Trick or Treat Part 9

I had eaten my three slices of steak so I poured another gla.s.s and went on, determined to grab some conversation with my only love. 'My favourite is the Wallace collection. So interesting and individual. There's been a tendency lately to put away most of the art works and display the remains very carefully-rather like this salad. Not a lot of substance, but very pretty to look at and one can appreciate every nuance of the flavour. But I much prefer the old-fas.h.i.+oned sort of museum, where all the things that the person collected are all crammed together and you don't have to walk ten miles to see the Botticellis. I like Mr Wallace and his arms and armour and paintings and Mrs Wallace's fire screens in Berlin wool-work.'

'Absolutely,' agreed Daniel. 'Like the Bourdelle Museum in Paris, where the painter's studio is upstairs and the sculptor's downstairs, and you can imagine the was.h.i.+ng hanging out the window.'

Georgiana collected the plates and brought in dessert. It was a soupcon of coconut ice cream with nasturtium petals around it and a thin slice of mango. It was nice, if you like coconut ice cream. I ate it in one mouthful and Daniel and I continued to enthuse about crowded collections, and I began to feel better.

Over a demita.s.se (new) of very weak coffee from a home barista (his own) and a tiny curled sliver of chocolate-coated orange peel, Georgie settled the two of us down on the couch and began to interrogate me about Earthly Delights. Daniel was bidden to do the was.h.i.+ng-up and I wondered that she had not yet made him buy a dishwasher.

Georgie shed her high heels and draped herself over the 105.

sofa, long legs and short skirt. She was very beautiful. I sat next to her like a lump. Of what, I had not decided. Granite, perhaps? Or maybe just jelly. Envious jelly.

'So, you are making a profit now?' she asked cosily, twiddling a red-painted toenail and admiring the effect.

'Yes, after a couple of years of very hard work,' I told her.

'You see, I am looking for a business-' she said.

'And you don't want mine,' I completed her sentence.

'Oh, but I am beginning to think that I do,' she cooed.

'No, you don't,' I told her. 'I don't want a partner.'

'But you're working yourself to death, Danny says.' She seemed concerned. 'If you have a partner you can hire more help.'

'I don't need more help now that Jason is getting to be so skilled,' I said. 'Besides, if I have someone else making the bread, it isn't Earthly Delights bread, it's their bread, and that's not what the customers pay for.'

'Silly,' she chided me. 'Jason's bread isn't your bread, by that argument.'

'Yes it is, because I am there watching him make it,' I said, never actually having thought of this before but firming in my view that any partner would be better than Georgie and I didn't want one anyway. 'Would you be proposing to get up at four and make bread with me?'

'No.' Her nose wrinkled, ever so slightly. A woman who needed her beauty sleep, evidently. 'I am thinking of being a silent partner. You'll never know that I'm there. And when there is more capital, you can franchise.'

'And destroy everything that people value in a niche market?' I said. 'People want to know who made the bread, they want to see-so to speak-my thumbprints in the dough. They want to talk to me about the weather and about yeast and about Jason's latest m.u.f.fin. Otherwise there's no difference between Earthly Delights and Best Fresh, and they're cheaper. My customers are not only paying for my quality flour and original sourdough and interesting recipes, they're paying for me. Furthermore,' I added, warming to my topic, 'if I had a partner I'd need to put every important decision before her. What, for instance, would you say if I told you I was proposing to employ a recovering heroin addict, first as a cleaner and later as a baker?'

'I'd say, not a chance, you can't let someone like that into your kitchen,' she replied honestly. For which, for a moment, I liked her.

'Precisely. Jason might have worked out and he might not have worked out, but he was my risk and my decision. No, thank you, but you need to find another business. Plenty of them around! Have a look down at Docklands, there're restaurants galore down there, and it would be a lovely place to live, too. You can see all the way across the bay.'

I got up, before I lost my temper. She put a manicured hand on my arm.

'Is that your final word?' she asked, blue eyes imploring.

'Certainly,' I said. I shook the hand. 'Thank you for dinner. Sorry that I have to leave, but I have to get up early. Goodnight,' I added, and went to the door, collecting my bag and calling farewell to Daniel on the way.

