Devil's Food (31 page)

Thursday was a nice day in which nothing whatsoever happened except the things which ought to have happened. Bread. Cherie’s muffins (poppyseed and lemon). Cafe Pandamus food for lunch. Jason coughing like a hag but seeming to feel a little better. Mrs Dawson sending the Professor up to tell him tales of Ancient Greece because the harsh light from the TV was beginning to hurt his eyes. I would long remember the scene: Jason propped up and wheezing, holding Pumpkin Bear in one arm, and listening with awe to the story of Odysseus and Circe. The Professor’s silver hair, beautiful profile, elegant hands as he gestured, his bard’s voice telling of the sailors turned into pigs by the enchantress. Not a long journey for most of them, I fancy.

On Friday Kane and Reagan came back and reluctantly agreed that my Mr Venn had cleared me of any complicity in the assault on Father Hungerford, which was still unsolved. And I went up to try to prepare my mother for meeting my father again.

I greeted Carolus, who was enthroned on a silken cushion. He condescended so far as to lick my hand, a mark of favour. I greeted Therese, nearly invisible behind an almost finished knitting project. It must have been an elephant cosy. In green and orange wool. I greeted my mother and she actually said, ‘Hello.’

‘I’ve found Sunlight,’ I said, sitting down. She did not leap up and scream at me. She clutched her hands together but she said quite quietly, ‘Where? Is he alive?’

‘Yes, he’s alive and unhurt, though thinner. He’s living in the Discarnate Brotherhood, and I can take you to see him tomorrow.’

‘Good.’

‘Is that what you want me to do?’

‘Yes,’ she said, a little doubtfully. ‘How did you find him?’

‘I looked everywhere he wasn’t,’ I said grimly, ‘until I found out where he was. This was not an easy task. What do you want to do now, Jacqui? Do you want to go back to the commune?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I have been thinking. Therese has been so kind to me and I never did one thing to deserve it. You’ve been kind, too,’ she added, to my complete astonishment. ‘We only have a biological bond, and it isn’t very strong, is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not all that strong.’

She sighed as if to acknowledge that this was true and sad. ‘All right. Take me to him tomorrow, and we shall see.’

‘Come down to the street at ten,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a car.’

And no outcry about that, either. Starshine had certainly changed.

And Jason was definitely on the mend. He was sitting up and breathing much more easily. Jon was warming one of his amazingly nourishing spicy stews in the kitchen when I popped in. Kepler was teaching Jason to play chess. The air was full of that Middle Eastern cinnamon and cumin scent which made Morocco the gourmet’s playground.

Jason was in excellent hands. I refrained from kibitzing on the chess match and went back to Daniel. Earthly Delights was closed for the weekend, we had supplied all our regulars even though disaster had landed upon us, and I felt wonderful.

Except that tomorrow held enough mystery for ten detective novels and I didn’t want to think about it. So, resolutely, I didn’t.

Saturday and Timbo conveyed us to the castle where the Discarnate Brotherhood purged the wealthy of their excess for the good of their souls. This time I was not greeted by a retching acolyte but a cheerful Sister Blithe in her yellow smock, who conducted us inside. Therese walked just behind Jacqui, presumably to catch her if she fainted. I walked with Daniel and tried not to feel anxious. Then the day became surreal.

Passing us was a long line of the brown-robed ones, each carrying a stag’s head. It looked vaguely pagan and entirely strange. They filed past out into the street, where the heads were being packed with great care into a large furniture remover’s truck. Each moth-eaten relic was being swathed in bubble wrap as if it was a Da Vinci. Odd, I thought.

‘Sister Blithe?’ asked Daniel, making a sweeping gesture.

‘No reason why a religious order should live with a lot of unsanitary old taxidermy,’ she said. ‘I sold it all to a collector — for a fine sum. Which will be enough to lime-strip the linenfold panelling and repaint the walls. This way,’ she said to my mother, taking her arm. Jacqui leaned on her.

We came fully into the great hall and found that the whole community was assembled. Father Hungerford, wrapped in a bright red comforter, was sitting in a wheelchair. His face was still sadly battered and all his Greek beauty was marred, but he was still beautiful, as a work of art is beautiful even though vandals have damaged it. His injured hands lay in his lap.

‘Oh,’ said someone in the back row. The man I had identified as my father came forward, slowly, moving as if his bones hurt. Jacqui stiffened and looked straight into his eyes. There was a long silence as they examined each other.

