Trick or Treat (9 page)

‘I’ll go and see them this afternoon,’ I promised. She had extorted extra gardening fees from us for those tulips, and promised they would be superb. I don’t think they would have dared be otherwise. If Trudi tells something to grow, it grows.

‘Bad cat,’ she said to Lucifer, who had rolled into a tangled ball with one paw waving insouciantly out of the mass of tethers. ‘I tell you already, no fish, I give you fish in your dinner! Not these ones!’

I left her to unravel the kitten and went on my way, refreshed. There was something fundamental about Lucifer which was very charming. He was a cat with no nuances. If it moved, he either chased it or chewed it or ate it or slept on it.

Best Fresh was located just beyond Heavenly Pleasures in Flinders Lane. It had been an old tailor’s shop and someone had gutted it and built a new shopfront in place of the old workshop. It was pinker than one could have wished but certainly clean and shiny, with several small iron tables and chairs and a long counter, behind which one could see into the bakery. I looked at their prices and sighed. I could not match them even operating at a serious loss. Two muffins for two dollars! Mine cost eighty-five cents to make and I sold them at five dollars each. They were, of course, superior muffins, made by the Muffin Mage, but for one of mine you could get three of Best Fresh. I leaned the basket on the counter and a bored blonde girl in a pink uniform, nametag Janelle, said, ‘Can I help you?’ through a mouthful of chewing gum.

I bought a loaf of white pane di casa, a selection of rolls and three different muffins. This did not come to much. I surveyed the action in the bakery, which seemed to consist of one working mixer and one spotty youth putting trays of rolls into a new electric oven. I could not see anyone who looked like the boss. They had a list of their products and I took one and fought off a lacklustre attempt by the girl to enlist me in a loyalty program. Hypocrisy can only go so far.

I was in the street when someone said, ‘You’re buying Best Fresh?’

I turned swiftly and it was Meroe. I put a finger to my lips.

‘Shh, I’m undercover.’

‘Come to Pandamus for a cup of chakra-tarnishing caffeine?’ she suggested.

This was so unusual that I agreed and we fell into step.

‘Anything bothering you?’ I asked as delicately as possible.

‘No more than you, my dear, with Georgiana and Best Fresh on your plate. I’ve got witches.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I wasn’t going to ask how she knew about Georgie and Best Fresh. Meroe always knows. She and the Delphic Oracle would have had a lot in common if they’d sat down for a cup of ouzo and a chat about prophecy. ‘That’s because you’re a witch.’

‘I’m a solitary,’ she told me. ‘I don’t belong to a coven. And the reason I don’t belong to a coven is...’

‘You don’t like other witches?’

She drew in a quick breath, was about to deny it, then laughed. ‘Well, yes. And they are all here in Melbourne for the Hallowe’en festival. We call it Samhain. The feast of the dead. It’s Melbourne’s turn to hold it this year.’

‘And you are organising it?’

She halted suddenly and I ran into her.

‘Goddess, no! I’m just on the edge. I don’t like large groups of people. I only had to find someone to make the soaling cakes for my group, and I found you and Jason so that’s all right. We shall certainly have the best cakes of the festival. No, it’s some of the people. They are having a working

every night.’

‘Why is that a problem?’

She waved her beautiful hands. ‘There’s... too much magic around,’ she tried to explain. ‘Magic isn’t like oxygen, you can have too much of it. It’s interfering with my perceptions. And...I don’t trust some of these New Age practitioners.’

‘Too vague?’ I asked, as we came in through the doorway of Cafe Delicious and found ourselves a pair of seats. Del insists on broad-bottomed cane chairs for his broad-bottomed clientele, for which we thank him.

‘Too ambitious,’ said Meroe darkly. ‘These ones are convinced that they have found treasure.’

‘Yeah, right,’ I said scornfully. ‘The mahogany ship, is it?’

‘Funny you should say that,’ said Meroe. ‘Hello, Del, can we have
cafe hellenico metriou
, please, and maybe... what’s the special today?’

‘Yai Yai had to go to see Mrs Pappas,’ said Del darkly. ‘Katya’s cooking. We got goulash and we got veggie soup with pebbles. What you want?’

‘Pebbles,’ said Meroe.

‘Goulash,’ I said. I wasn’t going to pass up Katya’s goulash, which was wonderful. It had to include, she’d told me, a stolen ingredient in order to be authentic. She stole her rosemary from the gardens on the way to work. A neat solution. Then I realised that Yai Yai’s Mrs Pappas was the woman who looked after Old Spiro. ‘Wait, Del, is Mrs Pappas all right?’