I didn't draw breath until I was out in the street, at which point I sighed as if I had escaped from some terrible danger. Then I became aware of the fire below my girdle and realised that I would have to find something to eat and some antacids or I might actually burst into flame.

It wasn't late, but somehow none of the cafes attracted me. Which meant that I washed up on the beach of Uncle Solly's 107.

New York Deli, as many famished mariners have done before me, and he recognised my expression instantly.

'Heartburn, dollink?' he asked, gesturing at one of his nephews. Yossi, I think. The young man began to mix something in a small gla.s.s. 'You drink down a gla.s.s of Uncle Solly's Infallible Heartburn Cure and you feel better in a sprinkling.'

'Twinkling, Uncle Solly,' said Yossi patiently. 'I've told you before.'

His uncle shrugged. 'Sprinkling, twinkling! Then maybe we get you some real food, Corinna. You been eating that pagan stuff again?'

'Not by my choice,' I said, gulping down the chalky white mixture and then a sparkling red mixture. The result of which was to immediately damp the fire in my stomach and then to make me burp. Uncle Solly beamed all over his face and two of his chins wobbled with delight.

'There! Good, nu? The cranberries give it body. Now, what you want? You eating alone?'

'Yes,' I said sadly.

'No,' said Yossi. The shop doorbell tinkled and Daniel came in.

'I thought I might catch you here,' he said, panting. 'You walk fast!'

'She was poisoned with pagan spices,' reproved Uncle Solly. 'You do that to a woman, she walks fast. And away from you,' he added, pointedly.

'I know, it's all my fault,' said Daniel impatiently. 'I'm so sorry, Corinna.'

'You wait a moment before you forgive him,' advised Uncle Solly. 'Let Yossi make you a malted. You want a milk-shake, Daniel?'

'Yes,' said Daniel, sinking down into one of the fancy wicker chairs which Uncle Solly says are good for the customer's behind, which must be considered as well as his stomach and his soul. 'Yes, please. And can Yossi make me a heartburn cure as well?'

'For you,' said Uncle Solly with a broad gesture, 'the world.'

He went to the back of the shop to yell at another nephew. Yossi compounded drinks without comment. The city rushed by outside. I sat with Daniel and did not speak.

In due course I sipped my malted, which I had not tasted since I was at school. It was lovely. The embers of the spice-induced fires went out. Daniel was holding my hand in the one not occupied with a gla.s.s of chocolate milk and ice cream. I was suddenly, blindingly, happy. I did not trust my voice.

Finally Daniel ventured, 'If you can actually forgive me, I can sort of explain.'

'You don't need to,' I a.s.sured him.

'Yes, but I want to,' he said. 'I have told Georgie that I am not coming back to sleep in the flat while she is there, so she should make some other arrangements as soon as she can. I didn't realise that she wanted to buy into your business or I would have told her that she hadn't a chance. But she didn't ask me. I could have told her that she didn't have a chance with me either, being spoken for, but nor did she ask me about that. She didn't mean to insult you. She just doesn't understand people at all. Never has. I think it's part of being a Sloane. And I have let her hurt your feelings and scald you with wasabi and I am so sorry.'

'Apology accepted,' I said.

'Nice phrasing,' approved Uncle Solly, popping up from behind the tall fridge. 'Spoken for-I haven't heard that in 109.

years. Not since my Aunt Miriam told my father that she was spoken for and he said, spoken for what? You mean you talk too much? It took days to sort it out. Nu, lovebirds, to important matters. What you want for dinner?'

We settled for pimiento cheese sandwiches and salads and wedges of orange and poppyseed cake and ate them watching the city walk past. I began to feel tired as well as very happy.

'Good night, Uncle Solly,' I said gratefully. 'I never had an uncle, can I adopt you?'

'Gladly, an honour,' he said. 'Now, niece, you better let this lout walk you home. After,' he added markedly, 'he takes off his adornments.'

I looked at Daniel. Daniel looked down. We all began to laugh. He was wearing a frilly, blue-checked gingham ap.r.o.n.

