This is the opening section of The Fool, an occult thriller novella in the Fragments collection.
Maryam Michael woke as she always did, in the dark. She left her curtains open so that when she
woke, the night was in the room with her.
Sometimes this meant she awoke in perfect darkness with a cloudy sky
robbing all the night of light. At other
times she woke in brilliant moonlight, so bright she could see her reflection
in her dressing table mirror. This
morning the shallow dark of a star-studded sky greeted her, and she rose and
stared out her window, beginning her day with starlight and chanting. Here, in the quiet of her country retreat,
there was no artificial light on the horizon, nothing to interfere with the sky
and her communion with it.
After so many years enclosed, she had come to love the
expanse of an unfettered sky. When she
had left her cell behind, with all its quiet memories and soul devoted
comforts, she had immediately relished the freedom of the sky. For years her sky had been small, distant,
dissected into squares. A thing that she
could glimpse now and then but which was out there, outwith the walls of her
inner life. Now she embraced it as an
equal, although she shied from that as an analogy; how could any single,
insignificant human soul be equal to the sky?
Like everything in her new life, her routine, her habit, was
a mixture of old and new. Carefully
preserving the aspects that she’d found useful, adding to them new rituals and
experiences that enriched who she now was.
Therefore when she finished her chanting and had rung the temple bell
that hung at her window three times, she bowed to the sky and went through to
her toilette. A warm shower, the body
washed and the hair cleaned through, she returned to her boudoir to dress. Rather than the ritual of prayer that once
accompanied the taking off of her night attire and its immediate replacement
with her day attire, she relished the freedom to sit naked at her mirror and
dance cosmetics across her skin. The
lightest of touches of moisturisers and foundation, a faint blush to the
cheeks, a perfect contour of shade across her storm grey eyes, the lick of dark
mascara defining her long lashes and a minute sheen of soft colour across her
lip.
Her hair, as short as it ever had been, fell into perfect
layers, a testament to scissors as sharp as the talent of the hairdresser that
had yielded them. It required but one
comb through to settle smoothly, revealing her cheekbones in a way striking to
any women of her age. A cloistered youth
had left her with excellent skin and when she had taken off her coif her shock
of silver hair had been a surprise. Then
it had been unusual for a woman to go gray so completely by the time she had
entered her 40s. Now she was unusual
only in that she choose not to colour it to mimic youth. Her youth still came from inside. She found that her age gave her a gravitas
that she had sorely needed early in her life and valued tremendously now it had
arrived. It was not something she was
prepared to deny or to hide.
She dressed in delicate satin and lace underwear, bespoke to
her slender body, and finished with house pyjamas and a long house coat in
linen. Today would be spent in paperwork
and she would appreciate the soft warmth and flow of the casual lines. She had always enjoyed the feel of cloth as
she moved and relished that she could now indulge her tastes in any fabric and
colour.
Although she rarely chose colour: her pyjamas were black and
her housecoat grey. Monochrome was still
a feature of her attire. She slipped
soft leather slippers on and went downstairs to the kitchen. The aroma from the coffee maker drew her in
and she poured herself a bowl. The timer
was set so that she invariably arrived just as the last few precious drops
trickled into the jug. She breathed in
the warmth, holding the bowl in both hands and tip-toed over the flagstone
floor, slipping into her study without waking up the Irish wolfhound that slept
across the back door. Edith, her
housekeeper, would wake the behemoth when she pushed open the door in a couple
of hours. Once, Cullain would have woken
the second she rose and would have been at the kitchen door whining and
scratching when she came down. Now, even
the gurgling of the machine barely caused an eyelid to flutter. He was getting old and knew he would be
ignored until she’d eaten. So he stayed
asleep and she got more work done: it suited them both.
She had two reports to file for the Vatican and two articles
to translate from Aramaic, both for an American university. The Aramaic texts were proving to be
difficult and she put her just awake mind to them first. After an hour, when her forehead had begun to
pound, she fetched more coffee and switched to sorting out the references. She hated referencing her work and always had
to make herself do it as she went, in order to prevent two weeks of agony at
the end. Referencing was always a time
for her to consider her faults and sins; she often felt doing them was some
sort of penance.
By the time Edith arrived two hours after that, bringing
fresh croissants and bread, Maryam was grey with fatigue. It was good fatigue, but her head hurt and
her eyes stung. Edith tutted at her as
she called her through for a warming bowl of sweet oatmeal. Maryam ignored the tutting, eating her
portion whilst scratching the back of Cullain’s hairy ears. Edith was not backward in coming forward with
her ideas about how hard work, tiny amounts of food and very little sleep would
ruin a person’s health. Maryam, who’d
found that slightly less sleep than you needed, combined with slightly less
food than you needed and a good solid day’s work kept you agile and fit,
ignored her. Edith fed Cullain his
breakfast as Maryam finished hers by dunking a croissant in another bowl of hot
coffee: sweet indulgence was good for the body and the soul.
She changed into her outside clothes and donned her thick
boots and took Cullain out for his morning tramp through the woods and
hills. It was brisk and none too warm,
clouds scudded by and wind pulled at them both, but it was refreshing. Cullain came alive on his walks and there was
great pleasure in watching him enjoy the scents and intrigues of other wildlife
and the undergrowth. Her legs were
aching when she returned two hours later and the aroma of the quail Edith was
preparing for luncheon was delectable. A
shower, and then an hour or so of more translation before eating... and then
she could spend the afternoon reading for leisure. As she started up the stairs the phone
rang. Edith popped her head around the
kitchen door as she answered and tutted.
The switch to Italian and her tone were unmistakable. Edith returned to the kitchen, clanging pots
and pans. Madame was going on her
travels again, and this lunch and the dinner she was half way through preparing
would now be fed to the beast. How on
earth was she going to get her layabout son to walk Madame’s wolf dog at this
time of year?
When Maryam finished the conversation, she phoned the local
taxi company and requested they pick her up in thirty minutes, to drive her to
Marseille. Edith did some more banging
as she packed a decent lunch for Madame.
Thirty minutes was tight, but she could make one of the
afternoon’s TGVs to Lille if she hurried.
Maryam downloaded the files the Cardinal promised had been sent through,
and packed up her electronics and their all important leads: laptop, phone,
chargers and electricity converters for the various European voltages. She showered the sweat off, dressed, and
packed her clothing and personal items in under ten minutes. Her work kit was always full and ready to go;
Edith took the three cases outside whilst she hugged Cullain goodbye. Cullain whimpered and look sorrowful but was
asleep before she left the kitchen. She
picked up her heavy wool coat with its scarves and gloves in the pockets as she
left. The driver was eager, intent on
carving a few minutes off the hour drive; the local drivers loved to compete on
such runs. Edith looked grim as Maryam
waved goodbye to her and Maryam felt that grimness inside: she detested being
called to work on a murder.
