Cloud of Universal Light - chapter 4 Candy had time to kill before her philosophy lecture, so she spent a few minutes looking over the New Age Fair which was being held that day in the university forecourt. Peddlers of trinkets and nostrums had set up dozens of stalls. Candy was amazed that supposedly intelligent students would believe in such rubbish. There were tarot card readers, palmists, "magic" crystals for sale, as well as the usual sprinkling of way-out religions. For some reason, Toowoomba attracted these like moths to a flame.
One stall had two little old ladies wearing white muslin pyjamas: Candy ignored them, while she studied the wares spread out on the trestle table. They were selling posters and T-shirts at outrageous prices, all with the same picture: an amateurish collage headed Harmony of the Gods. Candy could pick some of the gods: Buddha and Zeus, for example. One of the gods was a modern woman, totally out of place in that company. Candy put her presence down to tokenist feminism.
"Are you interested, dear?" one of the old women quavered.
"Only in a sort of sociological or forensic sense," said Candy, looking away from the withered dugs which were visible through the woman's flimsy top. She noticed a heap of little booklets, on sale at the outrageous price of ten dollars. Something on the cover of the top booklet caught her eye.
In the back flat at 45 Quangle Street, Paula was dithering in the kitchen, wondering what they could eat that night. Candy burst in.
"Hey, Paula, what's your father's name? His first name?"
"Officially it's Bramwell," said Paula, coolly. "And his middle name's Leopold." Sometimes Candy drove her nuts, with her weird ideas and impossible philosophical questions. At least this one was easy.
"I thought so!" said the excited Candy. "At least, I suspected it might be that. Is he called Bram for short?"
"He's always called Bram," Paula admitted, sipping her coffee. It was still too hot; she put the cup down, and her feet on the table. "In fact, nobody ever calls him Bramwell, except - "
"There wouldn't be two Bram Thorzins in the world, would there, Paula?"
"Very possible," Paula shrugged. "The world's a big place, Candy. There could be a whole town full of them somewhere. Probably in America. Everybody there could be Bram Thorzin."
Candy's face fell. "Do you really think so, Paula?"
"All I'm saying is 'Who knows?' It could be just down the turnpike from the town of Candy Barinjees."
"Don't be dumb, Paula," said Candy, coming over to the table and giving it a little thump, right next to Paula's bare foot. "If they were all called the same name, how would they tell each other apart?"
"By numbers, of course," said Paula, whose mood was getting blacker and blacker. "They'd wear numbered T-shirts, like a football team. They'd say 'Hey there, Bram Thorzin 787. Is your father's name Bram Thorzin 6396?' "
"And would all the Bram Thorzins write religious books?"
"What?" said Paula, turning to Candy with a puzzled look.
I've finally got her attention, Candy thought. She delved into her backpack and pulled out a tiny booklet.
"I knew you'd be interested," said Candy. "After all, he's been missing for two months and this is the first clue we've had."
"What is it?" Paula asked. She actually stood up.
Candy held the booklet up to her face and read aloud in a mock-pompous voice:
"In your hands you hold the crystallization of the thoughts of the late Bram Thorzin, founder of the Cloud of Universal Light. This devotional best seller has been an inspiration to millions of followers, and is now for the first time made available to the general public."
Paula was trying to grab it off her, but Candy held on tight.
"Don't tear your late father's work," she admonished.
"What do you mean, late father?"
"'The late Bram Thorzin.' It means he's dead."
"Crap. He's not dead, he's just late. Dad's always late - for everything. He went up north for a union meeting, and he's two months late getting back. Mum got this weird fax from him. She thinks he's had some sort of nervous breakdown. Where'd you find that booklet, anyway?"
"That fair at the uni today. Celebration of Superstition, and that stuff."
"Was this the only one they had?"
"No, there were heaps. Why, do you want a copy? It's too late. All the merchants of crap have vanished into the night."
Paula was leafing through the booklet, shaking her head. "I revert to my original theory," she said. "This isn't by my Dad. He's a psychologist. He always says religion is evil. This book must be by one of those American Bram Thorzins."
"Nooooo!" said Candy, snatching it back. "It's from right here. Look at this on the back cover: published by the Cloud of Universal Light, PO Box 1319 Toowoomba. We should go and visit them - they might know about your father."
"How can you visit a post office box?" said Paula scornfully.
"I didn't mean we should try and squeeze into the little box, dummy. We can use more civilized means, such as looking them up in the phone book."
