Bob Shaw - Orbitsville Judgement

“You must go and help your uncle, of course,” the woman said, “but perhaps you’ll come back and listen to Corey when you’re not so pressed for time. He really has something of great importance to say.”

“I’ll certainly give it serious thought.”

“That’s wonderful. By the way, my name is Danea.”

“Mine’s Jim,” Nicklin said, deeply thrilled by the realisation that there had been no need for the woman to give him her name. “Jim Nicklin, and I’ve just been thinking…”

He glanced at the people sitting and standing nearby, who were beginning to look around at him with curiosity or resentment because the conversation was an unwelcome distraction. He pointed at his ear and then at an area of trampled grass which was at a remove from the audience but still inside the ring of pole-mounted speakers which were relaying Montane’s words to the outside world. Danea nodded and moved in the indicated direction on black, spike-heeled sandals. Nicklin grabbed at Zindee’s hand and followed.

“That’s better—there were too many decibels to compete against back there,” he said when they stopped walking. “Look, I’ve been thinking things over. It’ll soon be getting dark and there probably isn’t enough time to get any useful work in on the rock garden. I think I’ll just stay on here for a while and—” He paused, becoming aware that Zindee had gripped his wrist with both hands and was trying to drag him away.

“Jim,” she whispered fiercely. “ Jim!”

Danea looked down at her in a friendly manner. “Is this your daughter?”

“No!” Nicklin realised he had put too much emphasis into the denial. “No, I’m not married. This is my friend Zindee. We were going to have us a sundae—on the way to my uncle’s place, that is.”

“Hello, Zindee,” Danea said. “Don’t worry about getting that sundae. We all know how important sundaes are, and I’m sure Jim didn’t mean that terrible thing he said about staying on here.” She raised her gaze and her eyes locked with Nicklin’s. “After all, he can come back here at any time.”

“Yes.” Nicklin nodded vigorously as, annoyingly, Zindee redoubled her efforts to pull him off his feet. “I’ll do that. I’ll certainly do that.”

“Well, we’ll see you then.” Danea smiled at him, and he saw that her teeth were perfect, and that when she smiled the heaviness left her eyes, making them lively, star-centred and bold. The tremulous feeling returned to his knee joints. He raised his free hand in a farewell gesture and allowed Zindee to haul him away in the direction of Mr Chickley’s ice-cream parlour.

“Why didn’t you answer Danea when she said hello to you?” he demanded as soon as they had walked far enough to gain some privacy.

“You were doing enough talking for both of us,” Zindee replied, the set of her tiny chin showing that she was furious with him. “And what was all that bullshit about an uncle and a rock garden?” The fact that she had not used her customary euphemism—male ox droppings—confirmed to Nicklin that he was really in trouble with her.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said lamely.

“What I don’t understand is why you tell lies all the time. What makes you do it, Jim?”

That’s what I’d like to know, Nicklin thought, his cheeks beginning to grow hot with embarrassment. “You still haven’t said why you were rude to Danea.”

“She talked to me like I was a kid. Sundaes are important. Huh!”

Nicklin remained silent until they had reached the edge of the common, crossed Coach-and-Four Lane and taken up good window seats in Chickley’s. The place was quite narrow, but it extended a long way back from the street and had a glittering chrome-and-glass counter right across the inner end. Fat Mr Chickley was proud of having designed the period decor himself, even though there was some uncertainty about which period he had been aiming at. Clumps of coloured neon strips broke out here and there among the pseudo-Victorian gaslights on the walls. There were only a few customers in the twin rows of booths, presumably because of the rival attraction of Montane’s meeting.

While Zindee was up at the counter placing her complex order he took stock of himself and was not surprised to find that his hands were slightly unsteady. What had happened to him out there on the common? By inviting the woman to move to a quieter place he had, by his standards of behaviour, been making a pass at her—and he had never before behaved that way with a stranger. The unsettling thing, however, was that she had known he was making the pass and had continued to give him positive signals. No local woman would have responded to an advance from him in that way.

He was well aware that, as well as having the reputation of being ineffectual and eccentric, he was suspected of homosexuality by most people in Orangefield. He could have earned the esteem of many men, and probably of quite a few women, by being seen visiting certain homes in the town where the lady of the house had fallen back, so to speak, on an ancient means of earning a living. The main reason he had not given those houses any business was that he was an intensely private person, and did not like the idea of the town gossips knowing the exact dates on which he had found it necessary to relieve biological pressures. He therefore restricted himself to those occasions when he was over in Weston Bridge buying books or machine parts.

It was quite some coincidence, he decided, that the only woman ever to blitz him in such a way was also just about the first ever to respond encouragingly to his show of interest. As a result, there was nothing else in the world that he wanted more than to be with Danea. That was why he had lied about the rock garden in front of Zindee—she had ceased to register on his senses, she had effectively ceased to exist. And, right now, the thought that but for her intrusive presence he could still have been talking to Danea was inspiring him with resentment towards the child.

“Here we go,” Zindee said, arriving at the table with two imposing confections in tall glasses balanced on a tray. “Just look at them! Feast your eyes, Jim! How’s that for a vision of paradise?”

“Not bad.”

“Not bad!” As she sat down it was apparent from Zindee’s expression and manner that she had been restored to good humour. “Peasant! Philistine! Have you no appreciation for genuine works of art?”

“Perhaps not,” Nicklin said, taking his spoon and tentatively probing a pale green area of his sundae.

“Who’s being rude now?”

“Sorry.” He was dully surprised to find that he was not at all sorry. Why don’t you take yourself for a long walk and leave me in peace for a while?

“I know what’s the matter with you.” Zindee gave him a knowing smirk, the downy hair on her upper lip already blobbed with white. “I know what’s eating our Jim.”

“Do you?”

“He’s in love! The poor guy’s got the throbs for the Lady in Black.”

“Eat your ice cream, Zindee,” Nicklin said, eyeing her with growing dislike. “You’re talking rubbish.”

“Oh, no I’m not! I was watching you.” Zindee popped a cherry into her mouth and chewed contemplatively. “She’s got a good pair of headlights.”

Nicklin felt he ought to tell Zindee off for using language unbecoming to a well-brought-up child, but her comment had rekindled his furnace. Now that he thought about it, Danea’s breasts had been quite full in comparison to the slimness of her body, creating horizontal wrinkles in her sylkon blouse. And there was her smile! He was inclined to smile as little as possible, because when he did so his mouth curved too far up at the corners, giving him what he regarded as a goofy hayseed appearance. Danea’s smile, however, was straight, and perhaps her mouth even turned down a little at the corners—a feature which Nicklin had always envied and regarded as a hallmark of mature and worldly sophistication. What was her surname? And was the heaviness of her eyes and possible bruising of the upper lip a sign that she had spent most of the previous night in strenuous sexual activity? With Montane? Nicklin had read that it was quite commonplace for leaders of quirky religious groups to bed the most attractive of their acolytes. Perhaps this particular group went in for sex in a big way, in rituals and so forth. Perhaps Danea had been doing it with everybody ! If that were the case, he wanted his share of her-even if it meant joining her nutty religion…