Cooking the Books (21 page)

Kate shrugged again. ‘She’s made a few enemies,’ she admitted. ‘Some of her rivals don’t appreciate her being a lesbian. You can annoy some people just by existing.’

‘And that’s true,’ I agreed. We chopped on in silence. I thought about it. Tommy was a strong personality and did not endure fools with any tolerance. She had always been like that. Her catering venture, Maitresse, had been very successful in a fairly short time. She must have trodden on a few toes while rising to such eminence that she routinely catered celebrity weddings. Actually, knowing Tommy, she had probably stomped on a few faces on the way up the catering ladder. Would losing this contract have such a bad effect on the company?

Of course it would, I thought as I reached for another carrot. No one would risk their wedding to a company which had a trickster. I had not previously appreciated how very important weddings were to some people.

Carrots completed, I looked around for another task. I could not lounge around in a kitchen. If you’re not working, someone will be offended. And find you a really ghastly job, like scrubbing roasting dishes. Luckily Lance came to my rescue with a lot of tomatoes to skin and deseed. I prepared my bowls for boiling water and ice water.

‘You’re right about the produce,’ I noted, prodding a tomato. ‘Pulpy and overripe.’

‘I told her,’ he said through his teeth. ‘That greengrocer may be organic but organic shouldn’t mean shitty merchandise. Those potatoes were half their weight in worms and soil.’

‘I’m sure she’ll fix it.’ I tried to be soothing.

‘That’s our Tommy,’ he assented. ‘They’ll know they’ve been in a fight, all right. But for the present we have to do the best we can with what we’ve got. For a baker, you slice quite a good carrot,’ he added.

‘Have you been with Tommy long?’

‘Since she was working out of her own kitchen. Now we’ve got our own premises and we’re state of the art,’ he told me. ‘And I like Tommy. Knows what she wants. High standards. Good luck with those tomatoes,’ he said, and went back to stand over the peon who was slicing onions and weeping freely. I remembered being told that weeping was good for the eyes. This worker was going to be able to see for miles and miles, once she dried her face.

Kate was chatting to the lettuce slicer about the nightlife of Melbourne, in which I had little interest, so I shut up and blanched tomatoes. They were talking about various nightclubs in the city.

‘Of course there’s always Locomotion,’ said the slicer. I had only heard that word in a song by Kylie Minogue, unless someone was talking about steampunk science fiction. I had never gone clubbing. I had never seen the enjoyment in being enclosed in a suffocating mob and deafened. I am, as Goss had once remarked, quite amazingly out of it.

‘New one,’ said Kate. ‘Cupboard. In Collins Street, so you’re out of the King Street crush and the bogans don’t know about it. It’s small and underground. Bit Gothy in theme.’

‘What did you say?’ I asked excitedly, almost squeezing the life out of a tomato. It squished and slipped its skin obligingly.

‘Cupboard,’ said Kate, surprised. ‘New club. In Collins Street. I’ve got the card somewhere.’ She felt in her pocket and produced one. ‘Couple of friends of mine started it. Come along?’

‘I might,’ I said. Kate considered me for a moment.

‘Show the card to the door bitch,’ she told me. ‘And she’ll probably let you in.’

I had not thought of that. One has to pass an inspection before one can be admitted to a club. I had no intention of exposing myself to possible insult. ‘Old Mother Hubbard, she went to her cupboard, to fetch her poor doggie a bone,’ I said. Kate and Lance looked at me.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Lettuce Guy. ‘What did you think of
Avatar
?’ he asked Kate.

Since I did have an opinion on the lack of plot in that movie, we chatted on amicably until all the vegetables were prepared. Then I was at a loose end. Bernie had the baking well in hand and did not need—and would not welcome—my help. Daniel was still wandering round the set, talking to various people. Jason—oh, my Jason . . . the idiot!—was presumably still sulking in his apartment. I had nothing more to do at Harbour Studios so I took off my apron and went to tell my partner that I had another clue.

Daniel was talking to the sound people. They were complaining about the difficulties of their profession.

‘If it’s an outside broadcast, there will be planes flying over, there will be cars, and that will be the moment that the neighbour decides to start up his chainsaw,’ said Ali. ‘If it’s in a studio there will be machine noises, dropped shoes and inconvenient comments. Or coughs, sneezes, farts, belches—humans are very noisy creatures.’

