Forbidden Fruit (3 page)

‘They have rosewater in them,’ I told Goss. ‘It makes them taste more raspberry flavoured, as well as having the scent of flowers—you’ll have to try one. There’s no fresh breadcrumbs because I came up short for the Soup Run. The rolls are made, if Jason hasn’t eaten them all. How about a cup of coffee and a muffin?’ I asked, hoping as always to put a little flesh on those all-too-exposed bones. The girls fasted devotedly in the service of the goddess Anorexia.

‘All right, I’ll get one, and your coffee too,’ she said amiably. We sipped and munched—those Raspberry Surprise muffins were
spectacularly good—when Goss jumped up and grabbed the tray. ‘Oops!’ she exclaimed. ‘Here come the hordes!’

If you cannot sleep in your furnace-like home, the sensible thing is to get to work early, buying some breakfast on the way, and perhaps getting in a little filing before the phones begin to ring. I had done this myself, when I was an accountant. Though it was barely seven thirty, haggard people were flocking into the shop, seeking ham or cheese rolls, muffins, cakes, hard crispy pasta douro shells and anything else which might cheer their underslept day. Most of them carried Cafe Delicious coffee cups in cardboard frames which Del supplies at five dollars each so they will be re-used. That was seldom a problem, because Del’s son made excellent espresso. And Del made a
cafe hellenico
which could counteract anaesthesia.

I was not underslept, despite my abrupt awakening. I was cool, where the rest of the city was partially boiled. I counted my blessings and sold bread.

Then, suddenly, there was a lull. Nine o’clock and everyone who was going to work had got there, and there would be time to replenish the racks before the ten o’clock demand for morning tea. The dragon’s-breath wind howled outside Earthly Delights. I wondered aloud whether it was better than a blizzard, at least.

‘Nah,’ replied Jason, carrying a whole tray of muffins easily on his shoulder. ‘You can get warm, just put on more clothes, eat lots of sugar, stay inside. But it’s bloody hard to get cool. Gimme a blizzard any time.’ He rolled the muffins gently into their wire basket. ‘Can I ask you something, Corinna?’

‘You can,’ I said, focusing my attention.

‘You saw Rowan?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ I agreed.

‘His dad abused him. Beat him up. Yelled at him all the time. Made him feel like shit.’

‘Yes,’ I said gently. Jason’s problem had been with his alcoholic mother and a succession of ‘uncles’, but it was the same problem. My apprentice understood abuse.

‘But he’s rich!’ protested Jason. ‘Went to one of them posh schools. Never short of anything. How does that happen?’

‘Abuse is about power,’ I told him. ‘I used to think the same as you until I went to a posh school myself. The girls there were just the same as everywhere else. F. Scott Fitzgerald is wrong. The rich aren’t different. Their only difference is that they are rich.’

‘So there are bastards all over?’ he asked.

‘Sorry.’

‘But there’s Mrs Dawson,’ he went on. Clearly this subject had really been worrying him.

‘Would have been a charming lovely woman if she’d been born in the gutter,’ I told him. ‘We just have to do the best we can with what we’ve got, Jason. Money smooths the way—that’s all it does.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, and vanished back into the bakery. I finished my cold coffee, wondered if I had the strength to dive across to Cafe Delicious and buy an iced one, decided that I didn’t and sat down to stroke Horatio and think about Jason. I remembered Hemingway’s retort to the soppy Fitzgerald comment that ‘the rich are different’. He had said, ‘Yes, they’re richer!’ And although I could not care for Hemingway’s writing, I had to acknowledge that he had hit the nail on the head with that reply. I smiled. Horatio purred. There was silence for the space of maybe ten minutes before I heard, in the lane, the sound of hoofs.

Small hoofs, yes, but hoofs, and I followed Jason into the bakery and looked out of the alley door in some amazement. Coming neatly and confidently down the steps from Centreway Arcade was a donkey. A female donkey. A jennet, in fact. She was silvery grey, with beautiful ears and a rather fetching straw hat.
She had been saddled with two willow-basket panniers, which seemed to be empty. And she was heading for Earthly Delights with a determined expression, as far as donkeys have expressions. She clipped along past the Japanese restaurant and the coin shop, waited for a few astounded pedestrians to move aside, and then she was at my door, walking inside as far as the panniers would allow, and then making a soft but imperious braying noise when the object of her desire proved just out of reach.

