Heavenly Pleasures (11 page)

I opened the shop, I handed it over to Kylie, I sent out the restaurant bread by carrier and unlocked the till.

‘Since you are taking so much responsibility I shall have to increase your wages,’ I told Kylie. She clasped her heavily ringed hands with glee.

‘So I can get Tori’s collar early!’ she said breathlessly.

‘Tori’s collar?’

‘It’s a little strip of black doeskin,’ she told me. ‘With real pink diamonds in it. Well, not diamonds, really, cubic zirconias. But pink ones. Champagne coloured.’

I didn’t say a word. It’s no business of mine what my staff spend their wages on. Jason was about to hoot with mirth until I stood on his foot. I didn’t need dissension in the shop. The doors were open and the people started coming in.

I helped with the first rush, then bagged a few ginger muffins and went back to my apartment for an umbrella. I felt like … well, I didn’t know what I felt like, but it wasn’t staying in one place. I took my backpack and the Jade Forrester and went out.

Meroe was my first stop. She was serving a nervous woman who seemed, from the ingredients, to be making a love philtre. If not, I don’t know what she wanted doves’ hearts for. I have always assumed that these were some sort of mushroom. If they weren’t, I don’t want to know. I had obviously picked up some theory and practice of magic from all those Wiccan magazines. Meroe took the muffins and said gnomic-ally, ‘Tomorrow night, full moon,’ to me before going back to the artemisia and fern seed.

Was tomorrow night a full moon? I didn’t see a lot of nights from the right end. Where was I, in fact, going?

I was walking out of the city along St Kilda Road before I really thought about it. Flinders Street Station passed. I paused on the bridge to salute one of my favourite views, the rainbow arch pedestrian bridge to Southbank. It is a perfect curve. Such a comfortable shape. It began to rain some more.

Southbank was a maze of interesting shops, museums, art spaces, cafes, restaurants, and of course gaming venues, if you are interested in gaming, which I am not. I stepped down to river level and dived into the covered arcades. It was not too busy, but there was a nice hum of conversation, some very good art works and a pleasant smell of commerce and coffee. The rain drummed on the glass roof. The potted palms waved their fronds in the warm air. I thought of one brand of therapy which I had not tried for my bruised feelings. Shopping.

I prefer to shop with a friend, but it was very relaxing to stroll along, marvelling at the number of shoe shops in the world. Did anyone actually put those misshapen rhinestone-studded pointy things on a real foot? And then balance on that six inch heel? Half the pain in women’s lives is due to men but a considerable proportion of the rest is due to shoes, I thought. Deep thoughts for a rainy morning from a woman wearing Birkenstocks. If the Lord had meant us to wear pointy shoes, he would have put our big toe in the middle. I will always sacrifice style for comfort. Actually, it isn’t a sacrifice.

I appreciated the Japanese woodblocks and went on, wondering if I really could justify buying, for instance, a flask of White Linen, a tree made of semi-precious stones, a carved olive-wood bird, or a new pair of gloves. Actually I needed a new pair of gloves. Remembering Mrs Dawson’s bitter chocolate glacé kid, I tried on some really expensive hand-stitched Florentine ones and found a pair in bright red which fitted beautifully. And I bought them. I also bought a cat toy for Lucifer and a bag of catnip mice for the others. And a bottle of white lilac bath foam.

Then I took myself firmly to the Art Gallery and revisited some of my favourite paintings. The Tiepolo Banquet of Cleopatra looked well. I bought some postcards and went out into the street where the rain was striking the chestnut leaves with a papery whisper. My hands were warm in my new gloves and the scarlet cheered my heart.

And when I got home there was a police officer waiting for me. Luckily it was Lepidoptera White and I could invite her in before we both drowned.

I watched her boggle at the artfully censored Priapus in the impluvium and then led her upstairs, where I laid down my coat and my purchases and put the coffee on.

‘I’ve heard that there is a problem at the chocolate shop,’ she said, sipping her coffee. She took it black with no sugar, which fitted her rather austere character.

‘Well, there was,’ I responded. ‘One of the staff was sabotaging the sweets. But she’s run away and now it’s all solved.’

‘They didn’t put in a complaint?’ she asked, breaking a ginger muffin and taking a bite. ‘For an ex-junkie your Jase makes a very good muffin.’

‘Jason. He’s not Jase anymore. No, they didn’t complain to the police. It would have meant that everyone would know, and I can’t imagine that investigating minor trouble in a chocolate shop would be right up there with murder.’

