Devil's Food (19 page)

‘Nice book,’ added the Professor as we got up. ‘Would have been expensive. By the way, have you made any progress with the herbs smuggled in the Fair Trade goods?’

‘No,’ said Daniel. ‘Not yet. I’ve told Jon what to do next time a shipment comes in. We’ll have to wait until then.’

‘A trap?’

‘Sort of,’ said Daniel. ‘Thanks, Professor.’

‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Say goodbye, Nox.’

Nox blinked as we went out. That cat had fallen squarely on her paws. I wondered if she was a reincarnation of someone. Karmically, she was doing well.

I shook off the occult nonsense. A note from Therese Webb under my door had asked me to call on her. Now was as good a time as any. I left Daniel at my apartment and went up to Arachne, bearing the relics of my father and expecting unpleasantness. I was not to be disappointed.

Both of them were engaged in stitching a huge tapestry. I have always thought that those who do tapestries are to be commended. The same stitch, all over a metre of canvas, varied only by colour. To me it spells hard work. This one depicted a rather smug unicorn touching noses with a winged horse. Definitely not to my taste, but difficult to make, in very fine pastel shades. Starshine was plonking her needle in and out with a martyred expression. Therese was stitching almost without looking, and talking over the music: a sugary collection of crooners. I’m sure I heard Perry Como. As long as he wasn’t singing ‘White Christmas’ — one reason I did my Christmas shopping in July — I had no objection to Perry.

‘We’ll just finish this little bit, dear,’ said Therese. ‘Have a look around, and put the kettle on when you pass the kitchen. Jasmine tea, please, no milk or sugar.’

The apartment was laid out just as the Prof ’s was: two bedrooms, a dining room and parlour behind them, and a kitchen and bathroom at the back. Arachne had a front balcony, presently devoid of the plants and furniture which made mine such a nice place to sit in the evening. I was sure that fairly soon Trudi would be knocking on the door with some of her indestructible green frondy things and a choice of pots.

Therese had set up her looms in the dining room, pushing the furniture back against the walls. A wide stripe of very strong purple was wound around the end of the loom, and piled everywhere were fascinating things: rainbow coloured wool, boxes of threads, packets of needles, scissors, shears, knitting needles of every calibre, stacks of stretched canvas pictures and strange wooden things for measuring the length of a skein which looked like they would be valuable in some form of needlework martial art. And everywhere was hung or draped or placed the fruits of Therese Webb’s hands: embroidery of every form, hardanger, candlewick, crewel, latch-hook, point, both petit and gros, bobbin lace, pillow lace, crochet, tatting, knitting … it was overwhelming.

I dragged my eyes away from a wonderful poncho in blue and silver, made of some feathery acrylic thread, and got to the kitchen. I found the kettle and put it on, located the teapot under a tea-cosy with little dancing teacups on it, and then had the oddest feeling I was being watched.

I looked around. Being a cat owner, I first examined the floor then looked at the high shelves, to where cats have been known to ascend in order to give people early morning heart attacks. Nothing but the usual things found on high shelves in kitchens: old gadgets of unknown utility, the juicer which seemed like a good investment until you tried to clean all the bits, the blender which you never quite managed to reassemble despite the clear instructions translated from Finnish into Japanese and then into English by a Guatemalan monoglot. Three unmatched canisters, five cake tins, and eleven pretty jars which you can’t bear to throw away — besides, you might make jam someday.

No eyes. I found the jasmine tea, made the brew and assembled three cups on a decoupage tray depicting Brueghel peasants at play. Still that strong feeling of being observed. I swung around and found that a small dog, sitting on a tasselled silk cushion in the dumb waiter, was examining me critically.

Insula was originally a fully serviced apartment house, which meant that it provided meals and drinks from the kitchen in the basement. These were sent up by dumb waiter. I didn’t use mine for anything. Therese’s dog had found it a perfect observation point. Therese had set a chair under the dumb waiter and the animal now demonstrated how his ladder worked by hopping down with perfect aplomb.