Jacqui was dressed in an embroidered tracksuit and her hair was tamed into a plait. She was clean and clothed and in her right mind. Sunlight was shivering in a brown robe on which someone had spilled paint. His face had thinned, his eyes were hollow. Some of his bruises were still there as yellowing patches on his forearms and throat. Still they did not speak. The congregation looked on and murmured.

‘Do you want to come home now, Sun?’ she asked, very softly.

He took the offered hand. ‘I’d like that, Star,’ he said.

Without another word they turned and walked out of the castle, hand in hand, as I had always seen them walk. Therese Webb dabbed at her eyes. Daniel chuckled.

‘Brothers,’ said Father Hungerford. The voice was the same, compelling and sweet. ‘One of you needs to confess. I urge it on you. I require it of you. I saw the skirts of a black robe when I was struck down, though I saw nothing else. One of you has done this, acting perhaps as God’s instrument to punish my intransigence and lower my pride. But I need to know who it was. God already knows. Do you fear me more than God?’

It was a good argument but it wasn’t carrying the audience. The brothers and sisters shifted and rocked. They whispered. They stared at each other. Father Hungerford was right. They all needed to know who had beaten him.

And I knew. I sidled into the crowd and drew him forth by the sleeve. He stood shivering as though he was very cold.

‘They should never have made you do it,’ I said, because I was full of sympathy. ‘It was a terrible thing to make you do. Twice a day, to poison the food, to ruin good food. No cook could stand it forever and you were a really great cook. There has to be a cracking point. It was the asafoetida, wasn’t it, Brother Amos?’

He fell to his knees and buried his face in Father Hunger-ford’s red doona and burst into wails and lamentations and tears.

Sister Blithe took me and Therese by the hands. ‘That was a good deed,’ she said. ‘Now off home, kind people.’

‘What are you going to do about the food?’ I asked as we were led away.

‘Oh, it will stay more or less the same. Just not poisoned. Except that bread. No one should have to eat that bread. I’m sure we can bake something better for ourselves — oh, sorry, Corinna dear, I’m sure that you can bake something better for us. Wholemeal, you know, but with a little yeast and sugar and salt.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I will not be sorry to see the last of the famine bread.’

‘And as for the other food, we will stay simple. There is a great virtue in tasting a single ingredient. Vegetable stew tastes wonderful if you are hungry enough to appreciate the humble swede. I’ll call on you in a week or so. Nicely done, Corinna.’ Timbo took us all home to Insula. That afternoon, Sun and Star packed their meagre belongings, borrowed fifty dollars from me, and went home to Sunbury. Therese Webb watched them walk off to the station, hand in hand.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ she said. ‘Now I can get on with my Knitting for the Needy and other projects. That dark blue jumper for you, for instance, with the Florentine colours. And perhaps a matching one for Daniel? And while it was nice to have someone to look after, Corinna, I think that in future I shall confine myself to Carolus, what do you think?’

Carolus looked up from his snoozing position in the dumb waiter and gave a short but majestic whuffle.

‘Carolus seems to think so,’ I agreed.

It was so nice to get back to normal. I like normal. I like boring. Jason spent a week in bed and came gradually back to work, at first only descending to compound his muffins then returning for a strengthening walk with Mrs Dawson or a game of chess with Kepler. Mrs Dawson saw no reason why he should move out of the borrowed apartment. No one was using it, so he stayed in Pluto on the understanding that his housekeeping had to be first class. And it was. He had lived for so long in small rooms and then on the street that he was careful with his belongings. He also liked things tidy and clean.

After a fortnight Cherie gratefully retired, though she said that she would always be happy to earn a little pocket money helping out if I needed her. She started her fabric class and went into huddles with Therese. Daniel solved a very unpleasant stalking case and was congratulated by the bench. Star and Sun sent a free postcard advertising aloe vera saying that they were very glad to be home and they’d pay back my fifty any day now.

Then one morning, just when I began to believe that everything had settled down, I heard a scream from the bakery and ran in, thinking that Kylie or Goss had spilt a pot of boiling soup over themselves. Mrs Dawson, the Professor, Meroe, Jon and Kepler, who were in the vicinity or passing at the time, also came in. But it wasn’t an accident. It was a woman and she was shrieking for her son. She was dressed in a parachute silk tracksuit. She had high heeled shoes on her grimy feet. Her hair was straw yellow in places and black at the roots. Her cheeks were raddled with drinking and her voice was sodden with brandy.

