Chapter 6 Jemma
Jemma
Jemma stood outside the church, her Bible clutched in one hand, the other pulling at the hem of the ridiculous nightie.
All the other girls had strutted by wearing beautiful white confirmation dresses, many the custom-made creations they’d been talking of for weeks, but Mum had only produced Jemma’s last night.
She strongly suspected it had come from the local op shop.
It smelled like it hadn’t even been washed.
She glanced down the street again. They’d been running late—timetables didn’t figure in her mother’s life—so Mum had barely pulled the old station wagon to a halt before ordering Jemma out. ‘I’ll park up a side street and walk back,’ she’d said.
That was at least fifteen minutes ago. Jemma could hear voices inside the church, but it was ages since the last couple of people had passed by to enter, covertly eyeing her.
That meant the other twenty-seven twelve-year-olds were inside, along with, no doubt, their extended families, waiting for the service.
And here she was, waiting for her sole family representative.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She should have listened to Dad.
He hadn’t wanted her to get confirmed in the Anglican church—despite Nonna and Nonno’s Catholic faith, he hadn’t wanted her to get confirmed at all.
But, in a rare moment of lucidity, Mum had practically begged Jemma to do it.
Said that Father Richmond had been helping her, and it was the right thing to do.
Jemma was all for doing anything that meant Mum might stay on the straight and narrow for a while.
So she’d sat through the confirmation classes after school each Tuesday, internally arguing with the priest over the plausibility of his wildly inaccurate statements, but remaining silent for Mum’s sake.
Well, except for one occasion, when he’d lectured them against worshipping images and she’d asked what the carved statues adorning the church walls were, if not images.
Father Richmond had tried—unsuccessfully—to stare her down, but hadn’t explained.
Jemma lifted her thumb to her mouth, but the nail was gnawed so far back she couldn’t get any purchase. The door opened behind her.
‘Jemma? You need to come in now. Everyone is waiting.’
Father Richmond’s tone wasn’t unsympathetic, but instead of easing her pain, it made her feel guilty for having doubted his teachings. Perhaps he had been helping Mum? But if that was true, why had Mum not turned up?
Jemma sighed, straightened her dress once again and turned to the church.
No bride could find the aisle longer than she did, with every eye in the building on her.
She walked as fast as possible and only dared take a breath when she made it to the other kids without falling flat on her face or something equally humiliating.
‘Finally, we can start.’
The priest conducting the ceremony wasn’t Father Richmond and Jemma felt panic rising within her.
She and Father Richmond might have crossed swords occasionally, but now she needed to mentally prepare herself to stand up to someone else.
That’s how it went with Mum’s boyfriends, too: once Jemma got the measure of them, she could deal.
The problem was, the men changed almost as frequently as she saw her mother.
The priest tapped the sheaf of paper in front of him. ‘Your baptism certificate, where is it?’
Jemma lifted one shoulder, looking to Father Richmond for a lifeline.
‘Ah, Jemma’s mother said she was dropping it off.
’ In turn, he looked to his aide, who appeared flustered.
A whispered conversation between the men had the sweat trickling down Jemma’s neck.
The crowd was muttering, her friends making their eyes huge in question, as though she should know what the hold-up was.
Father Richmond approached the other priest, a scrap of paper in his hand. ‘Apparently, Jemma’s mother phoned through a short time ago to say that Jemma hasn’t been baptised.’
The priest’s glare should have incinerated the offending note; instead, he switched it to Jemma. ‘A confirmation is a reaffirmation of your commitment to the faith you have been baptised into,’ he thundered. ‘How can you be confirmed if you haven’t been baptised?’
Jemma wanted so badly to shout back at him, but she couldn’t. It was one thing to argue a point, another entirely when she was in the wrong. Thanks to Mum.
More muttering ensued, the note waved around like evidence. Jemma’s cheap nylon nightie grew slimy with sweat.
Eventually, Father Richmond smiled at the crowd. ‘It’s perhaps very unorthodox, but we’ve decided that Jemma will be baptised today with the entire confirmation class listed as her godparents; that way, the confirmation service can go ahead.’