‘Hmm,’ she said, eating the rest of the muffin. ‘Do you know where Daniel is?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He went to look for Selima. He’ll be back,’ I said, hoping that he would. ‘How did you find out about it?’ I asked, not hoping for an answer.

‘I hear things,’ she said vaguely. ‘You went to see Darren the God Boy?’

‘Yes, and it wasn’t fun. He is a very creepy person.’

‘He’s got the MAP having kittens. Says he’s possessed by the devil. They’re very superstitious, prisoners. Nothing much to think about except what they’ll do when they get out. Nothing much to do but work on their muscles. Someone attacked Darren and scratched him across the forehead. I’m on my way to ask your witch friend what it means, if anything. Want to come?’

‘Why not?’ I said, interested. ‘Doesn’t Sister Mary know?’

‘Sister Mary said it isn’t anything Christian or Satanic and that he is making it up to get attention. Well, he’s got it.’ She chuckled as we went out.

Meroe was alone except for Belladonna, who was asleep in a pile of breathing fur on her black-clad knee and consequently very hard to see. Witch and cat were one. I suppose that is how familiars are supposed to be. Bella woke when we came in, sat up and yawned and became discrete; a cat shape with golden eyes and a little pink mouth with teeth.

Meroe does not like Lepidoptera, which is perhaps why Letty White had brought me with her. Letty had once thought that Meroe might be selling drugs. Meroe is not likely to forgive a suspicion like that. We explained what we were doing there.

‘Scoring above the breath,’ she said firmly. And didn’t say anything else. Meroe could be as silent as a granite boulder when she felt like it. Bella yawned again and went back to sleep, vanishing into Meroe’s lap.

‘Meroe, what does that mean?’ I asked.

‘An old way of making a witch take a spell off someone was to scratch him or her above the mouth with an iron pin or knife. It was called scoring above the breath.’

‘Did it work?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Meroe. ‘But then, the people they were scratching were very unlikely to be witches. A witch would not allow herself to be scratched. Someone, Constable, thinks that your Darren is a witch. And it is someone who has either been reading witchcraft history or has some old family remedy for witches. Which is English. Nowhere else thought that scratching would work.’

‘Thank you,’ said Lepidoptera, stiffly. We were going out when Meroe said, ‘Corinna, full moon. It will all be explained then.’

‘Oh, good,’ I answered.

I went back to the shop. Senior Constable White paused and asked, ‘Can you let me into the building?’

‘Of course,’ I said, opening the main door into the residence. ‘If you see a small black cat, can you catch her for me?’

‘I’ll try,’ she said. I nobly refrained from asking her what she wanted in Insula and went back to sell bread.

Kylie approved of my gloves. The day passed peacefully. Vivienne came, apparently by arrangement, to talk to Jason about a chocolate muffin he was planning. She had a box containing samples of different sorts of chocolate. I left them to their plotting. But I did hear her say, as she went out, ‘That is a very good idea, I shall be fascinated to see if it works.’

‘Corinna? Can I buy some cream?’ asked Jason. I shelled out for the cream and some other ingredients. We closed, cashed up, Kylie went to get Tori’s champagne diamond collar and I left Jason the scrubbing and a bonus for getting on with the girls, who could be very trying. He said, ‘Ace.’

And because I had been drinking too much lately, I took a thermos of hot chocolate to the roof and sat in the temple, watching the rain sweep over the city and soak the bedraggled kestrel-bait pigeons. From the top of the building we could see the grey curtain swoop across the city, splattering the windows, washing off the bitter city dust. Trudi was sitting there too, with Lucifer asleep under her chin.

‘Look at all that good rain,’ she said. ‘Soaking rain. You can hear plants underground prick up their ears, start to grow.’

‘You can,’ I said. I shared my hot chocolate with her. Horatio affected not to notice the scrap of orange fur snuggled into the top of Trudi’s jumper.

‘How are you getting on with Lucifer?’ I asked.

‘He’s a good boy,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘Helps me dig. Likes the open air. That Traddles, he corners him. When the dog came to attack him, little bit of fur he is, he fluffed up, raised his paw like little lion, ready to fight or die. Brave. You and Meroe, you let me keep him?’

‘Of course,’ I said. Meroe had been right, as she usually was. Lucifer had found his place. We finished the hot chocolate and Horatio and I went home to read some more of our novel.

