LITMIR.BIZ

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has been,’ Brother Trevor says, giving her hands a sudden squeeze, ‘always been his way.’

      Evelyn dares not move. ‘Selwyn wants a period of rapid expansion, he wants to double the number of retail outlets and open a dozen new designer pubs. Can you imagine the cost!’ She is speaking very carefully, any untoward movement could bring the session to a premature end. ‘Gray says such expenditure would be suicide in this climate.’

      ‘So why does Selwyn want it?’ Brother Trevor leans sideways against the screen, and then returns to an upright position; his eyelids flutter.

      ‘Something about increasing the public image of the company. “Exposure,” he says, “is everything.” ’

      Brother Trevor is swaying now, his grip on Evelyn’s hands is very firm, he begins the prayer of joy. Evelyn joins in. There is a knock at the door and Marion Potter is asking if her husband is ready for tea.

      ‘Not yet, dear.’ Brother Trevor consults the wall clock. ‘I’ll be finished in about ten minutes.’ Marion’s steps fade down the hallway; he turns to Evelyn, ‘But I’m ready to wind up, are you?’

      Evelyn nods, not daring to speak. Brother Trevor returns to the prayer of joy, and now Evelyn, too, is swaying and praying, her breath quickening, breast beating, body rising and rising poised at the precipice, and Jesus comes, she feels him, she feels him. ‘Feel the love of Jesus!’ Cries Brother Trevor. ‘I feel! I feel!’ she says. Feels the thrill the joy the fluids of her faith rushing together and breaking, wave after glorious wave.

      Only faith can feel this good.

      She offers up thanks: for Brother Trevor, for her belief, and for the surprisingly powerful, and yet still largely private, miracle of her faith. And wonders what Brother Trevor thinks of her. Early in their association, having been quite overwhelmed by his sessions, Evelyn decided to discontinue them; Brother Trevor had worked hard to dissuade her, had been delighted when she succumbed. So she supposed he must like her, must like his time with her. He said it was part of his ministry, and of course it was; but while she always felt so much better for his ministrations, she remained perplexed over the particular manifestations of her faith. And would not want anyone to know, most of all Brother Trevor, upon whom it was so dependent.

      Minutes later, both were sitting in their chairs smiling fondly at each other.

      ‘I don’t know how I’d manage without our sessions,’ Evelyn said.

      ‘Just doing my job.’

      ‘I feel so lucky to have you.’

      ‘Thank you, my dear.’

      He stood up and took her hands. She looked up at him expectantly; but no, he said, she must go, his next client was due in half an hour. She, too, stood up.

      ‘Thank you Brother Trevor, I feel so much better.’

      ‘Until next Thursday then?’

      ‘Thursday.’

      He walked her to the front door. ‘Marion,’ he called to his wife, ‘Evelyn’s just leaving. Do you want to say goodbye?’

      Marion came to the door, her youthful features pressed into a warm smile. Evelyn and the other women of the congregation so admired her; not yet twenty-five, it had been she who had comforted Brother Trevor when his wife Sarah had died from cancer – a double blow, as all were quick to recognize, for Sarah was the second wife to have left him under tragic circumstances. Marion had been his saviour during that awful time, not only had she nursed Sarah, she had moved into the Potter home to be more available in the last difficult months. Now she was leaning forward and giving Evelyn a hug. ‘Perhaps you’ll stay for a cup of tea next Thursday.’

      Evelyn accepted the invitation, walked down the path to her car and drove home. The children were not yet back from gym; the house was quiet and peaceful. The Finemore problems were still there, her anger, too, but Evelyn felt so much better, so much more in control. Which was how it always was with Brother Trevor, who somehow softened the difficulties, made them more manageable. She went upstairs to change her clothes and freshen her makeup, then to the kitchen, where she buttered some buns, made a large jug of cordial and waited for the children to come home.

      FOUR

      Lorraine Pascoe, long-time intimate of George Finemore, and former employee at Finemore’s Fine Wines and Spirits, was standing at the stove in head-scarf and underwear frying fish. She did not need to work, she was thinking, George had taken care of that, rather it was her preference to work. ‘I prefer to work,’ she said out loud. Not that that had been a consideration when, a week before and just eight months after George’s death, she had been fired from Finemore’s, or, as Gray Finemore and Selwyn Pryor would have it, ‘reluctantly let go’ as a result of ‘recent company restructuring.’

      She reached across the bubbling oil to open a window – perhaps now she’d get round to replacing the exhaust fan – and gently turned the fish. It was to be expected, she supposed, that the boys would get rid of her, for hadn’t she chafed at their ambitions for years? Indeed, her removal was probably the only action, either before or since George’s death, over which Gray and Selwyn had agreed. But nonetheless, she had hoped, in the uncertain terrain of George’s passing, they would have had the sense to keep her on. Not out of any moral scruples, the boys were devoid of those, rather their inflated ambitions should have convinced them that continued prosperity at Finemore’s required the presence of the person who knew the company best. And with George now gone, that person was Lorraine Pascoe. She knew Finemore’s and she knew liquor; she was competent, astute, energetic, and had the loyalty and respect of the staff – qualities not readily demonstrable in the boys.

      Although they would describe it differently. Lorraine Pascoe was a ‘scheming female’ who had ‘inveigled’ her way into George’s confidence and had, in the process, trammelled the Finemore sons. On a daily basis, they had been forced to witness George and Lorraine in earnest and spirited conversation; they had listened while plans were made, promotions discussed, figures analysed, schemes evaluated, and they did not like it at all. If not for Lorraine, George would have consulted them, if not for Lorraine, George would have recognized what Gray and Selwyn had to offer.

      Lorraine removed the fish from the pan and added some sliced eggplant to the hot oil. The boys had convinced themselves that sex was the sole reason for Lorraine’s favoured status, and sex, as they were quick to point out, defied fair competition. They saw little point then, in extending themselves until the situation changed; they kept short hours, achieved little, and claimed their subordinates’ successes as their own. Not that George was aware of any of this. Weak links in an organization, particularly when these occur in that spongy layer just beneath the uppermost level, are inordinately common and easily camouflaged. It’s a stratum with little to do; the highest level makes the decisions and the people lower down do the work; in the case of Finemore’s, George and Lorraine made the decisions and the Finemore staff were, almost without exception, extremely competent. Lorraine had more than once remarked to her sister (never to George who could be cutting in his own assessments of Gray and Selwyn but would hear no criticism from anyone else) how fortunate it was for the boys that, in addition to being employee and friend of George, she was also lover, for how could Gray and Selwyn have explained their poor performance if she were not?

      Unlike George, Lorraine had always lumped the two boys together; Selwyn with his supple charm and Gray his narcotic self-righteousness were both lacking in integrity and quite as bad as each other. George, however, had admired in Selwyn his personable manner which, he said, augured well for a career in sales and marketing. ‘And he’s smart,’ George invariably added, ‘A university professor has got to be smart.’ It had shocked Lorraine that George failed to see through Selwyn, failed to understand that the convivial drinker and lively raconteur was no more than a carefully packaged commodity aimed at eliciting his father-in-law’s favour.

      At which he had been quite successful. Selwyn managed to camouflage his lackadaisical performance with zesty ideas; risky ideas, as far as Lorraine was concerned,

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