Earthly Delights (16 page)

‘That would be dreadful,’ he said, stroking his neat, trimmed beard. ‘Death is one thing, it’s final, you know the person has gone and is not coming back and therein lies the wound. But just run away, might be alive, might be dead. Uncertainty has nothing going for it.’

‘Amen,’ I agreed. ‘Take some cake. I’ve got to go and see poor Holliday, and he probably isn’t hungry.’

‘It’s another of the corporeal works of mercy,’ he said, sounding a little like Sister Mary. ‘How did the Soup Run go?’

‘Grand guignol,’ I said. ‘All it needed was gas lights and it would have been an engraving by Doré. I never thought such things happened in a civilised city.’

‘Civilisation is as thin as a cigarette paper,’ he told me. ‘The Romans knew that, and the Greeks. We have forgotten it.’

‘Indeed,’ I said, and went off to Holliday’s apartment, Daphne. I rang the bell. The door opened.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘You might remember me—Corinna? My ex-husband James mentioned you when I was dining with him last night.’

He was a fattish man, dark shadows under his eyes, heavy alcoholic breath at two in the afternoon. Clearly after his daughter had run away he had hit the bottle and it was now hitting back. He blinked.

‘James’s wife? Aren’t you called Yvonne?’

‘No, that’s his present wife. I’m the original. I live here. James said you had moved in and I thought I’d come and say hello.’

‘Hello,’ he said vaguely.

The door was open so I went in.

The walls were flanked with boxes. I knew how depressing all those boxes were. You stacked and put away and stacked and put away and at the end of a fifteen hour unpacking spree, there were just as many boxes as you had had at the beginning and you still couldn’t find (1) the floor or (2) the frying pan. You could always detect the recently unpacked by the way they refused a packing box at the supermarket. The sort of reaction you expect from a shipwreck survivor asked for some helpful comments on tides. It had only taken me three days to unpack when I moved in, because I had an unpacking party and laid on quite a lot of wine. Some of the things were later found in interesting places—I still don’t know who put my envelopes in the freezer—but at the end you can do a merry box flattening dance and get rid of the buggers along with all those empty bottles.

Holliday had unpacked as far as finding the scotch, a glass, a packet of cigarettes, an ashtray and the TV. One armchair was set in front of it. I turned another the right way up and sat down on it.

‘I don’t even know your first name,’ I said. Those cigarettes were beckoning. Come to us, they said. You remember us.

I did remember them. My love affair with tobacco had been long and passionate. Holliday stopped standing by the
door and slumped back into his armchair. His hand groped for the remote. Then he spoke. ‘Andy,’ he said, in answer to my question, which had crept its way along his synapses until it found one which still fired.

‘Give me a smoke,’ I said. Oh, Corinna, called my conscience. You have failed! ‘And tell me. Are you happy here just drinking yourself to death, or would you like some food?’

‘Food?’

I sat still and smoked that cigarette down to its butt and I felt wonderful. Slightly dizzy, but wonderful. Then I went into the kitchen, which was bare of any comforts but the drinker’s friends, Berocca and coffee. Instant coffee. A big box on the floor marked ‘kitchen’ yielded five shirts, a book on regional wines and a handful of cutlery. One under it gave me a saucepan, a tin of gourmet game soup and a box of matches from The Club. I didn’t want to know what sort of club it was. I made the soup according to the label and then rummaged for a cup or bowl. I found three in the parlour in a box marked ‘misc’. Andy Holliday hadn’t moved a muscle.

When I came back I put the mug in his hand and said, ‘Drink the soup,’ and he drank the soup. Possibly I was copying my manner from Mrs Palmer, a strong-minded nurse who definitely had the Prof’s
auctoritas
. I made him drink some more soup and then have a cup of coffee with a piece of fruit cake. He was starting to sober up.

His hand crept to his pocket and he showed me a picture of a sharp-featured girl in disco gear. She was very blonde with narrow eyes and strong bones. She was tickling Andy Holliday with a long feather and laughing. Andy looked much younger, almost as I remembered him.

‘That’s her,’ he said. I had never heard a voice so defeated.

‘What’s her name?’ I asked.

‘Cherie. She was Daddy’s darling,’ he said. ‘And then she ran away.’

‘How old is she here?’ I asked.

