Cooking the Books (5 page)

‘And then rewritten,’ agreed Gordon. ‘Oops, here she comes. Remember, smile, and tell her it’s all low-fat.’

They decamped. A tall woman, clad in a fluffy pink velour gown and a turban, had stalked in through the other door and now stood next to me. She loomed.

‘Isn’t breakfast ready yet?’ she demanded. Lovely voice. Beautiful face. Eyes like chips of sapphire, lips like rose petals. Pity about the manner. It would have been considered impolite in one of the Old Regime in Russia who was dealing with a serf.

‘Just coming,’ sang Tommy, appearing at my elbow. ‘Go through and we will be serving directly. And you, Corinna, aren’t those egg and bacon pies ready?’

‘You didn’t ask me for any,’ I responded.

‘Special order, little egg and bacon pies for our star, Ms Atkins.’

‘Low-fat,’ snarled the star, departing as requested in a flurry of baby pink. I waited until the door slammed.

‘Look, Tommy, you didn’t order them, and I haven’t made them,’ I said firmly.

‘I know, I know.’ Her face crumpled. ‘But make me some? Say six? She didn’t demand them until five and I didn’t have time. Besides, I can’t make pastry. Please? She’ll be bearable if she isn’t hungry.’

‘You’re pushing this friendship further than it will go,’ I warned, but went off, securing myself a cup of coffee, to find the eggs and make more pastry. After all, I was there to make pastry.

As I rolled and crimped I was conscious of curious glances from the room. The sandwich hands had completed their mound of wrapped comestibles and were starting their clean-up, which for some reason always involves retrieving tomato slices from the floor.

Everyone in a kitchen looks superficially alike: white cap, white coat. I stashed the egg and bacon pies in the oven. They ought to be delicious: free-range eggs and the best prosciutto. But definitely not low-fat, not with all that parma ham. As I started on the beef pies I considered my company.

Not a friendly kitchen. No one had greeted me or offered to show me where the coffee was. Efficient? There was no shouting, no clanging of dropped or thrown pots. Everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing, and to be doing it. Sandwiches were made, eggs were being fried, bacon crisped, tomatoes grilled, mushrooms seethed. Apparently we offered a full English breakfast, which was ambitious. My bread was being sliced and yesterday’s was being toasted. Someone was making a ratatouille; I could smell the eggplant cooking. The vegetarian option, no doubt. I missed one scent: garlic. Ratatouille needs garlic. Beef pies in the oven, I said as much to the chopper-and-slicer on the next bench, a tall thin pale cook who resembled a stick of celery. He giggled.

‘Not in this kitchen,’ he told me. ‘Hi! I’m Lance. They call me Lance the Lettuce Guy. We’re feeding actors. They spend all day breathing into each other’s faces. No garlic and precious few onions.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ I confessed. ‘Could certainly take the passion out of a love scene.’

‘Especially if it’s Ms Atkins,’ he whispered, using a piece of cucumber as cover. ‘She threw a pink fit one day because that poor camera guy was eating mints. She hates the smell of mint. Or so she says.’

‘She’s powerful?’

‘It’s all a merry round of “Who’s Queen?”. What she wants, she gets. She’s on a fearsome diet and demands low-fat everything but if it’s really low-fat she flings it away and says it has no taste. I’m glad I’m on salads. If she puts on a gram it’ll all be your fault, you watch.’

I began to wonder what I had got myself into. I could be sitting on my balcony right now, caressing a cat and drinking a G and T. Of course, I could do that when I had all the pies done.

So I got on with the pies.

As the first lot came out of the oven I slotted in the next lot. A servitor came to collect the special order for Ms Atkins. She was a thin nervous girl, rather pretty, with dark hair in a ponytail and no makeup. She reminded me of a trapped mouse I had once rescued from Horatio, who had no idea of what to do with it once he had cornered it. It had shivered under a crumpled bathmat, its little beady eyes bright with terror. It had not offered to bite when I picked it up and took it down to the street and let it go. I suddenly remembered its little trembling warmth in my palm as I gave the small pies to the girl with the warning that they were hot and it would not do for the star to burn her mouth. Her hands shook as she took the tray. Poor little mouse!

‘Emily,’ sympathised Lance the salad maker. ‘What a life!’

