Heavenly Pleasures (17 page)

‘She’s only a little cat. There mightn’t be much to find.’

‘True, but cats have a way of not dying,’ I said, truthfully.

‘Then where is she? Is Soot another story we don’t get to hear the end of?’

‘Tell me about Selima,’ I said, changing the subject before we both burst into tears. ‘Will she speak to us?’

‘You, maybe,’ she replied. ‘There was this boy.’

‘We know about the boy. Jon talked to him. Rides a motorbike. His name’s Brian.’

‘You know a lot,’ she said suspiciously.

‘It’s Daniel’s job. He’s a private investigator. Mine too, I suppose. Ask her if she’ll talk to me. Tell her her job is safe and her boy still loves her. Is she safe where she is, Cherie?’

Cherie wrung her flour-covered hands.

‘I don’t know where she is. I took her to the hostel where I lived when I was … you know, before I found Dad again.

It was all right. Not flash, but cheap and safe. But she left there. All I’ve got is a phone number and mostly the phone is switched off. But I’ll keep trying.’

‘And I’ll put her back on the Soup Run’s watch list. She must be somewhere.’

‘I suppose.’ Cherie didn’t sound convinced.

‘Now, go get the dough, and let’s see how it looks,’ I encouraged.

The dough was rising. It wasn’t the best bread dough I had ever seen, but it would do. I watched as Cherie kneaded it and then put the dough back to rise again in its flat rectangle, ready to be filled, rolled, cooked and iced. Anyway, whatever the standard of cuisine, Andy Holliday would eat those rolls as though they were manna. He had lost his daughter for years and then found her again.

‘Where is your father?’ I asked.

‘He went out to his AA meeting,’ she said. ‘He’s trying really hard. Falls off the wagon a lot,’ she said indulgently. ‘But not hard. He hasn’t been real drunk since I came home. He might even make a social drinker, that’s what Alateen say. They say he might not even be an alcoholic.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget to call me if you can find Selima. It’s important. No one is accusing her of anything.’ I said.

‘Cross your heart?’ she asked me, half playfully, half serious.

I crossed my heart, and left her to finish cooking. One thing amused me. After eating those coffee scrolls, Andy would really appreciate my bread.

And back I went to my own apartment, feeling at a really loose end. I knew what was before me. At a loose end, I go out, or stay in and read, or possibly cook. At a very loose end, I channel-surf cable until I find bad sci-fi. At a really loose end, I do the mending.

I dragged out the sewing machine, worked out what had gone wrong with it last time—never put the machine away unthreaded, Grandma Chapman said, and I always did— found the scissors and a reasonable match of thread, and got out the rubbish bag full of mending. I would keep the rubbish bag for the things which, on later examination, I might find not worth the effort.

This certainly applied to the replacement of the zipper in an old pair of trousers which were too tight anyway. I found a crochet hook and hooked up the threads in the elbow of a rather nice plum-coloured jumper which Horatio had beguiled a cold day last winter by unknitting. I meditated on the maxim that it is always harder to create than destroy, and how well this applied to ravelling up an unravelled piece of knitting. I managed to tie off most of the ends eventually and laid it aside to wash. Had it really been that long ago since I did the mending?

Well, it was going to get done. I could do nothing about all the problems I faced until there was what the Prof calls a novus actus interveniens—a new thing happening—so I repaired tears, sewed up hems, replaced buttons and patched holes. I put on a talking book to listen to, one of Jade Forrester’s early romances. Horatio took up his resting position on the already mended clothes, as having me continually dragging a dead garment out from under him interrupted his repose and his dignity.

Generations of women had sewed as I was sewing, listening to someone read aloud to them from, say, the novels of Sir Walter Scott. They were much better needleworkers than me, but then, I couldn’t stand Walter Scott. Not even
Rob Roy
. Walter Scott. Now there was an idea. I thought about it as I sewed.

There is a comfort in mending which is not present in making. The garment is useless as it is, but with ten minutes work it will be wearable again. I stitched pieces of elastic into my apron strings, so that they would not snap under the strain. I repaired my favourite silk jacket, the lining of which had been lightly shredded by Horatio, who liked the sound of silk tearing through his claws. He only likes to shred really thin silk, so the brocade and embroidery had survived. I threw out a couple of socks which I couldn’t really have been meaning to reheel. I sewed up the split back seam of one shirt and the split side seam of another, which I am ashamed to say I had kept wearing for months after I had begun to feel a breeze around my midriff. I harvested safety pins, straight pins and several staples from my makeshift repairs.

