Spotted Lily

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  Spotted Lily

  Anna Tambour

  infinity plus

  Spotted Lily

  Angela Pendergast, escapee from the Australian bush, grew up with the smell of hot mutton fat in her hair, the thought of her teeth crunching a cold Tim Tam chocolate biscuit-the height of decadent frivolity.

  Now, though her tastes have grown and she knows absolutely what she wants, her life is embarrassingly stuck. So when the Devil drops into her bedroom in her sharehouse in inner-city Sydney with a contract in hand, she signs. He's got only a Hell's week to fulfil his side, but in the meantime he must chaperone her ... or is it the other way around?

  Shortlisted for the William L. Crawford Award.

  A Locus Recommended Reading List selection.

  Published by infinity plus

  www.infinityplus.co.uk/books

  Follow @ipebooks on Twitter

  © Anna Tambour 2005, 2011

  ISBN: 9781301181414

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

  First published by Prime Books January 2005

  Wildside Press (August 19, 2005) Hardcover and Paperback

  The moral right of Anna Tambour to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  cover image © Anna Tambour

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  To Keith Brooke

  —1—

  'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' I asked.

  'Six, I think. But, really, dear, this is not my field.'

  'And I read somewhere that you turn us into sort of butterflies, and keep us in lacquered boxes with airholes, for transport.'

  'I couldn't possibly comment on that.'

  The Devil and I were sitting in my room, getting to know each other. He'd just been accepted in our sharehouse, 'Kitty is thirty-five dollars a week, no coffee or coffee substitutes or power drinks included' for the room next to mine, which was convenient for both of us.

  It was Pledge Week, and we had to make the most of our time, but to do that, we had to get to know each other a little better.

  I changed the subject.

  'Why do you have Pledge Week?'

  He examined the pressed tin ceiling, seeming to be considering whether he should answer. When I had almost forgotten my question, he answered. 'We have to. We lose too many to heaven these days.'

  I knew I had to learn fast, but if he didn't start to make sense, this was not going to work. 'Come again?'

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, then scratched himself behind somewhere and examined his nails. I tried not to look at his hands. As he wasn't forthcoming, I tried again. 'Isn't forever forever?'

  'Ah ... Yes, it is, in hell as it is on earth. But you make the rules, not we. And when you change your minds, you do manage to make an ado for us.'

  'Like what? Please don't speak in riddles.'

  'A regular omnium-gatherum of disorder, don't you know?'

  I obviously didn't.

  'A tumult, bother, hubbub, farrago of disorder. A regular huggermugger of change that we could well do without.'

  I still didn't understand his words in this context, and with some of them, in any context. What the hell sprang to mind, but the words that came out were, 'Could you give me an example?'

  He sighed.

  'And could you please try to speak in more accessible language. We are in twenty-first century Australia here. You do keep up, don't you? You must have some Australians there.'

  He bowed, a trifle condescendingly. 'I will try. Eh, you know, don't you read the papers? Don't you see what you're doing to us? It messes our morale something awful, you know.'

  Although the 'Eh' was New Zealand, and he was trying a leeetle too hard, I couldn't quibble with his delivery. However, I was no closer to understanding. I think he must have thought me frustratingly dense, because his brows beetled, and I felt a prickle of sweat chill my back. He waved his hand, and in it appeared an International Herald Tribune. 'Look at this article,' he commanded, and threw the paper into my lap. It was singed but readable, and two days old.

  I had no idea which article, so began to read down the first page, with rising panic.

  'Oh dear. I do so apologize,' he said, in either an apologetic or a patronizing tone. It was so hard to read him. He grabbed the paper and opened it up, folded it neatly, and handed it back. 'Read that,' he pointed, 'and do try to think. Think about the after-effects.'

  I hate it when someone talks to me like that. But I read.

  ANGLONG VENG, Cambodia In a case of Disneyland meets the killing fields, Cambodia's Ministry of Tourism is drawing up grandiose plans to upgrade the final stronghold of the Khmer Rouge into a million-dollar theme park.

  I looked up, grinning. 'This is a joke, isn't it?'

  He scowled, something I do not wish to see again. 'Do I look like a jokester,' he asked, rhetorically. 'Read on.'

  I did, all of it, including the part that said:

  "Pol Pot was a kind man and the only people killed during the Khmer Rouge time were Vietnamese spies," said Kim Syon, director of the Anglong Veng health center and son of a senior Khmer Rouge leader. "In the next 10 years people will begin to see the positive result of what Pol Pot did."

  I wanted to wash. 'But this is gross.'

  'No, love, it is normal,' the Devil said sadly. Do you know how many people we will lose, and do you know what our futures markets are saying about the new arrivals whom we had banked on for the next few years?'

