Heavenly Pleasures (2 page)

I had suggested buying him a cat cage but Kylie and Goss couldn’t bear the idea. Now it looked like he had used up the last of his nine lives. He was soaking wet and so small in my hands. Poor little creature. I held him up by his hind legs and some water ran out of his mouth. Then I put him to my lips and puffed a tiny breath of air into the miniature lungs.

Nothing happened. I rubbed him in the handtowel to try to get some of the wet out of his valiantly orange fur. The little body rolled unresponsively between my hands.‘I’m sorry, Kylie,’ I said. She burst into explosive tears.

‘Too bad,’ said Jason.

We were all standing looking at the kitten when the most amazing thing happened. Jekyll rose from the flour sacks and made an odd noise, almost a grunt. It was a demand. If it had been in words it would have been ‘mine’. I put the towel down on the floor and said, ‘Sorry, Jekyll, I don’t think …’

Jekyll gave me an irritated look. She grabbed Lucifer by the back of the neck and shook him violently, then began to wash his face very roughly, pinning him down under her hard paw. Heckle had not stirred. Nurturing instinct was something that happened to other cats, he clearly felt. I was thinking how very sad it was that Jekyll should be trying so devotedly to resuscitate a dead kitten when the little orange scrap of fur sneezed, squirmed out from under the loving paw, sneezed again and wobbled to his feet. Wet but unbowed.

‘That was fun,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘What else shall we do?’

Kylie grabbed him up and stroked him, heedless of the water on her stretch top. Wet cats hold more water than a sponge. Jekyll walked back to the sacks and resumed her nap. She seemed to have no further interest in him. Cats are very mysterious creatures. Thinking about them too much can give you a migraine.

‘You wicked little thing!’ cooed Kylie, kissing the top of his wet head so that Lucifer should know that he was in disgrace. He coughed up some more water and gratefully sank all his claws into her unformed bosom. You can always identify those with young kittens by the tattooing of little claws on all available skin surfaces.

‘Ooh, the shop! I’m, like, sorry, Corinna! I was just doing the washing-up and I didn’t see him on the shelf and then he took this extreme leap into the sink and the tap was running and …’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘If this kitten lives to grow up, it will be a miracle. Is Goss coming today?’

‘She’s got an ad, left at five for make-up,’ said Kylie. ‘I’ll just take him back and …’

We both thought about the possibilities inherent in leaving Lucifer in an unattended flat.

‘Put him in the cat carrier,’ I said. ‘Just for the moment. At least he’ll be safe in there.’

Jason got the cat cage down from the closet. It is a commodious one, with a wire mesh door. We put Lucifer, the handtowel, and a selection of kitty treats in it and locked the front carefully. I put the cage down near Jekyll and she didn’t spare it a glance.

Meanwhile, there was bread to get out of the oven before it scorched and a shop to open. Kylie fled upstairs to change out of her kittened clothes and Jason opened the front door.

People were waiting. Poor overworked peons, required to get to the office before the boss and to stay until after he left, one of the most pernicious doctrines ever to waste the lives of its proponents. How much extra work really gets done by people who are exhausted, underslept, and longing to be home? Precious little, I bet. The Prof told me that when the spitfire factories worked round the clock with volunteers, they didn’t actually produce more planes despite their dedication and their hard work. People who are tired get slow and clumsy. They make mistakes. They get injured. Even in a war, the government found that they got more planes built by sending their employees home after an eight hour shift than by working them to death. If it didn’t work for a spitfire factory, it wasn’t going to work for a modern office. Let the people go home and have a drink and meet their families and watch Reality TV or the Naked News according to taste. What the world needs, I am convinced, after more peace and charity and love and fresh water and food and literate women, is more time off to waste as the worker chooses. Everyone, at the moment, works too hard.

Including, I suppose, me. The scent of fresh baked bread— was dragging the famished hordes out of the cold street, where a nasty little Melbourne wind had whipped up, throwing dust into tired eyes. Like cigarettes or alcohol, but much better for the consumer, my bread is a special treat, an indulgence, a little warm mouthful just for that person alone. Although some of them buy enough for the whole office, bless them. Ginger muffins bounced off the shelves, everything sold well, and Jason was bringing in fresh supplies as the racks emptied.

Nine o’clock and there was always a lull until about ten, when morning tea became a priority. Jason was counting loaves into the racks for the carrier. I sell most of my bread to restaurants. I don’t actually need a shop. But I like having one. I like to see people’s eyes light up, I like to hear that sniff as they inhale the delicious scent. Horatio had descended and was occupying his usual place on the counter, between the glass case and the cash register. This central throne means that everyone has to pay him homage. Most of my customers know him and he greets the favoured few with a polite nudge of the nose, and the importunate are dismissed with a lifted eyebrow. Horatio would have made a wonderful diplomat.