‘Fourteen. That was three years ago. I looked for her. I’m still looking. She went off at night without leaving a note and—and …’ he dried up. ‘My wife didn’t believe her, you see, Tina wouldn’t believe what Cherie said about her uncle. And it didn’t seem possible, did it, such a nice man, so fond of children? I told her I didn’t believe her and she ran away and she never came back.’

He started to cry.

‘Was it true?’ I asked.

He wiped at his streaming nose. I gave him a tissue. ‘Oh yes, it was true all right. He was caught molesting his other nieces—my brother had enough sense to believe what his daughter said and he caught him at it, actually caught him in the act—and now he’s in jail and I hope he never comes out because if he does I will kill him. And his sister, my wife, Cherie’s mother, for God’s sake, she stuck by him, said it was because of their own father. I divorced the stupid bitch. But my innocent daughter, my darling Cherie, she went away and I never saw her again.’

‘And how have you tried to find her?’

‘I was on
Australia’s Most Wanted
,’ he said with faint pride. ‘I paid a fortune to a private detective but these kids never get onto the records and half of them use false names. He came up empty, said he’d be wasting my money if he went on. Nice guy, ran an agency called “The Open Eye”. He said she wasn’t dead, at least no body matching hers had been found, she was not an unclaimed body or in hospital under her own name, and hadn’t applied for a passport or got a learner’s permit. I was going to teach her to drive,’ he mourned.

He lit another smoke from the butt of the previous one and I didn’t. My conscience faded out, nagging as she went. I wasn’t going back to being an addict. I merely liked the occasional taste.

‘So you’re just going to sit here and sink into melancholy,’ I commented as lightly as I could. I couldn’t imagine what this sort of pain was like. I had lost Horatio for two days once, when he got shut in a house which was being renovated, and I had suffered agonies imagining him dead or maimed. That had only lasted two days. This had lasted three years.

‘The guy said that she was most probably in or around the city, not in St Kilda or in a brothel or massage parlour, where they have to keep records. So I’m going to put out posters. When I get a little more organised.’ He looked around helplessly at the mountains of boxes.

‘I’ll see if I can send you some help,’ I said. Meroe would be perfect at unpacking, divining what was in each box by touching it. I was sure that I could ask her for some help for this human wreck. The karmic benefits would be huge.

‘And when you are ready to issue your poster,’ I said, ‘I know what you have to say on it.’

‘Thanks, Yvonne,’ he said sleepily. ‘Give my regards to James.’

I let myself out. At least he had coffee and fruit cake for breakfast. I acquitted Andy Holliday of being our nutcase. He was in too much pain and he was far too drunk to compose letters. Also, he had no computer and James had said that Andy had been sacked, therefore no workplace with an IMAC and a wobbly laser printer. Just another person to add to the free bread list. But I did know, with absolute certainty, what message would bring Cherie Holliday out of whatever hole she had hidden in. And that was at least one useful deed for the day.

Meroe opens the Sibyl’s Cave on Sundays, so the Christians don’t have it all their own way. I stopped to stroke Belladonna on the way in. She is so black that if it wasn’t for a faint thinning of fur around the eyes and the outlines of the lips, she would look like a cat composed entirely of licorice. She greeted me politely and scooted back inside as rain began to fall. This would please Trudi and might save the grass.

‘I thought witches liked thunderstorms,’ I commented as Belladonna dived straight under the table which Meroe uses as a counter. The black cat packed herself into the corner, tail to the wall, and sat down on her paws.

‘Witches, yes, witches’ cats, no. Bella is sensitive to vibrations and storms release a lot of them. Look at the poor little creature’s whiskers quivering!’

Meroe dropped a fold of her long woollen shawl over Belladonna. Belladonna didn’t object. This meant that she really was scared. Most cats like to see what is going on.

The shop smelt gorgeous, a rich, oriental fragrance new to me. I asked.

‘It’s frankincense and myrrh,’ said Meroe. ‘I needed to be supported in my spirits, after such a shock. How went the Soup Run with the tall, dark and handsome one?’

‘It was very strange and will need some thought before I can really tell you what it was like. Daniel is lovely and he doesn’t talk in the morning.’

‘Now there’s a match made in heaven,’ said Meroe. She has seen me in the morning. And tried to carry on a conversation with me.