I threw out three pairs of de-elasticated knickers. I mended a hole in a trouser pocket through which I must have lost a small fortune in change. I contemplated the hardest task, which was putting a very careful patch on my favourite throw rug. It had fallen too close to a candle one night, but luckily had not caught fire. How on earth was I going to fix this? I stared at it as the copious blue folds fell around me. I really had missed that rug. The reader went on through an intensely romantic passage and I sighed, got up and made myself a cup of coffee. I brought it back into the parlour, thinking.

Aha! A solution! I shortened the whole thing by a hand’s breadth and made a new hem, which solved the problem of not being able to match the material, and gave me back my mohair rug. I rehooked a bra. I sewed up a pillowcase.

The day was getting on. Usually doing the mending produced results faster than this. I put on the lights and continued. New buttons on my old red jacket. Throw out six pairs of laddered tights. Dismiss any idea of fixing that extremely old t-shirt with holes in. Perhaps Chas Li would sell me another one.

Then there was really nothing left. I shook the bag. It was empty. A large pile of resurrected clothes lay ready to be washed and worn again. Horatio yawned, showing the points of his ivory teeth in his red mouth, like a small, bored vampire.

Well, there was still Buffy. If all else failed, I could watch TV. I shoved all the washables into the washer, and fed the Mouse Police while I was there. I put the dry-cleanables into the dry-cleaning pile, which I would convey to Mr Hong of the One Hour Dry Cleaners eventually—certainly before next year. I dislodged Horatio and took the rubbish bag into the spare bedroom, along with the sewing machine and all the supplies.

Nothing, not a phone message, not a ring at the door. My never-fail method of making something happen had entirely failed.

Still, I had done all the mending. Glowing with conscious pride, I went to inspect the fridge to see what I had to offer a man who had been sitting in a chocolate shop all day. Something with a strong taste. A pasta sauce, perhaps, with garlic and herbs. If I had time I could make chicken with a hundred garlics, a dish never forgotten. For that I needed a chicken. Which I had. And—oh dear—a chicken brick. A terracotta casserole with a tightly fitting terracotta lid in which the baked chicken steams and becomes so tender that it can be eaten with a spoon. And I knew I had one somewhere.

Daniel came in to find me in the midst of every dish, slide, pot, saucepan and casserole I owned, which meant that I was surrounded.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a pot.’

‘You seem to have been very successful,’ he replied.

‘Another pot,’ I told him. ‘I was going to cook chicken with a hundred garlics but I must have put it away right at the back of … aha!’

It was a good day for Aha!. I had had occasion to say it several times. I dragged out the chicken brick in triumph and then looked at the time. Six. Far too late to start that dish. I had to soak the brick overnight so that it wouldn’t crack in the oven, something I had temporarily forgotten.

‘But I can make it tomorrow,’ I said, getting up. ‘Let’s just stuff all these back in the cupboards.’

‘You’ve been doing enough cooking,’ said Daniel, kneeling down to help me. ‘This looks like a nice pot. I’ll have this one.’

We shoved the others, clanging, back into their homes. Daniel put his pot on the table and produced a shopping bag. It seemed to contain mostly onions.

‘Onion soup?’ I asked intelligently.

‘Good guess. I’ve brought the baguette from the shop, and I’ve got gruyère cheese, and all I need now is a sharp knife, a chopping board, and a little cognac.’

‘For the soup?’ I asked, finding the bottle. He poured himself a glass.

‘First, for me,’ he said. ‘Then for the soup.’

He looked tired and discouraged. ‘We don’t have to cook,’ I said. ‘We can order a pizza, or any other sort of food.’

‘You don’t trust my cooking?’ His mouth quirked at the corner.

I kissed him. There were dark shadows under his eyes. ‘You look worn out. I thought you might like to rest rather than chop onions.’

‘I like chopping onions,’ he replied. ‘And right now I’d like to make onion soup for you.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’ll get out of your way and work up an appetite.’

Horatio had already voted with his paws. He doesn’t like the smell of onions. I joined him on the couch with the blue mohair throw rug and we turned on the television. The finance report came on.

‘The All-Ords fell three points today,’ said the smiling presenter. ‘The price of oil is making all the markets jittery.’

Well, something was making the Australian market jittery. Usually stable stocks were rising and falling and even the staples, the blue-chips, were looking a little battered. Janet Warren had been right, as was her habit. Something nasty was afoot.

I thought of telling Daniel about it, but it would require too much explanation. The market works on sandbox politics, and something was making the children nervous. The approach of a big bully? Or a thunderstorm?

