Heavenly Pleasures (14 page)

‘The Chinese want their children to have a better life than their parents, like all immigrants,’ he said. ‘The pressure to succeed is very heavy. Especially when the boys catch the Aussie virus and start being lazy and naughty. Happens to everyone from a strict society who comes here. Because you can’t see the rules and they aren’t enforced with a big stick, they conclude there aren’t any. Until they find out otherwise, they tend to go wild. It wears off,’ said Jon tolerantly.

‘Yes, it is important that I do well. My dad never gets off my back about studying,’ said Brian sullenly. ‘And my sisters all get As without even trying.’

‘And then there was Selima,’ prompted Jon.

‘I met her when I got my sister some chocolates for her birthday,’ said Brian, his face lighting up. ‘I came back on my next lunch break. She liked me, too. We used to have lunch together every day I could manage it. She’s clever. And her dad was just like mine. Then there was trouble at the shop and she ran away.’

‘And tried to find you?’ asked Jon gently.

‘And Mum sent her away,’ he said bitterly. ‘She came to our house and asked for me and Mum shut the door in her face. And when I got home she screamed at me and then Dad grounded me.’

That’s what she was doing in Frankston,’ I said. ‘That’s why she was there.’

‘And those cousins of hers sent her away too,’ said Daniel grimly.

‘Where is she?’ asked Brian, linking his hands in what was almost a begging gesture. ‘Please. Tell me.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel. ‘But when I find her, what shall I say to her from you?’

‘Tell her I still love her,’ said Brian stoutly. ‘I don’t care about any of them—my parents, her parents. Tell her if she runs away again, I’ll come with her. I’ve got a motorbike.’

‘Good boy,’ approved Jon. ‘Now, drink your tea, and leave it to Daniel. If anyone can find Selima, it’s him.’

‘Did Selima say anything to you about what was happening in the shop?’ asked Daniel.

‘She liked working there,’ said Brian. ‘She liked Juliette. She liked chocolate, too. She didn’t like George, the apprentice. She really didn’t like him. I don’t know why. I asked her if he was harassing her, you know, for sex, and she said no. I’m scared for her.’

‘Us, too,’ said Daniel. ‘But I think that she might be safe. Write out your contact details and I’ll call you as soon as I can. She hasn’t phoned you?’

‘Not even messaged,’ said Brian miserably. ‘I don’t know what my mum said to her, but it would have been bad. Mum wants us all to marry people she knows.’

‘I’ll find her,’ said Daniel, and patted the disconsolate boy on the shoulder.

It had been an interesting morning. I could do with less interest in my life.

When I got back to the shop, Kylie had come out of her trance.

‘Wasn’t he hot?’ she asked.

‘The essence of hot,’ I said.

‘It would be like being left for Brad Pitt,’ she reasoned. ‘Anyone would leave anyone for someone that hot,’ she decided.

I was glad that her feelings had not been too badly hurt. Her next comment unsettled me afresh.

‘It’s a pity he’s gay,’ she said. ‘I wonder …’

‘Forget about it,’ I advised. ‘Lots of pretty men around. You don’t want to take him away from Jon, do you?’

I should know better than to say things like that. But anything else I said would only make matters worse. The day went on quietly. We finished up trading to the cheerful strains of ‘James K. Polk’ by They Might Be Giants, a duo I have loved ever since I heard ‘Mammal’. I had made up a tape to beguile the scrubbing. I like music, just not early in the morning.

Daniel and I retired for a nap with a cat or two for company, since we were both going to be up late tonight. Daniel was playing chess, and then going on the Soup Run, and I needed to talk to the Professor and then I was dining with Janet Warren, a notorious nightbird. My naps had greatly improved in quality since Daniel had come into my life. Even Horatio agreed with me.

C
_HA
PTER TWELVE

We got up when it was dark to shower and dress for our various engagements. I wasn’t going out, so I put on my purple and gold chrysanthemum gown. Dinner was going to be simple; chicken soup, veal olives from Grandma Chapman’s recipe with mixed steamed vegetables, and chocolate muffins for dessert. Janet had always been an uncritical eater. She was built like a box, square shoulders and wide hips.