But I couldn’t concentrate. I retreated to the sofa, flicked on the TV, and channel-surfed until I found a Discovery documentary on Alexander the Great, which might have been quite interesting except I fell asleep.

C
_HA
PTER NINE

I woke. It was dark. I had heard a noise. I lay still and listened. Horatio was awake, too. I could see his ears moving in the faint street light from my window. He was triangulating for the noise. He was tense, but not alarmed, so the noise was either (1) a rat with a death wish or (2) outside. It came again, a scrunching, scraping noise, not very loud. Nothing in the apartment was moving.

Someone was climbing up to my balcony. Daniel had shown me that it could be done. Up a pipe, quick traverse across the lintel, then reach up …

He was about to get a very nasty surprise. I rose quietly and opened the balcony doors. I stepped between the two pots of Trudi’s green leafy things and looked down. I was staring into his face when he grabbed for the rail, slipped, grabbed again, and lost his grip.

Due to previous unpleasantness, I had greased those rails liberally with vaseline. They were as slippery as a budget forecast. I saw him reach this realisation. His eyes widened. He made no sound as he slid, half fell, and then jumped off the wall.

122

Then he stumbled, got to his feet, ran around the corner and was gone.

‘Well, that was interesting,’ I told Horatio, who yawned, flicking an uninvolved tail. ‘I’ve never seen him before but I’ll remember the face. Pale, blue eyes, quite tall and thin, about twenty. Probably done a lot of climbing. And what do we have here?’

I saw a thin line secured by a grapnel and drew up a supermarket bag. It was heavy. When I opened it and saw the contents I was groping for the phone before my wits had gathered themselves together enough to panic.

Fingers, do the walking. Horatio and I shut and locked the balcony door with the world outside and us inside and I went to the kitchen and put on some coffee. This was bad. What had I done to attract attention like this? I was drinking my second cup when Lepidoptera buzzed and I let her in.

‘What is it now?’ she asked, perilously close to a snarl. I indicated the bag.

‘He was climbing up the wall, but then he grabbed the rail, and I had smeared the rail with vaseline. So he fell off and ran away.’

‘That was a good idea,’ she approved. She stirred the contents of the bag with her biro. They told a very nasty story. One which I had been telling myself ever since I opened it. In full, gory, Tarantino colour.

‘I see,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘We have ropes and manacles to restrain the prisoner. We have a gun and a couple of scalpels and a welding iron. And we have a tape recorder. Some of this stuff might have fingerprints. We’ll have to get yours for comparison. You saw the climber. Describe him.’

I described him. His face was branded in my memory. Letty White sat down next to me and poured herself some coffee.

‘You must have got a shock,’ she said, in her dry, exact voice.

‘No, you think so?’ I asked weakly. I was too exhausted to scream at her. Probably a good idea since few police officers take to being screamed at.

‘Why did you grease the balcony railing?’

‘Daniel climbed up there one night and scared the shit out of me. And then told me how to stop anyone getting up again.’

‘Where is Daniel?’

‘I don’t know. He went looking for Selima, the girl from the chocolate shop who ran away,’ I confessed.

Letty White, of all people, patted my shoulder. ‘My concern for the present is you.’

‘Hey, me too. Why should I deserve this kind of visit?’

‘Maybe it wasn’t you he was after,’ she said. ‘Once on your balcony he could make his way right up the building, couldn’t he?’

‘And the bastard looked strong. Sort of thin, but all muscle. He had to fall about ten feet, and he just stumbled a bit when he landed. Why? Who else could he be after? That’s a torturer’s tool kit, that bag.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And unless you have some secrets you haven’t told me, you haven’t got anything worth torturing you for.’

‘Fun?’ I suggested, then wished I hadn’t.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said soothingly. ‘I think he was intending to climb higher.’

‘Because I’m not worth torturing?’

‘Because I found a climbing rope in the alley,’ she said. ‘You don’t need a climbing rope to get to your balcony.’

‘Letty,’ I said, gripping her wrist. ‘You know something about that man in Pluto. You’ve been involved with him ever since he moved in. Who is he?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘But I do think that your burglar was intending to climb higher. Let go of me,’ she requested, and I let go. Letty could probably break my grip in any number of inventive, painful ways.

