Forbidden Fruit (14 page)

Daniel completed his puzzle, said ‘Diabolical? I think not. Well, Corinna?’

I replied with another quote. From
King John
, which just proves, as Bertie Wooster would say, that Shakespeare was a very clever johnnie.

‘Zounds, I was never so bethumped with words since first I called my brother’s father dad. God, Daniel, I hope no one actually believes all this.’

He took the pamphlet from me and read a few paragraphs. He snorted. Horatio awoke again, gave him a severe look, and removed himself to the couch where a respectable cat could catch a few Zs without rude interruptions from the hoi polloi. Thus,
incidentally, freeing up the rest of the newspaper should I have the nerve to read it.

‘I see, meat-eating is responsible for Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Because both Islam and Judaism ritually slaughter animals in a horrible way, we therefore wish to slaughter each other in equally horrible ways.’ His eyebrows rose higher until they were almost into his hair.

‘And that’s the sensible opinion page,’ I said. ‘Read the medical news!’

He did. Then, very deliberately, he screwed up the pamphlet and flung it accurately into the wastepaper basket.

‘There ought to be some sort of law against that kind of misinformation,’ I said lamely.

‘Too hard to frame,’ he said. ‘Nasty minds they have. And that was directed to young persons. Nice layout, pretty fonts, different colours …’

‘And uses the old established hellfire method of scaring people into good behaviour.’

‘Always worked in the past,’ said Daniel.

‘Has it?’ I asked in turn. ‘And you a member in good standing of those children of Israel who, as I remember, backslideth like a backsliding heifer.’

‘My ancestors were rather known for disobedience, for which they always received a great heavenly foot from above,’ confessed Daniel. ‘Ho for the golden calf and bring back the fleshpots of Egypt. But we did give the western world a great gift,’ he added, pulling me close and kissing my shoulder.

‘What was that?’

‘Guilt,’ he told me. ‘That’s what this pamphlet will do. Might not turn people off meat but it will make them guilty about eating it. Of course, they are right, as Meroe will be the first to tell us,’ he said, as the doorbell rang again and, coincidentally, Meroe
appeared. Pamphlet in hand. Steaming around the edges of her ecru (as it happened) silk shawl. It was embroidered with bursts of yellow sunflowers which did not match the wearer’s mood. She slung the shawl onto the couch (and over Horatio, who was not having the restful afternoon he had anticipated) and snarled, ‘Have you read this … this …’

‘Yes,’ I said, to save her from trying to find a suitable expletive in English, not her first language.

‘Sit down,’ said Daniel companionably. ‘Join the indignation meeting. I object to the politics, Corinna objects to the medical news. What is your objection? Can we offer you a nice glass of water or tea or—’

‘Brandy,’ said Meroe, breathing heavily. ‘Then maybe some chamomile tea.’

I broke out the brandy and poured her a generous slug.

‘I left Kylie in charge of the shop,’ she said. ‘She’s still interested in the craft.’ She took a deep gulp of the brandy and held out the glass for more. ‘What is my objection? Simple. You know that I never eat meat. You know that I strive to make as little impact on the world as I can, to recycle, re-use and repair, to walk rather than ride. I was doing that forty years ago, when these … idiots … were not born.’

‘We know,’ I assured her.

‘It is true that a lot of hunger and trouble would be either alleviated or prevented if everyone ate just vegetables and no one ate meat,’ she told me, very earnestly. ‘Meat animals are inefficient. Pasture uses a lot of water. Killing things to eat them is barbaric. This is well known.’

‘Yes,’ I said, one of the barbarians, filling the witch’s glass again.

‘So why are you so upset?’ asked Daniel gently. ‘They are saying all those things.’

‘Mixed up with absurdities! The message ought to be simple. Eat more vegetables, less meat. Gradually wean the world off this cruel diet and these cruel practices. Explain patiently that we will cut down our karmic debt by being kind and compassionate to the other animals, of which we are just one species. Put across that the world is a goddess, Gaia, and she made us, and if we continue to try her patience and exploit her generosity she might just see how the earth looks without humans.’

‘Cleaner,’ I said.

‘Greener,’ said Daniel.