We had a lot to talk about. I relayed what Senior Constable White had said about Mr Fruitloop and told her about the tomato sauce in the lobby.

‘Yes, much anger and bitterness and a need for power games. Let us see if we can devise one for him,’ she said. ‘Think about it, Corinna. We need to go on the offensive.’

‘I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, we have a case in need of care under our own roof. Poor Andy Holliday, who has lost his daughter, is drinking himself to death in the middle of a pile of boxes approximately the size of Mt Kosciuszko. This should be a group effort. I don’t want him fixating on me as his new career. Can you help?’

‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get many presents as a child and I love unpacking. What if he gets his daughter back and it’s too late, his liver has finally given up the ghost? He needs some vitamins and maybe a talisman and certainly some incense to cleanse his vibrations. I agree with you that we should do it together. And you are sure that he needs help. We don’t want to make the Mr Pemberthy mistake again.’

I agreed. We had been sorry for the downtrodden Mr P until he told us he liked being a slave and showed us—erk—his slave collar and frilly apron.

‘Good. When?’

‘And maybe it would be useful to do the ritual of return,’ she said. ‘But the ingredients are expensive.’

‘When we sober him up a little. Tomorrow, Meroe?’

‘After you have cleaned your bakery,’ she said. ‘Come and get me and I will close early. This sounds like a job for a practising witch.’

I couldn’t have agreed more. Since a practising witch is as good as anyone else at finding the frying pan. Better, perhaps.

Meroe had reminded me that I was going to get up at four am and make bread so I went back to the Prof, whipped us up an omelette aux fairly fines herbes, since there was no tarragon but plenty of parsley, and sat drinking wine and looking out of his windows at the city as the sun began to go down. It was very peaceful. I told Professor Dion all about poor Andy Holliday and he suggested that I send him down to sit with the Prof while Meroe and I attacked the unpacking.

‘There is, at least, a comfortable couch to recline upon while drinking. In fact, that couch was designed by people who truly did like a drink—and perhaps he might like to talk,’ he said. ‘I can always listen. And I can’t help with the unpacking. I have enough trouble finding my glasses. Though my leg is really much better now.’

I thought this was a wonderful idea, kissed his cheek, and went back to my place to feed the cats and assemble the makings of tomorrow’s bread. Everything appeared to be in order, though I admit I was listening for footsteps following me on the stairs. No letter under the door and no tomato
sauce in the lobby, all to the good. I sat down in my parlour to read a few instructive chapters of Jade Forrester and finish a box of chocolates I had started before Easter. Last year. I don’t eat a lot of chocolates.

The first thing anyone thinks about a fat woman is, disgusting creature, I bet she stuffs herself with Mars Bars before breakfast and eats her own weight in chocolate every day and we don’t, generally. My mantra is that I am fat because I am fat and there is not a lot I can do about it. And I have the example of Gossamer and Kylie always before me. I could not get that thin if I starved for ten years, and that is a fact. We are famine survivors, we fat women, and ought to be valued for it. We must have been very useful when everyone else collapsed with starvation. We would have been able to sow the crop, feed the babies and keep the tribe alive until spring came. If you breed us out, what will you do when the bad times come again? At the very least, you could always eat us. I reckon I’d feed a family of six for a month. Properly pickled, salted and cooked, of course.

There was a reason why the oldest depiction of a human is the Venus of Willendorf, a huge fat woman. We were genetically designed to keep your tribe alive so that the thin people could be born. So be nice. Or at least shut up about it. Every time I turn on a TV I see (1) a car ad and then (2) some simpering female telling me how easy it is to lose weight by some new means and how wonderful she feels now she’s thinner, just send lots of money. Then I snort and turn on cable. If you want to believe some lies, believe the one about how getting a new car will make you a fantastic driver and instantly attractive to tall willowy women in bikinis. It’s probably more true.

I had set my alarm clock and was now trying to convince
my weekend self that the carnival was over and that eight o’clock was a good time to go to bed when I saw a man-sized shadow at my window and froze.

Then I unfroze. I am not going to become a prisoner of fear in my own home, I told myself sternly in my Nurse Palmer voice. I seized the breadknife and threw back the curtain. My heart was hammering. My feet were strangely unwilling to move. But I was resolved. If Mr Fruitcake was on the balcony, he was shortly about to be off the balcony.