Coincidentally, the weatherman, after reminding us all to save water, told Horatio and me that a storm front was approaching. Hail, lightning, rain. Abandon any garden parties. Bring in the washing. I had known that from the way Horatio had been washing his ears and whiskers in an irritated way, as though they had developed a kink which would not be smoothed. He reacts the same way to the Grand Prix.

Delicious smells were wafting from the kitchen. I switched to the sci-fi channel and an old episode of
Star Trek
came on. Captain Kirk on a desert planet, having to reinvent weapons from whatever he could find. Being Captain Kirk, he found out how to make a cannon. I’m glad that sort of thing doesn’t happen to me. I would be reduced to throwing stones. James Tiberius Kirk, given enough time, could have knocked up a small thermonuclear missile …

I was almost asleep when a thud rocked the whole building. It was followed by a boom.

Doing the mending had worked. A bit late, but it had worked.

C
_HA
PTER FOURTEEN

I joined my lover in the kitchen. Daniel took the pot off the heat, turned off the gas and said, ‘What was that?’

‘Thunder,’ I suggested. My voice, I was proud to say, did not shake much.

‘Not thunder,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard thunder and that wasn’t it.’

‘And you’ve heard explosives and that was it?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and it came from above us.’

‘Mr Recluse,’ I said. ‘We’d better—’

‘Call the cops,’ he said. I grabbed the phone. Letty White said she would be right down and not to do anything until she got there.

I marvel at her confidence, really I do. I called Meroe. She was uninjured but Belladonna had fled into the linen cupboard and was staying there, it seemed, for the duration. I called the Prof and he said that he had heard noises above him and was going up to investigate, and then he hung up before I could tell him what Letty had said. Damn. We’d have to go up and I didn’t want to, but Trudi was up there too and she might be hurt.

198

When the cops came the first thing they would do would be to throw everyone out into the night again.

‘Daniel, Professor Monk is already on the way up, don’t you think we had better go and help him?’

‘Come on,’ said Daniel.

Horatio did not seem to be perturbed at all. He was a deeply philosophical cat. And once I got up he would be a deeply philosophical cat in sole possession of a mohair throw. He knew where his priorities lay.

I grabbed a blanket and a first aid kit and went to the door as Daniel held it open for me. ‘We’ll have to climb,’ he told me. ‘The lift well might have been damaged.’

‘Lead on,’ I said.

Stairs. I am not built to climb stairs. But Insula is not a high building. I struggled on behind Daniel, sparing an occasional glance for his perfectly formed attributes. Up to the second floor, where we collected Mistress Dread. In plain clothes she favours a Country Road look and is called Pat, but that doesn’t make her any less formidable. Kylie and Goss, for a miracle, actually went back into their apartment when Daniel told them that he’d come and get them if anything interesting happened. Up to the third floor, where we saw no one. The Prof had climbed up to the top and the other apart
ment, Mars, is unoccupied. Up to the fourth floor, where Cherie and Andy joined us, along with Mrs Dawson in her Russian boots. To the fifth floor, where Mistress Dread very kindly stayed with Mrs Pemberthy, who was having hysterics. Mrs P is slightly scared of Mistress Dread, and she is the only person (apart from Mrs P) that Traddles doesn’t even try to bite. Going up to the source of the explosion might be a brave act, but staying behind with Mrs Pemberthy was a lot braver. We owed Mistress Dread a favour.

I flagged. I was out of breath. When we got to the sixth floor, Jon and Kepler were out and all was quiet. And thus to the seventh floor at last, seconds before I contributed to those statistics on coronary heart disease and overweight people. Trudi and the Prof were standing at the door of Pluto, heads bent as though they were listening.

‘I can’t hear a sound,’ said the Professor.

‘I hear … something,’ said Trudi. Lucifer abseiled down from her shoulder and trotted to the door, bouncing up and down on all four paws and mewing. We all listened. The building, shocked awake by the noise, was settling again. Faint creaks and thuds sounded as the walls settled into their accustomed places. I heard the storm break outside with a whoosh of cold hail like small shot. Then I thought I heard something else. A very small, sad sound.

‘Yes,’ said Meroe. ‘Open the door at once. Trudi, do you have your keys?’

‘I get,’ she said, and went up into her apartment on the top floor.

‘But wait, do we have any right to open someone else’s door?’ asked Andy Holliday.

‘He can complain to the police who will be here any minute,’ I said. ‘Meroe, are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said. Witches have very good ears and (as she would say) other ways of finding things out. When Trudi came back with the keys she slipped the card through the lock and the door sagged on its hinges and fell open.