‘And much, much quieter,’ concluded Meroe. ‘Some tea, Corinna, please. I must be calm. I am going to reason with those young persons and I must do it calmly. They are overstating the case, making it absurd. Their intentions might be noble but they are making all of us who try so hard to not bruise the feelings of the Goddess look like fools. Who believes such things as eating meat gives your children Attention Deficit Disorder? That eating meat starts wars? Pah!’

Entirely calm in no way whatsoever, Meroe threw down the pamphlet and sipped at her chamomile tea. I had not seen such a magnificent fit of righteous wrath for years. I was meanly glad that I wasn’t going to be on the receiving end of it.

Our witch finished her tea, thanked us politely, removed the silk shawl from Horatio (who had decided that it made adequate bedding and had to be soothed and picked up very carefully so that he wouldn’t lay a claw to the priceless fabric) and went out.

‘Fireworks expected,’ I commented to Daniel.

‘They have it coming,’ he said comfortably.

And he went on with the other sudoku, and I went back to my cross-dressing Jade Forrester. Silence, for a change, fell, except for the ever-present wind outside. And the doorbell rang—again.

‘Now what?’ I asked crossly. I hauled the door open with unnecessary force and Goss almost fell into my arms. She was crying like a fountain. In her hand was a half-eaten cold doughnut and there was sugar all round her mouth. This decoration on a girl who only ever ate sugar-free everything, even chewing gum.

‘Goss?’ I said, bringing her inside and helping her to a chair.

‘Can you feel them?’ she demanded, pulling up her T-shirt and exposing her breasts. Daniel hastily took his sudoku into the study but Goss had not even noticed that he was there. I was amazed, but I did as she asked. I palpated gently over the small adolescent breasts. Her skin was like satin and the breast tissue, such as it was, was soft and natural. I patted her and pulled the T-shirt down.

‘They’re fine,’ I told her.

Goss sobbed aloud and gulped at another mouthful of greasy doughnut.

‘They’re starting!’ she said.

‘What’s starting? Come on, you don’t want that doughnut. Drink this.’ I administered more brandy—the bottle was emptying fast in these trying times—and put my arm around her.

‘Lumps! You get breast cancer!’ She sobbed again but she drank the brandy.

‘From what?’ I asked, still fogged.

‘Eating meat!’ she said. ‘It was in this pamphlet!’

I tightened my hug and began to explain, very carefully, that no one had any proof that eating meat gave you breast cancer and that her breasts were perfectly lump-free and very decorative and she should not believe everything she read in pamphlets.

And as she calmed and drank her drink and accepted, finally, a tissue and then a glass of pineapple juice, I hoped, in my dark and vengeful soul, that Meroe was giving Against Domination
Over Animals five or six different kinds of hell. And I couldn’t think of a better person to deliver it. They were going to be very lucky if they didn’t get to personally experience the life of that portion of the animal community which sits in damp places and goes ‘redeep’. And they deserved it.

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then, surely, I was born.

GK Chesterton
    ‘The Donkey’

I have to go to bed early on Sunday because it’s the dreaded four am start on Monday, so Daniel and I dined modestly on cheese, salad and the remains of the alcohol. He had made efforts to trace the missing phone callers. I had made a note to buy some more brandy. And cherries, of course.

No noise from below or above. The quiet was a little unsettling. I hoped that Meroe had turned them all into frogs. Toads, rather; frogs are quite cute, and endangered as well. Goss had finally calmed down and we had escorted her home to the
soothing company of her cat, Tori, who had taken in the situation in one swift feline glance and demanded food and attention and hugs and had reinforced this by tangling around Goss’s racehorse ankles. I’m still not sure how such a small elegant creature can actually manage this—surely there isn’t enough cat to actually wind around ankles?—but she did it and Goss sat down by the fridge to feed Tori cream and recover. Shame to treat such a vulnerable young woman like that. I had it in for Against Domination Over Animals. All of them, including Rowan. Even if they did sing so beautifully.

Four am. Somehow it was worse on Mondays, because of the holidays before it, but it was worse for everyone, I sternly reminded myself, worse for all those poor office peons, worse for all those of my fellow shopkeepers who rose to feed and tend them, worse for the whole Monday-hating world.

I staggered down in my caftan to put on the first mixings, a little early. The air conditioner was kicking in as I went down the bakery steps, greeting me with a friendly blast of cold. The ovens roared into life. Fire and ice, I thought, what was the theory? Velikovsky,
Worlds in Collision
? I really needed more coffee if I was going to think philosophically this early in the morning.