‘The life of a sound man is hard,’ sympathised Daniel.

‘And did I mention electronic interference?’ continued Ali, warming to his topic. ‘Every person has a mobile phone and a beeper and a pager . . .’

‘Daniel, I’m off, unless you need me,’ I inserted into the rave.

Daniel smiled at me and nodded and I slipped away as Ali went on, ‘And no matter how many times you tell them to turn the buggers off, there is always someone who forgot or who was waiting for an important phone call . . .’

I completed my earlier journey and managed to get out into the street without being intercepted. Collins Street, here I come. It was only two in the afternoon, so Cupboard would not be open and I would not have to pass an Exam By Door Bitch.

I had the greatest difficulty in finding Cupboard. I walked up and down that stretch between Swanson and Bourke several times before I realised I was on the wrong side of the road. Finally I located it between one shop and another; a little barred door which presumably led down a stair to a den of some sort. It was not far from the building with Puck emblazoned above it. There was the parchment, stuck under the door. I pulled it out. Pockets’ idiosyncratic handwriting was instantly recognisable.

Three wise men of Gotham
, it read. I knew this one and recited it as I headed for home, which presently meant a shower and a gin and tonic, rather stressing the gin, which I felt that I had earnt.

‘Three wise men of Gotham, went to sea in a bowl. If the bowl had been stronger, this story would have been longer.’ Gotham? Why did I associate that with Batman rather than a rhyme?

Home, hot and tired, I had my shower, put on my loose gown, patted my cat and provided a few treats, fired up the computer and researched Gotham, then took self, cat and esky to the roof garden.

I was clean and comfortable and felt quite good until I saw that the temple of Ceres contained Jason, crumpled into a corner. He looked rough and angry. I sailed in, put Horatio down, and said, ‘Hello, Jason,’ in as equable a voice as I could manage. ‘I’m working on a mystery for Daniel. Want to help?’

‘Corinna,’ he said. He looked piteously up into my face as I sat down next to him. He had been crying for some time. His eyes were red-rimmed.

‘Jason,’ I replied.

‘How could you?’ he choked, and was gone.

Damn again. How was I going to explain to someone who would not stay to be explained to? I might send him an email, I thought. I knew he had a second-hand laptop which the Lone Gunmen had given him as outmoded by several weeks. And we had wireless broadband for the whole building. I doubted that I could express myself well enough in writing to comfort him. But I would try as soon as I finished this drink.

Crossly, I poured myself a stiff gin and sat down to contemplate the wise men of Gotham.

There were a lot of stories about them. Apparently, King John had been about to set up a hunting lodge in their area, which would have been ruinous; huntsmen riding over crops, common land enclosed, winter fodder and wood from the forest cut off. So they behaved like lunatics in front of the King’s spies, and he decided that trying to fence in the cuckoo might be catching, and took his hunting lodge elsewhere. Gotham was crazy like the fox. They definitely would have been able to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw, whatever quarter the wind was in. The stories had that odd feel which I had also encountered when Professor Dion read me his translation of Aristophanes. That slippage of humour. Lines that would have had an Ancient Greek audience rolling in the aisles fall flat to a modern audience (i.e. me). Tragedy may last for two thousand years but humour dates quickly. The slapstick Goodies are funnier now than the ground-breaking Monty Python. In my opinion. Anyway, the tales of the wise men of Gotham may have had a medieval audience in stitches around the sooty hearth after their dinner of salt fish and porridge, but they didn’t do a thing for me. Though there was something mystic about their valiant attempts to catch the moon reflected in their pond. Presumably the same pond into which they threw the eel, to drown it. Meroe would know.

Oh, Jason! I sniffed into my drink. Horatio hopped up on the bench beside me and gave my hand a lick. I never know if he is trying to be kind or acquiring a taste for human flesh. His tongue was warm and rough. I stroked him. At least someone didn’t misjudge me . . .

Into my temple came two people, loaded down with a picnic basket, and I got up hurriedly.

‘No, no, Corinna, do stay,’ said Mrs Dawson graciously. ‘Dion and I felt like getting out of our apartments and I suggested a picnic.’