‘She’s a good woman,’ Del told me.

‘I know,’ I said, surprised. ‘Why, what’s wrong with her?’

‘That old man, that old Spiro, he’s dead.’ Del distributed plates and cutlery to our table like a man dealing cards. ‘Kyria Pappas, she upset. She look after him a long time.’

‘Dead?’ I repeated.

‘And good riddance, him,’ growled Del. ‘But bad death like bad life.’

‘Why, how did he die?’

‘Choke,’ said Del, making a far-too-realistic noise to illustrate. ‘Yai Yai, she says he ate her baklava that she put a curse on. You say it in Australian, that curse.’

‘Hope it chokes you?’ I quoted. Del nodded. He bellowed to the daughter behind the counter to send us some lunch and went to make coffee. He is happy to allow his son to make that wishy-washy inferior espresso coffee with the Gaggia. But he makes the Greek coffee himself, as is proper for the host.

Meroe and I looked at each other.

‘You, clearly, have things to tell,’ she informed me.

‘And you too.’

‘After lunch,’ she said.

Without asking, Del gave us a small heavy glass of red wine each. Meroe accepted a big white bowl of vegetable soup with the tiny fluffy noodles,
knödlen
, which Del calls pebbles. I ate my goulash, rich, fragrant and heavy, in small mouthfuls while I considered what Del had said. Choked to death. If Old Spiro’s story was important, then Daniel had heard the very last account of it. I tore off a piece of my own pane di casa and mopped up garlicky paprika-flavoured sauce. Treasure-hunting witches and treasonous old men. What a world.

Still, it had goulash in it.

I returned to Meroe’s shop with the proprietor. The Sibyl’s Cave is very small and crammed with whatever the working witch might need for any spell except those nasty voodoo ones involving dolls, which Meroe does not stock. Her view is that anyone who wants to cast that sort of spell can make their own
poupée
and overload their own karma without her assistance. It’s not that she doesn’t know how to curse, or objects to cursing if the reason is a virtuous one. She just doesn’t like using dolls. I mentioned Mrs Pappas’s curses as I was telling her about the death of Old Spiro.

‘Oh, they’re good,’ she said admiringly, stroking her night-black cat Belladonna, who was occupying the arm of her big chair and looking inscrutable, a thing which black cats can do without even trying. ‘Fine, strong, ancient curses, those.’

‘Yes, and they seem to have worked,’ I commented. ‘If he choked before the priest got there to absolve him, he has gone to hell.’

‘Seems an appropriate destination,’ murmured my witch. ‘He’ll like the company. Must be stuffed with Nazis by now.

7
3

They’ll be having Bund meetings and trying to oust Satan by

putsch. Which won’t work,’ she added.

‘Which is why it is hell,’ I agreed.

Bella purred and angled her chin for a scratch. I brushed aside the hanging shells of a charm to attract maritime luck and said, ‘Well, that’s it. What do you make of it?’

‘Georgiana or the Old Spiro story?’

‘Both. Either. I feel...hurt.’

‘That’s men for you,’ sighed Meroe. ‘I sometimes believe that is what they were designed for. I question the wisdom of the Goddess, but perhaps she was distracted that day. He doesn’t sound infatuated with this Georgie.’

‘But she definitely has designs on him,’ I objected. ‘She would love to steal him from me.’

‘Corinna, Corinna, one can’t steal a person,’ she chided me. ‘Not unless they want to be stolen. People can be seduced only if they are seducible. If that is a word. You had no reason to doubt Daniel’s love before Georgie turned up. You have no reason now. This other matter has clearly upset him. I’d leave it for a few days and see how he recovers. He must have got a severe shock.’

‘He did,’ I concurred.

‘Well, then. People under stress behave badly, it’s an axiom of witchcraft.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said, conscious of sounding like Jason. ‘All right, then, what about your glut of witches?’

Meroe rubbed her hands over her face. Belladonna gave her a cool, pitying look and butted the witch’s wrist with her nose.

‘Yes, Bella, it is silly of me,’ she confessed to the cat. ‘But I don’t like these rituals. It’s not that they follow the left hand path deliberately, you understand, but they are...’

‘Greyish?’ I suggested.

‘Grey,’ she agreed. ‘Tending to darkness. Perhaps it is just their pursuit of worldly wealth that bothers me. Corinna, do me a favour? Come with me tonight. They are having a work
ing on Williamstown beach. I’d really value an uninvolved opinion.’

‘Does this mean I have to take off all my clothes in public?’ I demanded with deep suspicion.