"We've only got last year's one, and I don't remember any clouds being on the phone. There'd be wires all over the sky."
"Clouds would use mobile phones, dummy. Anyway, this manifesto's published last year, so it'll match the phone book."
She rushed into the hallway, and picked up the phone book, followed by a sceptical Paula.
"Just checking," she muttered, flicking through the pages. "Clitheroe...Clotbottom...It's here! Amazing! Cloud of Universal Light, Pittsworth. 37-6232."
"Pittsworth!" said Paula. "That's real precise, isn't it. Adds to my theory that the whole thing's a con. Some cloud!"
"I'll ring them right now," said Candy, picking up the phone.
"Bet they don't answer," Paula predicted. She could hear the ringing tone. After a minute or two it rang out, and Candy put the phone down, disappointed.
"They've gone home. It's after five. And if it's only those two old bags, they were at the uni all day."
"Why didn't you just ask them if they knew my father?"
"Paula, I wish I had. But all is not lost. There's still Plan B."
"Which is?"
"We go to Pittsworth and ask around."
"Who cares, Candy? It's a red herring. So there's a cloud full of Bram Thorzins somewhere in the world - it might even be hovering over Pittsworth - and one of them wrote this crappy little booklet. Listen to this: 'That is all we believe. The rest we know.' That's pure rubbish, if anything ever was. Take it along to your alethionomy class next week and get everybody to rip it to bits."
"That's not a bad idea," Candy admitted. "I have to do an assignment on pseudo-logic before the end of term."
Paula dreamed about her father that night. It was hard to believe that he'd had a "nervous breakdown." Though she wasn't sure exactly what one of these entailed, he wasn't the type to vanish when things got tough. He loved conflict, in fact. (Paula hated it. That was why she'd chosen to go to university in Toowoomba: the endless arguments with her mother had been driving her crazy. The University of Queensland was in the next suburb to her parents' home, so she'd have had no excuse for moving out.)
And her father had had plenty of conflict before he vanished: a lot of union strife at work, on top of all that drama with Clarissa. Paula liked Clarissa, despite her disconcerting habit of switching instantly between quiet rationality and wild emotion.
When her father hadn't come back from Charters Towers after the strike was settled, Clarissa had panicked. She'd rung Paula (having somehow discovered the number), and tearfully asked what she, Clarissa, could have done wrong. She'd even rung Kristin, she'd said - but Kristin had been very unsympathetic and had hung up on her.
Paula dreamed of an obscenely cheerful town in eastern Denmark, similar to the one where her grandparents had once lived. The sky was blue-painted planks, with round white clouds painted on it. From every red or yellow window-frame, her father's head popped out, and waved at her. Though one of the heads looked like Santa Claus, she knew it was really her father.
As soon as she woke up the next morning, a thought came to her. She dashed into the kitchen to take another look at the booklet by the other Bram Thorzin. She opened it at the crude black and white collage in the centre pages, and closely inspected the face of the goddess Astarte.
"Candy!" she screamed, running into Candy's bedroom.
"Wharrr?" said Candy, rudely awoken.
"Look! This is my mother!"
Candy sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, and studied the thumbnail-sized face of Astarte, the token female god she'd noticed yesterday in the poster. It was a photo of a real woman; the twelve male gods were depicted either in drawings, or as photos of statues.
Candy studied the photo. "I don't think so," she said, shaking her head. "Your Mum doesn't look like that."
"You haven't known her as long as I have. This was taken before I was born. I've seen the same photo at home. Look, this face is cut out of a much bigger photo, of a whole lot of people at a party. See that line behind her ear: I think that's a tree."
"Your mother invited trees to her parties?" Candy mumbled. At 8 a.m., she wasn't at her best.
"Of course. They don't do drugs, and never argue back. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Candy jumped out of bed. "Come with me," she ordered, leading Paula to the dressing table and picking up a hairbrush. "Stand right there and don't move!"
"What are you doing, Candy? Leave my hair alone!"
"I'm doing it a different way. Now, turn and look in the mirror. What do you see?"
"Me," said Paula. "And you standing behind me, and my hair all fluffed out. It makes me look like a bimbo: I hate that bouffant style."
"Dummy! Look at this photo. I knew it looked familiar. That woman in the picture isn't your mother: it's you!"
"You win," Paula said to Candy over breakfast. "Let's try and track down this Cloud of Universal Light. We can drive to Pittsworth and ask at the Post Office."
