Earthly Delights (12 page)

‘And alarmed,’ I agreed. ‘But I need your advice on a far graver matter.’

‘Which is?’ she arched an eyebrow.

‘What am I going to wear to dine at the Venetia tonight?’ I wailed.

Having someone else sort through your wardrobe is always humiliating. She will find, for instance, your Robert Smith t-shirt, the three pairs of jeans with holes in the crotch, the lime green dress you unwisely thought might look less ghastly in sunlight, the red jacket which doesn’t fit anymore but is nevertheless the very jacket in which you began university, the shabby black you wore during a brief period of being cool, and the buttonless, zipperless, damaged clothing which lurks pathetically in the basket for me to have a sewing binge. Which I do every six months or so.

But Meroe was in a mellow mood and in any case not one of fashion’s most notable victims. She sorted out a pair of respectable black trousers and flat black leather slippers, a kurta, still in its packet, which my mother had sent me for Solstice, and an outrageous purple chiffon wrap (with sequins) which I had found at an op shop and had meant to make into a cushion cover. I protested at the combination, but Meroe just told me to try it all on and it looked—well. It looked chic. I am not used to being chic. The Indian shirt was soft black cotton, not too hot, and it hung loosely over the trousers. It was a combination I would never have come up with in a thousand years.

But Meroe was not finished yet. She found me small silver earrings and dragged my hair up into a very sophisticated knot, secured with a silver slide which someone had brought back from Greece. Then she painted my face, very swiftly and surely, with such cosmetics as I had, and my eyes were dramatic and my mouth was purple and, really, I felt like Mistress Dread, someone masquerading as someone else. But it was perfect.

‘You’ve done this before,’ I accused.

‘Four younger sisters,’ she admitted. ‘Are you going to make a night of this dinner date?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘What, with James? You jest. I will be back by about ten.’

‘I must go home, Bella will be fretting,’ she said. ‘You look lovely! Ring me when you get in. I think we had all better take more care of each other.’

‘Even Mrs Pemberthy?’ I asked.

‘Her too,’ said my witch, and told me to lock the door after her. And I did.

Then, since housework was out of the question in my beautiful clothes, I read some more Jade Forrester until it was
time to gather my bits and start walking towards the Venetia. James was the most unpunctual person I knew, in personal matters (he never missed a conference or a client), but I liked being early. I have observed that those who consider that ten minutes is enough time to get across Munich and catch the train for Italy and those who know all the neighbourhood dogs because they spend so much time walking around the block, having arrived an hour early, always marry each other. It must be some sort of cosmic joke.

The city was waking up for the weekend as I walked at an even pace, hands in pockets, towards the bulk of the Town Hall and along Swanston Street, before turning uphill. Unlike, say, Sydney, where the only flat spaces are on railway station platforms and cafe tables, Melbourne has one hill, but it’s quite steep. I prefer to stroll slowly, pausing to take in the view and remark on the passers-by, rather than rush up it and miss the beautiful buildings. Also, I was not going to arrive at the Venetia out of breath. It was a balmy evening. My clothes felt comfortable. The leather slippers moulded to my feet. The kurta was loose and did not catch under the arms. And my chiffon wrap was a hit. Several passing people looked at it and one undeniable punk, green mohawk erect in display like a cockatoo, said, ‘Cool!’

Also, I was finding Insula uncomfortable, what with having our very own madman, and it was nice to be out. I hadn’t been out on a Saturday night for years and now I had two dates. One, admittedly, was with an unpleasant person but the food would be good, and I could prepare myself for the Soup Run when I got home, dined and, with any luck, wined. Unless James had entirely changed his spots.

That didn’t seem likely. I paused to look in the window of an excellent bookshop and checked my watch. On the dot.
I squared my shoulders and mounted the stairs to the
piano nobile
, where I would find the Grand Dining Room of the Venetia. Where, in all probability, I would be snubbed by a head waiter and spend the next half-hour crumbling bread and drinking water, if James was on form. I was all prepared for both of these things—I had my Jade Forrester in my bag and my icy stare in stock—so I was surprised to find the head waiter very polite and James already seated, glaring at a menu as though it had done him an injury.

