45

He met Doig in the new coffee shop opened in Main Street that winter by two women rumored to be lesbians and so, in Penrith terms, fantastic creatures. Doig, boyish in his white shirt with the crosses on its collar, seemed to enjoy a rapport with them he lacked with many of his older parishioners. “Their carrot cake is a triumph,” he confided to Delaney, and Delaney dutifully ordered some.

After a handsome girl in overalls and head scarf had served them, Delaney tried to explain that Doig was the only neutral party he could talk to. He rushed to say he did not seek confession, or what they called these days “the rite of reconciliation.”

Doig put a firm hand on Delaney’s elbow and spoke urgently through the residue of crumbs which had half glued his mouth up. “Wherever two friends talk to each other,” he said, “that is a rite of reconciliation.”

It was September, and what Danielle called “his game” was over. Delaney had played in the semifinals—again it was only the third-graders who carried the honor of Penrith to the Cricket Ground. There were rumors that Alan Beamish, the first-grade coach, would be sacrificed in the manner of unproductive generals in armies and football teams, would be replaced by an old international from Queensland, and would take into exile in his hometown, Cobar, the blame for the failure of all strategies. He would also take with him a regard for Terry Delaney. After Deecock’s fumbling season, a new coach would probably make it one of the conditions of his contract that Terry be let go, and being unfamiliar with the reserves, would probably have some Queenslander in mind as a replacement.

This scale of development would have once put Delaney into a fever. Now it seemed a minor matter. What was significant was that the Kabbels had vanished from the earth. On weekends he tried to trace them at the pub at Newnes, but they were not in residence in their sandstone canyon. Yes, said all the drinkers, contracts had been signed, settlement had taken place. Did any of them know if the Kabbels had used a local attorney to handle the purchase for them? A lawyer from Lithgow say? No, none of them knew that.

It was clear to Delaney that the place in the wilderness was reserved only for after the catastrophe. So, where were they dug in now? He called information for Sydney and Penrith every day in the hope a telephone had been connected. Now and then he would call a string of county councils. Waiting for the Wave, the Kabbels would need electricity. He would pretend to be a clerk in a rental company. As he told the story, one R. Kabbel had applied for a rental agreement on a refrigerator and he wanted to know if R. Kabbel paid his electricity account punctually. With some councils it worked, but there were no Kabbels, no Uncles, not under any initials. No Kabbels at all. No Kabbels switching lights on anywhere.

Delaney explained all this to Doig. His coffee grew cold as Delaney stated what had to be done. He had to leave Gina. Even if the Kabbels had disappeared forever—and he knew they hadn’t—the claim of Danielle and the baby made Gina’s life awful, absolutely bloody degrading.

“Claim?” asked Doig. “What sort of claim?”

“To be rescued,” said Delaney. “You know. From the other Kabbels.” The urgency claimed him once more, making acid in his stomach as he spoke. “Rudi Kabbel believes there’ll be something—a Wave or a flood or some damn thing—which will finish off the known world. Then the Kabbels will be king. He’ll breed—or the brothers will breed—from his own daughter. The idea of that sort of thing is in the bugger’s head already. Where does that put my child, Andrew? Eh? Tell me that.”

Doig asked the usual questions. If the Kabbels thought like that, was he sure the child was his?

“It’s certainly mine,” he said.

“Why certainly?” asked Doig. “From what you say …”

Delaney felt he could not convey his instincts about Danielle, not to a priest or even to a swinging heretic like Doig.

“Gina can live on if the marriage finishes. It’s the other two who don’t have a future.”

Doig said, “Are you telling me you’re going to give up a marriage so that you can dedicate yourself to a search for people who might have gone anywhere—Tasmania, New Zealand? They’re both good places to await the end of the world in.”

“No. The Kabbels are still here. They’ve bought land on the other side of the mountains. For when it happens, you know. And it won’t happen. So what will Rudi do then?”

Doig groaned. It struck Delaney for the first time that Doig might be a man of compassion and not just a fashionable priest in an unfashionable parish. “You may have to leave this girl and her child to destiny, Terry. You have a marriage contract, and that is binding. Whereas your responsibility to the girl is vague.”

“No,” Delaney said. “Sorry. It’s the other way around. For Christ’s sake, it’s the kid, don’t you see? I can’t let it be born into that lunatic’s family.”

“What if Gina had a child?” Doig seemed for a second pleased with himself for coming up with this new and unsettling idea. “Yours? What would that do to your plans?”

Delaney shook his head. It was obvious Doig believed a crucial blow had been landed.

“Pardon me if I speak like an old-fashioned priest,” he said. He didn’t want to, was fearful Delaney would storm out. In fact Delaney was excited that at last Doig might be about to do his professional duty, bring down on him a condemnation he could react to, use as a springboard. “Look,” said Doig, “I blame the church for a lot of this.”

So he reneged instantly on his promise of severity. He said, “You are taught from babyhood that sex can destroy you. If you believe it, then you’ll be destroyed. I have been nearly destroyed in my time, believe me.” He paused and inspected the bowl of amber sugar crystals. “But sex is a matter of rational negotiation, like buying a car or a house. You have to be deliberately calm. If you think you’re going off to save this woman, Delaney, don’t make it a matter of fated destiny, of rescue on a grand scale. You’re going off for your own sake. Because there are other possibilities. You can rescue her and not marry her. You can support the child without leaving Gina. You see, a rational balance.” Doig frowned. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

“I can’t do it that way.”

“No. Because the church told you your sexual passions were runaway monsters which would tear your house down. You have to tear your house down now the monster is out of its cave. Now that there’s such a thing as desire, you have to throw Gina away.”

“She won’t stand for it. Support of a bastard. Support of a girlfriend or an old girlfriend. She can’t take that, and I can’t hide it from her.”

“Bring her to me, Delaney. The two of you—”

“No. No.” Didn’t he understand anything about Italians? “She couldn’t take the shame.”

Doig pushed his chair away from the table. “You’ve decided she can’t.”

“No. I know she can’t.”

Doig grabbed Delaney’s wrist. “I want you to bring her to me. We’ll make an arrangement, the three of us.”

His belief that he could make a peace they could live by was so childlike Delaney did not like to trample on it. But he knew there wasn’t any compact anyone could draw up. “I’ll see if she’ll be in it, Andrew,” Delaney lied.