"How?" Candy muttered, preoccupied with brushing her hair. "Drive in what? My car's broken down, remember?"
"I'll ask Petey."
"That sicko!"
They lived in a flat at the back of an old Toowoomba house. In the front of the house lived the landlady and her son Petey. He was about their age, but immature, and at first he wouldn't leave them alone. His mother had to speak sharply to him, to stop him from going into their flat and poking around with their things. He was always very friendly and obliging, though.
"Watch me!" said Paula, opening the back door.
"Wait!" said Candy, running behind her.
As usual, Petey was lying under his hideous orange car, an old Falcon that rattled their windows whenever he started it. From under the engine, two legs protruded, clad in oily green tracksuit pants.
"Hey, Petey," Paula said. She startled him, and he involuntarily raised his head. There was a small thud from underneath the car.
"Shit!" he exclaimed. "Made me bang me fuckin' head on the sump. That you, Paula?"
He wriggled out, a shiny spanner in his hand.
"We need to go to Pittsworth," Paula explained. "Feel like a drive?"
Petey glanced up at the sexy Paula, and the even sexier Candy, still in her dressing gown. He didn't know what to make of this: up till now, the pair had comprehensively rejected him, except when Candy's car needed attention. He was planning to spend all day tinkering with his car, perhaps drilling a few holes in the muffler to make it even louder. Part of him resented this intrusion.
"Why don't you take your own car?" he asked Candy, ignoring Paula.
"Petey, it's fucked," said Candy sweetly. "That's what you told me last week. Verbatim quote."
"Only the head," Petey said slowly. "The head's cracked. Needs a new one." He ventured a joke. "Like me," he added, rubbing his sore forehead with an oily hand. "I need a new head too."
"Get a much smarter one next time, Petey. That's my advice. And while you're at it, get one that's not so ugly."
As he tried to think of a smart answer, Paula stepped between him and Candy.
"Can you take us to Pittsworth, Petey? Pretty please?"
Though the two girls had rebuffed him many times, he felt new hope. He wanted to refuse, but found it impossible to say so. His hormones had taken over.
You've got fuck-all chance with them, he told himself.
Get on with it, the hormones insisted.
"When do you want to go?" Petey asked.
An hour later they were shooting down the back roads around Pittsworth, all crammed in the front seat of the big orange V8. Petey, in his own territory, became much more articulate. He told them a quite amusing story about the butchery where he was an apprentice.
At Pittsworth, they'd stopped first at the Post Office, but naturally it was closed: it was Saturday. The first two people they'd asked had never heard of the Cloud of Universal Light, and the third one pointed out that what clouds did with light was hide it. Pittsworthers clearly had zero interest in spiritual matters. Also, they resented being asked by anybody in such an aggressive car, which made such an angry sound as it idled.
The small town centre was almost deserted. Finally they saw a group of footballers on an oval, undoing their boots after practice. Petey drove to the carpark at high speed, screeching to a stop in a spray of gravel. As they all climbed out, Petey managed to give Candy's leg a squeeze.
The footballers were much more interested in Petey's V8 than the Cloud of Universal Light, which they all agreed immediately they'd never heard of. Petey had the bonnet up in no time, and the footballers crowded around, offering advice on how to extract more sound from the engine. Petey was a different person, talking to the footballers; his IQ seemed to double instantly when he was talking to men. Paula and Candy exchanged exasperated looks.
The football teams had to go home for lunch. The three of them piled back into the orange monster. "Your turn to sit in the middle this time," Candy advised Paula, as Petey closed the bonnet. "It was your idea."
"What's that got to do with it?" Paula asked, puzzled.
"Nothing, I guess," said Candy, rubbing her bruised thigh.
"Hey!" shouted one of the footballers, stopping his car, and winding down his passenger window to speak to Petey. "That Cloud. It's not a bloody cloud at all, it's a farm. I just remembered. I went there in March when they were having a garage sale. There's a blue cloud sign on the gate. It's up Old Settlement Road, just past the turnoff to Oakey.
"That place?" said another footballer, on the way to his car. "Big old Queenslander with a saggy roof?"
"You got it, Jeff."
"It burnt down. Ages ago. Just a shell now. Arson, they reckon."
"Nah, Jeff. I went past it last week. If it was burnt down, how come people are still there? All these nuts were running around in judo gear."
After a few false starts, they found the farmhouse: its roof sagged alarmingly in the centre, causing the corrugated iron to buckle. There was no sign on the gate, but a pale rectangle on the wood showed where a sign had once been.