I am sure that my views on small dogs have been made clear, but this creature was as far removed from Mrs Pemberthy’s rotten little doggie Traddles as George Bush is from the truth, justice, mercy and democracy. He was the sort of dog an embroiderer ought to have, all soft fur and rich colours. He came to my feet, sniffed pointedly, then sat down. I knelt. He accepted my hand, lowered his silky head to allow me to scratch behind his ears, then led the way into the parlour, where the stitchers were coming to the end of their row.

‘Oh, you’ve met Carolus,’ said Therese. ‘He’s a King Charles spaniel, of course, isn’t he beautiful? I’ve got a rush order on that unicorn tapestry. Have to keep up with the orders, someone’s undercutting us. Time was I could get two hundred dollars for a finished work that size, but someone’s doing them at one fifty and I have to match the prices. If I knew who it was I’d put one of Meroe’s curses on them. They must be using slave labour! Just clear some of those books off that little table, Corinna, and I think we all deserve a biscuit. And Carolus will have a dog choc,’ she said, taking the big tapestry off their laps and stowing it behind the couch. She came back with a packet of oatmeal biscuits for the humans and a dog treat for Carolus. He inclined his head a little and accepted it with royal condescension.

‘Don’t you sometimes feel that you have to live up to him?’ I asked, fascinated.

‘Oh yes, dear,’ said Therese. ‘He has very high standards.’

‘Nonsense,’ said my mother.

I had been avoiding even looking at her, which was silly. I looked. She had improved. Her hair was washed, combed and plaited. She was clean and clothed in a very superior form of tracksuit, embroidered with Jacobean designs. She seemed to have gained a little weight and some of the crazed lines had smoothed out of her face.

‘Now, Jacqui,’ soothed Therese, ‘we’ve talked about this. What I want to believe about my dog is my business, yes?’

‘Yes,’ muttered my mother. I looked at Carolus. He was far too well bred to snarl but the royal lip lifted a little, showing a flash of white canine tooth. I might have to revise my views on the canine race on deeper acquaintance with Carolus.

‘Have some tea,’ said Therese. ‘I’ll be mother, shall I?’

I sipped from the small handpainted cup. It had gold fish on it. The tea was very good.

‘Well?’ asked my mother sharply. ‘Have you found him?’

‘Still looking,’ I said. ‘He’s moving fast. He encountered some nasty people who threw him in the river, but he survived after a night in hospital and then I believe he went to the Salvos. I’ll find out more from Sister Mary tonight. She knows everyone. I’ve brought everything we found,’ I said, handing over the bundle of cleaned and dried blankets and clothes and the personal papers. Starshine clawed them out of my hands and examined them frantically, ripping the bundle apart.

‘They’re his,’ she told me fiercely. ‘I must have him back. You don’t know what it’s like. We were two halves of the one fruit, close around the stone. Even when we … parted over the matter of the flesh, we were still mind to mind, heart to heart. He’s half of me, more than half of me, the better half, the calm half, the half that laughs and knows joy. Without him I am all hag, black dark, weeping alone, snarling, scratching, hurting. I need him.
I need him
.’

‘I know,’ I said, moved by her words. She at least partly knew how corrosive her presence was, how unsociable she was.

‘Why haven’t you found him?’ she cried.

‘He doesn’t want to be found,’ I explained.

‘You aren’t trying!’ she shrieked. ‘You never forgave us for bearing you!’

‘No,’ I said, stung. ‘I never regretted being alive. And Grandma rescued me before you could kill me by neglect. I don’t even really remember being with you, except that I was always cold.’

‘Lies!’ screamed Starshine.

Carolus jumped down from the couch and removed himself into the kitchen. He did not like emotional scenes. I wished I could go with him. Oddly enough — perhaps because I was older, perhaps because for the first time in my life I was happy — I wasn’t angry with my mother anymore. She struck me as sad and pathetic and annoying, but I wasn’t angry. I was so surprised by my reaction that I sat there with my mouth open while she screamed at me.

Then I put both hands on hers and leaned forward.

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘No, I’m not lying. Calm down, Jacqui. I’m not angry with you anymore. I used to be but now I’m not. I’m trying to find Sunlight for you. Calm,’ I suggested. ‘Drink some more tea and have a biscuit and I’ll have one too.’