I fished the food out of the fridge, where it had been gently unfreezing all day. A few weeks ago I had had a cooking binge. Meat is a lot cheaper from the wholesale butcher’s and it’s just as easy to make three two-person lots of veal olives as one; same amount of washing-up and cooking time. In my kind of cooking, it’s the preparation that takes the time. The actual cooking is usually long and slow and needs little attention. Winter brings out the best in the Corinna Chapman cuisine, such as it is. And life is too short to pod peas, unless you like podding peas. Which I don’t.

Daniel kissed me goodbye. He was going to play this important game, which he promised to explain to me later in

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words of one syllable, with Kepler, and then he was going on to the Soup Run. He went out, his leather coat flaring behind him, and I slipped up the stairs to Dionysus, where I caught the Prof on his way out for dinner. He supplied me with what I wanted without asking any questions, and I came downstairs satisfied that I had Darren the God Boy over a barrel.

Then I went back to my kitchen. I got out plates and cutlery, thinking about the sad story of Selima and Brian. I couldn’t see any chance of their being happy together. They would both have to ditch their families. The older I got, the more I regretted that I didn’t have any family. At least I still had parents, but they were not exactly helpful. They lived in Nimbin in an earth house (with an earth-closet, yuk), made candles and lived on the dole and a more-than vegan diet consisting of windfallen fruit and potatoes that had either com
mitted suicide, leaving signed notes, or died of old age. Which was all right for them. It was their attempt to make me live the same way that had given me frostbite and pneumonia (Mother didn’t believe in shoes for children, they break their natural contact with the earth) and nearly killed me (Father didn’t believe in antibiotics). If Grandma Chapman hadn’t come down like a wolf on the fold and kidnapped me, telling them they weren’t fit to have a child, I would probably have died. They might have agreed with Grandma because they didn’t have any other children. They sent me presents for Summer Solstice and I sent them aggressively Christian Christmas cards to discourage any familiarity, like them deciding to come and live with me when the weather got cold, something my father had once threatened.

Now even Grandma Chapman was dead. My other grandparents had predeceased me. I probably had cousins but I didn’t know any of them. I did, however, have lots of friends.

And you get to choose your friends. The doorbell jerked me out of my foolish lamentation on my orphan state. I buzzed my friend inside.

‘Corinna!’ said Janet bracingly. ‘Nice to see you, you’ve put on weight, it looks good.’

‘You too,’ I said, hugging her. Her hair was still short and butter yellow, going grey, I noticed. Janet is a mass of muscle and they tell me she dances divinely. She leads, of course. I don’t understand why a section of the lesbian culture has taken to ballroom dancing, but there it is. I brought her inside and we sat down on the sofa. She kicked off her shoes and stretched.

‘Lush apartment,’ she commented. ‘Hello, Horatio. You were a mere slip of a kitten when I last saw you, old boy.’ She tickled his whiskers. Horatio allowed this liberty, as from an old friend.

‘Why are you going to Singapore?’

‘I’m a partner now,’ she told me as I found the opener and the bottle of the beer she favours. Squire’s. To me it tastes like an unexceptionable yeast soup, though I will always be in favour of yeast in any form. To a real beer aficionado, it tastes like nectar. I poured myself a glass of wine. Janet accepted the glass and took a deep, satisfied sip. ‘So we’ve got these idiots on our board who think that buying into a Singaporean bank is a good idea, and I’m out to get the proof that it really isn’t.’

‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘Not unless you want to be taking in washing by the end of the financial year.’

‘So, how’s your cash flow?’ she asked me.

‘It’s good. No debts, no loans, no trouble. Even my GST is up to date,’ I told her. ‘Have some of these cheesy things, they’re really nice. Dinner in half an hour.’

‘Mel moaned a bit about us being sent to a tropical resort,’ said Janet. ‘She hates hot weather. I promised her an air conditioner in every room, which apparently I’ve got, and she does need some time to herself to finish her thesis. I’m going to throw a really big party when she finally gets rid of it. I’ve been living with that thesis for what seems like centuries.’