"Blue cloud sign?" Paula wondered aloud.
They opened the gate, and Petey roared up the driveway. Paula expected an indignant white-haired old couple to appear on the front verandah and shake their fists at the arrival of the hoons.
The footballers were both right: from the road, the house appeared intact, but close up, they could see the blackness around the windows. They walked around the house. The back was half burned away.
"I reckon nobody lives here any more," said Petey, knowledgeably stating the obvious. "What did you say it was? Cloud of what?"
"Paula's father has vanished," Candy explained. "We're doing a bit of detective work."
She peered through the slats at ground level, into the underfloor space. The house was an old high-set Queenslander, with the living floor raised three metres above the ground on high stumps. The space had been enclosed with slats at some time.
"Hey!" said Candy. "I think I can see the booklets."
She ran around the back of the house, to the part where the slats had been burned away, and walked across the ashes to the intact part at the front. The other two followed her. Surrounded by old tree-trunks at regular intervals, it was like being in a forest plantation, except that instead of leaves above them, there was the house.
"Look at this," said Candy. She'd found a stack of ash-covered Manifestos. Next to them were several cardboard cartons. Candy opened one. It was full of manifestos.
"We're rich," Candy exulted. "Thousands of booklets. We can sell them for ten bucks each."
"Who'd buy them?" said Paula.
"That would be stealing," said Petey, very disappointed in Candy. He picked up a manifesto and leafed through it. Paula and Candy were searching the underfloor for further evidence of Bram Thorzin, but finding only discarded household items.
"Hey, listen to this," said Petey. "This is fantastic. 'We shall not speak to those we cannot see'. Isn't that just so right?"
Paula shook her head, exasperated.
"My Mum would be really into this," said Petey, enthusiastic. "I wonder if I could take one of these."
"That would be stealing," said Paula sternly. "They're ten bucks each."
"OK," said Petey, fumbling in his pockets. He found an oily ten-dollar note, put it carefully in the open carton, and took a manifesto.
As he headed back through the burned area, Candy picked up the note. She was a penniless student, and it would only blow away if she left it there. Besides, she was ten dollars down since buying the manifesto yesterday.
Paula, waiting for Candy to catch up, looked back at the old house. Something caught her eye.
"I thought I just saw something move in that window," she said to Petey.
"Probably a possum," said Petey. "They're everywhere around here. Did you notice all the dead ones on the road?"
After dusting the ashes from their feet (Petey insisted that the orange carpet in his car must remain spotless), they headed for home. Petey took a roundabout route, on a long straight stretch of road where he wound the Falcon up to top speed. As he breathed hard, struggling to control the steering, Candy chimed in with one of her sweet comments.
"Not even a hundred miles an hour," she said disapprovingly. "Can't you go any faster than that?"
Petey made a mental note to adjust the speedo. It was obviously reading too slow.
That night, building on his triumph with the two girls, Petey knocked on their door. "Hey!" he whispered hoarsely. "Open up."
"What is it?" asked Candy, as she opened the door a crack. "It's far too late for male visitors. Your mother would not approve."
It was eight o'clock.
"Got something for yiz," he grinned. "Special gift."
"Just pass it through the door, then."
"Too big." He gestured behind him, at something long and pale on the concrete path.
Grudgingly, they opened the door and let him carry it in. It was a wooden statue of a naked woman, with breasts so big he could hardly manoeuvre it. Her long gold-painted hair swirled around her, tastefully covering her crotch. Her skin was painted grey-blue, apart from her over-pink smile. Her back, though, was weathered pine, unpainted, with nail-holes.
"What are we meant to do with this?" Paula asked.
"Beautiful statue, innit? I found it for yiz."
"Where did you pinch it from?" Candy demanded. "A sailing ship? A church?"
"Isn't she stern-looking?" said Paula. "She reminds me of the Dutch queen - what's her name? Wilhelmina?"
"Bloody wog name," Petey panted, leaning Wilhelmina against the kitchen wall. "Well - do you like it?"
"It's great!" said Paula. "She can be our guardian angel. Do we Thorzinists believe in angels, Candy?"
"Just one thing," Candy told Pete. "If the cops come sniffing round, we'll tell them this was here all the time - OK?"
"Goodnight, girls," said Petey, beaming.
As soon as he left, Candy poked the statue in several intimate places, searching for cracks and and concealed openings.
"What on earth are you doing to poor Wilhelmina?" Paula asked. "Have I told you I'm getting a little worried about your hidden lesbian tendencies."
