Page 108 of Kiwi Sin
“It matters,” Patience said, and that was all.
Priya said, “Anyway, I don’t think Gabriel’s ever going to be a model, Patience. Or even sell cars.”
Gabriel said, “What?”
Priya said, “She thought you’d want to make more money, since you’re so good-looking.”
Valor was still standing there alone, looking alternately furious and like he was trying to think of a charming thing to say that would get him out of this. Everybody else, though, was looking at each other in confusion. Gabriel said, “I’m, uh … not going to be a model.”
Gray said, “I should bloody well hope not. That would put me right off, seeing you up on a billboard in your undies. Especially if you’re my brother-in-law.”
I said, “What happened to the job selling farm equipment, Valor? Thought you were going to get rich.”
I was never nasty.Never.I was clearly doing it now, though, because Valor’s face reddened, and he said stiffly, “I was looking for something to do while I did the Prophet’s work, that’s all. It didn’t suit me.”
Uriel said, “They gave you the sack for lying to a customer, you mean. Animportantcustomer, who saw straight through you. I was going to do it myself,” he told Gray. “Changed my mind. I’m not going to stay in building, though. Glory and I are taking computer classes at night. That’s where the money is, if you’re clever, and you don’t have to lie to anyone for it. It’ll take a wee while to learn anyway. A year or two, most likely, but I’ll give you notice before I go.”
Gray said, “Oh. Well … fine. Cheers.” Sounding bemused, like his head had whipped back and forth so many times, it was aching by now. As for me, I was just thrilled that the spotlight was off me, and wondering—would I really go to the police?
Yes. I would. Daisy had done it, and Frankie, too, and told stories so much worse than mine. Besides, I had to do it for Patience, didn’t I? And whoever else it had happened to. Some other twelve-your-old girl, trembling in her bed at night, hoping nobody would discover her sin.
Though how Patience had thought Gabriel would ever want to be amodel …
That was when Gabriel said, “Funny that the Prophet’s just had this revelation now. I’m guessing it may be because God also told him that the Employment Court has granted Diligence and Truthful an emergency hearing, and he imagines that others will follow. Others like you,” he told Daisy and her sisters.
“A hearing for what?” Uncle Aaron asked. “And you’ve known this, and not told me? Why?”
“I knew they were considering doing it,” he said. “As they’re on my crew, and they wanted to talk to me about it. In confidence. They were worried about the rest of their family that’s still there, but four of the others have joined as well. Some of those who are suing are still inside the community, which is a bad sign for the Prophet. That’s the reason for the emergency hearing, because three of those others are Diligence and Truthful’s sisters, and they’ve said they don’t feel safe now that they’ve come forward. It wasn’t my secret to tell, so I didn’t, but now, it’s out. We’ve all been classed as volunteers all our lives, and we weren’t, were we? Nobody asked me if I volunteered to work all hours when I was six, or when I was sixteen. Nobodyeverasked me. Did anybody ask any of you? Did anybody ask Daisy, or Priya, or Oriana? Or Mum, or the rest of the women? If the Prophet’s talking about paying people now, of opening Mount Zion now, it’s because he’s scared of what will happen if he has to pay everybody the wages he owes them. Thebackwages. There are only six people asking for that relief now. What happens when there are six hundred? How many new recruits will he need to make up that difference? And what happened to the money, anyway? Hundreds of people donating their labor for decades. All those products going out the door for so many years. Where’s the money?”
It brought down the house.
46
FINDING HOME
Oriana
Everything had changed, and nothing had changed. Gabriel and I left his parents’ flat together, driving off in his ute. He didn’t take me home, though. Instead, I asked him to stop short of the turning to the house and park at the Tunnel Beach carpark, where we walked through the waving grass along the clifftop track, down the steep steps, and through the concrete tunnel, coming out on the sand at last, amidst the wave-tossed boulders and the wheeling seabirds, with the waterfall splashing down across the little cove.
I stopped at the exit from the tunnel and told Gabriel, “I haven’t been back here since Gilead kidnapped Frankie. It happened here, right in this spot. I looked around, and she was gone. I never even noticed. I had Hannah’s girls, and we were paddling in the water, but Jack looked back and saw. That’s the only way we knew what had happened.”
Gabriel had my hand, but he wasn’t pulling me along toward the water or anything like that. He was just standing there and listening. He said, “Jack’s a good wee man. Like his dad.”
“Like you,” I said. “I couldn’t have told everybody about Valor without you. It’s not holding me prisoner anymore, though, and I don’t want that other bad memory to hold me prisoner here, either, and keep me away from this place. Daisy left, and Frankie left, andIleft. I don’t want to give Mount Zion the power to ruin good things for me. I don’t want to give the Prophet the power. The Prophet isn’t God, and what he says isn’t anything like what God is, not to me. In fact, I don’t think he’s a prophet at all.”
Saying it felt like a dam bursting. I’d never dared even to think it before, not all the way.
Gabriel said, “I agree with you,” and that was all, but Gabriel didn’t say most things with words. He said them with his body, and with his actions. With the hand that was holding mine, and the will that had carried him out of his father’s house, not even staying for the discussion that would be happening there, because his decision was already made.
I said, “Let’s walk,” and we did. The wind had picked up after the heat of the afternoon. It was blowing from the southwest, and there’d be clouds building out there. Rain tonight, I thought. It would be good for the fruit trees, and I loved the comforting sound of rain on the fabric roof of the yurt.
The sea had roughened, too, the waves higher and flecked with foam, the water tinged with green. I hadn’t grown up with the sea. I’d never even seen it until the week Frankie and I had run across the bare ground of Mount Zion, toward the fence and freedom. I told Gabriel, with the rhythmic sound of the waves in my ears like the beating heart of your mother, the smell of the salt in my head, the power of the wind against my skin, “It doesn’t seem real, Mount Zion opening the gates. It doesn’t seem possible. The night Frankie and I ran, it was so dark. We followed Daisy, and she took off her track pants to run, because they were Gray’s and kept tripping her up, and my dad was chasing us. She was half naked, and it was herbottomhalf. I was so shocked by that, even while we were escaping.”I tried to laugh, but I couldn’t, because the memory was there, powerful and frightening as any giant in a story.
Gabriel’s hand tightened, and then he threaded his fingers through mine so he could hold me better. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking out to sea, and the sand was firm under our feet. He said, “She was brave, eh.”
“So brave. Gray, too. Frankie fell, and he carried her. He ran, and he still carried her, but my dad was catching up. My dad and your dad, because he was with him, trying to stop us.”
Gabriel’s feet faltered and stopped. “I didn’t know that.”