  Whomnow. Was he having me on? Was the 'on' itself, the dangling preposition—snide? And ... and futures markets. Wait a bloody minute. I thought of something Dad said whenever he met someone he thought was serving him potato skin and calling it bangers and mash: 'There's something crook in Muswellbrook.' I felt in this conversation with the Devil, like I was standing in Muswellbrook's main street as the main attraction—the town fool. It was about time I assert myself.

  'You're shitting me,' I told him. 'Why are you trying to take advantage of my gullibility?'

  His eyelashes fluttered. 'Oh dearie me. You asked, and I'm telling you how it is. I never lie.'

  I shot him a look that would pierce most people of my acquaintance.

  He looked blandly back. However, he seemed truthful.

  But first, I had to take care of something that was making this getting-to-know all the
harder. 'Would it be possible if you don't call me "dear" or "love"? In my culture, it is kind of a put-down.'

  He might have been miffed, for he said, 'Miss Pendergast—'

  We could not go on like this. 'Excuse me, but "Miss" isn't something I've been called since I was fifteen, by anyone with whom I wish to associate.'

  He looked uncomfortable, and his brows began to move.

  'My friends call me Angela,' I added quickly, and then wondered if that would offend. 'Would you mind calling me Angela?' Or if you prefer, any other name would be fine. Like maybe Imelda. Someone you know.'

  'Imelda?'

  She was the only one who came to mind. Perhaps not dead yet.

  I was wracking my brains when he coughed. I looked at his face and he smiled. 'Angela has a certain ring to it. Look, Angela. Think of Jefferson. Do you know Thomas Jefferson?'

  'Yeah. Great American forefather. I don't imagine you would know him.'

  He scratched somewhere I don't want to know again, this time with a smug grin. 'You obviously don't keep up. He's in our place now. Something to do with his love life.'

  'You mean...'

  'You decide, we abide, my, er ... Angela. And we must keep abiding, which means that our populations are forever moving back and forth ... and even disappearing and appearing again.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Caligula? You do know of him?'

  'I saw the movie.'

  'Before the movie.'

  I don't like to be reminded of what I don't know, but thought it best not to obfuscate. 'No.'

  'You don't have to feel defensive. Caligula was a wonderful ... what would you say ... resident, for centuries, and then faded away. He's only recently come back to us. And with your attention span these days, it could be that we only have the pleasure of his company for one or two of your years.'

  'Unless "Caligula" is re-released,' I mumbled, thinking.

  'Come again?'

  'Skip it,' I said, still thinking.

  Suddenly a sharp tang of stink stung my eyes and jammed its choking fumes down my windpipe.

  'I do demand respect,' he said.

  'Sorry,' I mouthed. And I was. It was impossible to breathe.

  He waved his hand and the worst evaporated.

  'Sorry,' I repeated, to clear the air completely. 'I think I'm beginning to understand. 'But don't you gain from heaven, too?'

  'Yes. Like I said, we've got Jefferson now, and the markets say we'll have Ghandi soon. You know Ghandi?' he added somewhat condescendingly.

  'Yes,' I said, somewhat hurt.

  'Well, it is hard to tell, you know.'

  'The markets?' I had to ask.

  I was secretly (though I couldn't let it show) happy that he looked at last, confused. 'Don't you know markets?' he asked. 'Futures trading? I thought you were all obsessed with it nowadays.'

  'Not all of us,' I had to remind him. And all of a sudden I realized that for all his ultra-cool appearance, he was remarkably ignorant. Very gently and respectfully I asked, 'You don't know much about us, do you?'

  'What do you mean?' he answered, and I was happy to smell that he wasn't offended.

  'Well, here we are in a share house, and maybe you need some background on your housemates. Kate, remember—the one who chaired the interview today. She teaches ethnic studies at Sydney Uni, but she also inherited this house which was an investment from her North Shore parents who didn't think enough of her to leave it to her unmortgaged. So then there's us tenants who are also her housemates. Jason, who is going to bug you to death on your implants. Did you see his bifurcated tongue? It's very like yours.'

  'I didn't notice. I was looking at his tattoos.'

  'They're only part of his performance. He is a work in progress.'

  The Devil yawned.

  I tried not to gag. 'Do you mind if I light a cone?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Incense. I like to burn incense. Little cones of scented natural dried stuff.'

  He waved his hand graciously. 'Be my guest.'

  I was crawling over to the little table with its celadon saucer and collection of Celestial Sky, thinking I should possibly change brand names tomorrow, when he grabbed my arm with a grip you might expect the Devil to have.

  I thought I was about to die, or whatever.

  'It's not garlic, is it?'

  'Never,' I managed to smile.

  'I do apologize,' he said after a final little squeeze. I felt like a fruit. 'Did I hurt you?' he asked solicitously.

  'Only a bit,' I lied. 'But what do you care?'