He gave a start as I came into view. ‘Corinna!’ he said. ‘You look … you look very good, really very tasty,’ he said as the head waiter seated me. I looked at James. I had slept next to him for years. I knew exactly how to stop him snoring (though my last resort, decapitation, had never been used). I knew what he ate for breakfast. Or at least, I had known. Now he looked like a stranger, and a not very attractive stranger at that. He was always a tall stringy ex-basketball player. Now he had filled out more than a bit. The tailoring was straining over his corporation and he had lost a lot of hair. Also there were dark shadows under his eyes and a little tic by his upper lip. The suit would have cost thousands and I bet the shoes would be equally pricey, but this was not a happy or contented man.

‘Nice to see you, thank you for coming,’ he said with the studied insincerity of the merchant banker on the make. ‘So baking suits you,’ he commented.

‘And how are Yvonne and the baby?’ I asked. He puffed out his chest so far that it almost preceded his stomach. At any moment he was going to produce baby pictures. Poor James, I thought, as he fumbled for his wallet. I really did take you out of your comfort zone, didn’t I? Me with my weird parents, and us not being either Dharma or Greg. I dutifully inspected
the sheaf of pictures. Nice baby. Looked like Winston Churchill, which is what all babies look like to me. Nice wife, wearing—I swear—an identical blue ruffled apron. I must have left it behind when I walked out. Good call, Corinna.

The waiter came with another menu for me. It was roughly the size of a small tablecloth and contained enough food to feed Baghdad. I gave it back with a sweet smile.

‘You order,’ I told James. I had no idea what any of the Italian names meant and a show of deference might get James to tell me what he wanted with more ease and less personal abuse, to which he always resorted when I disagreed with any of his plans. He didn’t call it personal abuse. He called it a robust discussion. And, at that point, I always called it off.

James and the waiter went into conclave. Terms like tortellini and bottarga and involtini were tossed and caught. I was very tempted to read my book but I was being polite so I looked around.

The Venetia was an old restaurant. Families occupied most of the big tables. It was such an institution that grandparents were dining with their grandchildren, all of whom had once cowered under the severe eye of that apostolic maitre d’ and his shining glasses. The tables were crowned with snowy linen, all the cutlery was heavy silver, and a man going past with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher proved just to be a functionary with a pepper grinder.

The walls had been frescoed some time ago—about 1930, I would have said—by someone who had had Piero della Francesca described to him but had never actually seen one of his paintings. They were pleasant, however. The Venetian theme was supported by several near-Canalettos and a huge model of a gondola in silver wire. I was running out of things to look at, so I turned back to James and the waiter. White
smoke should have been issuing from the chafing dishes. They had made a decision. They both mopped their brows. Then the wine waiter made a suggestion, which James refuted hotly. Just as I was about to ask if either of them would like a carving knife, they came to an agreement. Seconds before my patience wore through. This continual fuss about the minutiae of a menu was one of the things, I remembered suddenly, that I had hated about James.

But now he was pleased and the waiter was bringing the entrée.

‘This is ravioli,’ he announced. ‘Shredded duck and mushroom ravioli with a pomegranate and duck reduction. And I have scallops agnolotti. With it a glass of a nice white.’

I was flattered. A nice white cost more than fifty dollars a bottle. A very nice white was over a hundred. I cannot understand spending that much on wine, because to appreciate it you have to drink it and when you have done that, it is gone. But the ravioli was very tasty. I said as much.

‘So, what can I do for you, James?’ I asked as they took away the plates and poured us a glass of red wine. I knew this one. It was Chianti, but not the red ink I had drunk as a student. It was a light, fresh wine, a bit like Beaujolais nouveau. I liked it.

‘Can’t I just ask my ex-wife out to dinner?’ he grumbled.

‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ I agreed. ‘But usually not to the Venetia.’

He did not reply and the waiter brought the next course. Quails for me. Yum.

‘Quail with sage and ham stuffing, a brandy and red-currant jus on a bed of polenta,’ announced James, as proud as though he had shot the quails himself. ‘And I have roast pork with Sicilian mint and brandied apples.’