And a very small, very thin black kitten tottered out, climbed the Professor as if every movement hurt, and nestled in his bosom as though she had been looking for him all her short life. He cradled her in his beautiful long hands.

‘Hello,’ he said to the kitten. She put out a little pink tongue and licked his thumb. Then she closed her eyes and gave a short purr.

From that point, of course, the Professor was lost. He was one of the Chosen Ones. Meroe gave Soot a fast examination.

‘She’s thirsty and hungry and cold,’ she said. ‘Let’s take her down to your apartment and get her some warm milk. Where on earth have you been, Soot?’

‘Her name isn’t Soot,’ I heard Professor Monk say as Meroe led him away. ‘Soot is the name of a large hearty dog, not a delicate cat. Her name is Nox, because she came at night.’

Where had Soot—sorry, Nox—been? And where was Mr Recluse? We ventured into the apartment. The smoke was clearing away. Mr Recluse lay by his wrecked bed, perfectly alive and bound up like a mummy. The safe was blasted open. The whole apartment looked like it had been hit by a—well, a bomb. Every drawer had been pulled out, every cushion ripped, every cupboard emptied. The Paul Klee lookalike sculptures lay twisted on the floor. Not much appeared to have actually been broken. But everything that could hold something quite small had been searched.

‘Dear me,’ said Mrs Dawson. She took up a handy carving knife in a tea towel and began to saw at the knots. All we could see of poor Mr Recluse were his eyes, which were wild with terror.

‘And that’s the answer to the riddle of where Soot has been all this time,’ said Daniel, pointing. The elaborate iron grating which covered the heating and air conditioning vents was twisted and bent.

‘It is? She’s a pretty small kitten but she couldn’t slip through the gaps in that,’ I said.

‘She must have rushed into the open vent in the cellar when the bomb scare happened,’ he said. ‘And then couldn’t find her way out. Probably lived on condensation and mice.’ Daniel sniffed. He looked at the grating without touching it.

‘They must have put a tiny charge on the grating,’ he gave as his opinion. ‘Then followed it in, overpowered Mr White, tied him up and ransacked the place.’

‘They did a good job,’ I said, gazing at the ruin.

‘But they had him at their mercy,’ said Cherie Holliday. ‘Why didn’t they kill him?’

That girl watches too many episodes of those tough American cop series where they deal with fifteen dead bodies in the first ten minutes.

‘Because they still don’t know if they’ve got what he has hidden,’ I reasoned. ‘So they don’t dare to kill him yet.’

‘And they might still be in the vents,’ said Andy Holliday, putting an arm around Cherie. He would certainly rather die than lose her again.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Daniel. ‘But here comes the cavalry.’

‘You are all in very big trouble,’ announced Letty White as she stalked through the door. Since she looked like she meant it, and she had a large number of people in white coats with her, we left. Mrs Dawson had got Mr Recluse free, however, and was helping him to sit up. I saw her pat him on the shoulder, and then we were firmly ushered out and the damaged door was closed.

We still didn’t know whether the lift was safe, so we left Trudi with an excited Lucifer and trailed down the stairs, shedding people as we went. Mrs Pemberthy had conquered her hysterics and Mistress Dread (I must remember to call her Pat when she is not wearing fishnets, a corset, and brandishing her whip) was waiting on the landing.

‘All right, Corinna?’ she asked, as though exploding safes happened every day.

‘All clear,’ I said. ‘Alive and unharmed.’

‘Good. I didn’t want to miss Movie of the Week,’ she said, and joined us as we went down. We left Mrs Dawson, Andy Holliday and Cherie on four. We called in at Dionysus on three to see how the kitten was coming along.

‘Nox drank a lot of diluted milk, peed very politely in the sink, then ate half a tin of salmon which I was keeping for my evening sandwich,’ Professor Monk told us. He opened his hands to show us the sleeping kitten. ‘Then she had a quick wash and brush up and now she is asleep. Meroe has gone to bring me a litter tray and some real cat food. Is she not exquisite?’ he asked.

She was. She was as black as Belladonna, and one day she would be as shiny. She opened one eye, feeling our stares, then snuggled into the Prof ’s hands and went to sleep again. She was tiny and dusty and starved, weighing in at perhaps three ounces on the old scale, but this kitten, one felt, had the same strength of character as her brother Lucifer.