"He might have a video camera hidden in here," said Candy. "Ever heard of a wooden horse?"
The next day, as Paula hung out her washing, the landlady trotted over to her.
"I was extremely impressed with that manifesto," she said, in the toffy accent she assumed when speaking to people she took to be educated or wealthy. "Am I correct in assuming that it was authored by a relative of yours?"
"Probably not," said Paula, who'd lost interest. The top of her leg was still hurting, where Petey had squeezed it in triumph when he'd almost hit the ton.
"Previously I had assumed that that particular church was composed of a bunch of ratbags. But after reading their manifesto, I am much more impressed with its, um, ecumenical flavour."
"That's nice," said Paula through the peg in her mouth, as she hung her jeans out on the line.
"Therefore I shall attend their service this evening," said Petey's mother. "As a spy, so to speak. Or, if you prefer, an observer. Since it is merely over the road."
Paula suddenly comprehended what Mrs Tompsett was saying. She took the peg out of her mouth. "You mean the Cloudy Whatever? Around here?"
"My dear, I understand it was Founded here in Toowoomba."
"Is there an actual church?" Paula asked eagerly.
Mrs Tompsett shook her head. "No, my dear, they meet in the park at Picnic Point. I seem to remember some fuss a year or two ago with the city council, but it seems to have been resolved amicably. Have you noticed the cars that park in this street every Sunday evening?"
"Yes, that's always puzzled me, what happens here on a Sunday night -" She broke off, not wanting to finish the sentence in front of her sensitive landlady: " - in such a dead boring place."
"Be puzzled no more, my dear. They are the worshippers at the Cloud of Whatsit. They all go down that path in their white pyjamas, and worship in the open air. They insist on the open air, and at last I understand why."
Paula had occasionally noticed people in white pyjamas heading for the nearby park, but had assumed they were dressed for some type of Oriental sport. Paula wasn't a great follower of sport.
"So tonight I shall be attending," Mrs Tompsett continued, disappointed that Paula hadn't asked the reason.
"Maybe I should go too," said Paula.
"I possess no white pyjamas," Mrs Tompsett said. "And if I did, I should certainly never be seen wearing them in public. And I don't believe you have such garments, either. At least, I've never spotted them on the washing line."
Paula imagined Mrs Tompsett and Petey examining her clothes in detail when she hung them on the line and went off to a lecture. Petey would be sniffing her panties in the hope they weren't clean, and Mrs Tompsett would be trying to work out what she'd worn to bed. A wave of hatred for both of them came over Paula.
"Of course I don't have white pyjamas," said Paula crossly. "I don't have any pyjamas, as you no doubt know. So I can't go along with you tonight."
"I shall go in plain clothes," said Mrs Tompsett. "If they're good enough for the Queen, they're good enough for anybody."
She'd once met Queen Elizabeth of England, and never missed an opportunity to remind the world.
Paula went inside and told Candy. They decided it was a public park, and that nobody could stop them hanging around. They didn't know what time the people met, and didn't want to ask Mrs Tompsett, so they listened in on her movements. The house had been divided into two after the death of her husband. In the hallway, the two flats were separated only by a sealed door, in front of which a bookcase had been built.
Just after five o'clock, Mrs Tompsett visited her bathroom, and stayed there. "Putting her make-up on," Candy whispered, her ear to the bookcase. Petey had gone out to a barbecue.
At 5:25, Mrs Tompsett's front door was closed with its usual slam. Candy and Paula's kitchen window rattled in sympathy, as always.
"Let's go," said Candy.
It was dusk. As they came to the front of the house, several cars crawled up the street outside, looking for somewhere to park. Ahead of them, in the park down the road, Mrs Tompsett toddled, wearing two garish shades of pink.
The two girls, in baggy checked shirts and stylishly shabby jeans, sauntered along behind and above her. The path led down a valley, but they walked on the ridgetop. Three people in white pyjamas followed Mrs Tompsett on the path below.
When the path branched in two, Mrs Tompsett couldn't decide which way to go. While she tried to make up her mind, the pyjama people caught up with her.
"Coming to our celebration?" a man inquired. "This way." She fell in with them, but had trouble keeping up, in her high heels, on the gravel path. They stopped and waited for her every now and again. Candy and Paula trailed the group through a grove of gum trees, near-invisible in their dark clothes.
