The Temple is the story of good and evil fighting over the soul of a child.
Helen is caught between warring generations and between families who used to be good friends but who are now estranged.
The parents who control her childhood are dissolute and charming;their friends are helpless in the face of evil. Between these two camps, Helen grows up neglected and when she does find love it is not the kind she wants.
Prologue
‘I am priest here,’ the man said. ‘Let me show you erotic sculptures.’
Moments ago Helen had been on the temple roof, searching among the breast-shaped domes and phallic battlements, flesh-rosy in the setting sun. Sunin wasn’t there. She climbed down and hesitated for a moment in the entrance. The priest was invisible, but she heard his voice echoing through the chill marble vaults. ‘There’s nothing erotic in here,’ she told herself as she peered through the maze of pillars. ‘No joyful copulating, that’s on the outside. Here inside there’s only pure spirit, God help me.’
Then the body fell, soft as a bird, the head smashing onto the floor at her feet. A red stream poured out, dark against the marble. One arm was bent beneath the head, the other stretched out, palm open. Blood formed into a pool beside the wrist. His eyes were shut, but the watch, unbroken, stared up at her. Unblinking, voiceless, it could not tell her where he had been hiding; nor why he had climbed to the temple roof.