‘Jason!’ she screamed. ‘Where’s my son?’

I began to get some insight into why Jason had left home. I stepped forward.

‘Be quiet,’ I said loudly. ‘Why are you making all this noise? Who are you?’

She goggled atmewith pure hatred in her eyes. ‘You stole my son!’ she shrieked, clawing for my face with filthy chipped talons.

I held her easily enough, though I was fighting down an urge to clip her ears. This harridan, the mother of my tidy Jason? Genetics is a minefield. I gave the woman a shake and she struggled.

‘You aren’t my mother,’ said a cold voice from the bakery door. ‘You just gave birth to me. You couldn’t even tell me who my father was,’ Jason went on. He was as white as chalk.

‘My baby!’ screamed my prisoner.

‘They took the babies away again, didn’t they?’ accused Jason. ‘That’s why you come for me. They took the babies away and now you got no family allowance. Just the dole, and that ain’t enough for what you drink.’

‘Jase!’ she cried, in what sounded like real pain.

‘No,’ he said, in total, flat denial. ‘You’ve made a mistake. You can’t make me come back. You don’t want me back.’

‘I do, I do,’ she cried again.

‘No,’ said Jason, and gave the sort of smile I ought not to have seen on a boy’s face. He held up a piece of paper. It was his birth certificate. ‘You don’t get a dollar for me now,’ he told the woman, speaking right into her face. ‘I’m sixteen today. No more money from the government for you. And this is my family now. Your family is where they look after you.’

Jason moved until he stood between Mrs Dawson and the Professor, who put a gentle hand on his trembling shoulder.

This being a perfect time for Kane and Reagan to come in, they did, and I surrendered my prisoner into their professional grasp.

‘Take her away,’ I said, disgusted. ‘Don’t come back,’ I added.

Dumbfounded, they did just as I asked. We heard the woman begin to scream again as she reached the street. Then no one moved. I was terrified of saying the wrong thing. Jason looked like he might cry, or swear, or faint. Jon looked at Kepler.

‘So, shall we have the party tonight?’ he asked. ‘What do you think, Jason? Party?’ Jason was looking dazed. Kylie and Goss had both kissed him, one on each cheek. Then moved away in case he got any ideas.

‘For your birthday,’ said Kepler. ‘Your birthday party, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Jason, a little hysterically.

‘We’ll have to start preparing right away,’ said Jon. ‘Can we ask Therese and Cherie to do the draping and decorating? Go ask the Pandamuses to come, Jason, and the Lone Gunmen. Eight o’clock in the atrium.’

And light of foot and a bit dazed, Jason went. I kissed Jon. So did Meroe. He did not seem to mind.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Consulted, Cherie and Therese had gone into a complicated discussion which lasted far longer than my attention span. The upshot of it was that they and Trudi were busy all day, trailing bolts of calico and hammering. Jason shut himself in the bakery with a book called
Wonderful Cakes
and wouldn’t let us in. Jon and Kepler allowed us to do a little chopping and preparing but Daniel and I found ourselves at a loose end quite quickly. It was a bright day and we went for a long walk, through the art gallery and all over the hills and dales of the gardens, coming home cold and pleasantly tired and ready to be amused.

In furtherance of that we took a lush bath and a little nap. Then we dressed in our dining clothes. I wore my black Spanish dress, and Daniel was sleek in a silk shirt the colour of blood plums and a waistcoat I had embroidered with silver birds. As we approached the front door a sheet of paper was slid under it. It directed us to bring a blindfold each and assemble at the lift. We collected scarves and did as we were bid. Anything for a weird life.

I held Daniel’s hand as we heard the lift rumble down. A door opened, we were led forward by the hand, and the door shut again. Then we went down until we reached a floor where we were led out again, me by someone who was giggling. I diagnosed Kylie or Goss. I had the sensation of people all around me and I heard the Professor say, ‘Hmm!’ in a way that only he does.

‘Unmask,’ cried a voice, and we did.

We were in what seemed to be a firelit cavern. It smelt wonderfully of fruit, wine, spices and flowers. The walls were draped in dark fabrics. Big vases of flowers stood on the floor and a huge table had been set up, flanked by lots of chairs. In the middle of it was a small fountain with a Medusa’s head. I laughed and took the cup which was offered to me and tasted. The fountain contained not water but wine.