I was just stowing some fifty dollar notes—don’t people have any change?—under the tray in the till when I heard a soft thud from the bakery. Jason said, ‘Shit!’

When I went to the back, I saw that a whole ten kilogram bag of superfine baker’s flour had somehow fallen over, breaking open and spilling all over the floor. And as I was grabbing the paper sack to stand it up and save some of the flour, a strange white object leaped out and headed for the door. I grabbed but missed and fell on my knees amongst the mess.

When I scrambled up, covered in flour and confusion, there was a tall, dark, leather-clad angel with trout-pool eyes holding a flour-coated creature at arm’s length.

‘Is this ours?’ he asked dubiously.

‘Yes,’ I said, as a yowl announced that Lucifer had found that he couldn’t get away from that firm grip on his scruff. ‘Yes, Daniel, it’s ours.’

C
_HA
PTER TWO

‘I’d embrace you,’ I said. ‘But with this much flour we might be glued together for eternity.’

He smiled his heart-stopping smile. My heart stopped, and then raced.

‘No complaints here, ketschele, but it might be incon
venient. What shall I do with this young gentleman? Can this be Lucifer?’

‘Of course it is,’ said Jason. ‘Stick the little deadshit back in the cage.’

‘He already got out of it once,’ I said.

Jason’s next suggestion—under a big overturned pot—was not acceptable either. Finally I opened the cage again, Daniel shoved the squalling Lucifer inside, and I tied up the door with a piece of twine. After a moment we both saw a tiny, flour-covered ginger paw emerge through the mesh and grope hopefully for the latch.

‘Foiled you, my fine floury friend,’ said Jason unexpectedly. ‘You want to go and get changed, Corinna? Kyl and me’ll mind the shop. Only I got to sweep all this flour up for starters. Hey, Daniel.’

‘Hey, Jason,’ said Daniel. ‘How’s life?’

14

‘Going good,’ said Jason. ‘You gonna take Luce with you?’

‘If he’s lucky,’ I said. ‘He’s going to need a wash. How I look forward to the multiple injuries I shall sustain giving it to him. Then we are definitely getting a cat cage. He’s already run through his own nine lives and is overdrawn on his next three incarnations.’

‘Blessed be, Corinna,’ said a deep voice from the alley door. Meroe, a Wiccan witch with a carefully hidden talent for curses, had paused in her walk down to her shop from Kiko’s, for whom she supplies various Japanese mushrooms. You know, the ones which look oddly like dried human ears. She was carrying an empty basket.

‘Good morning, Meroe,’ I said, dusting uselessly at my tracksuit pants. ‘Might I interest you in today’s special, pre-floured kitten?’

‘Lucifer?’ she asked in her dark brown, Hungarian accent. I love her voice. Listen to a voice like that telling you about your chakras and you feel better already.

‘The very same. First he took a dive into the washing-up and nearly drowned, and then he tried suffocating himself in best quality flour.’

‘Give him to me. I shall wash him, and then I shall make him a collar which may restrain some of his wilder impulses.’

‘And the very best of luck,’ I said gratefully, handing over the cage. ‘By the way, he can lift the latch. Keep the cage tied up. And what is Belladonna going to think?’

‘She is minding the shop. May I have a loaf of the seed bread, please?’

I supplied Meroe with bread and her kitten, and wondered what she meant about Belladonna minding the shop. I mean, Belladonna is a cat. A sleek, shiny, beautiful, exceptionally black cat. But a cat.

As he held the door for me, Daniel was clearly thinking the same thing. ‘You never know with witches,’ he commented. I had to agree.

Daniel went upstairs and fetched my dressing gown and I shed the floury clothes. I took them into the alley and shook them in that cold wind before stuffing them in the washer and hoping that the filter would cope. Then, attired in dressing gown and shoes, I led the way into my private apartments and shut the bakery door.

Daniel took off his coat and slumped onto the sofa. It’s a good sofa, with a grip of feathery iron. Once slumped, you tend to stay slumped. He looked very tired. There were dark marks under his eyes. Being a private investigator in this kind of town takes it out of you, all right.

‘I’ll put on some coffee and have a shower, you just close your eyes,’ I said, dismissing certain fantasies about flour-covered grapplings on the floor. I’m too old to make love on the floor, anyway. Those carpet burns really sting. I started the coffee maker, took off the rest of my garments and washed the flour out of my hair. With difficulty. The stuff clung like glue. I wondered how on earth Meroe was going to restore Lucifer to pristine kittenhood so that he could go out and find another amusing way of committing felicide.

By the time I came back, Daniel had had one of his lightning naps and was drinking coffee, eating yesterday’s apple muffins and smiling. The man can sleep anywhere. I suppose it is a function of having been a soldier. He looked better. I said so.