They reached a clearing, a natural amphitheatre. Dozens of people in white pyjamas (though with different-coloured belts, Paula noticed) sat around, chatting. A few weren't in white pyjamas, though they all were wearing white clothes of some description. Mrs Tompsett, in her revolting pink, was the odd one out. Paul and Candy sat down among the trees at the top, watching the proceedings.
After a few minutes, three more people appeared, carrying a box and a large white bag. The others looked at this group, and stopped talking. From the box, one of the organizers took a fat candle, and laid it on a picnic table near the foot of the glade. Another lit it, taking several attempts to get it burning. The third organizer put a glass tube around the candle, to stop it blowing out.
From the long white bag, the second organizer took a folding wooden stand and a sheet of round shiny metal about a metre in diameter, which he carefully hung on the stand, and adjusted so that it reflected the last rays of the setting sun. After unwrapping a drumstick, he hit the gong. A throaty metallic sound rang through the glade.
"Are we all here, brothers and sisters?" a man called. He had a faint American accent, which immediately put Paula off. She counted the worshippers: they were well spread out, sitting on rugs on the grass. There were 35. Not many, she thought, unaccountably disappointed. And her father wasn't there.
They discovered Mrs Tompsett, and made a big fuss of her. People kept going up to her.
"Are they kissing her, or what?" Paula whispered.
"Doesn't it just suck?" said Candy.
"Let us worship the light," said the preacher to the crowd.
"There isn't any," Paula commented. "The sun's setting."
"Boys!" boomed the preacher. "You boys, up there on the hill, among the trees. Are you with us?"
"I think he means us," Candy whispered.
"We're just watching the sun set," Paula called out. "And by the way, we're not boys."
The pyjama-clad worshippers laughed.
"Be silent, then," said the preacher crossly. "Let us now worship."
Everybody put their head down, and there was dead silence.
Toowoomba is high above the sea, and Picnic Point is at the top of a near-cliff, facing east. Darkness descends suddenly there. As the light vanished, the silence was gradually broken by a faint buzzing sound, as if a squad of recently disturbed cicadas was resuming in pianissimo.
Over the next ten minutes the sound become louder and louder. At some stage, Paula and Candy realized it was coming from the worshippers: they were humming. Paula began to pick out snatches of tunes.
Perhaps fifteen minutes after the worshipping began, the gong sounded, and the humming stopped instantly.
"We have worshipped," said the preacher. "Let us pray to the Gods for our leader Piebald, who is indisposed."
"Bram Thorzin, heal him!" the crowd murmured.
"Are there any messages?" the preacher called.
"I pray to Bram Thorzin," called a woman. Though close to tears, she spoke loudly and clearly. "I pray for my son Ash, who has cancer. Bram Thorzin, heal him!"
"Bram Thorzin, heal him!" the crowd echoed.
"I don't believe this," Paula whispered.
Several more messages followed, along the same lines.
"Let us welcome Flora Tompsett," boomed the preacher. "Flora, may universal light lift the cloud from your life!"
Suddenly, Mrs Tompsett was lit up in two beams of light. The preacher's assistants had each switched on powerful torches, and aimed these at her face.
"Oh, my!" said the embarrassed Mrs Tompsett, shielding her eyes.
"Welcome!" everybody murmured, humming a soft fanfare.
"And the boys up on the hill!" the preacher called.
Two torches were pointed at Paula and Candy, and the gong rang out.
"Let's get out of here," Candy hissed, standing up. "Coming, Paula?" She turned to run, and immediately tripped over the root of a tree.
"Shit!" she howled. "Bloody fucking shit! Help me, Paula."
The worshippers surged up the hill, to find Candy trying to hop away, her sore ankle in the air.
"Don't try to walk on it," said a woman.
"Be not afraid, lads," the preacher advised.
The two torches were shone on Candy's ankle, and the woman, who seemed to know about medical things, pronounced it sprained.
"It's like being surrounded by ghosts," Candy complained, looking up at the white-clad people surrounding her.
"You silly little sausage!" Mrs Tompsett exclaimed, bringing up the rear on her high heels. "What are you doing, Candy Barinjee, disrupting our service? And you too, Paula Thorzin. I thought you decided you weren't interested."
"Paula who?" a man inquired.
"Leave me alone," Paula squeaked.
"Paula Thorzin," said proud Flora Tompsett. "I believe she's related to Bram Thorzin."
The crowd gasped. 35 people gasping at once make a fearsome sound.
"It's not - " said Paula.
Everybody had forgotten Candy, except the woman who was bandaging her ankle.
