Free Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins Page A

miserable by comparison. “But he’s not perfect,” she continued. “He’s vain like a girl sometimes.”
    “You’re very lucky to have him. How great to be thinking of buying a house. You’ve got yourself sorted out so early.”
    Maisie felt a quick pull in her solar plexus. Please, no, anything but that. Anything but being “sorted out” early. “Well, anything could happen. Adrian might have to take off overseas, or I might get a job in another state or something.”
    “Are you applying for other jobs? Is it the Sydney Symphony?”
    Maisie sighed and stretched out her legs. Her boots were starting to hurt her feet so she leaned down to unlace them. “No, I haven’t applied for other jobs. And if I did it certainly wouldn’t be with another orchestra. I’m tired of playing cello. I’m tired of that whole lifestyle.” She kicked off her left boot, then her right. “That’s kind of why I’m here.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She looked up and smiled. “I guess I’m on a journey of self-discovery. That’s the appropriate phrase for it, isn’t it?”
    Cathy was looking at her in astonishment.
    “What? What’s the matter?”
    “I’m just surprised,” Cathy replied. “We all thought you had the perfect life.”
    “Who is ‘we all’?”
    “Me, Sarah, the other choristers, the other musicians. Everybody looks at you and Adrian and thinks, yes they have it all worked out.”
    Rather than being flattered, Maisie found herself getting irritated. “Really?”
    Cathy nodded emphatically. “Sure. You know, Sarah and I come from a rotten family. Our parents split when we were little, our mum was on welfare. We got no encouragement in anything. I was offered this university place two years ago, and it’s taken me that long to save and to work out scholarships so I could even come here. At the moment, I don’t know how I’m going to pay my rent after my first year. I’m hoping to get a job over summer. Meanwhile, Sarah keeps dating losers who cheat on her, and a man hasn’t looked my way in about four months. In the light of all that, you with your rich and famous parents, your soon-to-be rich and famous boyfriend who’s all sweetness and light and good-looking . . . well, let’s just say you’ve always been the target for a lot of jealousy.”
    Maisie didn’t know what to say. She was angry, but didn’t know if it was directed at Cathy, or her family, or herself. “You make it sound like I’ve got it easy,”
    she said. But even as she said it, she knew it was true: she did have it easy.
    “Don’t misunderstand me,” Cathy said, seeming to sense Maisie’s irritation. “I’m just saying that’s how it looks from the outside.”
    “I dare anybody to spend twenty-four years living with my mother and call themselves lucky,”
    Maisie muttered.
    “Let’s go have some lunch,” Cathy said brightly, clearly comfortable with conspicuous subject-changes. Maisie remembered she hadn’t had anything since a cup of tea that morning. “Good idea. I’ve just realised I’m starving.”
    The church bells rang out from the cliff-top as Reverend Fowler farewelled his parishioners. The sky was clear and a cold northerly was blowing. The Reverend had learned over the years to take comfort in a clouded sky, because the clouds worked like insulation. On a day like this, the sky palely stretching into eternity, the distant sun visible off the horizon, it felt as though the world were shivering without cover on the edges of the cold, bleak universe.
    “Thank you, Reverend.” Art Hayman, a fortyish man who had been born in Solgreve, shook the Reverend’s hand solemnly, not meeting his eye. It had not escaped the Reverend’s notice that Art had only put one pound in the collection plate this morning, the only non-paper donation of the day. This was the sign of guilt. This was the sign that Art Hayman had just found out what went on in the foundations of the old abbey.
    “You’re welcome, Art. I