We went on. Pat stayed to explain to Kylie and Gossamer. Daniel and I got back to my apartment to find that Horatio had managed to gather the entire mohair rug under and around himself but otherwise nothing had changed. It was strange, somehow, to see all my ornaments and books in their accustomed places. To have the house smell of onion soup and white musk bath oil. With all that devastation upstairs it seemed unnatural. I was vividly reminded of having locked myself out of Grandma’s house when the door slammed after me while I was pegging out a tea towel. I could see the kitchen through the window, my cup of coffee still steaming on the table, and all inside bright and warm, while I was stuck outside in the cold, wondering where I had last hidden the spare key.

‘Where were we?’ I asked.

‘Onion soup,’ said Daniel, and went back into the kitchen. I joined him and poured myself a glass of cognac. Letty White was going to be very cross with us. I mentioned this to Daniel.

‘Better, then, that she should be cross with people who have recently eaten French onion soup,’ he said, stirring. I couldn’t argue with that.

The soup was terrific. It was a robust soup with onions and cognac and cheese. It warmed the drinker down to the toes. Perfect for a traumatic night. Which wasn’t over yet. It was lucky that it was Friday, because I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to get to bed by my usual eight o’clock.

The storm arrived and decided that it liked it here and was going to stay. Wind howled. Rain drummed on the indestructible green things on the balcony, which meant that it was coming from the southwest Antarctic ice shelf and would be freezing cold. Daniel and I settled down on the piece of sofa which did not contain Horatio and watched Buffy DVDs, still unnerved by the night’s events and knowing that at any moment Letty White would come knocking at the door.

‘God help all those sleeping out tonight,’ murmured Daniel, drawing me into his embrace. I leaned my head on his chest. I could hear his heart beating. It was a very soothing sound. The rain clawed at the windows, but it couldn’t get in.

The doorbell pealed, and Letty White stomped in. Her wrath was apparent, though a little jaded by having delivered the same speech to at least five people before us, assuming she began at the top of the building.

‘I can’t trust you for a moment!’ she began hoarsely. ‘There could have been a bomb in there, or a couple of armed men.’

‘Except that you told me that we are always protected,’ I replied. ‘Never alone, you said. So I assumed that if there were any armed men or bombs, there would also be large, heavily armed police officers in flak jackets. And as for trust, Senior Constable, it goes both ways. We went to rescue Nox, whom I’m sure you will have met by now.’

‘The Professor showed me,’ she said. ‘It looked like it hadn’t had a decent meal for a week, granted. But you still should have done as I told you.’

‘But I didn’t. So let’s consider this chewing out at an end. Have you had any dinner? How about some French onion soup? Some coffee?’

For a second I thought she was going to fly right off the handle and have us arrested, but suddenly she let out a breath and deflated.

‘Yeah, all right,’ she muttered. ‘Soup sounds nice. I’ve been living on junk food. Also some real coffee. The Scene of the Crime Officers are going to be hours.’

Daniel went into the kitchen to heat up the soup and toast some more baguette. I fetched some coffee and watched Ms White drink it. She cupped both hands around the mug as though she was cold. I dislodged Horatio from some of the rug and cast an end around her shoulders. The wind howled outside.

‘They got in through the heating ducts, as you saw,’ she said. ‘And got out through them, as well. There’s a door to the cellar which has a padlock on it, but padlocks don’t stop people like this.’

‘How is poor Mr White?’

‘Scared silly,’ she said. ‘As he has every right to be.’

‘Here’s some soup,’ said Daniel, carrying in a tray and putting it on her lap. ‘Why not just eat it in peace, and we’ll put the DVD back on again. You don’t need to talk to us,’ he said gently.

We sat there watching Buffy with Letty White, something I would have wagered good money against us doing, though I am not a betting woman. Horatio nestled close to her and purred affably. Buffy ran before were-hyaenas through the dark zoo. After a while I saw that Letty was watching the screen as well.

The episode finished and Daniel got up to take the tray.

‘How about a muffin?’ he asked. ‘We’ve only got blueberry left. And some more coffee?’

Letty accepted. When we were all settled again, she began to talk.

‘You know I can’t tell you any more about the man in the apartment, but I can tell you that the burglars were looking for computer records. They were in the safe. Now they’ve got them, they shouldn’t be back. That’s the only reason I’m leaving the man here.’

‘So they’ve got the floppy disks,’ I said.

‘They were in the safe and they are gone.’

‘So now it all ought to be as calm and bright as a Christmas carol,’ I said suspiciously.

‘Just like a Christmas carol,’ she said, unwrapping her rug and pushing Horatio gently aside. ‘Thanks for dinner. I’m glad you found your kitten,’ she said, and we let her out into the cold hallway.