‘Desperate to stay fat?’ she sneered, shaking off my touch. This had always worked in the past. Now it wasn’t going to. It meant precisely as much to me as those bumper stickers which said No Fat Chicks. Less, in fact, because I always thought fleetingly of smashing the windscreen of a car bearing that sort of sticker. ‘You’ll die young, you know,’ she continued. ‘You’ll get high blood pressure and diabetes.’

‘No I won’t,’ I said, taking a biscuit and crunching it. ‘Latest research says the big risk factor is stress. And going on fad diets. I don’t do fad diets. I’m horribly healthy. I can get through a day’s work that would cripple a cart horse. Give it up, Jacqui. Let’s be acquaintances, if we can’t be friends,’ I said, stretching out a hand. ‘We might even begin to like each other.’

For a moment I almost thought it was going to work. But she dropped the cup and started to cry that I was cruel and everyone hated her, and I finished my biscuit and got up to leave.

‘You did well,’ said Therese over Jacqui’s bent head. ‘Give it a couple of days and try again,’ she advised. I nodded and let myself out on a long drawn breath. Well.

I had had the confrontation and I had come through it almost unscathed.

Elated, I ran down the stairs to Daniel. Half of me. The best half of me? No. Sweet man, dear lover, close as a garment or a skin, but still distant enough to surprise. And waiting for me just downstairs. I was a very fortunate woman.

The man who was becoming a murderer had lost his ability to switch off the dreams. They began to print themselves over his waking eyes. Even white sunlight was tinged with red and a sunset looked like a massacre.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Daniel and I stayed in bed so long after my elated descent from Arachne that we just had time to make a very hasty dinner of garlic, tomato and cheese bruschetta and soup before it was time to pick up the Soup Run.

‘Try not to breathe on anyone,’ I said to Daniel as we dressed for the night; jeans, boots, jumpers, and the wadded silk jacket that Jon had bought me in Shanghai. It is the warmest thing I own, and the lightest.

‘I only want to breathe on you,’ he responded, kissing me with such fervour that my knees became unreliable. I was magnetically attracted to his body; it took all my willpower not to tear the clothes off him again. He felt the same and pushed me gently away.

‘Oof,’ he said. I agreed.

‘For God’s sake put that jacket on and let’s go or I won’t be able to restrain myself,’ I told him.

He removed his hand from the nape of my neck, which felt instantly cold without his warmth. ‘Grab the bread. Did we feed the cat?’

‘Yes,’ I told him as we edged ourselves out of the door and down the stairs. ‘Is this sort of thing usual?’

‘Outbreaks of sustained, unbridled passion?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know. Never happened to me before. Hope it happens again,’ he added. ‘Let me take the bread.’

I surrendered the sack. Just along the lane we came upon the Soup Run bus, with a diminutive nun hopping down from the driver’s seat.

‘You’ll have to put the seat back, Daniel dear,’ she said to him. ‘I was practically standing on the pedals. Hello, Corinna, God bless you! Gina’s our legal advice tonight. I think you’ve met before.’

Gina grinned. She had run a free legal service all on her own for years, and then gravitated to private practice. The Soup Run kept her social conscience in check. She had iron grey hair and a stout, restrained figure. And a cheeky grin like a small, bad schoolboy. I liked her very much.

‘This is our nurse for tonight, Doctor Damien,’ Sister Mary said, introducing us. ‘He’s just back from a stint with Médecins Sans Frontières in the Sudan.’

‘Nice and quiet here,’ he told me, a thin young man with haunted brown eyes. ‘No shooting. I’ve been invalided back but I like to keep my hand in, so Sister Mary lets me ride along one night a week.’

‘What was the problem?’ I asked, handing up the bag of bread to Suzanna, the other kitchen hand. She is vivacious and Spanish and has the sort of smile Velasquez used to paint. And the most beautiful dark blue eyes — one of those Irish soldiers, I suspected, during the Peninsular war, successfully applied the blarney to one of Suzanna’s ancestors.