Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ you need an exorcist." Tori opened a jar of sundried tomatoes and scooped some out for the platter. "Speaking of the occult," she continued, "what do you think about the old witches gathered around my cauldron? Do you suspect any one of them of sending the you-know-whats?"

      Kit shrugged. "I doubt it Tori. But until we know why the whats are being sent, it really could be anyone. Can I ask a couple of personals before Miranda sends FredAndGinger to hunt us down and bring us back with the champagne?"

      "Fire away."

      "Do the seven of you have some deep dark secret that you would kill to protect, or that you could be threatened or blackmailed over?"

      "What?"

      "You know, did you all have an affair with your English Lit mistress or accidentally kill your Drama teacher, or steal the principal's bra and put it on the vicar while he was asleep? Anything like that?"

      "Not that I can recall, no," Tori replied, with bemusement. "Where the hell did you go to school?"

      Kit waved a hand in dismissal. "It's a cliché, Tori. In the movies, whenever you have a mystery that involves someone who is about to, or has just been to, or is at a reunion of school friends, you know that when the weird things start to happen it's because of something diabolical in their past; something that happened at school, that they've all kept hidden for years."

      "The movies, huh? What about real life?" Tori asked.

      "It doesn't happen in real life," Kit assured her. "Except maybe on this occasion," she grinned.

      "Well, as far as I know, the worst thing any of us did together was get suspended for two weeks for smoking."

      "OK, observation time," Kit continued. "You didn't all go all the way through school together did you?"

      "How the hell did you figure that out?"

      "It's my job," Kit grinned again.

      "So it is," Tori said. "OK, let me get the sequence right. Rebecca and I have been friends since I started school at Griffith Hall in Grade Four; Miranda and Carmel, like Rebecca, went all the way through from the Prep Grade to Form Six, but they weren't our friends until Form Two; and Dee and Paula didn't start until our final year but they joined our little group straight away."

      "I thought so. I had a feeling they were latecomers." Kit popped a piece of cheese in her mouth. "They talk more about what they're doing now, than what you all did then," she explained in response to Tori's questioning half-shrug. "What about Grace? She seems, ah, how shall I put it? She seems aloof."

      "Grace sort of floated. She was one of those popular people who never tied themselves to any group. Good at sport and quite smart. You know the type?" Tori handed Kit the platter, picked up three bottles of champagne and headed towards the door. Kit followed her out into the hall.

      "We were friendly on and off over the years," Tori continued, "but RJ and Grace hated each other at school. When we had our 15 year reunion though, they couldn't remember why."

      "And now they're the best of friends?" Kit queried. "Really?"

      "Yeah." Tori stopped and turned to face Kit. "Really."

      Rebecca leapt up from her chair when she saw Kit and Tori approaching the patio. "Ladies," she said with a sweeping gesture as she held the door open for them.

      "I ain't no lady," Kit smiled.

      "Me neither RJ, and you of all people should know that," Tori stated, as if she was seriously insulted. "They tried and tried, all those lady-making people, and this is the best they could do." She punctuated her statement with a loud burp.

      Kit placed the platter on the table, took one of the bottles from Tori and popped the cork.

      "Has our return interrupted your soapbox slander of the local council, Dee?" Tori asked.

      "No. I finished my rave ages ago, thank you very much," Dee stated, feigning miffedness.

      "Thank god," Grace exclaimed, poking her tongue at Dee. "Since then we've done the 'skinny model whinge', followed by the 'collective outrage number' at what that prick Carter Walsh said about women pollies, and now we're onto whether or not we should keep our ex-shit's surname."

      "What's to discuss?" Tori demanded, as she did the rounds to fill the empty champagne glasses. "Unless you can get some kind of mileage out of keeping it, you know like he's a Windsor of the royal variety, or an offspring of clan Packer, why the hell would you want to keep the bastard's name? Get your own back I say."

      "You haven't taken yours back," Paula pointed out.

      "Ah! My case is an acceptable exception to my own rule. I didn't want my own back. One of the best things about marrying Frank, especially in retrospect, was getting rid of my maiden name."

      "What was it?" Kit asked.

      "Horney," everyone else chorused.

      "I really hated being Tori Horney," Tori snarled. She sat back, looked thoughtful for a moment and then in the sweetest voice, as if it was a new and surprising idea, she added: "Also, I never really liked my father. Actually he was an arsehole, so I couldn't see any reason to give up the perfectly nice name of one utter bastard to return to the surname of a bodily orifice."

      "Here, here!" Carmel cheered. "But, I'm still tossing whether to keep Fisher or go back to Reece."

      "Tori's case aside," Kit said. "I don't understand why you'd take his name in the first place."

      "So you can take the prick to the cleaners, when he cheats on you," Grace explained. "It's much easier if you've shown your good faith in the marriage by taking his name."

      "You make it sound like you expect it not to work," Kit said.

      "No! Do I, honey? " Grace queried, with a melodramatic flail of her hands. "Of course I didn't mean to and, like, the tabloids tell the truth and a colourful box of tampons gives you enjoyable cramps. Yeah, sure!"

      Kit raised her eyebrows.

      "Well, how many marriages do you know that last the distance?" Grace asked.

      "A few," Kit shrugged. "My parents for one."

      "Mine too," Dee declared, giving Kit a proudly supportive nod.

      "You can't count your parents," Tori remarked. "Not our generation's parents anyway. Most of them only stuck it out because it was the thing to do, for the kids' sake, even though they hated each other. After that they stayed together because they were too unimaginative to do anything else, and in the end they're too old or scared to change."

      "My parents adored each other until the day my father died," Kit stated.

      "Mine are still madly in love," Dee said. "And Robbie and I expect to be exactly the same."

      "Yeah, well we don't talk about you and Robbie," Miranda snarled.

      "Why not?" Kit asked.

      "Because they're the perfect couple. Teen sweethearts, married at 20, still СКАЧАТЬ