‘Ms Atkins’ assistant?’

‘Personal slave to a superbitch,’ said the salad maker’s mate. ‘Hi, I’m Kate.’

‘Corinna,’ I replied. ‘Why does she stay?’

‘She wants to be an actor,’ said Kate. ‘It’s an addiction, like wanting to be published or revealing your secret identity as Superman in Federation Square on a Sunday afternoon. A mania. Everyone wants to be an actor!’

‘Not me,’ I disclaimed.

‘Nor me.’ She passed a bowl of salad to a server outside the door. ‘Ms A is powerful. You must have seen her on TV.’

I confessed ignorance. Kate raised an eyebrow.

‘She’s been in every soap,’ she told me. ‘Ever since she was a child star. It’s what she does. Lately she’s been in a bit of a hiatus—surgery, you know.’ She grinned. ‘They must have pinned her eyelids to her ears. Something I’d love to do, by the way.’

‘So, you’ve given up your membership of her fan club?’ I asked.

Kate laughed, sounding surprised.

‘You’re all right! We thought you were a best girlfriend of the boss.’

‘Never,’ I said. ‘I’m here because of a nifty bit of blackmail and a lot of begging.’

‘She’s good at that,’ responded Kate. She went back to her salad and I went back to my pies.

They were turning out well. You never know with pastry. Mostly it obeys the laws of physics but sometimes it doesn’t. I glazed the apple pies—the last—and began to clean my pastry board. Several people smiled at me. The scents cleared now that all the food was out on the buffet, steaming in the bains-marie I had glimpsed outside the kitchen. There was a general sense of relief. Some people went past me to the outer door, presumably for a smoke. There was a step to sit on.

My feet were beginning to complain. Also my back. And my task was completed. I thought I had perhaps better say goodbye to Tommy before I stripped off my apron and removed the flour from my person, so I finished the cleaning and went walking.

I could not see her anywhere in the kitchen, so I shucked the apron and went out into the studio.

There was a crowd round the food, buzzing with conversation. Kylie and Goss spotted me immediately. Spines stiffened. Was I here to do the unforgivable adult thing and interfere? I waved a hand at them, trying to express ‘This wasn’t my idea’. Nice-looking people surrounded me. Beautiful people. One young man turned and gave me a smile which would have made a seraph envious.

‘Hello, you’re new!’

‘I’m just your baker,’ I said, dazzled. Such perfection! Hyacinthine curls in ebony, swarthy skin, white teeth. A dimple. Of course.

‘I’m Harrison,’ he announced. ‘If you made this bread, you’re as good a baker as I am an actor.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, not sure how to take this.

‘Couldn’t you just take him home and cuddle him all night?’ asked another young man wearily. ‘Stop harassing the help, Harry, or I’ll film you exclusively left profile.’

‘Ethan! You wouldn’t!’ exclaimed Harrison.

‘You watch me,’ threatened Ethan. ‘Any more of that scrambled egg left? Grab it before the crew eats it all,’ he advised.

Harrison uttered a famished squeak and dived back into the pack. Ethan grinned. He was large and mid brown and looked calm, which would be an asset on a film set, I was beginning to realise. He rested his plate on a plastic-enshrouded table and fished a small bottle from his pocket.

‘Spice it up a bit,’ he explained, waving the bottle in my direction. My nose wrinkled.

‘Chilli oil?’ I asked.

‘Ms Superstar hates hot food,’ he explained. ‘I like a bit of heat. So I bring my own. Nice to meet you.’ He looked past me at Ms Mouse, poor thing, bearing a cup of hot coffee towards one of the little cubicles marked dressing rooms. His face softened. Serious interest there, I thought, or maybe just sympathy. Ms Mouse could do worse than repose on that manly bosom.

My curiosity was piqued. What an interesting collection of people! Kylie and Goss slid through the crowd and grabbed me, an arm each.

‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Kylie. ‘You’re not checking up on us, are you?’

‘No, I’m baking pies,’ I said. Their long fingernails were digging into my skin. They looked like small predatory birds. ‘Really. Tommy’s an old school friend and I owe her a favour and the pastry chef has broken her leg.’

‘Oh yeah, I heard about that.’ Kylie released me.

