Cooking the Books (3 page)

I introduced her. Her mouth was still open in an O of astonishment. I had the orders and Daniel had made his effect and in any case I was starving.

‘What’s the name of this TV show, anyway?’ I asked as Tommy prepared to go.

‘Oh, didn’t I say? It’s a soap called
Kiss the Bride
,’ she answered, and took her leave.

We had the argument—well, discussion—over the excellent chicken schnitzel and veggies.

‘But you are supposed to be on holiday,’ he protested.

‘I know, but you’re working, so we can’t go anywhere, and I might as well be building up a holiday fund. And I don’t have to get up so early. Six o’clock. Not four. Only bread for twenty, not the whole city and all those restaurants. I can do it alone, use only one mixer, clean up by myself. Tommy offered me a helper—I shall see if I need one. I wouldn’t trust her helper not to nick my mother of bread and my best recipes and start up her own bakery. Apparently it is well known that I am the best,’ I said, fluffing out my feathers and preening a little.

‘Well, I suppose so,’ he conceded. ‘And you can keep an eye on the girls.’

‘I won’t be on site,’ I pointed out. ‘Just down in the bakery as usual.’

‘I wouldn’t rely on it,’ he said. ‘I know about old school friends. You can have first go at my car—and Timbo if you need a driver. I’m going to be on foot most of the time. This is a city mystery.’

‘Not another missing son or daughter?’

‘No, a missing bundle of bonds.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Ah, there you have me. An intern had them, having just been to the Prothonotary’s Office. Her mobile was out of credit so she went into one of the few remaining phone boxes, with the papers, and rang her office. There was some panic there and she was told to return right away. She was so upset by what was said that she flew out of the phone booth and . . .’

‘Left the documents behind,’ I concluded. ‘And when she returned?’

‘They were gone,’ Daniel told me. ‘She saw a homeless man walking away, but only remembered him later. Poor girl. So I’m searching the lost and strayed for a million dollars in bearer bonds.’

‘They could have just ended up in the bin, or in the derros’ campfire down by the river,’ I commented.

‘One has been presented at a Lonsdale Street bank,’ said Daniel.

‘Oh. Were they successful?’

‘Yes, they cashed it. A man, they said, unshaven, much tattooed, dressed in an overall. So someone who knows what they are has his hands on them. And if they aren’t found that poor intern is going to be sacked.’

‘Tough call. Wide search. What’s for dessert?’ I felt I needed a change of subject. It would be a terrible thing to ruin a promising career so early . . .

‘Peaches,’ said Daniel, and fetched them. They were splendid, exuding a rich cold liquor such as is served in Paradise.

Then there was no reason why we shouldn’t relax, watching
Doctor Who
and eating the rest of the Christmas chocolates, which even Horatio did not wish to share.

Tomorrow I was going back to the bakery, and I felt very pleased about it. Not only was my old school fellow Tommy paying above the odds, but she had stared at Daniel, gobsmacked, and something inside of me, some old school-aged injury, started to heal. And who would have guessed at Julia? Julia was a butterfly, a delicate little gauzy thing with an overprotective mother and a penchant for pink. Of course, she was sixteen when I had last seen her. She might have had a buzz-cut, adopted Gothism, or become buxom.

I went to bed early, as Daniel was going out on the Soup Run in pursuit of his papers. What could a collection of the homeless and desperate want with a packet of bearer bonds? But the sale meant that one of them must have known. Fallen stockbroker, perhaps, derelict banker . . .

I must have dozed off at this point. When next the world declared itself it was six am and time to get cooking.

I rose, I washed and dressed, I donned my overall and my solid shoes. Bakers who wear sandals find out exactly how hot spilled toffee topping is. I still had the scar from that burn. There are other ways to acquire empathy with victims of lava spills. Better ones.

Horatio was waiting, politely, for a dab of my butter as I reached the stage called toast and contemplation. He is a royal beast and only asks for a token tribute. I read through Tommy’s list again. Lots of bread, certainly, low-sugar, low-salt, no-cal health bread—erk—and real pasta douro, made with yeast. Rolls. Brioche. Muffins.

Ah, muffins. Mine were perfectly all right, but those made by Jason were superb. He, however, was learning to surf somewhere on the coast and the cast of
Kiss the Bride
were going to have to ruin their diets for the high-cal and high-sugar with the standard Corinna muffin. Blueberry for today, as I had a lot of blueberries in stock. Those frozen ones were perfect for muffins, thawing neatly in the mix and thus not overcooking.

Down to the bakery to stagger slightly as Heckle and Jekyll collided with my ankles, one from each side. They are rough but affable mousers and ratters (and occasionally, strangely enough, spiderers and pigeoners) who decimate the rodent population and thus earn their kitty dins. During the day they snooze on a heap of flour sacks, their preferred couch. During the night they hunt and last night they had done well. Three rats and five mice were laid out on the doormat.

I disposed of the slaughtered and fed the Mouse Police. They dived on the food in a blur of black and white fur as as I put the first mix on to rise. The bakery was loud with appreciative whuffling, always a charming sound. I mixed and measured. When I sat down for my cup of coffee everything was in train.

I opened the street door so the Mouse Police could scoot out and extort endangered species scraps from Kiko or Ian of the Japanese restaurant. The weather was temperate, which is a signal that it is about to change. In Melbourne, a city whose climate can only be called ‘unstable’. If by unstable you mean that it is blowing a hot gale before lunch and raining like the Flood after lunch. This makes Melburnians flexible and agile. You have to be, to dodge the hailstones. Some of them are as big as tennis balls, I swear.

