Earthly Delights Part 7

'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 s.p.a.ces 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 pa.s.sers-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 pa.s.sing people looked at it and one undeniable punk, green mohawk erect in display like a c.o.c.katoo, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 n.o.bile, 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 ap.r.o.n. 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 inst.i.tution 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 gla.s.ses. 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-Ca.n.a.lettos 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 entree.

'This is ravioli,' he announced. 'Shredded duck and mushroom ravioli with a pomegranate and duck reduction. And I have scallops agnolotti. With it a gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 pet.i.ts 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 sc.r.a.ped the plate and munched the little almond wafers. I was well fortified by a gla.s.s of muscat and a cup of cafe negro. James let out a waistcoat b.u.t.ton 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 entree 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 s.h.i.t up to the neck if it swings down further,' I said. 'Sorry, James. No. Thank you for dinner,' I said, getting up.

'At least look at the prospectus,' he said, thrusting it into my hand.

'I certainly will. We must do this again sometime. Good night, James,' I said, and walked out with a large glossy folder which I intended to place neatly in the next bin I pa.s.sed.

James must be losing his grip. The idea that a smaller company can do anything but weep silently as a larger company has its way with its a.s.sets is ridiculous. And hadn't James learned that if a smaller player-like Australia-buys into, say, a big English insurance company, the person who is going to be taking in washing by New Year is not going to be the big English company. Asymmetric information. They know more about you than you know about them. The legal term, I believe, is 'screwed'.

I found that I had walked home still holding the prospectus so I dumped it on my table as I greeted the cats, changed my clothes, rang Meroe and reported all safe, and sat down to wait for Daniel.

Poor Holliday! What a terrible thing. I resolved to go and at least say h.e.l.lo to him tomorrow. To have a child die was bad, but to have her disappear-that must be appalling. I was very sorry for him. I didn't even know his first name.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Somewhere in the back of my mind was a line of poetry which went with something Daniel had said. 'I'll come to you at midnight.' I rummaged in the books until I found it. A worn poetry book from school. 'I love Duran Duran' on the cover. I flipped through it until I found the poem. I had loved it as an adolescent, for its black, romantic tragedy.

'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes. 'Look for me at midnight, I'll come to you at midnight, though h.e.l.l should bar the way' said the highwayman to his lover, and when it all went wrong and Bess had warned him with her death, they 'shot him down on the highway, down like a dog on the highway, and he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.'

Unexpected tears burned the back of my throat. Something was happening to me. I had felt more, and more mixed emotions in the last few days than I had in years.

I closed the book and put it away. I thought I could feel- Meroe would be able to tell me how-the raised level of tension in the building. One man mourning a lost daughter. Meroe and 104.

me worried about a madman. The usual troubles of young women from Kylie and Goss. I wondered how they were getting on with seducing Jon. Was that Kylie's project? I couldn't recall. I hoped Daniel was going to turn up soon, because I was falling asleep. I wasn't used to being awake at this hour.

He buzzed exactly at midnight and I went down, carrying the sack of bread. I had reverted to overseas travelling style and was wearing my keys and my money in a money-belt-so much easier than a purse and nothing to s.n.a.t.c.h. And it is always useful to have both hands free.

Daniel hugged me. I would never get used to this. I gave him the sack and he led me down the lane to where a bus was parked. It was larger than an ice-cream van, though it had the same sort of servery window, and seemed to contain a lot of people. Several of them were cutting up bread so I joined in. We appeared to be making good thick cheese sandwiches. The woman with the cheese smiled at me. She was wearing a blue uniform and had on a blue veil. A nun.

'I'm Sister Mary,' she said. 'Nice to meet you. Your first time?' she asked, sliding a pile of perfectly sliced cheese over to me.

I slapped the sandwiches together. I had made a lot of sandwiches in my time. I admitted it was my first mission.

'Everyone gets soup and a sandwich,' she said. 'Anyone who wants to talk to the lawyer, that's Phil.' A young man in a NOT IN MY NAME t-shirt grinned at me. 'The nurse tonight is Mrs Palmer.' A stout old lady gave me an a.s.sessing look. She was wearing a nurse's uniform as though she had been born in it. Upside-down watch and all. I would put my diagnosis in her hands any day. She was the sort of nurse that young doctors pray for, rely on and, if they have any grat.i.tude, buy chocolates for. She radiated certainty.

'Our social worker and miracle worker is Jen,' continued Sister Mary. 'She can wedge a client into a lodging house with pure force of character. And the grace of G.o.d, of course. You and I are the hander-outers. Finished with the cheese? I've a whole plate of corned beef over there. Don't forget the pickles. Oh! You must be the baker!' she took my hand in both of hers. 'You make very good bread,' she told me. 'And to feed the poor is one of the corporeal works of mercy. G.o.d is watching and will reward your charity,' she added, and picked up a long ladle to stir the soup.

Jen was packing sandwiches into greaseproof paper and then into paper bags. She smiled sideways at me.

'If G.o.d is watching, so is the city council,' she told me. 'We have to be very careful where we stop and for how long. Keep Melbourne Clean would love to put us off the road. They've already tried to deregister the bus, claiming illegal modifications. That didn't work. Then they letterboxed all the businesses on our route trying to make them ban us from stopping. Then Phil told them that this was a public thoroughfare and therefore they couldn't stop us.'