"Is it possible?" the preacher breathed.
"No!" said Paula, quickly.
"I've met him!" exclaimed Flora Tompsett, delighted to be one up on everybody else. "Her father. He co-signed the lease. I've had so many young people run out on me, I now refuse to lease to them unless - "
"When was this?" a woman inquired.
"February," said Flora. "I don't recall the precise date. But of course I do have the lease at home."
"It's not possible," said a man flatly. "We know Bram Thorzin's no longer with us. The Manifesto says so. Tell me, Paula Thorzin, is your father dead?"
"I don't know," said Paula, close to tears. "He disappeared a few months ago. I hope he's only late."
Damn! she thought. Now Mrs Tompsett knows. She'll be all over me, gloating with her sticky sympathy.
"This is very, Very, VERY, important," the preacher announced. "Flora Tompsett, you can't imagine how significant this moment is to us! The possibility that we have misinterpreted the manifesto. That Bram Thorzin may be alive. That this could be the turning point of our belief!"
There was muttering from the congregation. "Another impostor?" several muttered.
"That Paula here may be his daughter," continued the enthusiastic preacher. "Friends, the Gods are certainly smiling on us tonight."
"There are lots and lots of Bram Thorzins," shouted Candy, rapidly recovering her normal spirits. "There's a whole town full of them. Paula told me the other day."
"Is this true?" the preacher asked Paula. One of the torches was adjusted to shine in her face.
She laughed nervously. "It could be," she said, cupping a hand over her eyes to shield them from the beam of light. "Maybe in Denmark, on the island where my grandparents came from, with funny little houses, very tall and narrow, with bright yellow window frames, and all the Bram Thorzins would be waving at us from their little windows, except that some of them would look like Santa Claus."
My dream's just as valid as your religion, she said to herself.
The Thorzinists were whispering among themselves.
"Please describe the town further," one of them said. "Is there a river? What are the people wearing? What shape are the houses? And so on."
Paula let her imagination run wild, helped along a little by having read the Manifesto again a few hours ago. "Yes, there's a very gentle river, the people all wear white, with different coloured belts, and the houses are anything but square. They are highly irregular, sort of seven-sided, with rounded corners."
"Is there a valley?" a man asked.
"Of course," said Paula. As a student of geography, she was amazed that anybody would ask such a dumb question. Without a valley, there could be no river. "The river runs along the bottom of it," she added, "plus there's a very old bridge."
"Thorzinburg?" one muttered.
"She knows," another answered quietly.
Flora Tompsett led the Thorzinists to her home, a short pilgrimage on foot. They crowded into her fussy sitting room while she searched for the lease, with Bram Thorzin's signature. "But if you were the real Bram Thorzin's daughter," said a man with a bald head as wrinkly as a walnut, "your name wouldn't be Paula. It would be a colour."
The faithful murmured in agreement. Suspicious glances were cast at Paula.
Flora Tompsett produced the lease. Everybody studied the signature closely.
"It does look sort of similar," a man remarked.
"Umber, do you have anything with the other Bram Thorzin's signature?" a woman called Daffodil asked the preacher.
"What do you mean, the other Bram Thorzin?" Paula asked, as Umber delved into his bag.
Daffodil took her aside, and whispered into her ear. "My dear, we have what purports to be a sort of Bram-Thorzin-of-convenience. Do you understand?"
"Not exactly," said Paula. Mystified, she shook her head.
"Hey!" said Candy, regally ensconced on Flora Tompsett's frilly settee. "Did you all see that? Shake your hair again, Paula."
"No!" said Paula, shaking her head.
"Paula, come here," asked Candy, waving from her throne.
Paula sat on the couch in front of Candy, and suffered it while Candy fluffed her hair out.
"Astarte!" an old woman exclaimed. The Thorzinists gasped again. Some stood back in awe, and some consulted well-thumbed manifestoes.
"This proves it, I think," said a deep-voiced man called Jet. "The signature, the description of Thorzinburg, the likeness."
"But what about the name?" said a scornful woman. "Paula! What sort of colour is that?"
"What about her middle name?" said Candy.
"Don't you dare mention it!" Paula ordered. She hated her middle name.
"Here it is on the lease," said Flora Tompsett, snatching the document from Umber. "Paula Rose Thorzin."
Some Thorzinists cheered with delight. Daffodil started sobbing, and fumbled for a handkerchief.
"Don't you want to see the signature?" said Umber, a little aggrieved that he was no longer in control.
"We've been fooled by signatures before," said Jet.