‘When I said I can’t tell you,’ she said, ‘I meant it. I really can’t. And I’m sorry he’s here amongst civilians. But there it is. Don’t touch that rail. If we don’t find prints on the bag there will be some on the vaseline. Holds a good print, petroleum jelly. Come into St Kilda Road tomorrow and I’ll let you know what we find out about the criminal. I’ll be around,’ she said. ‘Call me if you need me. I might as well take a flat here,’ she said, taking herself and the bag and line to the door. ‘I’m here so often. Call one of your friends, have a nice dinner and take a sleeping pill tonight,’ she advised, and I shut the door behind her. With just the suspicion of a slam. I did not appreciate Letty giving me advice on my social circle.

But in one rather large and comforting aspect, she was right. I was not the intended victim. And it was eight o’clock, dinner time. I was just about to ring Meroe, a person who would not be frightened by my burglar, when the phone rang.

I picked it up.

‘Corinna?’ asked Daniel’s voice.

‘Daniel,’ I answered.

‘What is wrong?’ he asked, and I burst into tears, hating myself for being so weak. He listened while I told him about the climber, chuckled when I told him about the vaseline and went silent when I described the torture kit. I also told him what Letty White had said.

‘Do you want me to come back?’

‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘Frankston. Selima ran to her cousins in Frankston, but they said that they would have to tell her father she was with them and she left this afternoon. I don’t have any more leads.

And I’m tired. I think I had better come back and talk to George.’

‘Vivienne says that she was in love with him,’ I said. ‘I asked lots of questions,’ I added. ‘I know how the shop works.’

‘You didn’t call me?’

‘You didn’t exactly leave me with a cordial invitation to ring whenever I liked,’ I said sharply. There was a silence. I knew he was still there because I could still hear him breathing.

‘Dinner?’ he asked.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But you had better get here fast. I have to go to bed early, you know.’

‘On the wings of the wind,’ he said, and hung up.

Suddenly I felt immensely cheered. Some sort of reaction, I suppose, to being abruptly woken and then not tortured and murdered. Really improves your day. I cleaned up the kitchen, trimmed some steaks (Horatio appreciates steak scraps, and he had had a shock too) and put some of Meroe’s ratatouille in the microwave to thaw. Meroe is a vegetarian but she likes highly flavoured food. If there was a criticism that could be made of her vegetable stew, it might be that she stresses the garlic a tad, but I don’t mind people moving away from me on the bus. Because I rarely take buses. I found the bearnaise sauce, scrub
bed, sliced and layered potatoes with milk and cheese for pommes duchesse and took out my best plates and glasses.

I opened a bottle of good red wine. This was a night to appreciate not being dead. Then I had nothing to do, so I sat down to read the business pages. I try to keep up, even though I am no longer the accountant I once was.

The exchange rate was still good, though I wondered, as always, at the durability of the pound sterling, a currency which ought to have been contemplating parity with Yapese stone money or the Flainian pobble bead. I could only assume that Memories of Empire were keeping it afloat. The usual number of bankruptcies. I looked for James but he still wasn’t there. Rats.

As I read on, I noticed that the editorial insinuation of unnamed fraud was still there, a trifle stronger. I had been going to call Janet Warren, then realised that I didn’t know her new address. But I still had her mobile number and I was about to call it in the scent of almost cooked pommes duchesse when Daniel rang the bell.

He was so beautiful, coming in out of the darkness, smelling of the night. Dark-haired Daniel in the leather coat with his trout-pool eyes. I forgot I was angry with him as he gathered me into a large embrace.

‘Ketschele, I was so worried,’ he said, hugging me tighter.

‘So was I,’ I squeaked, running out of breath. He loosened his grip so that I could talk. ‘It was horrible and I am very glad you are here. Dinner is almost ready,’ I said.

‘I can smell delicious smells,’ he said. ‘You have gone to a lot of trouble for a man who spoke so cruelly to you. That was kind.’

‘I am very glad to be alive,’ I said.

‘And I am a fool,’ he said, and kissed me.

We cooked the steaks. Daniel liked his rare, which was nice, because so did I. I wondered how all that blood fitted into his kosher diet, and then realised that I had made a milk dish as well as a flesh dish. Oops. Daniel didn’t seem to notice. He piled everything on his plate and ate ravenously for five minutes. When he came up for seconds he looked warmer.

‘I was so hungry,’ he said. ‘And this is so good. Do you want to tell me about your climber?’

‘Not yet. Do you want to tell me about Selima?’