‘The sapphic women?’ I asked, remembering. ‘In 1920s Paris?’

‘The sapphic women,’ she groaned. ‘In Paris. In the 1920s. Every conversation, every bit of diary or poem or photo or newspaper, every reminiscence of Gertrude and Alice and the ladies of the Closerie Lilas and the Rue Madeline. It’s enough to make you turn het, I tell you.’ She grinned and took another handful of the cheesy things.

‘That’ll be the day,’ I rejoined. I really had missed Janet. I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t called her. Then again, she hadn’t called me, either.

‘Thought you might want to be alone, lick your wounds, get your new business established,’ she said, answering an unspoken question as she always used to. ‘Very glad when you finally did phone. What happened to that snake, your ex, what was the creep’s name? James.’

‘Works for a corporation into high-risk stocks and currency speculation,’ I said. She snorted.

‘I should have guessed as much. He’ll crash and burn, one day soon. Climate’s not good for high-risk. People like stuff that will last, at present, even though the returns are lower.’

‘So what was that editorial talking about?’ I asked. ‘That’s partly why I called you, I’m out of the loop. I ought to know what they are hinting about and I don’t.’

‘Just rumours, that’s all I know,’ she said slowly. ‘But there is something big up there, about to fall on us out of a clear sky. The city says that it has something to do with a top accountant in Megatherium being sacked, just like that, turn in your laptop and escorted out of the building by security. No reason given. Name of Benjamin, nice bloke by all accounts. Wife and family in Kew. Rumours are rife about high-level speculation, double books, tax fraud, overextended lines of credit, even money-laundering. I didn’t have anything in Megatherium but I’ve advised all my clients to get their money out now while they still can. But it isn’t only Megatherium, though that would be bad enough, God knows. They say there’s a bank in jeopardy. We haven’t had a bank collapse in living memory.’

‘What about Pyramid?’ I asked. She snorted again.

‘Building society, and under the old rules. Couldn’t happen again the way it did before. No, something new and bad is on the way,’ said Janet with the relish of any accountant whose advice has been heeded and whose clients are in no danger. ‘Now, have I sung enough for my supper? Crack another bottle of Squire’s, my dear, and feed me. I’m starving. All this talking is hungry work.’

‘Coming right up,’ I said.

Dinner was a great success. Janet liked the veal olives, which she said I had cooked for her before. I probably had, it was one of my favourites and froze well. Also, thumping meat with a hammer is very therapeutic if you are in a bad mood, as most of my moods had been before I left James and bought into Insula. When we reached the chocolate muffins she grinned.

‘Lucky Mel isn’t here,’ she said. ‘She says my cholesterol’s too high and keeps cooking all these healthy meals. Not that they aren’t tasty. But choccies of this quality don’t usually get into muffins. Your apprentice?’

‘His masterpiece,’ I said proudly. ‘Enough to get him into the guild, I reckon.’ I told her about Jason and about Kylie and Gossamer and my plot to eventually persuade them to put on a few pounds. We gossiped about the people in the building, the Prof and Mrs Sylvia Dawson. Janet whistled.

‘So that’s where she is! How interesting.’

‘Why, do you know her?’

‘My dear, you really don’t read the social pages, do you? Until about six months ago, she was a renowned hostess, did all the big art dinners, very prominent in charity circles. Then she just packed up, sold her house in Brighton and vanished.’

‘Why?’

‘No one knows,’ said Janet. ‘Rumour says she had a bad diagnosis, you know. Decided to distribute her estate before she died. So she came here!’ she whistled again.

‘Well, she must be rich, or she couldn’t have just bought an apartment in Insula,’ I said. ‘And she’s very well dressed. But she doesn’t look sick. Blooming, I’d say. Takes healthy early morning walks to look at the autumn leaves.’

‘Then she must have just got jack of it all,’ said Janet. ‘Like you did. I can relate to that. Well, it’s been lovely,’ she said, getting up. ‘What did I do with my shoes? Oh yes, there they are.’ Horatio was sitting on them. Janet dislodged him gently with one stockinged toe. ‘I’m all packed, but there’s always something I’ve forgotten. Goodnight,’ she said to me, giving me another hug. ‘I’ll call when I get home, and perhaps we can have that thesis finishing party after all, eh?’