The paperboy slung the plastic-wrapped paper, hitting the half-open door with a thud. While Heckle seemed to have forgone his usual amusement—bringing down runners by threading between their feet—the paperboy remained fair game, if only the battle-scarred old veteran could work out a way of bringing down the bicycle safely. Heckle growled the sort of growl which a baffled tiger might have emitted when robbed by fate of his destined antelope. Then he slouched off to join his partner in demanding fish with menaces.

He went around Mrs Sylvia Dawson, retired society hostess and vision of style, even at this hour. Mrs Dawson has great authority. The Prof calls it
auctoritas
and says, a little sadly, that he never had it. Mrs Dawson has it. It even works on cats, a difficult audience to daunt. She gives Insula tone. Today she was wearing a light leisure suit in dark brown, the colour of bittersweet chocolate, and an apricot silk shirt. She goes for a walk every morning to assuage her puritan conscience, which then allows her to spend the rest of the day in sybaritic pursuits. I have always wondered what sybaritic pursuits are. Did they have a connection with the nymph pursued by a satyr over Professor Dion Monk’s door?

‘Corinna! You’re back at work?’

‘Special order. I was getting bored with nothing to do. Can I give you a loaf of pasta douro?’ I had made a few extra loaves for local consumption.

‘You certainly can. How very pleasant! I need some breakfast. I’ve just seen your Daniel wandering among the homeless. He told me he was getting nowhere, so expect him back soon.’

This was good news. I am always pleased to see Daniel. I wrapped a loaf and handed it over. She gave me the exact change and walked off. I watched her straight back. She had probably learnt deportment by walking with a book on her head. Mrs Dawson could carry the collected works of William Wordsworth on that trim silver hairdo.

But this wasn’t getting bread baked. I returned to my ovens. The Mouse Police returned from their fishing expedition and flopped down on their flour sacks. All was peace and tranquillity in Earthly Delights. For a change.

When the loaves and muffins were out of the oven—and smelling ambrosial—the carrier arrived from Tommy and took them all away, and I was left to clean up. End of morning’s work, and I was conscious of a glow of achievement as I locked up and climbed the stairs to my own apartment.

‘Corinna’s a baker again,’ I sang to myself. Now I too could find something sybaritic to do. Having earnt my repose.

This took the form of a bath in violet bath foam. I dressed in a light cotton gown adorned with blue batik butterflies which Jon, our global food-relief guru, had bought in Laos. It is made to a pattern which at one stage requires the sewer to turn the fabric through four dimensions and which always baffles me every time I make it. But it is loose and gorgeous and flatters my size-20 body. It was probably going to be a hot day. But see previous comments about Melbourne.

I was reading the paper—always a dangerous proceeding, with the world in the sad shape that it is—when Horatio (who finds fresh newspapers an excellent spot on which to sprawl, sparing me the international news) raised his head and pricked up his admirable ears, which meant a visitor was impending. He always hears them before I do. And sure enough the bell rang and Meroe was there.

Meroe is our professional witch, seer and supplier of all manner of occult paraphernalia to the gentry, proprietor of the Sibyl’s Cave and devoted slave to her familiar, the black cat Belladonna. She had a basket of her magically derived salad leaves. She offered it to me.

‘For lunch or dinner,’ she said. But there was something on her mind. In a strong light, she might be seventy or forty: I have never been able to decide. Gypsies are like that.

‘Come in and I’ll make tea,’ I offered.

‘Chamomile,’ she selected, which meant that she was really worried. And it had seemed like such a peaceful morn- ing up until now. But that was Insula for you. The price of living in a small upright village was that everyone’s worries were yours.

I conducted her and the leaves (yum) to the kitchen, that ancient female refuge. She shed today’s wrap, which was a length of blue silk figured with masks of comedy and tragedy, and I made tea. I allowed her time to sip it and gather her thoughts.

‘The girls came to me last night for a tarot reading,’ she said slowly. ‘And it showed that they would be undertaking a new enterprise in which they have every chance of success.’

‘Good,’ I encouraged.

‘But I have seldom seen a reading so hedged about with danger,’ she told me. ‘Peril. I did not know what to advise, except to tell them to be very careful.’

‘What sort of peril?’ I asked. I supposed that a studio could be dangerous—trip hazards, falling booms. I really had no idea what a film set was like. But every human endeavour these days is beset with electrical wiring.

Meroe sipped more tea. ‘Secrets,’ she said reluctantly. ‘The reading was surrounded by secrets. I don’t like it, Corinna, I don’t like it at all.’

‘But this is what they have always wanted to do,’ I said. ‘It would be too cruel to forbid them to embark on their life’s ambition.’

‘That is why I did not do so,’ she snapped. ‘I just warned them. It would be better if you could accompany them. Earthly Delights is closed. I would feel happier if there was a reliable person looking after them.’

‘Meroe, I’m on holiday!’ I protested again. ‘The girls don’t need a chaperone. They’re nineteen years old. They think they’re grown-ups. This is their great adventure.’

‘It may prove more adventurous than they can handle,’ she warned. It was too much. I had been seduced into making bread for the wretched program. I wasn’t going to waste my life hanging around the set annoying the girls. But it is never wise to say an outright ‘no’ to a witch.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said reluctantly.

Her beautiful smile illuminated her face.

‘Thank you, Corinna, I knew I could rely on you.’

She finished her tea and took her leave. I grumpily washed the breakfast dishes and was attempting to recover my equanimity when the key sounded in the door and Daniel arrived. He kissed me hello. He smelt gamy and his cheek was scratchy. It had clearly been a long night.