win that singing competition. Then you can cash in your prize and get yourself a good one.’
‘Aw Craig! In our dreams.’
‘I mean it, Rosetta. Being in the semis at Bondi Diggers means you’re a serious contender.’
It had been a brilliant night the week before, when, high on the knowledge she’d become involved with Adam Harrow, she’d sung for the judges a jazzy rendition of ‘My Moonlight Prince’, released in New Zealand in the mid-sixties by Danna Nolan. Craig’s skilful playing of the Spanish guitar had done justice to her song.
It hadn’t been all bad news. Some truly lovely highlights had enlivened the past few weeks. Life had taken on a vibrant quality, and Rosetta was determined to keep it that way. And now Craig, bless his heart, was offering to lend her his plush, super comfortable, midnight-blue sports, and she’d have it for an entire month.
‘Craig,’ she said sighing, ‘this is the best news I’ve had in ages.’ She told him about Royston’s consultation and Conan Dalesford’s thoughts on The Silvering.
‘Lena and Eadie reckon it’s gonna happen in 2012,’ Craig said. ‘Something to do with the completion of astrological cycles and an end to the Mayan calendar, but we’re not even sure what The Silvering is.’
‘Except for that one mention in Chapter IV about it being an end to the greed-lack cycle. Conan believes we’ll experience The Silvering in 2022.’
‘Mm. We’re hardly seeing any evidence of that. It’d make a good blog topic though, Rosetta.’
Their conversation wound up. The phone rang once more. Jack Barnaby returning Rosetta’s call.
‘Yaaay, Jack!’ she hollered. ‘Thanks for calling back.’
The commercial-cleaning proprietor sounded off-guard. ‘I...er...didn’t expect you to be still up at this hour, Rosetta. I was about to leave a message.’
‘No, still up. We tend to be owls, Izzie and I. Listen, I’m in a bit of a pickle at the moment. My poor boss at Crystal Consciousness phoned me in tears this morning. Profits are down, and she’s had to let us all go. So I made up my mind to tell you as soon as I could that I’m free to do those extra shifts.’
Her words were met with a prickly gap of silence.
‘Jack?’ Rosetta waited. ‘You still there?’
‘Hmmph!’
‘So...er...are those shifts still available or—’
‘I’m not happy, Rosetta.’
‘Not happy? What’s caused you to be unhappy, Jack?’
‘You letting me down on Thursday, that’s what’s made me unhappy.’
‘When my car broke down? But I phoned you as soon as I could. Like I said before, I’m honestly sorry for the trouble caused, but a car packing it in isn’t something we plan.’
‘Yeah, well, you should have kept your car in better order. Turns out the junior I hired needed a couple more shifts, so I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to quit.’
* * * *
Rosetta hastened to answer and failed. Could this really be happening? Could her commercial-cleaning boss really be firing her over one lone absence? ‘Surely you wouldn’t do that,’ she said, her voice dissolving into panic. ‘Four whole years, Jack! Not a single missed shift until now. No sick days, no lateness—’
‘I’m sorry, Rosetta. Times are tough. The market’s looking uncertain. At this stage, I have to demand total reliability.’
Bitter at this, Rosetta said, ‘How alike we are. I value reliability too. Especially when it comes to employers.’
Jack Barnaby made a hurried goodbye, his voice conveying more than a hint of guilt.
Long after she’d placed the phone back into its cradle, Rosetta stared glumly at the walls. No job. No home. No more than $2.65 in the bank. Unemployed. Homeless.
The Women’s and Children’s Refuge, with its noise-ridden fluorescent-lit dorms and barely nutritious dinnertime mush, loomed gloomily in her list of solutions. So this was how it was meant to turn out. A switch from volunteer to victim. Had fate collapsed the world around her to point out the irony of greed equalling lack? Was expecting full employment a sign she’d been too greedy?
The dread of failing her daughter had always been there, cloying and pungent like old cigarette smoke. Now it took the form of a stifling vapour. Her throat was constricted and tense. Oxygen seemed to elude her.
Starting up EGS to combat global suffering would be impossible now. The hope of helping others escape poverty had been reduced to little more than a pie-in-the-sky delusion, cancelled out cruelly by her own need for survival. ‘Can’t afford to think like this,’ she told herself. Dwelling in pessimism would only sink her deeper into that inevitable mire of despair. ‘Have to be positive. Have to keep alert to opportunities.’
Eager to scour the internet for jobs, she darted across to the study. Izzie was in there, compiling a group email. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a sec,’ Izzie murmured. ‘You look like you need the internet pretty urgently.’
Rosetta opened her mouth to relate Jack’s phone call and stopped. Did she really want to ruin the final minutes of Izzie’s birthday? Izzie was already concerned about the demise of Crystal Consciousness.
Once Izzie left the study, Rosetta emailed he
r CV to a variety of retail and cleaning advertisers. She then acted on Craig’s suggestion of blogging about the ‘Silv’ring’ verse. Communication with Friday Fortnighters would serve to distract her awhile from the dire prospects ahead. She threw out a question to Friday Fortnighters:
I’d love to hear your thoughts on The Silvering. Do you believe the people Lillibridge consulted during the writing of his book (referred to as ‘The People of the Sea’) were making an intuitive prediction? If so, when do you believe The Silvering might happen and how do you imagine it would come about? We’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings on how the world’s greed-lack cycle might start to diminish. What’s your interpretation of the sprites’ ‘Currency of Kindness?’
Despite a resolution to remain light and bright, she found herself concluding the blog with mention of her job and home situation to illustrate the lose-lose aspects of shrinking accommodation affordability and growing unemployment. Realising she’d descended into maudlin self-pity, she promptly deleted them. The goal of these blogs was to inspire, not to depress. Besides, she was sure to receive a thought-provoking post from someone in far greater turmoil. Not every sole parent had just the one dependent. She altered her approach.
The response she received an hour later astounded her. The Currency of Kindness had somehow struck a chord. Posts had flown in lamenting the unfairness of the current economy.
‘We’re each expected to have a job,’ Deborah, a Friday Fortnighter from Cardiff in the United Kingdom wrote, ‘and yet there aren’t enough jobs to go around. For this, we are punished. We live in constant fear of losing our rights to survival. Go back to how we were meant to live, I say. In line with nature. Oh, what I’d give to live in Elysium Glades! (Minus the body kings of course!)’
The numerous accounts of job losses and home losses happening to neighbours, to sons and daughters, to friends and relatives of Friday Fortnighters, and to Friday Fortnighters themselves, were, in their own sad way, a comfort to Rosetta, a sobering reminder that she wasn’t alone. The plight of those unfortunate enough to live in developing nations, or in areas sullied by conflict and persecution, was also a prominent theme.
The Golding Page 42