A waiter delicately, reverently, placed various vegetables on our dish; tiny broccoli, itsy-bitsy squash and prenatal potatoes roasted with rosemary. This was a very good dinner and I did not want to quarrel with James yet. With him, there is always time. I tasted the quail. Gorgeous. The flesh was still pinkish and moist and the bite of the brandy was taking off the oiliness of the ham and sweetening the sage. Superb. I could talk a lot of small talk for a meal like this.

So I talked to James of many things, none of them of any consequence. I remarked on the warmth of the weather and the dryness of the season. I talked about the people in my building. I discussed the economic climate (no worse than usual). I asked after various ex-friends and we got into some gossip.

‘Tom has left that dreadful woman,’ he told me.

‘What, Marielle? The French one?’

‘No, she’s after your time. He left Marielle after she hit him with the salver. At a work function. Scattered petits fours all over and nearly lost him his job. She went off with some artist, back to France. No, this was an Italian, I think, her name was Elizaveta.’

‘What did she do?’ I asked. I had loathed James’s old school friend Tom. Not only was he an amazing wine bore—whole bodies of water had been put to sleep by Tom discoursing on Burgundy, the navy could employ him to calm storms by talking to them about les grands vins—but he had tried to kiss me in the kitchen, and then told James that it was my idea. So I could understand Marielle belting him with a handy salver when the time was right. He did have a fascination with violent women, though. His first wife had chased him out of the house with a fish gutting knife at the end of a four-hour monologue on champagne and he hadn’t stopped running until he found Marielle, who said it with salvers, so what had Elizaveta done?

‘She soaked the labels off all his bottles of wine,’ groaned James. ‘And then she left.’

I was about to laugh and then realised how pretty a revenge this was. Most wine bottles are the same shape and size. How to tell the Grange from the Jamieson’s? By the cork? All right for the old bottles but modern ones are much of a muchness. I supposed it would give Tom more time alone with his wine collection. I warmed to Elizaveta.

‘Too bad, poor Tom. Whatever happened to Holly … no, Hollance—you remember, the entrepreneur who quoted George Bush saying the French don’t know about entrepreneurs, they don’t even have a word for it, and didn’t know it was a joke?’

‘Holliday,’ said James. ‘Strange you should mention him. He had a bit of a tragedy. His daughter ran away. Just vanished into thin air. Split up his marriage. He’s gone to live in your building, that stupid Insulate.’

‘Insula,’ I corrected. ‘And I like it there. It’s an eccentric building, and it suits me.’

‘You always were difficult,’ he mumbled.

‘Poor Holliday,’ I said. ‘No wonder he doesn’t seem to be very friendly.’

‘Used to be a big man in redevelopment too,’ said James with a measure of sympathy. ‘No firm’ll touch him now, of course. He’s a drunk. Used his super money to buy that place and his wife got the rest. As wives usually do.’

This was a dig at me and not true. The money to buy my apartment had come from my own funds and from a loan which I had laboriously repaid. By, as it happens, the sweat of my brow and all by myself. I said so and James grunted.

Dessert was being served. Zabaglione for James, who loved its sweetness, and a selection of gelati for me. It was
wonderful gelati, bearing only a family resemblance to that brightly coloured ice you buy from wandering vans in summer. An orange so orangey that it was definitive, a very creamy hazelnut and a sharp red raspberry. Somehow the chef had filtered out all the seeds and kept in all the flavour. I supped and sighed.

‘All right, James, tell me,’ I said when I had scraped the plate and munched the little almond wafers. I was well fortified by a glass of muscat and a cup of cafe negro. James let out a waistcoat button and leaned forward, looking into my eyes.

‘If you sold that apartment you could free up a lot of capital,’ he said.

‘True,’ I agreed.

‘I’m working on a Singapore deal and I’m willing to let you in on the ground floor,’ he urged. ‘We’re taking over a Singapore bank. An amalgamation which will supply us with a lot of available money and allow us an entrée into a lot of areas.’

‘James—’ I temporised, but he never did let me finish a sentence.

‘Property market’s about to crash,’ he said. ‘That will be the time to invest in some buildings which are no longer functional and build new ones. Then we’ll be in at the beginning when it swings up again.’

‘And in the shit up to the neck if it swings down further,’ I said. ‘Sorry, James. No. Thank you for dinner,’ I said, getting up.