‘So did I.’ Goss released me. ‘Well, all right then.’

‘I’m just looking for her so that I can leave,’ I added. They both relaxed. Then I made a tactical error. ‘Did you get some breakfast? The food looks good.’

‘We don’t eat breakfast,’ said Kylie.

‘Not when we’re working,’ added Goss.

And they stalked haughtily away. Oh well. Suddenly, I missed Jason, a handy and reliable appetite. And it was time I left.

Then something occurred which was quite unacceptable to any civilised mind. Savage. Brutal. The door of one of the cubicles was open, and I heard a voice insisting, ‘No, you eat one first.’ Which was overlaid on a frantic protest of: ‘No, I can’t, you know I’m gluten intolerant! Please, Ms Atkins, don’t make me!’

Through the opening I saw Ms Atkins standing over her assistant and forcing one of the little pies—my pies—into her mouth. I was reminded of me giving pills to a cat. Cats are not cooperative when it comes to medication. The struggle involves towels, bandaids, Betadine and pain. This one was unlikely to require iodine but otherwise was similar. I was shocked. Poor Emily was recoiling in fear and no baker can stand seeing someone reduced to revulsion by their works of art.

‘I’ll eat one,’ I volunteered boldly. What if Tommy sacked me? I didn’t want this job anyway. I heard an intake of breath behind me. But I walked in and took the pie out of the long-nailed hand and munched it up. ‘Delicious,’ I announced. It was, too.

There was a moment of perfect silence. Then Molly Atkins began to laugh. She had a lovely, rich laugh. The audience laughed as well, out of sheer relief. Emily made her escape. Then Ms Atkins sat down in her chair and began to eat her breakfast and I turned away, and ran straight into the arms of a stocky woman, who shook me by the shoulders.

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she said admiringly. ‘Who are you?’

‘Corinna Chapman, the baker—those were my pies. Who are you?’

‘Tash,’ she said. ‘I’m the director. Thank you. I never like to start the day with a nice tantrum.’

She was taller than me, a stalwart figure in blue jeans and a saggy T shirt. Her hair was plaited in two long braids over her shoulders. She had frank blue eyes and really only needed a straw to chew to complete the picture of a wholesome country girl, dreaming of rustic pursuits and hayfields and able to carry a pig under each arm. I liked her immediately. She let me go and turned to the attendant crowd, who were still giggling.

‘Ten minutes,’ she announced.

They scattered. I found Tommy and bade her farewell, and walked home up the tram route, anxious to get back to Earthly Delights and my preordained date with a gin and tonic.

This, however, was not to be. As I rounded the corner into my own street I saw Daniel, comforting a young woman who was crying like a fountain. This must be his intern client. What to do? Should I invite her up to my apartment? I didn’t want to do that. Start inviting Daniel’s clients to my own house and there would be deserving cases sleeping on the floor. And Horatio would object.

I waved a hand towards the little umbrellas outside Heavenly Pleasures, which had just opened again. This is an expensive gourmet chocolate shop and a state of emotional collapse called for strong measures, i.e. a Heavenly Pleasures hot chocolate. Not to be even contemplated by those of a diabetic disposition, it is so thick as to be almost solid. In homage to the proprietor’s Belgian ancestry, it is accompanied with a dollop of whipped cream, sprinkled with cinnamon. I ration myself to one a week. It soothes the soul.

And this poor girl had a soul evidently troubled enough for several vats of chocolate. Daniel introduced her as ‘Lena’ and she gave me a damp little paw to shake. I seemed to be surrounded by maidens in distress lately. As we waited for our chocolate I examined the client.

Fat girl. Unhappy about it. This was evidenced by the straining seams of her charcoal jacket and skirt. Women who know and have accepted their magnificent fleshliness buy or make clothes which are roomy, even loose. Those still convinced that a crash diet will reduce their waistline to a size 14 will stuff themselves into a size too small and be uncomfortable. And wear black because they think it makes them look thinner. Which it doesn’t. She had olive skin and dark eyes and long black shiny hair in a bun. Indian, perhaps?

She stopped crying and dried her face and sipped at the drink when it came. I did too. It was wonderful. If I was concocting a last meal this chocolate would have to be part of it. After a few cups, one wouldn’t mind being executed so much. Serenity in a cup.