‘Holy shit!’ said Jason inelegantly. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a donkey,’ I said, trying not to laugh. Heckle and Jekyll had arisen from their sacks and were regarding the animal with interest from the far side of the big mixer.

‘Well, duh, Corinna. What does it want?’

‘I suspect that it’s one of your raspberry and rosewater muffins,’ I returned.

The donkey stretched out her neck as far as it could possibly go. The panniers creaked under the strain. The beautiful long-lashed eyes were desperate. I took one of the muffins, peeled off the paper cup, and held it out on the palm of my hand.

There was a flash of teeth and a curl of tongue. Gulp. Then the creature just stopped striving. She had found what she wanted, and eaten it. She was now at peace. I laid my hand on her forehead, between the sail-like ears and under the hat, and urged ‘Back?’ I was going to need my doorway again. Jason gave me another muffin and I held it up as incentive—no creature likes going backwards. ‘Back you go, Jenny,’ I said firmly and, obligingly, she moved back far enough to free the baskets and turn herself around. Her lips as she scoffed the second muffin were soft as silk. I helped her straighten her hat and wondered what to do. Someone must own this donkey. She was well groomed and shiny. The panniers, I noticed, had plastic buckets in them. Flowers, perhaps? Had I seen someone selling flowers from donkey-back?

There was a squeal of delight from the shop and Goss ran into Calico Alley and flung herself at the donkey.

‘She’s so sweet!’ she cooed. She was. She was bearing Goss’s half-throttling hug with commendable patience. Goss found a silver tag on the dangling rein.

‘Serena!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re Serena!’

It was a good name for a creature with such poise. Just as Goss was securing another muffin to feed to the adorable creature, Serena shifted and tried to pull away. Shouting emanated from the lane. Someone was running.

‘Sorry,’ I said to Serena, hanging onto the tether. ‘I’m afraid that retribution is about to set in.’

Serena gave me a sorrowful look, as though she had expected better of me. Then she seemed to plant her little hoofs as though she was not to be moved. The whole donkey seemed to have put on mass, grown heavier. The shouting and running feet resolved themselves into a middle-aged man dressed in a red silk shirt, jeans and boots, a black felt hat with flowers on it and a very red and angry face.

‘Serena!’ he bellowed at her, skidding to a halt so abruptly one expected sparks to shoot from his boot heels. ‘Bad girl! What are you doing here?’

He glared at Goss, as though suspecting her of donkey-rustling. Goss stood her ground with her thin arm around Serena’s neck.

‘She came all by herself,’ she retorted. ‘Who are you, anyway? Can you prove this donkey belongs to you?’

He raised one hand as if minded to slap Goss, and Jason and I moved into sight. He paused with his hand in the air and slapped the donkey instead.

‘Bad girl!’

Serena shifted a little on her hoofs and drooped her head, the image of a badly used beast of burden. Goss hugged her tighter.

‘Jason, call the RSPCA, will you?’ I asked.

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ replied Jason, eyeing the flower seller with disfavour.

‘No, no, lady, I’m sorry.’ All the rage went out of the man. ‘I’ve run all the way from the market, I thought she might have walked under a tram, she’s got no road sense, I was so worried …’

‘Well, you’ve found her again, and she’s all right. She wanted a muffin. A raspberry and rosewater muffin.’

‘You the baker?’ The man held out a hand. His skin was swarthy and his eyes black, hard to read. His hand was hard and wet. ‘I’m Pahlevi, Tomas Pahlevi, I sell flowers—we sell flowers. She’s a stubborn beast—I wouldn’t let her eat the roses.’

‘She eats roses?’ asked Goss, still suspicious.

‘Donkeys mostly eat anything,’ he said, taking off the hat and wiping his forehead. ‘When they get a taste in their mouths they go after it. She must have smelt your rosewater. I buy my flowers at the market, and roses are too expensive this time of year to feed them to donkeys. Still, I should have given her one. That’ll be a lesson to me, eh, lady?’

His smile would have been reassuring if he had invested in fewer gold teeth. I didn’t like Mr Pahlevi, or his ingratiating manner, or his treatment of his donkey. But there was nothing I could do. She seemed to be well fed and healthy, and she hadn’t even flinched under that slap.

‘Come along, Goss,’ I said to her. ‘Give Serena back to Mr Pahlevi. We’ll be seeing her around, won’t we? And I’m sure that she will be well treated,’ I added.