The Mouse Police bounced awake, displaying the night’s vermin harvest of four dead rats and a couple of big moths. I rewarded them with kitty dins, disposed of the deceased and washed my hands. Mixers on, yeast seething, coffee pot on, coffee!

I sat down in the baker’s chair to drink it. And found myself contemplating, not ‘what would the world be like without humans?’ but ‘what would my life have been without companion animals?’

Sadder. Colder. My parents were not affectionate and Grandma and Grandpa Chapman, who had adopted me, were not
demonstrative. Also there had been school, which was a living hell. But there had also been Randolph, my mongrel sort of kelpie cross, who had done nothing for his whole harmless life from squeaking puppy to venerable old codger except sleep at the foot of my bed, miss me when I was gone, wait for me to get home, accompany me on those long miserable adolescent walks where I wished I was dead, and lick my face whenever I would let him because he liked the taste of tears. I could complain to Randolph about school where I could not talk to Grandma, because she was paying so much money for me to go there. I could confide in Randolph and he would never, never tell.

His only vices had been an inordinate greed for cheese, which he would even steal out of the shopping basket, and a habit of destruct-chewing thong sandals. When he died I had cried for three days. Tears still came to my eyes when I thought of him.

And during my unhappy marriage there had always been cats—because James hated dogs. He didn’t like cats, either, but they were easier to ignore, though Mistinguette, a silver-grey tabby with a cynical turn of mind, would always seek out and steal small objects of his, like one cufflink or a cigarette lighter, and stash them under the fridge for future reference. It was very hard to fish anything out from under the fridge. When I divorced James and went back to the house to clean and move the furniture, I was amazed at the collection in that big square patch of greasy dust. Olaf and then Mistinguette had been companionable, beautiful, soft to stroke and to sleep with, affectionate when they felt like being affectionate. A little censorious when they felt that I was not living up to their standards. I looked at the Mouse Police, Heckle and Jekyll, crunching their kitty dins with gusto. A black and white pair; rough company, perhaps, but agreeable. In the old days they would have made very good ship’s cats. I could see them swaggering off the ship in Balboa, looking for
mates and boasting about the fight they had won with the pirates in the South China Sea. And I considered Horatio, that purring gentleman with his immaculate white front, a pleasure to look at and to hold.

No, without companion animals, however wrong, Corinna would have been sadder and lonelier. They decorated my life and I was lucky to have them.

Jason came in, dressed in his baker’s whites, saluted the quarterdeck (i.e. me) and asked ‘Orders, Cap’n?’

‘Better make rosewater muffins, Mr Midshipman, and maybe we should freeze a few for the future. Your devoted fan Serena came and demanded some yesterday morning and I only had rosewater and bread to give her. And put cherries, raspberries, a big bottle of brandy and rosewater on the shopping list. The rye is on and the pasta douro is ready, I’ll just go up and change. You can let the Mouse Police out. You have the helm, Mr Midshipman.’

He saluted again and I left the vessel
Earthly Delights
to him as I climbed up to put on my overall and bring down the brie for his experimental cheese muffins. I do not deserve him, either.

Daniel was still asleep and I didn’t wake him. He had a list of things to do today, including a lot of interviews. Whereas I made bread, that was what I did, and I went downstairs again to do it.

I was just trying a brie muffin—scrumptious, gooey in the middle and crispy on the top—when I heard hoofs. I exchanged glances with Jason as he took the tray of rosewater muffins out of the oven and pried one loose, waving it in the air conditioning jet stream to cool it down. But instead of a benevolent grey furry face looking in through the door there was the flowered hat and pin-sharp eyes of Mr Pahlevi. Pin-sharp nose, too, which wiggled at the end.

‘Good morning, lady!’ he said to me. ‘You got any of them rose cakes?’

‘Good morning,’ I replied. ‘How is Serena?’

I grabbed a muffin and slipped out past him. I found the donkey laden with her panniers, each one now filled with bunches of flowers. I had seen such beasts of burden in Greece, the only sensible way of carrying things through the narrow streets of, for instance, Mykonos. Serena greeted me politely. I slipped an experimental finger under some of the straps. None of them seemed to be chafing. She was fragrant with tuberoses, lilies and orchids. I gave her the muffin and she scoffed it. I stroked her satiny ears.