A wave of laughter swept the crowd. One of the boys who was being confirmed sniggered. He elbowed his mate and nodded at Jemma’s short hem. All the other girls’ dresses were modest lengths with capped sleeves and pretty trims.
Jemma glared at him. So now she not only didn’t have a functioning mother, but had godparents her own age. She switched her gaze to the cross, determined not to show a flicker of emotion. None of it mattered, anyway. She’d only done this to make Mum happy.
She didn’t bother listening to the service, just followed the other kids.
As it seemed things were winding up, there was a commotion behind her, at the church door, and everyone turned in a rush of interest.
‘That’s my baby in there,’ her mother slurred. Her voice rose to a shriek and she jabbed a finger at the priests. ‘I’m not signing her over to you devil-worshippers. She’s not a sacrifice! Jemma! Jemma, where are you?’
Jemma tried to shrink smaller, a weed among the white blossoms. There was a flurry of shock, murmurs of outrage. The kids laughed; Father Richmond dashed toward Mum.
‘You’re all possessed, you hear me?’ her mother screamed. ‘You’re turning my baby into a demon!’
Her mother was either drunk or drugged. Jemma had witnessed it all before, but never had her mother’s actions made a fool of her. As everyone focused on her mother, some even taking out their fancy new phones to film her, Jemma slipped quietly out of the side door.
She was going to Dad’s, her grandparents. She’d never tell them of her humiliation, but nothing they could say would make her ever live with Mum again.
Jemma rolled onto her back and let out a groan of frustration.
She wiped her hand across her forehead, dashing away the chill sweat.
Damn. She had to get a grip on the dreams. She knew they were stress-induced, the threatening notes she’d received somehow linking in her mind with the note given to the priest that had evidenced her mother’s betrayal.
She needed to find a way to short-circuit the memories—although it was just as likely Rohan’s latest dirty trick that had her mind churning.
Her teeth gritted, she thrust from the bed and started tumbling clothing out of the suitcase as she searched for her running gear.
Dad had snorted with laughter the previous evening when she’d flagged her intention to drive into Settlers Bridge in the predawn darkness to go for a jog.
Although her father had been into working out at the gym when he lived in the city, he’d never been a runner.
He had no concept how hard it would be to set an even pace on the patchy, muddy, unlit path along the edge of the river in front of the Wattle Seed Inn.
She needed pavement. Besides, there was a wildness out in the country that didn’t sit easily with her need for structure and security.
More importantly, Dad didn’t realise—and she’d make sure he never knew—just how much she needed the stress release and endorphin hit.
As she navigated the simple grid-pattern of streets, Jemma realised that, though shrouded in a secretive pearly mist, the town was so small she probably need only blip her key fob on her run and the click of her indicators would guide her back through the Sunday silence.
She parked in front of one of the two large sandstone buildings that faced one another across the street.
The edge of the high kerb served as a bench to rest her foot as she tightened the laces of her Brooks runners, then she did a few preliminary stretches before jogging down the incline toward the river.
A crystal-studded blanket of mist roiled along the banks of the Murray, joined to the heavens by random sunlight staircases.
Jemma lengthened her stride on the path that ran parallel to the water.
Devoid of the smoothing fumes of the city, the crisp air seared her lungs, but she forced herself to deeply inhale and rhythmically exhale.
A pair of black, hen-like birds with bright red beaks wandered along the bank.
A pelican glided down from the grey clouds, its plumage the identical shade of the water, making it hard to see when it touched down.
The wake fanning out behind the bird reminded Jemma of the pedal boats on the Torrens—although, despite that river threading through the heart of the city only a couple of kilometres from her office, she hadn’t found time to wander that way in years.
She’d always allowed the rhythm and effort of running to provide a rare and precious space for her mind to disengage.
Lately, though, her brain was fixated, still obsessed with those threatening notes.
Why couldn’t she put them out of her mind?
She’d never personally crossed anyone, and doing her job—and doing it damn well—couldn’t be held against her.
After all, innocent or guilty, both the verdict and the sentence came from the court.
That left Kain. She hadn’t thought about him for months—in truth, for many more months than they’d been broken up—before Tien’s questioning. But the notion that he could be her stalker was well beyond the realms of reality.