'The old Queen's High Road argument,' said Phil. He seemed very young to be a lawyer. 'As long as we are keeping the peace and not causing a public nuisance we're in the clear.'

'The key to that being "public nuisance",' put in Sister Mary. 'Our clients are, by nature, people with problems, and they do tend to drop litter and make noise. So we have taken to the back streets and we always go around with a garbage bag and clean up before we move on. So far, we've survived.'

'All ready?' asked Daniel at the wheel.

'All secure,' Sister Mary sang out. I wondered how old she was. It was always hard to tell with nuns. She was plump and rosy and clear skinned. Forty, perhaps?

The bus moved cautiously out of the lane and made a quiet left-hand turn. Apart from steadying the soup urns, everyone just sat still. Eyes were closed. Everyone was gathering their strength. It was like watching soldiers being transported into battle, without the CNN commentary. Daniel drove very nicely for someone trained to drive by an army.

We stopped in a byway just behind Swanston Street and there were already people waiting for us.

What shocked me most was how normal they looked. I expected homeless people to look like-well, Jase, thin and dazed. I handed out my first cup of soup and a sandwich to a man in a flannel shirt who said, 'Ta, love,' in a strong English accent and who could have lived next door in any suburb where people garden or repair their own cars. The next was a thin girl on teetering heels followed by a sullen teenager with bad skin and blue hair. A young man took two sandwiches and two cups of soup and then the bundle on his back stirred and cried and I realised it was a baby.

Then they became a blur. Just hands; thin hands, pale hands, dark hands, old hands. I supplied them all. Some sat down in the little square to eat and drink and come back for a refill. Some walked off quickly, away from the crowd. One boy in a hat made of kitchen foil talked, all the time, to someone I couldn't see, begging to be allowed to eat. 'Come on, just a bit of soup, just a bite of sandwich?' he pleaded. 'I'm so hungry,' he said. I looked at Sister Mary.

'Poor boy,' she said. 'He's schizophrenic and the voices won't let him eat.'

'Why isn't he in hospital?' I asked.

'No room,' said Sister Mary. 'Most of them have been closed down and the land sold for apartments. The last government said that the mentally ill would be cared for by the community. Well, dear, this is how the community does it.'

'What about his parents?'

'He's big and strong and violent and they're afraid of him,' she said matter-of-factly. 'He's all right if he takes his medications but they make him feel slow and stupid so he doesn't take them and then he gets into this state. We'll see if Mrs Palmer can help. She knows him.'

Mrs Palmer called from the van: 'Kane?' and the boy in the shiny hat came to her as though drawn by a string. Mrs Palmer looked at him severely through her gla.s.ses.

'Your medications?'

The boy fumbled in his pocket. Mrs Palmer took the bottle and shook out several tablets. She held them on the palm of her hand as I had once held sugar for a nervous horse.

'Take them,' she ordered. 'Now. And your soup. Eat your sandwich. Then there will be chocolate.'

The voices, it appeared, liked chocolate. The boy gulped the tablets, drank the soup and ate his sandwich. Then Mrs Palmer gave him a lump of honeycomb chocolate. He did not thank her but wandered away. She shrugged a shoulder.

'Sometimes it works,' she said. 'If they have had a stern authority figure in childhood. If I can catch him for the next few days we can stabilise him. The chocolate is a very useful gift. Donated from the manufacturers. So kind.'

'And tax-deductible,' I said. Once an accountant, always an accountant. Mrs Palmer patted my shoulder. 'You're going to fit right in,' she told me.

Several people were waiting to talk to Mrs Palmer and three wanted legal advice from Phil. In this street lighting, he looked about fifteen. I must be getting old. I made myself useful, going around with the garbage bag and collecting litter. We wouldn't want Keep Melbourne Clean to cavil at the mess we made feeding the homeless, would we? I didn't like them already.

The young man with the baby was talking to Sister Mary. A young woman was slumped against him. Her eyes were unfocused. 'We've been on the emergency list seven months,' he said. 'She's getting worse.'

'Book her in for a detox,' said Sister Mary gently. 'You can't keep sleeping in a car. It isn't good for the baby. What happened to the last money you saved for a deposit on a flat?'

The young man didn't reply. Sister Mary went into the van and handed over a big packet of nappies and a shirt. 'Wear the shirt to see the housing office,' she said. 'Better let Nurse look at the baby. See you next time, dear.'

'It's outrageous that he can't get somewhere to live,' I exploded. Sister Mary grabbed me and drew me aside.

'Not as easy as that,' she said. 'G.o.d help them. The wife is a heroin addict and will do anything for the man. He also uses drugs. Every time they get close to having enough money for a deposit, one or other of them spends it on a binge. If he books her into hospital to detox, he'll lose the money he gets from her prost.i.tution. And if the welfare authorities notice that both of them are addicts and sleeping in a car, they'll take the baby into care, and the baby is the only thing-apart from drugs-that they care about.'

'That's disgusting,' I said. My righteous indignation vanished and I felt as if I had missed a step.

'Don't make hasty judgments,' she said severely. 'Take one case at a time, and never lose faith.'