Golden Deeds

by Chidgey, Catherine

  ‘He’ll tire himself out eventually,’ said Malcolm. ‘What do you feel like for dinner?’

  ‘He’ll break a bone if he’s not careful,’ said Ruth, thinking of the time Laura had tripped on the Persian rug. She’d fallen on her right hand, extended by instinct, and broken her arm.

  ‘Which bone was it?’ the detective inspector had asked them, his pen poised. ‘The ulna? The radius?’

  Ruth decided to start taking calcium supplements. It was never too late to protect the bones, her holiday magazines had advised. Never too late to stop them from thinning, becoming porous and brittle, as light as honeycomb.

  ‘Colette rang before, just to say she’s home. She mentioned there was some problem with keys when I was away.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Malcolm, yes. I got locked out one night, by mistake. I had to break the glass in the back door. But it’s all fixed now. You’d never even know, to look at it.’

  ‘Where was Daniel?’

  ‘In bed.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have let you in?’

  ‘He could have,’ said Malcolm, ‘but he didn’t.’ He and Ruth listened to their son racing down the hall.

  ‘Well,’ said Ruth, ‘he’s a child. Perhaps he didn’t understand what was going on.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Malcolm, ‘perhaps.’

  Daniel flew from room to room. He hardly touched the floor. He batted into windows, hit his dressing-table mirror. He darted around his bed. On the wall, the silhouette picture shook.

  In the new part of the cemetery, where everything was flat and neat and easily maintained, the sexton consulted his chart.

  ‘Edna Hicks is the last one,’ he told his assistant. ‘It’s a double. Block eight, row C, plot fifty-four.’

  The spade moved quickly; it was mindless work. The assistant enjoyed his job, didn’t find it morbid at all. He got to work outdoors, there was nobody breathing down his neck and the digging kept him fit. His girlfriend liked his biceps. She liked to bite them. He was taking her out tonight, and he’d just have time to shower and change. It amused him to think that he got paid for digging holes. Not many people, he thought, made a living by creating empty space. Little by little, the earth opened.

  Acknowledgements

  For their encouragement and advice, I wish to thank Fergus Barrowman, Kate Camp, Pat Chidgey, Caroline Dawnay, Robert Easting, Virginia Fenton, Rachel Lawson, Bill Manhire, and Helen and Fred Mayall. Special thanks to Greg Campbell for his constant support despite ongoing criticism of his footwear.

  I am grateful for the generous assistance of Peter Churchill and AMP Asset Management, John and Philip Bougen on behalf of the Doreen Bougen Trust, the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship, the NZSA/Reader’s Digest Fellowship, the Stout Research Centre at Victoria University, and the Todd New Writers’ Bursary from Creative New Zealand.

  The following books were particularly useful in researching this novel:

  Bell, Rudolph M., Holy Anorexia, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985.

  Cennini, Cennino d’Andrea, Il Libro dell’Arte, trans. Christiana J. Herringham, Allen and Unwin, London, 1930.

  De Hamel, Christopher, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1986.

  De Hamel, Christopher, Scribes and Illuminators, British Museum Press, London, 1992.

  Theophilus, De Diversis Artibus, ed. and trans. C.R. Dodwell, Thomas Nelson, London and Edinburgh, 1961.

  Tymms, W.R. and Wyatt, M.D., The Art of Illuminating, Studio Editions, London, 1987.

  Yonge, Charlotte M., A Book of Golden Deeds, Macmillan, London, 1864.

  Various vintage Meccano magazines, kindly lent by Stewart Gardiner.

  Earlier versions of parts of this novel have previously appeared in Landfall and the NZ Listener.

  Copyright

  VICTORIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

  Victoria University of Wellington

  PO Box 600 Wellington

  © Catherine Chidgey 2000

  ISBN 978-0-86-473721-2 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-86-473721-2 (epub)

  ISBN 978-0-86-473860-8 (mobi)

  First published 2000

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  Printed by PrintLink, Wellington