‘A good notion,’ said the Professor. ‘You know, I believe that I am getting old.’

We looked at him. His head had grown through his hair at an early age. He was rosy and sparkling and had certainly not aged in the time that I had known him.

‘Really, Dion,’ said Mrs Dawson, pouring him a glass of punch. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘I thought I saw Jason in the hall,’ he said, accepting the glass. ‘I spoke to him but he did not reply. I must have been seeing things.’

‘You’re not getting old,’ I said affectionately. ‘You’ll never grow old! That was indeed Jason and he is in an almighty snit.’

‘Oh dear. Have some punch. My mother’s recipe. Why he is in this state?’ asked Mrs Dawson.

They were both old and wise. I could do with some advice.

‘The girls told him that I had replaced him. He is mightily offended and hurt.’

‘Oh, those girls, they cause such mischief. It isn’t their fault, Corinna, they just don’t think. It’s this instant communication. Allows no time for considering whether that statement is a wise thing to say. And he was doing so well, too.’

I suppressed a sob and gulped some punch. Champagne and pineapple juice with strawberries and something else—bitters, perhaps? Lime juice? Delicious. Mrs Dawson was looking censorious and I hoped she might encounter Kylie and Goss before the mood wore off. They deserved a rebuke.

‘But Jason has some sense,’ commented the Professor. ‘I should leave him alone and he’ll come home, like Little Bo Peep’s sheep.’

‘Dragging his tail behind him?’ I asked, feeling a little better.

‘Just so,’ said Professor Dion. He parted a smoked salmon sandwich and gave some of the filling to Horatio, who had been sitting at his side, looking alert and interested, though no well-bred cat would go so far as to beg, like a common mongrel. Horatio accepted the offering and the Professor ate the rest of the sandwich. Horatio dotes on smoked salmon. So does Nox, the Professor’s little black cat, which possibly explained why she had not joined us at this picnic.

‘So you don’t think I should pin him down and forcibly explain to him?’ I asked cravenly. I had been thinking that this was the honourable course and dreading it.

‘No, Jason knows all about force. It would not have a good effect. In my opinion,’ counselled Mrs Dawson. ‘Have a cucumber sandwich, Corinna. How goes the TV studio?’

‘Oh, strange,’ I said, and explained about the crew, the actors and the tricks. And ate the sandwich. Horatio scored another slice of smoked salmon. I followed up with an exposition of Pockets and the nursery rhymes.

‘Well, well,’ said the professor. ‘You have been having a difficult time! Three Wise Men of Gotham . . . I haven’t thought about them for years. Eh, Mrs D?’

‘Holy fools,’ said Mrs Dawson. ‘I sat next to a folklorist at an embassy dinner once—Madras, I think—and heard all about it. Far too much about it, actually, but the alternative was nuclear physics on my other side and I have never had a scientific mind. Yes, I recall that he was fascinated with the concept. The Christian equivalent is St Francis of Assisi, who actually called himself “God’s Fool”, bless his heart. Meroe would know more. There is a tarot card called the fool, I believe.’

‘Standing on the edge of a precipice, while a little dog tears his trousers. The body trying to communicate with the soul. Jung talked about him,’ said the Professor, investigating another sandwich. ‘No, my dear chap, you may not have any more salmon. It will spoil your dinner,’ he said to Horatio. Horatio accepted this and jumped down. Time for me to depart.

‘Thank you so much,’ I said to my elderly advisers. ‘If Jason should ask you for advice, please tell him that I am happy to have him back if he wants to come.’

‘We’ll tell him,’ they assured me.

I left them sitting side by side on the bench, sharing champagne punch and sandwiches. It might not be so bad, getting old. I collected Horatio and the esky and took my leave. It might have been the punch, but I felt comforted.

Back in the apartment, Horatio went to the couch for his after-walk snooze, and I went to the computer. Holy fools. Would Pockets have known this? Did we have a church of St Francis in the city? Yes. Lonsdale Street. Aha. That little island of peace opposite all the motorbike shops in Elizabeth Street and the bulk of Melbourne Central shopping centre. It was a long shot but Daniel had not returned and I was feeling restless. A nice walk with a purpose might be just what I needed.