‘So do you,’ he commented. ‘Less gluey, for a start, and all rosy from the steam.’

‘I always seem to meet you when I’m muddy or floury or otherwise lacking in glamour,’ I said ruefully.

‘To me you will never lack glamour,’ he said, taking my hand and kissing it. ‘You are always beautiful. A beautiful thing does not become ugly just because it is temporarily covered in, as it might be, flour. Oh, by the way, ketschele, I met Juliette in the alley. She gave me these for you. She’s trying out a new filling.’

‘Speaking of glamour,’ I agreed. Juliette Lefebvre is our chocolate maker. Her tiny shop, Heavenly Pleasures, is just down Flinders Lane from Earthly Delights and she, too, has a Hieronymus Bosch painting on the wall. She is tall, slim and radiantly blonde but I forgive her her beauty because she really cares about chocolate in the same way that I care about bread. I looked at the small, dark blue box. The last new filling had been violet; subtle, delicate, fragrant and (of course) delicious. I don’t eat a lot of chocolate so Juliette uses me as a taster. I was, of course, eager to volunteer. If I was a chocolate fiend, I might end up broke purchasing Heavenly Pleasures’ wares. People have been known to weep at the taste, it is so perfect. They have also been known to weep at the prices. Still, you don’t expect to get an Easter egg made by hand in a nineteenth century Dutch chocolate mould with expert extra squiggles for the same as a Coles’ one.

I wasn’t in the right mood for chocolate so early in the day. I drank some coffee. Daniel ate another muffin. His fingernails were dirty. His t-shirt had something tarry spilled across it. He looked like he had been travelling hard class in Molvania, than which there is no harder class.

‘Bad journey?’ I asked. He drew a shaky breath.

‘Journey was all right, but a bad trawl through the nastier parts of Ballarat and environs. I eventually found the girl, Belinda, in a squat on an old farm—a lot of farms have more than one house on them—and it was foul. I never saw such squalor.’

‘Did she come with you?’

‘Like a lamb. Thin as a skeleton, all bruises and lice, and the baby had pneumonia.’

‘And you skinned your knuckles waving bye-bye?’ I asked.

‘I had to persuade this rustic polygamist that he didn’t have any right to keep the girl against her will. Or such of her will as she had left, which wasn’t much. Like most of these messiahs, he didn’t have a lot of courage against a man. And I fear that his charisma didn’t enchant me,’ said Daniel, lips twisting in disgust. ‘I left Belinda in the hospital with the baby and several loving relatives, and by now the local police will have captured the messiah. They were counting out warrants when I left. There was quite a pile.’

‘Bath,’ I said, and went to run one, pouring in pine salts.

‘But Sister Mary …’ he protested weakly as I dragged off his boots and horrible socks.

‘Always says that good news improves with waiting,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ve got to go back to the shop. Soak all those bruises and then my bed is, as always, at your service. I’ll wake you at three,’ I said, and went down the stairs again.

Not that I wanted to, of course, but commerce is commerce. Everything appeared to be working in the shop. Kylie’s navel ring was sparkling brightly under a short pink top. Jason was taking the last load of bread out of the oven. The floor was clear of flour.

‘How’s Daniel?’ he asked.

‘Tired,’ I replied. ‘Did you know this Belinda he was searching for?’

‘Rich bitch,’ said Jason. ‘They always fall harder, the princesses. Not as much fun as they thought on the street. Went off with Darren the God Boy. Extreme nutcase. Daniel get her back?’

‘Of course,’ I said. I was about to ask for more details on Darren the God Boy, in view of Daniel’s description of him as a messiah, but there was a rush of business and I forgot about it.

Most of the inhabitants of Insula come in during the morning for their bread. Excepting Mrs Pemberthy, of course, who is on a gluten-free diet since almost dying of pesticide poisoning. The Prof came in, looking elegant in a blue blazer and flannels, off to lunch at the University Club. His is the only apartment which has Roman furniture and decoration and reminds me that civilisation has been around for a while —though you’d never know it from the way the nations are behaving. Professor Dionysus Monk smiled at me and caressed Horatio’s whiskers with a practised hand.

‘Seed bread, if you please, Corinna. And perhaps a muffin or two. I note that Daniel has returned.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked, wrapping up the bread.

‘You have your Daniel-is-here smile,’ he said kindly.

He must have been a terror for students who were fibbing about why they hadn’t done their essay on Juvenal.

After him came Trudi, our gardener and caretaker, descending from Ceres, her apartment, for some rolls and a loaf of stale bread for the birds. It’s not that she likes pigeons. She hopes that if there is a good supply of food, a kestrel might decide to build in her garden. So far the kestrels have preferred nice bare ledges on higher buildings. Kestrels have no taste.

