But, unaccountably, I did. And it was time to open the shop.
CHAPTER TWO
Open-eyed conspiracy his time doth take
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST, ACT 2, SCENE 1
Jason began to stack the bread into the trays for delivery. I left him flirting with the rickshaw driver, Megan – a short, plump redhead with spark and drive; a much better choice than his usual languid Nordic types – and went upstairs.
Daniel and Alasdair were in close converse in the kitchen, the air redolent with fried bacon. I did not disturb them.
I changed into respectable garments: a pair of loose blue cotton trousers and a shirt. I could at last remove my heavy boots and put on sandals. My feet sang little songs of gratitude all the way down the stairs.
Goss, or possibly Kylie, was waiting at the door of the bakery when I opened it. The girls are the same height and weight – far too low – and change their hair and eye colour so often I once suggested they wear name tags. They refused, but agreed to announce their identity every morning. I like knowing to whom I am talking.
‘Goss,’ said Goss, and handed me her phone. I have a strict no-phone-in-the-bakery rule, though I have relented enough to allow them to put the phone in a box on a shelf, on the condition that they only text when they are having morning tea. This is, of course, tyrannical of me, relic of the Jurassic as I am. But those girls text as though their life depended on transmitting the bad news about someone’s boyfriend from Kew to Hawthorn as urgently as possible, and it is not polite to the customers. It doesn’t stop the customers from doing it to us, but we are required to be civilised.
‘Today’s muffins are Oasis, and egg and bacon,’ I told her. ‘There are teacakes too, plus challah, bara brith and the usual sourdough, rye and so on.’
‘Okay,’ she said agreeably. ‘Meroe was asking who your visitor was.’
I considered this. Meroe is Insula’s jobbing witch: a woman who might easily turn you into a toad but is careful of incurring insupportable karmic debts. She has her own shop, wherein many wondrous artefacts may be purchased if you’re that way inclined, which occasionally I am. ‘Indeed?’
‘Just as I came in,’ said Goss, presenting me with a small coarse cloth bag. It was strung on a long ribbon to be worn around the neck. ‘She said …’ Her brow furrowed with the effort of recalling our witch’s words exactly. ‘She said he’s been tortured and he needs to sleep. If he wears the charm, he will sleep without dreams.’
‘How did she know I had a visitor, much less one who might need a charm against nightmares?’ I asked, remembering those fathomless eyes full of present terror.
‘Well, duh, Corinna – she’s, like, a witch?’ said Goss, and slipped out of reach behind the cash register.
Duh, indeed. I left Goss in charge of the shop and mounted the stairs to my own apartment again.
Daniel and Alasdair were still in the kitchen. The soldier looked up as I entered. I dropped the ribbon over his head. His hand clutched the charm. His eyes widened.
‘Our resident witch says that if you wear her charm you will sleep without dreams,’ I announced, patted his cheek again, and went back to the bakery. Daniel would explain.
The usual people came in and bought bread and traded money and news. Nine am brought Mistress Dread, wearing her full costume. This consisted of what are known as CFM heels (stiletto, scarlet), fishnets, and a boned and laced red French corset. Her black hair was piled atop her head and stuck with hatpins and she was carrying – of course – her monogrammed whip. She lives in 2B, Venus, and was no doubt on her way home from her dungeon.
Habitual patrons are relatively immune to surprises in Earthly Delights, but I suppressed a giggle at the reaction of a very conventional-looking young man in a good suit, who had to hide behind his bag of bread rolls to preserve his countenance. Mistress Dread nailed him in a second and flicked him her card. He blushed. But he caught it.
‘Hard day’s night?’ I asked her.
‘Brutal,’ she said in her gravelly, sexy voice. ‘Had to bar the doors at midnight. Every man and his woofer wants to get flogged these days. I blame the internet. Loaf of sourdough, Corinna.’ She hauled up and rearranged her formidable bosom. ‘If I don’t get this corset off soon, I’m going to faint.’
There was a whimper from the conventional young man. He would definitely be visiting the dungeon as soon as he could summon the nerve, with his heart (or other suitable organ) in his hand and his posterior bared for the kiss of the whip. He was eyeing said whip with fascination and his bread roll camouflage was becoming inadequate.
Me, I dislike pain and do everything to avoid it, but as Grandma Chapman put it, ‘Each to his own, as the old wife said when she kissed the cow.’ Which now I come to think of it, is an odd thing for her to have said – both Grandma and the old wife.
Cherie Holliday came in to buy sourdough, mentioning a picnic. When I raised an eyebrow, she told me it was to be held in our very own roof garden, where somehow the Temple of Ceres and the wisteria had been missed in the mad vandalism of the city during the sixties. Trudi keeps it alive with all the dedication of a Dutch person in a blue jumper who wants her very own linden tree and means to have it, even if she has to carry all the bathwater in the building to the roof by herself. It had been an overgrown wilderness when she came to Insula some years ago. Now the roof garden is like a little slice of paradise nine storeys up.
Cherie’s family had imploded when she was very young, and though she’d been through some hard times she had done a good job of bringing herself up. She’d found a job and a place to live, and had avoided trouble, drugs and pregnancy. Her father Andy, meanwhile, had crawled into a bottle and stayed there until she had pulled him out. Cherie was studying textile design, and was discussing it with Therese Webb, the resident of 5A, Arachne.
I got rather lost when they talked about methods of making patterns but was able to inform them that onion skins made the light golden brown shade of dye they were looking for.
‘So you make soup with the insides and dye cloth with the outsides,’ Cherie observed.
‘Nothing as all round useful as an onion,’ I informed her. ‘How about a few cakes for your picnic? There are still a couple of Oasis muffins left – or would you rather some teacakes?’
‘Both,’ said Cherie greedily. I applaud greed. Gluttony is such a reliable sin. And you get to keep your clothes on.
‘And for me,’ said Therese. ‘My friend Anwyn’s coming to stay from Adelaide, and I’ve just invited another friend, Philomela, too. She was in an accident, and I’ve been visiting her as often as I can, though it’s such a long way to go. She’s in a bad way, the poor thing, but she can still sew, so I’ve asked her to come and stay with me to help out with my Project.’ The capital ‘P’ was audible. ‘We’re doing a large embroidery for Innilgard’s anniversary. We’ve decided we want to do Anglo-Saxon, because it was English embroiderers who made the Bayeux Tapestry, which I might remind you was also an embroidery. We’re doing The Battle of Maldon. And Anwyn’s bringing Bellamy.’
‘Her husband? Her child?’ I guessed.