  He shrugged, the same shrug as the bank manager gave me in some little French coastal town when he refused to cash my travellers cheque because my signature on it didn't exactly match the one on my passport.

  'That reminds me,' I said, (though it hadn't—I just needed to change the subject), as the scent of, I think it was called 'Bavaghindra' filled the room. 'Why do you have Pledge Week?'

  'You aren't very perspicacious,' he observed. 'Pledge Week,' he said slowly as if I were a child, 'is necessary because, outside of our permanent population of futures markets operators, Pledge Week provides the only new source of once acquired, stable and permanent population that we have.'

  The fingers of fate frolicked upon my back in a most disconcerting manner. I shrugged, which not only made me feel great and I hope, annoyed him in the same can't-admit-it way as his shrug did to me, but I think established my position far closer to the peer level necessary to our smooth working relationship.

  He must have thought I still did not understand. 'When you come with me—'

  'My coming is forever.'

  We looked into each other's eyes for so long that I wondered whether it was a blink contest. Eventually I had to blink. 'That is correct,' he said. 'When you come with me, your coming is forever.' And his face changed from its solemnity, to one of Christmas cheer.

  The actual elements of his smile, when I could steel myself to really look, were rather heart-flutteringly beautiful, and not at all like Jason's barracuda-shaped mouth of crooked, filed teeth. The smile of the Devil was broad, and his teeth looked good enough to be capped.

  —2—

  I was just thinking I had enough mental meat to chew on for the moment when the Devil asked, 'Why did you Pledge?'

  'Don't you know our motivations?'

  The Devil was still sitting on my bed on the floor. He picked up a corner of my bedspread and leaned over to smell the sheets. I don't know why, but this embarrassed me. The laundromat was four blocks away, and since I didn't have anyone I was sleeping with at the moment, I hadn't bothered stuffing them into my backpack for a rather long time. He sniffed deeply. 'I am not the Omniscient, you know,' he said, smoothing the bedspread back into place.

  I didn't ask about the Omniscient. This was already almost too much for one day.

  He crossed his legs and rocked back. He had already looked pretty amazingly hung in those tight jeans—the major reason that Andrew had voted for him in the house meeting—but now he looked oddly enough, double hung.

  I couldn't help asking, 'Do you have a tail?'

  'Of course.' He adjusted his crotch and then scratched it, looking for all the world, just very very male-modellish. 'But I asked you,' he said. 'Why did you call?'

  Now he had me confused. 'I didn't call. What call?'

  'When you wrote to your Julie "I just want fame. Only that, and I wouldn't mind it in a week, and at this point I don't give a shit what I write."'

  I could feel a flush climbing my face. 'You have read my emails?'

  'We only read mail when it relates to us.'

  'But I never mentioned you at all.'

  'But you did,' he said, reminding me for a moment of Miss Waldenmere in first form.

  'But please, I don't mean to be rude, but I did not.'

  The left side of the Devil's lip rose as if caught by a fishhook. 'Angela, my dear—'

  I hoped my anger was not showing, but Jeesus, I y
earned to pound him into fishpaste.

  'Angela,' he sighed, in a maddening display of put-upon tolerance. 'Your undertext reeked of the appeal for me to save you.'

  The books piled all over the floor did not help me one bit. I glanced at the top one on the nearest pile: The Bestseller. It leered at me.

  'And when I arrived this morning, what did you do?' he needled, in a maddening tone of reason.

  I thought back. Sunday morning. The day of the interviews for the new housemate. There had been a number of calls already, and we knew that the kitchen would be full. So tedious, but if I didn't attend, I wouldn't have a vote, and then I could get a housemate-from-hell on the other side of the wall. So I had groaned and crawled out of bed. I had then thought of the other duty of my day: to produce something. Anything. And that made me look forward to the house meeting, in preference.

  I remembered what I did next. Check my email, in which there was a letter from Julie telling me about how she has this new idea for a screen play and how she is going to begin writing it. And then I remembered my reply to Julie. And then I remembered smelling a smell that made me check the extension cord, and then I remembered finding it just fine, but still there was that smell, and then I saw this person in the corner.

  'I remember,' I said to him.

  I remembered more.

  'What the fuck are you doing in my room!' I hissed at the person, not wanting to yell in case he was a sleep-deprived spunky-looking-overnighter of Simone's who had just strayed to the wrong room from the loo downstairs. Simone always liked exhibitionists, and this one looked just her type. Very sexy, but in a narcissistic way. A great head of hair, but I do remember thinking that if he really wanted the horns to show, he should shave himself bald, though maybe he thought that was common. I was just thinking of telling him to get out and back to Simone's bed, when he spoke.

  'Are you interested in developing your true potential?' I remember him—the Devil—asking, and then I remember to my shame, that I answered 'yes', though upon reflection, this is the worst come-on line I have ever heard.