Goss released the donkey, and Mr Pahlevi, with a jerk of the leading rein, turned her around and led her out into Flinders Lane. She looked back, pathetically, blinking her long-lashed eyes, and Goss gave a small cry.

‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got bread to sell. We shall keep an eye on Mr Pahlevi, and if he mistreats Serena we shall call the RSPCA. Find out where he goes during the day,’ I added. ‘Someone will know.’

‘All right,’ said Goss reluctantly. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him okay.’

And then the morning-tea rush arrived, and we were otherwise occupied.

By the time the lunchtime crowd had cleaned out the last of the baking, I was pooped. So was Goss, though Kylie had called to say that the air conditioner in their flat was working again. Apparently it had exceeded its maximum permitted amount of cat fur in the filter and had shut down in self-defence. Goss volunteered to do the banking, though it meant going outside. But I knew there were several boutiques on her route in which she had dresses on lay-by. She liked to call in and say hello to them. For a sometime blonde, Goss was occasionally very shrewd.

I left Jason with the cleaning and the compounding of his cherry
glykos.

‘One hint,’ I said as Horatio preceded me up the stairs to my apartment.

‘Yes?’ he asked, mopping industriously.

‘Make sure that the sugar has dissolved before you let it boil,’ I told him, from the depths of bitter experience. ‘If you don’t, it will not work.’

‘Okay,’ he assured me, and I continued my ascent. I had a fast shower, not wanting to waste water but really needing a wash. I donned a loose caftan made to a Therese Webb pattern. I had made it seven times, and each time I had a moment when I feared that the fabric would have to be folded into another dimension to fit the design. This möbius robe was made of a fine blue butterfly batik which Jon, our travelling conscience,
had swapped for eight jars of Gentleman’s Relish, for which he had an unlikely passion.

Daniel was deeply asleep, lying sprawled across my bed in the cool air. Despite serious temptation—those shoulders, that gorgeous back, those buttocks which one longed to bite—I closed the door quietly and let him slumber on.

The wind was making uncomfortable scratching noises at the panes, as though it was clawing to get in. The sunlight was falling onto my balcony at this hour. I could feel the heat radiating from the glass, and the sizzle as the bathwater I had poured on the indestructible green things vaporised. I hoped I hadn’t boiled the poor plants. But Trudi had sworn that they could not be killed by anything short of direct nuclear strike, so I had hopes that they might survive the summer.

Now to make sure that Horatio and I did, too …

He was standing at the door, indicating very strongly that he wished to ascend to the roof garden, so despite my own views on glass shrines on hot days, I packed my esky with essentials (gin, tonic, ice), slung my satchel with various books over my shoulder, and picked him up. Horatio settled his nose into the hollow of my throat, purring just above audible level. It tickled.

Thus, giggling and lightly clad, I arrived on the roof, where the garden looked like it had been beaten flat with a broom and the shrine of the goddess Ceres was occupied by Rowan, two girls, and half a tonne of paper.

They looked busy and I did not want to intrude, but the shrine was the only cool place and Horatio was already intrigued and struggling to get down.

So I entered the shrine, sat down on the only spare bench, which as it happened was right under the sheaf of the goddess’s corn and in the wash of the air cooler, and put Horatio down.

He gave his coat and whiskers a fast lick and a promise, then rose to his paws to meet his public, who were, I was pleased to see, gratified by his presence.

‘Oh, a cat!’ observed one girl, delighted. ‘Hello, lovely cat!’

Horatio had heard these words before. He sniffed regally at the outstretched hand and suffered the divine ears to be caressed. This girl was short and stocky. She had dark hair dragged back into a scrunchie and very penetrating eyes, presently softened with affection. She was wearing an op shop cotton dress which had been adapted to her figure by letting out the seams. A serious contrast to the other girl, who was slim, pale, and had long golden hair confined severely in a plaited crown. Her long legs were bare under shorts matched with a T-shirt which proclaimed
END ANIMAL CRUELTY—KILL A SCIENTIST TODAY
! Rowan had scrambled to his feet, guilt written all over his pleasant countenance.

‘I’m sorry, Corinna, are we allowed to be here? We needed to spread out the music … I hope it’s all right … You don’t mind?’

‘It’s all right, anyone can come here,’ I soothed, hoping he would not upset Horatio, who did not like abrupt movements in his immediate vicinity. Rowan sat down again. I noticed that his T-shirt read
NO DOMINION
. Cryptic. I didn’t know him well enough yet to ask whether it was a quote from Dylan Thomas. I indicated the bales of papers.