The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars

Van Badham

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781925004069
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Alone in the museum, in the dark, Marion unravels a ball of string so Michael can venture into a mystery. In recent weeks, strange stirrings have haunted the ancient relics and rumours of a monster abound. Michael finds his way back to her and to an impossible situation. Marion flees and finds herself the prim centre of an over-sexed septuagenarian art group at a seaside resort. Here, Marion is infuriated by Mark, a wayward sommelier with an eye for the ladies, determined to disrupt her lessons and her life.

PART I: THE BULL

The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

A: He didn’t think much of her at first. His wife was a taller woman. Freckles and long legs and straight dark hair. Smaller breasts.

When Marion was brought into the museum office for the first time, the new artist-in-residence, he thought: short. Marion wore her light brown hair in plaits like a much younger woman, had glasses. Short and fat—and not his type. She’d been in the museum office a week, before she came in wearing the dress.

This is when he noticed Marion properly. The dress was blue, patterned with purple flowers. It clung to her. Not plump—he surprised himself—ripe. Later the same day, when he came into the photocopier room, Marion was leant over a paper tray, replacing some A4. He stood in the doorway—she didn’t know he was there—she couldn’t have known how much of her thighs were visible, the hem of her dress barely covered her arse. That was when it began.

A and B: The blue dress day.

B: He was attractive. Shaking his hand, her first day at the museum, she only barely suppressed the instinctive hatred that broiled within her. When she was twenty, she’d given her heart to an attractive man, and in return he’d given himself to her housemate, on a rug in the lounge room, when he thought she was soundly in bed. Amongst drinking and dancing, she’d had attractive men since and always loved them too quickly—a blond judge’s associate who was far too young for her, a jealous sound engineer with fists like hams, a conceptual artist with long black hair and a beard and an opus made mostly of vanity. Her current boyfriend was balding and red-faced and lovely and they were living together now and it was comfortable.

A: Michael.

B: Marion. Artist in residence.

A: Publications officer.

B: You do the museum guide—

A: And all the captioning. Press releases.

Pause.

B: His hand was firm. That was when it began for her. He was tall and brown and his hair was a halo of brown and he wore glasses, too. Damn the sense of intimacy that comes from both wearing glasses. Broad shoulders. This was her first day there. The early sign of a paunch. It humanised him.

A: But—he was married.

B: Debbie the general manager told her he was married. His wife was some kind of teacher—and thin, and pretty. They’d married young. Expensive wedding. There was a photograph on his desk. Black and white. Wife in a white sheath.

A: If she felt something before the blue dress day, she kept it well hidden.

B: He was safe, she told herself, because he was married. They had found her a small glass office, with a computer, an empty desk and a drafting desk. It had glass walls and so did his office, across the hall from hers. She sketched a daily procession of objects they brought in for her—pots, and brooches, Roman keys, Saxon coins… relics of the ordered disorder that sprung a museum from what, four hundred years ago, had been a cabinet of curiosities.

A: Michael would glance at Marion through the glass.

B: She would carefully time her visits to the coffee room to be a minute after his. Hi.

A: Hi.

B: One day, she decided to wear the blue dress. It wasn’t provocative. He was married.

A: The second incident involved a cake.

B: That was the night the windows were shattered.

A: It was Jenni the admin assistant’s birthday. He didn’t get too involved in these things. Drink coffee, smile, chew cake. Pretend to be interested. This was before the windows shattered.

B: Marion baked.

A: The most extraordinary perfume to this ordinary cake. He ate one slice, he ate another. The icing was thick and sweet. Who made this?

B: I did. It’s made with honey and lavender.

A: A woman of unusual taste—and many different talents.

B: These things have been said.

A: Ye...

Table of contents

• THE BULL, THE MOON AND THE CORONET OF STARS
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CHARACTERS
• PART I: THE BULL
• PART II: THE MOON
• PART III: THE CORONET OF STARS