Marsha's Deal

by Laura Solomon

  Marsha showed her around the house. When she got to the kitchen she was overly interested in and closely inspected the wooden spoon, the measuring spoons, the rolling pin and the chopping block. Seeming to be satisfied with the standard, she opened the fridge and the cupboards, checking for ingredients. When she found that some of elements she needed for her recipes were missing, she made Marsha a shopping list on the back of an old envelope and pushed it into her hands.

  Marsha went to the supermarket that afternoon and purchased the desired ingredients. She took them home to Sally who seemed satisfied with the bounty and commenced cooking immediately. Marsha left her to it, and when she returned to check on her two hours later there were trays of blueberry and cheesecake tarts, strawberry white chocolate tarts and sticky date and caramel muffins. Sally gestured towards the food with an open palm, inviting Marsha to try some. Marsha took a blueberry and cheesecake tart and bit into it. It was delicious – the filling was set perfectly and the blueberry compote was of excellent consistency. The pastry base melted in the mouth. Marsha had never tasted anything so heavenly. It was divine.

  Sally cooked like this twice a week, producing more food than Daniel and Marsha could eat. It was Daniel who had the idea to start a café.

  “Hey that mute can really cook!” he exclaimed when he bit into one of the tarts. “Why don't we open a café?”

  “That's not a bad idea”, said Marsha. “We could use one of the front bedrooms. I'll have to go see a business advisor though. I don't want to mess it up.”

  Marsha made an appointment with a business advisor in the City for the following Monday. When the day rolled around she dressed simply, put on her cross and headed into town. She was a bit nervous but she fought the butterflies in her stomach. She got the advice she needed from a small red headed lady called Sandy. Happy that she had what she needed Marsha headed to the hardware store to buy six tables and eighteen chairs for the verandah. She purchased an additional eight tables with matching chairs for the inside room. The front room had French doors that opened out onto the verandah, making for excellent indoor outdoor flow. Sally and Marsha made up the menus and had them laminated, then purchased a commercial espresso machine second hand off trade me. They had 500 flyers printed up and distributed them around the city. They called themselves Angels Café.

  Business was slow at first but soon picked up. Daniel put the word out amongst his skater mates, some of Marsha's nun friends frequented, and Rita and her cronies from the world of tattooing were also regular visitors. Marsha noticed that Rita and Wiremu seemed to be getting on particularly well. Rita whispered in Marsha's ear that she was expecting twins. One Monday Tama visited, bringing her list with her, asking if Rita could please foster more children or adolescents. Marsha said she had two more rooms. Tama consulted her list then suggested that Marsha consider 13 year old Billy Williams who'd had a brain tumour removed six months ago and now had frontal lobe damage. His parents couldn't care for him anymore, saying he couldn't control his emotions and had become apathetic and wouldn't help out around the house. He was also failing in his schoolwork. For the second room she suggested that Marsha take Sheila Burns who had found herself up the duff at fifteen. Her strict father disapproved and would not let her live at home anymore and she had nowhere to go and no means to bring up the child. Kind-hearted Marsha said she would take them both in. All the rooms in the house were filled.

  Marsha and Sally were in the kitchen together doing the dishes, when out of the blue Sally turned to Marsha and said 'I haven't always been a mute, you know.'

  Marsha nearly jumped out of her skin. The mute was speaking to her!

  'Do you want to tell me about the cause of your silence?'

  There was a long pause and then Sally said quietly 'My mother locked me in a cupboard when I was four. I banged on the door but she wouldn't let me out. I was so traumatized I stopped speaking. Later they took my mother away to the psychiatric hospital.”

  “Gosh that does sound awful. I can see why you would stop talking. Put the dishes down. Let's have a cup of tea.”

  Marsha put the kettle on and brewed some chamomile. When they sat down side by side Sally said softly,

  “You seem nice. I don't mind speaking to you. But I won't talk to anyone else in the house.”

  “That's okay”, said Marsha. “I can see how all those people would be daunting. You can trust me.”

  She put her arm around Sally's shoulders and squeezed.

  Marsha's good work did not go unnoticed. She was awarded a Te Aroha Community Spirit of the Year award for contributions to the community. A small plaque was given. Marsha polished up the plaque and sat it on her mantlepiece. She was careful not be become filled with pride.

  Daniel built a vegetable garden for Marsha. It was something he had done at school but had never had the opportunity to do when he was with his mother and stepfather. He dug over the soil in a patch towards the back of the property and planted beetroot, cauliflower, snowpeas, broccoli, silverbeet and spinach. He sprinkled fertilizer and slug pellets around the plants and tended to them with care. Marsha was impressed and told Daniel so. Daniel shrugged and said it was nothing.