I saw her out. I did not see hulking identical figures called Tait and Bull or a tall thin man who could not accept that his father had died on Everest. That improved my night. Janet got into her red BMW and drove away, tossing her parking ticket onto the pile on the seat beside her. She parked where she liked and paid for it. It seemed fair enough.

I headed back towards my apartment. I paused near the lift, thinking that I might have heard a faint mew. I stopped and called, but nothing replied. The wind does tend to whistle down the elevator shaft.

I put myself into a lush rose-scented bath, and then into a padded robe which Jon had given me. Daniel rang and asked me if I would like to see the Immortal Game, and I still had some residual anxiety about him, because I said yes. I know very little about chess. But in the cause of love, I reminded myself as the elevator rose, I had once sat through nine hockey games and this couldn’t be that tedious. Because nothing earthly possibly could be.

Actually, it was fascinating. No one had ever talked me through a chess game before and the big pieces were distinctive.

‘Chess is about war,’ said Kepler easily, making room for me on the couch. ‘But there are wars and wars. There are wars by attrition, and there are wars won by sudden, brilliant moves.’

‘And chess has the advantage of no blood, no death, and no famine,’ put in Jon, who could not like war in any other form.

‘So here we have a game by Adolf Anderssen which still ranks as one of the best ever,’ said Daniel. ‘It begins conventionally.’

He moved a pawn to King Four. I know that one. Black does the same, and then white moves another pawn and pawn takes pawn. So far, I got it. Anderssen moves a bishop, his opponent Kieseritsky moves his queen, check. The white king was moved.

Then the pieces began to dance. I was never going to be good enough to really understand what the board was telling me, what it was conveying to the two devotees, Kepler and Daniel. But I began, for the first time, to get a vague idea of how one could call a solution to a chess problem ‘elegant’. The centre shifted, a little jerkily, emptied of pieces. Check and counter-check. The black pieces huddled by their king, unable to move. The white pieces ranged all over the board, reckless of danger, sacrificing themselves for a positional advantage. In very few moves—Daniel said there were twenty-two—the black king was trapped beyond rescue and the game was over. Half of white’s pieces lay dead on the field, including the queen. But the white king had won the battle.

It was fascinating. At least it was much better than the hockey matches. When it was concluded I excused myself and went back to my apartment. I wondered if Daniel would teach me to play chess. I had always thought it the province of geeks and nerds, but it was really intriguing. Intrigued, I fell asleep.

Friday, and the only good thing about it was that tomorrow was Saturday. I ate breakfast, I read the business editorial with some understanding—Megatherium, eh? I had always heard they were sound, but not now—and fed Horatio, envying him his freedom to just go back to bed. In the unlikely event that reincarnation turns out to be true, I want to come back as a cat. A cat who owns someone like me. Meroe says that I might manage it, as with my karma I might not make it back to human. Fine with me.

When I went down to the bakery I noticed two things. One, it was dark. Two, it was entirely devoid of Jason putting on the first rising of the day. I opened the door in case he had forgotten his keys but no one was there. I hauled sacks and poured water and put on mixers and started everything working. The Mouse Police produced their mouse and rat haul—five of each and a pigeon, which was a real puzzle. I rewarded them, cleaned out their tray and saw them bounce out into the alley to seek tuna.

The day went as it had before Jason had come into my life. I had got used to having him there and I was disturbed. Could something have happened to him? He was still only fifteen. The bread rose. As the time went on I had to make the shop’s muffins myself. I made blueberry, the simplest. Even then they would be but poor imitations of those from the hands of the master.

Time ticked on. I began to get very angry with Jason in direct proportion to how anxious I was about him. Bread went into the oven flabby and came out shiny. Megan the courier tootled at the alley door before I was ready for her.

‘Just a moment,’ I said. ‘My apprentice hasn’t come in today and I’m behind.’

‘Jason?’ she said in surprise. ‘Here, let me help you with those racks. You read out, I’ll check.’