"But it is very similar," Umber insisted. "Too close for coincidence."
Now everybody was onto Paula at once. The woman whose son had cancer was kneeling at her feet, touching her ankle. Others were asking her who was Astarte, Paula or her mother. Umber was trying to show her the signature on a cheque.
"Stop!" Paula shouted.
They all looked at her.
"This is too embarrassing," she continued. "My mother's the goddess, not me. All I'm trying to do is find my father."
There was a silence.
"That doesn't matter, now we've found you," Daffodil said.
"It matters to me," Paula insisted.
"...he was late..." somebody was muttering.
"If the true Bram Thorzin is alive," Jet declared, "do you realize what that means?"
"The world will never be the same again!" said a woman, her face radiant.
"But a true Bram Thorzin would never die," an old man stated.
They all bowed their heads down, and murmured thanks to Bram Thorzin.
"They're completely nuts," Paula whispered to Candy.
"May I take a photocopy of the lease?" Umber asked.
"Nobody's taking this away," said Mrs Tompsett. "It's mine. It's valuable. It's staying right here in this house."
"Please, Flora," he begged.
"Don't you dare Flora me! Nasty little man! Interfering with legal documents!"
Jet whispered to Paula. "As it's your lease, you'd have a copy too, would you not?"
She shook her head. "Probably my Dad took it home. He pays the rent and looks after all that stuff."
There was angry muttering. "It's a historic document," a woman declared. "The first known signature of Bram Thorzin."
"I always thought Bram Thorzin was American," a worshipper whispered to another.
"No, that one was a fake. The real Bram Thorzin's an Aussie."
"How do you know that? It's not in the Manifesto."
"Piebald said. He was with him, from the start."
"Piebald's an even bigger fake," replied with other, with a bitter laugh.
Umber was talking to Jet: "This will put paid to all the nonsense that the fanatics are putting around, that Bram Thorzin has gone over to them."
"What was that?" Paula asked. "Where did my father go? What fanatics?"
"We sent them packing, to the valley you described, and they detest us for that. They claim to be the only true Thorzinists, but they're a bunch of no-hopers and hippie communists."
"My father knows a lot of communists," said Paula. "In the unions. He even voted for them once."
They all looked at her in renewed doubt.
"That must be a lie," Umber said angrily. "Can you prove it?"
"I just want you all to leave me alone," said Paula, almost in tears. "The only reason I came to your meeting today was to see if I could find him. I'm sure he's got nothing to do with this stupid church. Do you know what he always told me when I was a little girl?" She was shouting now. "My friends were getting confirmed, and I asked if I could do it too. He said no, because all religion is evil. He told me about all the wars it had caused, and how it's made people suffer. Is that the sort of man you want to worship as a prophet?"
She found herself standing on Mrs Tompsett's couch, looking around at their faces, all so pink against their white pyjamas. Some of them weren't even wearing anything under their pyjamas, she noted with disgust.
"Rose, you are right," said Jet softly. "Religion was evil. That's why he founded the Cloud of Universal Light. It supersedes all religions, so there can be no more war."
The Thorzinists murmured, and bowed their heads again.
"You're all nuts," shouted Paula. "Come on Candy, let's go home." Candy stood up, leaning on Paula's shoulder, and they hobbled out into the hallway, leaving the silent Thorzinists behind.
Flora Tompsett rushed after them, picking up a bunch of keys from the hall table. "Candy dear, don't try and walk around the house," she urged, heading for the door which divided the house into two. "Here, I'll unlock this door for you, and you'll be home in a tick."
"But it's a bookcase," said Paula.
Flora Tompsett unlocked the door, pulled it open carefully so as not to dislodge any books on the shelves attached to it, and locked it again behind them.
"Bitch!" hissed Candy. "She told us that door was sealed shut."
"I never believed her," said Paula. "I feel violated. She can bloody walk in any time she feels like it. And look, somebody's poked the sticker off the keyhole again."
"This place gives me the creeps," said Candy. "Petey could barge in on us any time. Let's move out."
"We wasted the whole weekend," said Paula. "All I have to show for it is a bruise on my leg. Those idiots don't know anything about my father. I even forgot to ask where they'd moved to after Pittsworth."
"I asked," said Candy, laughing. "When they were driving me back to Tompsett's. They told me the Pittsworth people were baddies, and they'd burned their own place down. Our lot have nothing to do with them any more."
"Your lot," said Paula. "I'm not having anything to do with them."
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