  * * *

  Uncle Murray was in the police force. He was also a keen golfer. He had sustained a frontal lobe injury after somebody had accidentally struck him in the head with a golf club when he was standing too close behind them and they were swinging their club. He had short man syndrome and a big ego to compensate. He drove a red Chevvy and was fond of revving its engine. The frontal lobe injury had resulted in anger management issues. When he missed a shot in golf he would throw his club to the ground in frustration or sometimes, hack at the turf. Events took a darker turn. Murray was at the Shandon Golf Club playing against Andrew Wylie. Andrew, who had the luck of the devil, got a hole in one and, pleased with himself, started rocking back and forth on his heels and whistling. When Murray stepped up to take a shot he was miles wide. The ball flew into some nearby pines and was lost forever, unable to be retrieved.

  Murray completely lost his cool. He blamed Andrew for putting him off his game.

  “That was your fault! You put me off. You and your bloody whistling!”

  “Hey mate, cool off. Don't blame me for your substandard game.”

  Murray flew at Andrew and began beating him about the head with the golf club. Andrew fell to his knees and put his hands over his head in self defence.

  “Cut it out you nutter!”

  Murray stopped.

  Andrew did not take the incident lightly. An assault charge was laid. Murray could not afford for this to happen if he wanted to remain in the police force. The police superintendent summoned him into his office and sat him down in a chair like a naughty schoolboy.

  “You know we take this kind of thing seriously in the force.”

  Murray said nothing, just stared straight ahead. The supervisor took this as insolence.

  “Well, what have you got to say for yourself.”

  Still the silence.

  “I'm going to have to lay you off. We can't have police officers beating members of the public about the head with golf clubs. It simply is not on. Consider yourself fired.”

  Murray collected his belongings and departed the building in shame.

  The devil ticked off wrath.

  * * *

  Rita and Wiremu had been getting on very well – so well that they had begun a love affair. Wiremu had started it – he hadn't been able to keep his eyes and hands off Rita whom he had fancied the minute she walked through the door of his tattoo parlour. Rita had reciprocated his affection and they often took breaks from their work to go upstairs and get intimate together. Their love was in its first flowering – it had not yet become jaded or tainted with cynicism and they came alive in each other's presence. Wiremu suggested to Rita that they could keep her babies and raise them as their own. Rita asked him if he was sure this was okay and he nodded yes he was sure. Rita then threw her arms around
him in gratitude. She now had a loving home for her twins – she had not really wanted to give the babies to her parents to raise – it seemed too cold and cruel to give your children away, even to your own parents. The babies would need their mother to look after them in their formative years. They would need they mother when they cried at night, and needed soothing to get to sleep. Rita left her small flat and moved in with Wiremu who had a larger apartment on Cuba Street, right in the heart of Wellington's hubbub.

  The two of them were often seen out and about in Wellington's cafes, especially at Angel's Café, where they sampled most of the mute's fare and found it to be divine. Wiremu proposed when Rita was six months pregnant, saying that they could get married next month which was October and that he thought she would look great in a wedding dress. Rita accepted his proposal and they set the wedding date for the spring. Marsha and all at the Home for Emerging Angels were invited to attend.

  Spring bloomed; the city looked beautiful with roses, hydrangeas, freeshias, daffodils and jonquils flourishing everywhere you looked. Rita chose a purple satin dress with black velvet straps. On the big day she carried a bouquet of white roses with long green stems. Wiremu could not take his eyes of her. They got married to Bill Withers playing Ain't No Sunshine. Marsha was in the audience, sitting next to Sally who in turn was sitting next to Daniel. At the end of the ceremony Wiremu gave Rita a big kiss on the lips prompting Daniel to say, 'Geez cut it out.'

  “Come on Daniel”, chastised Marsha, “it's a wedding. It's customary for the groom to kiss the bride.”

  Daniel blushed.

  After the wedding was over there was a big reception party held at Angel's Cafe with a five layer wedding cake baked by Sally. It was covered in white icing and decorated with angels. There was also plenty of champagne. Unbeknown to Marsha, the devil had sent two of his minions to attend the party. The lurked in the background, nobody but them knew that they had poisoned the punch. It was just fortunate that sober Marsha was the one who happened to have a cup of it first. She spat it out immediately, tasting that something was wrong. If it had not been for that, perhaps other, more drunk revelers might have been poisoned and lost their lives. She did not want to disrupt the party so she did not say anything to anybody else. She took the punch inside and flushed it down the toilet. Then she set about finding who had caused this devilish mischief. She took Sally to one side and told her to taste the rest of the food to check for poisoning. She told her to be careful and just to take a tiny nibble.

  Sally tasted the food but could not find any trace of poisoning. Marsha searched the crowd for suspicious looking characters. Lurking near the edge of the party were two men in dark suits with bald heads. The veins in their eyeballs were red and inflamed. Their pupils seemed to glow. Marsha did not like the look of them at all. She clutched her cross tightly and walked over to where they stood.

  “Hello do I know you?” she said. “This is a private party. Do you have an invite?”

  The two men stared at the cross and looked afraid. Marsha put her left hand on the left shoulder of one man and her right hand on the shoulder of another and they turned into two pillars of black smoke. Their black suits dropped to the ground, leaving only a stench of sulphur in the air. Marsha shuddered, thinking how close the two demons had come to being successful in their plan.

