Part 2 (1/2)

CHAPTER THREE.

The day was getting on and the lunchtime rush would be starting soon. I put Heckle back down with a handful of kitty treats to comfort him (and a handful of kitty treats for Jekyll in the interests of justice) and went back to the shop. I booked an order for ten loaves of seven seed bread, a speciality of mine, for the next day, and more rye bread for a German restaurant. Then the health bread freaks demanded more crumbly stuff, and the Greek restaurant asked for extra pasta douro for a banquet. I was going to have a busy morning. I decided to ditch the planned potato bread and make fresh herb rolls instead. Life is too short to peel potatoes, I agree, but bread made from real potatoes does taste better than the stuff baked with commercial potato flour. My customers pay me for the extra taste. I am what is known as a niche marketer. Which generally translates as ignored by all government departments unless they want (1) bread or (2) money.

And, for the shop, olive bread with all those plump, beautiful kalamata olives which Karen the caterer had given me. Turned out that the chairman of the board was allergic to olives

29.

and she had bought the best. Poor woman was almost in tears. Ours is a disappointing profession sometimes. With a batch of m.u.f.fins that would make up the shop's supply for the day.

Herb rolls meant I had to send Goss to Meroe right away to get a collection of whatever fresh culinary herbs she had left before the witches bought out the shop. Meroe's herbs come from an organic farm (probably by broomstick, I can't imagine how she gets them into the city so fast otherwise) and they taste wonderful. The herbs have to be robust to survive baking.

I gave Goss her orders. 'And make sure you say ”kitchen herbs”,' I said, forcing her to repeat it. It had never happened, but I didn't want any of the other plants to wend their way into my bread. Entrancing as the idea of turning some customers into toads might be, I couldn't imagine trying to explain it to a sceptical police officer like, for instance, Senior Constable White. L White, her label had said. Lynn? Louisa? Lepidoptera? She looked like a Lepidoptera.

A strangely forthcoming Senior Constable Lepidoptera White. She had told me a lot. Had she been giving me a message? Had she just been up all night? Had her mother taught her that a civil question deserves a civil answer? These were deep questions.

Meanwhile a line was forming of people anxious not to spend their lunch hour trying to buy lunch and I snapped out of my daze and into sell mode. The cash register rang cheerily, Horatio purred, and the money rolled in as the bread rolled out (sorry). I began to wonder whether I was going to have any bread to spare for the Soup Run when the door clicked closed and suddenly the place was empty. Two pm on the dot and only the poor office a.s.sistants and shopkeepers, who had drawn late lunch, were likely to come in now.

Goss returned, having lingered fondly outside Black Flower Boutique, where her next dress lived until she could earn more money. Her Goth friend Carol Holland would make sure no one else bought it. It was a daring dark purple number with a peekaboo front to show her navel. I wondered again, what was this thing about navels? However you look at them, they are not aesthetic. Also, no one with my figure likes present fas.h.i.+ons. One does not want one's cardigans skimpy or one's skirts short, and one definitely does not want to show one's navel or any points adjacent. What happened to b.r.e.a.s.t.s? I like b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I'm fond of mine. Goss is as flat chested as a ten year old boy.

Goss thrust a big parcel of herbs into my arms. The scent was heavenly, the essence of green growing things. I identified thyme, parsley, basil, rosemary, coriander, tarragon and a stick of bay leaves with that dark oriental smell.

'Yum,' I remarked.

'That lady cop was at Meroe's,' giggled Goss. 'Going through the herbs. Meroe isn't happy.'

'I bet she isn't,' I agreed.

'Especially since she called Meroe ”Sibyl”,' said Goss, stroking Horatio.

'Oops.' I was not the only person to be making linguistic mistakes today. Although, I admit, Basil Fawlty's wife was called Sibyl, the original sibyls were powerful witches who spoke oracles. I hoped that Meroe might take it as a compliment but decided that she probably wouldn't. I don't know where Meroe came from, she's never said, but it was a place where they really didn't like the police.

With the world in the state it is that could be just about anywhere ...

'Did Ms White say what she was looking for in the herbs?' I asked.

'Mj,' said Goss, going off into a fit of the giggles. Marijuana? In the Sibyl's Cave? It was funny. Meroe is sternly against all drugs. Except, I suppose, flying ointment and essence of nightshade. She has been known to threaten smokers with eternal karmic backlash and doesn't even approve of my gin and tonic when I finish work for the day. It dulls the chakras, apparently. I told her that I liked them dull. Senior Constable Lepidoptera White was doomed to disappointment, and probably a lecture on chakras as well.

'Time to close up,' I said, fastening the door and pulling the shutter across. Goss loaded the remaining bread into my sack while I put out the stuff I could resell at half price into its rack. That left me with a good load. I paid Goss and let her out the back way and sat down to total my cash register receipts, count and bundle the money, and make out the deposit slip for the bank. Then I put the cash float in the drawer, allowed Horatio to precede me into the bakery, and sighed. Another day past and I was p.o.o.ped.

I walked down to the bank on the corner and deposited the takings, then I re-donned my trackies and began to clean the bakery. This involves a lot of scrubbing and I find it soothing. Big bakeries employ scullions, but I did it myself. Horatio always removes himself to the parlour when water sloshes across the floor, my last task. There. I wrung out a track suit leg and straightened my back. I had cleaned and dried all my cutlery and pots and mixers; I had tidied my own kitchen and washed my own dishes; the cat dishes were scrubbed, the cat litter was changed and the floor was scrubbed and it was me for a bath. I flung the tracksuit into the washer and set it going.