When we got back to Insula the building was quiet, and we lingered in the atrium, watching Horatio watching the fish. He wanders out through his cat door occasionally and sits on the edge of the impluvium, favouring the goldfish with a stare which stops just short of being hungry. Unlike, for instance, Lucifer, who dives in to try and catch them on the fin, or the Professor's delicate little black kitten Nox, who has a deep atavistic appet.i.te for anything piscine. She has been known to dive from a height onto a seafood pizza and wrestle the prawns off even before the box was fully opened. The Professor does not like to risk her near the pool, in case she falls in. My personal view was that Nox was as tough a feline as one was likely to meet in these post-sabre-toothed times and that, if she fell in, she would come up with her sweet little fangs full of fish.

Horatio, of course, has no need to hunt. Unlike the Mouse Police, his job description is limited to amicable coexistence with the other tenants, pleasant companions.h.i.+p, not clawing the curtains unduly and, when necessary, beating up Mrs Pemberthy's rotten little doggie Traddles. He stood up and greeted us politely and followed as we went up the stairs. I had tucked myself under Daniel's shoulder, where I fitted as if measured by a Chinese tailor.

'That was a dangerous thing I did,' said Daniel slowly.

'Hmm?' I was watching Horatio absorbing his evening milk.

'Introducing Georgie into the flat without warning you. I had forgotten what she's like. But she never wanted me before,' he said, a little plaintively.

'Tough,' I replied. 'Perhaps she only wants you now because you are spoken for.'

'Possibly. But I might have lost you,' he said, hugging me closer.

'No, not lost.' I had thought about this and I held him at arm's length while I explained. This was important. 'You might have driven me away, but who is to say that I would have stayed away? Takes more than a six-foot supermodel with blue eyes and golden curls to defeat me. Unless I was sure that you wanted her, not me,' I said, watching him closely. He made a mosquito-banis.h.i.+ng gesture with his free hand. Georgie, had she seen it, would have folded her tents and gone to Docklands without further notice.

'Corinna!' He kissed me. 'If you do not yet believe in your superiority over Georgiana Hope in every possible way, I shall have to convince you again.'

'Convince me,' I said, and held out my arms.

He slid forward, unwrapping my shawl, and kissed my bared throat. I shuddered with desire. We shed clothes as we ran for the bedroom, eager and laughing and gasping and 111.

laughing again. Tripping over knickers. Tearing off b.u.t.tons. Oh my sweet Daniel.

The strange thing about sensuality is that it clears the mind. At least, it cleared my mind. Once I had recovered some breath and untangled myself from a sheet which was behaving like an amorous boa constrictor, I laid my cheek against my lover's broad, spice-scented chest and suddenly everything was obvious and bright and the landscape of my mind was illuminated with understanding. Unfortunately, I then fell asleep, exhausted by pa.s.sion and relief.

Sunday morning announced itself with the scent of coffee and the absence of both my lover and my cat. When I fumbled my way into the parlour I found that the two of them had been sleeping on the couch. Someone had been out and bought croissants and the Sunday paper and had put on the coffee. Then, presumably exhausted by all that effort, they had gone back to the couch for one of Horatio's little naps. They were so decorative that I sat doting upon the footstool, watching them sleep. The snuggly cat under the outflung, relaxed hand of the man. Daniel's other long, sensitive hand over his eyes. His bare chest and...mmm ... thigh exposed to the cool morning air. Long, smooth, muscular thigh . . . early sunlight glazing his s.h.i.+ny chestnut hair, growing out of its severe cut. So beautiful.

Today was a day for answering questions. But it was also a day for being happy. I wasn't aware of how unhappy I had been until it was gone. It was like the absence of a backache to which one has become inured by years of ouches. Then one makes an unwary movement and is not immediately punished for it. Takes getting used to. Delightful.

I showered and dressed in a gown and floated out to eat croissants and apricot jam and read the paper until my cotenants woke up.