  That night she decorated the outside of the villa with crucifixes. She sprinkled blessed salt in a protective circle around the outside of the house. She also prayed to God that the demons would not return to wreak havoc on the sanctuary she had created.

  Marsha's prayers were heard and answered and the demons did not return. Down in hell the devil paced and cursed but there was nothing he could do about Marsha. She was protected by God.

  * * *

  Karen Lodestone had one fatal weakness – excessive love of money. When Isobel got her divorce settlement Karen began to crave her friend's money. For many days and nights she plotted and she planned how she could get her eager hands on some of it. She went online and she asked in a confidential chat room how she could steal from her friend. The 'person' who answered was one of the devil's minions.

  “Install Spyware on her laptop to steal her internet banking passwords”, he advised. “That'll screw her up.”

  Karen's husband, who was as crooked as a lightning bolt, worked in IT. Karen stole her friend's laptop and her husband installed spyware on it that would steal Isobel's username and password for her internet banking. Isobel, who lived with her head in the clouds a lot of the time, did not notice that the laptop was missing. Karen returned the laptop one Friday.

  That weekend, Karen and her husband logged into Isobel's internet banking. They weren't especially clever. They thought it would be too obvious if they stole a large amount, so they siphoned only $1500. The next week they took the same amount from her savings. This pattern continued for two months until Isobel cottoned on and went to see her bank manager at ASB. She sat down in the manager's office.

  “It appears as if somebody has been stealing from my account”, she said, on the verge of tears. “I can't afford for this to happen. I'm not rich.”

  The manager put her fingers to her keyboard.

  “Let's look into this then shall we?” she said efficiently.

  She pushed her glasses up further on the bridge of her nose.

  “Ah yes – it appears as if somebody has been taking $1500 from your account for the last two months. The money has been going into an ASB account. I will be able to work out who owns that account.”

  She scrolled down a few pages.

  “Let's see now. It looks like that account belongs to Karen and John Lodestone.”

  Isobel gasped. She felt as if she had been stabbed in the heart. Surely Karen would not betray her like this – not her Karen. It was cruel, too cruel. Isobel hardly heard the next words the bank manager spoke.

  “Would you like to press charges?”

  “Yes, no. I'm sorry. I don't know. It's just that she's my friend. Or at least, I thought she was. Until now.”

  The friendship suffered. It did not last. Isobel did not press charges but she gathered her courage and confronted Karen.

  “Money has been disappearing from my account into yours”, she said. “You've been stealing from me. It's terrible. How could you do this?”

  Karen did not deny her sin but she did apologise.

  “I'm sorry”, she said. “It was just that you had so much money compared to me. My greed got the better of me.”

  “But how did you do it?”

  “We put spyware on your laptop. John helped.”

  Satan rubbed his hands together in glee and said, “Final sin completed – greed. And all caught on DVD.”

  He sought out the black angel, Steel, with whom he had made his bet. Steel was found in the lower quarter, washing his hands in a geyser.

  “Come on then, pay up. I did it – I tempted seven humans into committing the seven deadly sins in seven days. You owe me ten thousand dollars. The sum we agreed on.”

  Steel huffed.

  “I'll need to see the DVDs first.”

  “Sure. They're upstairs. Come with me and we'll watch them together. I could do with seeing the footage again. I need a good laugh.”

  They made their way back upstairs to where the DVD player was located. Satan pressed play and footage of Screech preparing for the chocolate competition came on the screen.

  “I'm sure you don't need a commentary”, said Satan. “It's all self-explanatory. How each human met their downfall. Tempted by me via one of my minions. As per our little bet.”

  The DVDs played out, and the two demons watched, cackling, as the humans met their demise.

  * * *

  Summer came in and the twins were born in Ascot Hospital. They were two healthy babies, a girl and a boy and Wiremu and Rita named them Anahera – 'angel' and Hehu meaning rescued by God. All was right with the world and a sense of peace and prosperity reigned over Angels Café. Mars
ha never remembered the deal she had made, but in both her waking and dreaming lives she had the sense that she was winning.

  About the Author

  Laura Solomon has a 2.1 in English Literature (Victoria University, 1997) and a Masters degree in Computer Science (University of London, 2003).

  Her books include Black Light, Nothing Lasting, Alternative Medicine, An Imitation of Life, Instant Messages, Vera Magpie, Hilary and David, In Vitro, The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories, University Days, Freda Kahlo’s Cry, Brain Graft and Taking Wainui.

  She has won prizes in Bridport, Edwin Morgan, Ware Poets, Willesden Herald, Mere Literary Festival, and Essex Poetry Festival competitions.

  She was short-listed for the 2009 Virginia Prize and the 2014 International Rubery Award and won the 2009 Proverse Prize. She has had work accepted in the Edinburgh Review and Wasafiri (UK), Takahe and Landfall (NZ). She has judged the Sentinel Quarterly Short Story Competition.