I love baths. I ran one and sprinkled in Body Shop bath milk with a liberal hand. No, with a generous hand. The original meaning of that word has been lost. By the time I finished my eleven hour day I was always filthy. I lay there feeling like the Queen of Sheba. Dark blue dolphins danced along my frieze. Horatio sat on the edge. He balances beautifully. Vaughan Williams' 'The Lark Ascending' was playing. Bliss.

The CD finished and I finally arose from the foam, dried myself and put on my favourite garment. It is a floor length house gown of heavy dark purple silk figured with chrysanthemums, the only present I ever liked or kept among those my ex-husband James brought back from his travels. Though I sort of regret throwing out those toys from the s.e.x museum in Amsterdam. Who knows what that strange object did when filled with warm milk as the directions suggested? Probably nothing good. I loved this part of the day. With my Esky in one hand and my cat in the other, I ascended to the roof garden like a G.o.ddess.

The roof garden design has remained unaltered from the original, partly because when the building was unfas.h.i.+onable, someone had chained the entrance and the vandals didn't know it was there. It has gazebos. It has pergolas. It has bowers. Horatio led the way to the rose bower, his favourite. I sat down on the wicker love-seat, concocted a gin and tonic from my Esky, added ice, and leaned back contentedly.

No one here, except Mrs Pemberthy and her little doggie, Traddles. I don't like dogs very much. They have no self control. But Horatio had obligingly taught Mrs Pemberthy's yappy little mop-dog a measure of healthy fear and he usually never came near us. Mr Pemberthy was talking to Trudi near the lilac trees. A light shower of rose petals fell down on my dress as a starling landed on the bower. Horatio watched interestedly. The starling eyed Horatio. I drank my gin and tonic.

The city was full of people who were working hard, and I wasn't one of them. It is a lovely feeling. I closed my eyes for a moment. Horatio climbed onto my knee and curled up into a loaf shape, paws folded under. We drifted off into a light doze.

When we woke someone was kneeling in front of us. I jumped and spilled the drink and Horatio, in keeping his balance, stuck a few claws into me. Every cat owner knows that this is not malicious. Which doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

'Sorry,' apologised the kneeling person. I blinked myself awake. Trout pool eyes looked into mine.

'Daniel? How did you get in?'

'I met one of your girls, the one with green hair, in the street. She let me in and said you were up here. What a lovely place,' he said.

'Isn't it? Would you like a drink? I've only got one gla.s.s,' I said.

'We can drink it sip for sip. You look very different in that gown,' said Daniel, sitting down beside me and holding the gla.s.s while I poured the gin.

'My ex brought it back from China. It's my favourite dress.'

'I can understand that.' Had he stiffened a little when I said 'ex' ? I poured tonic and offered him first sip. He accepted. He sipped very neatly. His chin and jowl were darkened. I wondered how often he shaved.

'I didn't realise you had such unusual eyes,' he said. 'That's the trouble with dawn, there are no colours. They're grey, really grey. Sea-grey eyes,' he said, handing me the gla.s.s. Our fingers met. I couldn't think of anything to say. His fingertips were calloused, as though he worked at a manual trade. I didn't know anything about him. But who cared? He began, 'Would you-' and just at that moment the starling dropped down to the gra.s.s, Horatio leapt off my knee and swiped at it and Mrs Pemberthy's b.l.o.o.d.y dog decided to join our little conversatione. The world was suddenly full of yapping (the dog), squawking (the starling), hissing (Horatio, who had quite lost his composure) and yelling (me and Mrs Pemberthy). It took some time to sort out the melee and after that the moment, if it was a moment, had pa.s.sed. We sat down again. Horatio washed. I refilled the gla.s.s. 'What brings you to Australia?' I asked lamely enough.

'I was born here,' he said, taking a healthy swig of the drink. 'I went back to Israel with my parents and joined the army, and then I came back here. I work on the Soup Run for fun. I've always been nocturnal.'

'Like Horatio,' I said, pointing out my fearless hunter, who was sitting with his back to us, was.h.i.+ng in a very thorough fas.h.i.+on. One got the impression that Horatio would have blushed, if he hadn't been a cat.

'Cats and lovers love the dark,' he said, which sounded like a proverb. 'What about you? You didn't start off as a baker, I can tell.'

'How can you tell?'

'Trade secret,' he grinned. He had very white teeth. I still didn't know anything about him.

'What trade?'

'That would be telling,' said Daniel. 'There, we've finished our drink. I'd better collect the bread and get going.'

'Start by collecting the cat,' I said, feeling frumpish and cross. Daniel went over to Horatio and said something, and Horatio climbed onto his shoulder and draped himself across the leather-clad neck. He looked like a very elaborate fur collar.

My apartment is called 'Hebe'. It shows a rather curvy girl in a slipping tunic pouring out nectar for a series of reclining G.o.ds. The builder decided that the shop apartments should be dedicated to the attendant G.o.ds. Thus we have the Pandamus family, who run the Cafe Delicious, living in Hestia, G.o.ddess of the hearth. The software company Nerds Inc live in Hephaestus, smith of the G.o.ds. And Meroe lives in-I swear- Leucothea, the white G.o.ddess, who is also called Hecate, Queen of Witches. She says it was Meant. With a capital letter. And it probably was.

I let Daniel in and went to my kitchen to fetch him the bag of bread. This was not how I had foreseen our next meeting. Also, I had stinging puncture wounds across my thighs from Horatio's abrupt take-off. That cat can accelerate upwards like a Harrier jump-jet. I sat down heavily. I folded back the silk to inspect my wounds and Daniel came in, soft footed, and caught me.

He contemplated my half-naked state, drew in a breath, and went into the bathroom. When he returned he sat down on his heels and smoothed anti-sting into each little puncture. It was one of the s.e.xiest things I had ever felt and I s.h.i.+vered.