The paper was so depressing. Climate change, wars, pollution, logging catchments, using unrefined brown coal, all that stuff we told them about ages ago and only now was it sinking in with Catastrophe not just knocking but kicking the door down-oh, you mean no water? And we need this water stuff to survive? Duh, as Kylie might have said. Not to mention snipers, war in the Middle East looking like it might spread to the Far East, which is us, bombs, cruelty to immigrants, mean penny-pinching grudgingness worthy of the 1834 Poor Law which made Charles d.i.c.kens so incandescent, anti-terror laws more terrifying than the terror-aargh! I just want one grown-up in parliament, just one. Or maybe two. I wouldn't want the only one to die of loneliness. One person who will not take a party line of safe in-between wishy-was.h.i.+ness, who will say, this is evil, this is wrong, not only that, this is silly, I won't support it... And since I am not going to get a person like that, I turned to the literary pages and the film reviews instead. If fact wasn't acceptable, what's wrong with good old fiction?

I don't go to films much, preferring to wait for the DVD so I can snuggle up on my own couch with my cat and stop the film when it gets scary or I need a loo break. Or speed it up if it gets boring. Cinemas almost never allow one to do this. Also, I have got into the very bad habit of commenting on the action and plot, and this can get one hissed at in a public place.

I was just wondering whether tickling a sleeping lover came under the heading of improper conduct when Horatio rolled over and yawned in that appealing tongue-curling way 113.

which means that a cat is extremely happy, and Daniel opened his eyes. He yawned too, but his tongue did not curl.

'I fell asleep waiting for you to wake up,' he explained drowsily, accepting my kiss and adding a few more for interest.

'Why were you sleeping on the couch with Horatio?' I asked, moving out of his embrace only as the desire for more coffee became paramount.

'In case I had another nightmare,' he said, very seriously. 'I would never forgive myself if I did actually ...you know. React badly. Horatio will just scratch me to the bone if I startle him.'

'Isn't it about time that you whispered into my sh.e.l.l-like ear what all this is about?' I asked, handing him a cup.

'Yes, probably,' he agreed. 'All that I can tell you. Some of it is secret, and it isn't my secret.'

'As long as it isn't Georgie's secret,' I muttered.

'Georgie? No, nothing to do with Georgie. Surely you weren't really worried that I might want George rather than you, ketschele?'

'No, why should I think that?' I asked, allowing myself to be scornful now that I knew I was safe. 'Just because I'm short and fat and dumpy and mousy, and she is tall and gorgeous with baby blue eyes and blonde ringlets? The very first time I saw her she was wearing your blue dressing gown and she looked like a Vogue cover.'

'Oh,' said Daniel. 'She is tall and glamorous,' he admitted. 'And she does have blue eyes and blonde hair. But she has a heart of pure marble and just as many brains cells as can calculate an expense account to the nearest pfennig, dollar or euro as required. Whereas you are kind and funny and compa.s.sionate and witty and acerbic and beautiful and as sweet in my mouth as honey,' he said, and put down his cup to kiss me pa.s.sionately.

After which I agreed to omit the topic of Georgiana Hope from any future discourse and returned my lover to the matters to be discussed, from which I had been continuously distracted for days by one thing and another.

'Why did we go to see that horrible old man?' I asked.

'Because he was there when Max Mertens stole the treasure from Salonika,' said Daniel.

Well, there was an answer. And just then someone pinged my doorbell and a gruff voice said, 'Police here. Open the door, please.'

CHAPTER NINE.

They sounded like a couple of very unimpressed officers who wanted to come in right now and it seemed only sensible to allow them to do so before they got crosser than they already were. I buzzed them in and Daniel and I met them in the atrium.

'Corinna Chapman,' I said, doing my 'I remind you of your English teacher' impression, which always works on officials. I held out my hand and the primary police officer took it automatically, and then didn't quite know what to do with it. He was a stocky man with a ground-in scowl. His companion was stockier and even more grim. 'How can I help you?'

'You can let us into your bakery,' he replied, moderating his tone.

'Certainly, I'll get my keys,' I said. No point in demanding explanations. Something bad had happened and I could only hope that it hadn't happened in my kitchen.

'You know me,' Daniel told the second policeman. 'What's afoot, Jonesy?'

'Nothing good,' grunted Jonesy. 'You been here all night, Daniel?'

115.

'Except when I went out to get the croissants at about nine,' Daniel replied. 'Why?'

By now I had fetched the keys and led the way down to the street. We got to the corner of Calico Alley, where I was firmly stopped.

'You don't want to go down there, ma'am,' said Jones to me. 'You come and look, Daniel, if you want.'

'Do I want to?' asked Daniel.