Then the day got busy. I did not forget about Daniel asleep upstairs, because one cannot forget things like that, but he receded into the background. He makes a very nice background. I sent off the bread with the carrier. I had sacked the old one, who was amazingly inefficient, and got a bright, sparky nineteen year old called Megan, starting her own business. She had a motorised arrangement like a rickshaw and so far the bread had always arrived at (1) the right place and (2) in good condition. Kylie told me tales of Lucifer and we wondered what was to become of him. Any kitten who at seven weeks was capable of picking the lock on a cat carrier was bound for a life of crime. I wondered if we should have called him Macavity and Kylie surprised me by knowing the reference.

‘You’ve read Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats?’ I asked.

‘Saw the show,’ she said. ‘And the film. Tried out for a kitten when I was thirteen but I was too tall.’

I should have guessed. The only thing Kylie reads are scripts and
Girlfriend
magazine. Lately she has extended her repertoire to Wiccan magazines which she buys from Meroe and carries around ostentatiously. Who would have thought, early in the twenty-first century, that it would be cool to be a witch?

I still miss Buffy. Since Daniel was also a fan I was scheduling a couple of hours of season one—we were starting again—for the evening. Unless something better came up. So to speak.

We sold bread from the morning tea rush to the lunchtime rush and then, quite suddenly, it was two pm and there was no one there. Jason was doing the scrubbing, Kylie had cashed up and loaded the Soup Run’s sack and the half-price racks, and I wasn’t needed. It was a nice feeling.

‘Have you found a home for the other kittens, Kylie?’ I asked, lingering at the stairs.

‘We’re keeping Tori,’ said Kylie. Tori was perfect for Kylie and Goss. She was a fluffy blonde kitten who adored being petted and who tolerated having a ribbon around her neck. They had already named her after their favourite singer. ‘Cherie’s taking Calico. But no one seems to want Soot and who’d want Lucifer? I don’t know what we’re going to do.’

‘He certainly needs more scope than an apartment,’ I said. ‘We’ll see. Daniel might know someone.’

‘Dude knows everyone,’ agreed Jason. ‘You want to move, Corinna? Only I haven’t mopped that bit of floor.’

I knew when I was in the way. I left. Daniel was asleep in my big bed. Horatio was curled in the circle of his naked, muscular arm. They made such a pretty picture that I couldn’t bear to wake them, and went pottering into the parlour to contemplate Daniel’s clothes. Unlike all other men I had ever heard of, he did not strew his garments over the floor for someone else to pick up. By the time I left James, I calculated that I had spent close on a month of my valuable time just picking up things and putting them in their right place. I should have added that to the divorce settlement. At accountant rates of $100 an hour.

Daniel’s boots were standing side by side on a sheet of newspaper. His filthy clothes were piled on top. His coat was hanging behind the door. His bag was next to the boots. He had come to me direct from the train. I was touched.

At a loose end, I glanced at the business pages of the paper. As I read, I noticed that there was a sly, almost invisible thread running through the editorial. It had been there for weeks. Something indefinable was wrong with an unnamed company in Trusts and Superannuation. A crash was to be expected. That was always an easy prediction to make, like Trouble in the Balkans or TV Evangelist in Shock Sex Scandal. I don’t know why it’s always a shock. I’m not shocked. Saddened, perhaps.

When I was in the business I would have known what that editorial insinuation meant. I would have said, aha! it’s XY Pty Ltd, quick, get our money out of there and tell our clients to break the land speed record to the broker’s. But I didn’t know who they were talking about and it niggled me. Of course, I could find out by ringing my ex, James, but hell would freeze over before I did that. Did I still know anyone in the accountancy trade? Of course, and I hadn’t seen her for years. Janet Warren, a very good CPA who had been amazed when I kicked off my kitten heels for the last time and declared that bread was my destiny. I was just looking up Janet’s phone number when I realised that she would have moved by now: she had been in the process of buying a house when I left. And I could not, for the moment, recall who she worked for. It didn’t matter.

So I pottered into the kitchen and made soup. This is always a soothing occupation. Jason had been suggesting in his usual subtle manner—every ten minutes—that we should sell soup and a roll when the weather turned cold, if it ever did, and I was trying out various soup recipes. I had made chicken stock the day before, and now I shredded chicken and celery and spring onions into it, turning on the gas to ‘smidgen’ and slicing bread as it warmed and began to smell delightful. What would call a good Jewish boy out of his slumber better than chicken soup? I had a bag of vegetables to chop for my attempt at Scotch broth tomorrow and chopping is soothing, too. Now I didn’t have to scrub the bakery every day I had excess energy. So far Jase’s transformation into Jason was holding. It might not last. He was only fifteen, after all, and off heroin barely a month. His courage humbled me.