‘Not yet. Let us reminisce about Paris,’ he said, and so we did. The food was very good. We ate it all, Jason’s experimental chocolate muffins, which weren’t quite right yet—soggy in the middle—but tasted divine with King Island cream.

‘I went to the Bourdelle gallery,’ I said, and Daniel said, ‘You didn’t! I’ve never met anyone else who went there. In Montparnasse?’

‘Yes, the original house, with his huge sculptures and that strange Heracles with a bird’s beak. It’s just round from the Impasse Montparnasse, where one can see how those dead-end buildings worked. And Bourdelle’s bequest was …’

‘An atelier preserved just as it was,’ he said. ‘Fascinating. You can imagine the strings of washing across between those windows, where the electric wires are now, and the painters in the garret and the sculptors on the ground floor.’

‘And the tough old concierge who kept the door,’ I added.

It was one of the most pleasant meals I had ever had. When we had reached coffee and liqueurs Daniel said, reaching for my hand, ‘I am so sorry, Corinna.’

‘For?’

‘For speaking to you like that. I know that I am really sorry, because everyone has already told me what a fool I was.’

‘Everyone?’

He took a sip of Grand Marnier, his lips beginning to curve into a smile. ‘First there was Meroe, who told me that thinking I was the only person in the world who could rescue lost girls was pure egotism. She recommended a course in Buddhism. And only a rush of business stopped her, I am convinced, from threatening to put a spell on me. Then there was the Professor, who said that you were very downcast and if I was the cause I had better amend it, there’s a good chap. Mrs Dawson gave me to understand that she was very disappointed in me as I appeared to be quite a civilised young man, though of course she could be wrong. She also told me firmly that sacrificing others on the altar of our own mission was no way to get to heaven, should I wish to go there.’

‘Really?’ I asked, not knowing if I felt flattered that my friends wanted to protect me or insulted that they were interfering in my life.

‘But the final straw was when I came to the bakery looking for you and you weren’t there, but Goss was, and she wouldn’t speak to me. And then Jason called me a dickhead. And I am,’ he said. ‘Forgive me?’

‘Try not to do it again,’ I said. ‘You hurt my feelings. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, and I fell into his arms and forgave him.

This meant that, although I did get to bed on time, I didn’t get a lot of sleep. It was in a mist of satiation and love —those satiny lips, long flanks, strong hands—that I floated down to the bakery at four and Jason said, ‘Daniel’s back,’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and we made bread in amiable silence for hours. We completed all the usual breads and Jason retired into his chocolate experiment, scowling. I had tested two chocolate muffins and although they were perfectly good, saleable muffins— indeed, I was intending to sell them—they did not suit Jason. Under that scruffy exterior with trucker’s special egg stains on his white apron beat the heart of a perfectionist, so I left him to it and went into the shop to meet Kylie, today’s assistant.

She was still worried about Soot, and so was I, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to look.

‘I think someone might have found her in the alley and taken her home,’ I said as consolingly as I could. ‘She didn’t have a collar on. And Calico is happy with Cherie and Andy, and Trudi has decided to keep Lucifer. And how is Tori?’

‘I bought the new collar and she just sits there and looks so pretty,’ enthused Kylie. ‘Jason said Daniel’s back?’ she asked delicately.

‘Yes, he’s back,’ I assured her.

‘Good. You, like, belong together. Like Scully and Mulder.’

‘Or Buffy and Angel. Dude even looks like Angel,’ Jason commented from the door into the bakery. ‘She never should have dumped him. How are the choccie muffins selling?’

‘Good,’ I said. They had been flying off the racks and some people had come back and bought another after eating the first. No one had ever done that with my muffins. Jason wiped his hands on his apron, then ruffled his hair, leaving chocolate streaks on his face.

‘They’re still not right. I’m going to do some more tryouts. I can pay for the flour,’ he said stiffly. ‘In case it doesn’t work.’

‘No, you are not paying for the flour,’ I said. ‘You may well produce the best chocolate muffin in the world, so go on, try something else. If they are too expensive to sell at two dollars, we can put the price up,’ I said, though this seldom works. People expect to pay two dollars for a muffin, whether it is an ordinary blueberry one or a super-deluxe plum pudding muffin stuffed with expensive fruit. Jason went back to the bakery. Kylie and I sold bread. Daniel came in and kissed me on the back of the neck. Kylie almost cooed. She is a sweet romantic girl under all that paint and glitter.