‘No. Only the practitioners will be skyclad. You just have to wear blue and stay silent.’

‘I can do that,’ I said. A night’s sleep was something I cherished, but I could sacrifice it for my friend Meroe, who really was worried. And in any case, Daniel was not going to be in my bed. Which might make it far too empty for sleep.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Be blessed! I’ll meet you in the atrium at eleven thirty. Wear blue or black, no jewellery or metal, seashells if you have any.’

I patted Belladonna, kissed Meroe on the cheek and fought my way out of the Sibyl’s Cave, ducking under the hanging chimes and amulets in a jangle of sweet sounds. The Tibetan soul-changing bells over the door always got me, as they did anyone over one metre high, and their strange sound, which seemed to contain its own echo, accompanied me into the lane.

Back to Earthly Delights, where Jason and Kylie were holding the fort. The day had proceeded well. Most of the sweet things were gone. Jason was beginning the cleaning. Kylie was loading the remaining loaves into the racks and counting up the unsold.

‘Not bad,’ she told me. ‘Like, Corinna, we nearly sold out of all the muffins and the little cakes. Only eight loaves left.’

‘Good,’ I encouraged. ‘You can take the banking on the way out. Jason? I’m going out with Meroe tonight so I need a nap. Can you factor in more muffins and cakes for tomorrow?’

‘Aye, aye, sir!’ he said. ‘Need to buy more ingredients. Sir!’ ‘Take a fifty out of my purse,’ I told him, paying Kylie from the till. ‘Then can I get him some new overalls?’ asked Kylie. ‘And some other clothes?’ ‘Yes, provided that you don’t overspend,’ I told her. ‘Jason has to buy his own casual clothes and he doesn’t earn much.’ ‘Because you don’t pay me much, sir!’ came the voice from the bakery, accompanied by a clanging of buckets. ‘Quite right, Midshipman Jason!’ I called back. ‘Any time you want to renegotiate, say the word.’ ‘No problem here,’ he replied hastily. Cheeky boy. Kylie giggled. ‘Just a shirt, I thought, like, a good shirt, and maybe one of those...I don’t know, though, maybe Goss’ll come too.’ She demonstrated indecision by standing on one foot. ‘Just return Jason in good condition in time to do the baking,’ I said and left them.

I had meant what I said about a nap, but when I laid myself down, I couldn’t sleep. Do not drink
cafe hellenico
if you want to close an eye any time soon, I knew that. After half an hour I got up and took Horatio with me to the roof garden. We sat contemplating tulips and drinking a gin and bitter lemon. I felt that it matched my mood better than the usual tonic.

The tulips were superb. They were scarlet and yellow, strong and upright. Some were splashed with red and white. Some were smooth, some ragged. Splendid. However, one can only spend a certain amount of time staring at tulips and I had spent it. The rest of the garden was blooming with spring flowers, the last of the freesias, the blossom on the linden tree, the profusion of those little mauve stars. The ground was watered by the ingenious recycling system which the original builder had installed, along with his waste-heat-dump temple of Ceres and his air-moisturising impluvium. Those old Romans knew about houses. Apparently they knew about steam, too, but they didn’t need it, what with a thousand slaves ready to leap to it on command. Wondering what the world would have been like if the steam train had been invented two thousand years ago, I drifted off into a pleasant daydream.

Horatio woke me an hour later. It was time for his nap. I went down to my apartment and found a letter on the floor. It had evidently been pushed under the door. I opened it, not without trepidation. The last anonymous missive I had received had threatened to kill me. But this was written in pacific blue ink and just said ‘
Sweet Corinna, how I love you
’. And that was a nice thought, too. I folded the half sheet of plain white paper and put it on my desk. I had a secret admirer. How very encouraging.

There being no prospect of sleep while the Greek coffee was working in my veins, I decided to give the apartment a good clean. After I had got out the bucket and the mop and the cleaning fluids, I decided against it, put them away again and sat down on my couch with my Jade Forrester and three Heavenly Pleasures chocolates. There are days when you need ferocious action, and there are days when you need a new detective story and a chocolate. Today the chocolates won.

I did manage to get five hours’ sleep before the alarm went off and I rose to find some blue clothes, farewell Horatio and join Meroe in the atrium. She surveyed me carefully. I had left off my watch and was dressed simply in a dark blue tracksuit and backpack. She wore her usual black with a marvellous blue wrap, almost indigo shot through with paler tendrils like seaweed. She was carrying a large bag stuffed with I know not what which clanked slightly when she moved.