Forbidden Fruit (34 page)

‘Not me,’ said Manny proudly. ‘I’m going back to work. I’m going to win that scholarship.’

‘Contingency fund, then, to pay fees,’ I said. ‘Just in case you don’t. You’ve had a rather interrupted study vac, you know.’

He smiled for the first time. He had his mother’s smile.

There was a note at the end of the list of demands. It was in capitals and bold and underlined.

AND CHARLOTTE O’RYAN IS NEVER TO SEE EITHER OF HER DAUGHTERS DOLORES OR BRIGID AGAIN
.

I gave the notebook to Mr O’Ryan. He squirmed. I stared. Daniel stared. Rowan stared. Brigid and Manny glared. The baby whimpered.

‘And if I refuse?’ he said, making a feeble effort to bluff. ‘This is all just on your word, you know.’

‘Didn’t you know there’s a security camera at the front door?’ Daniel asked. ‘Where you and your appalling wife will have been recorded entering as trespassers with three armed men and Rowan in captivity?’

And that was the end of the negotiations. He agreed to all of it. Then he took Mrs O’Ryan away. She had recovered a little and was now mumbling complaints about the way God had cheated her.

I asked Brigid if she would rather stay in my spare room.

‘Oh, no,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll stay here with Manny and Bunny and the gentle beasts. I like beasts a good deal more than I like people,’ she said, resuming her place in the hay next to the manger. Manny lay down beside her. Bunny curled up at her feet. He was one happy rabbit.

We tiptoed out and left them. And it was Christmas Day.

Full royal gifts they bear for the King
Gold, incense, myrrh are their offering.

Peter Cornelius
‘The Three Kings’     

Daniel and I hugged Rowan farewell and went back to our apartment. On the way I called him on a matter of fact.

‘Daniel, there is no security camera at our front door.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘When you bluff bluffers, it’s best to bluff big.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ I told him. We went to bed and fell asleep again. When we woke about ten I said, ‘I had the oddest dream,’ before I realised that it was, in fact, the case that the cellar was a scene that would have made St Francis of Assisi write us a special canticle.

‘That was strange,’ said Daniel. ‘And I’m not familiar with the iconography.’

‘It had it all,’ I assured him. ‘The Virgin in white and blue, the baby ox and the ass, the manger for the child. Admittedly the rabbit was not canonical, nor the T-shirt or the notebook, but otherwise, all it lacked was angels.’

‘And wise men, I understand,’ he said as he went to take a shower.

We were invited to the Professor’s luncheon, so we ate a little toast for breakfast and idled the morning away. I gave Daniel the T-shirt I had painted for him:
THE MESSIAH IS COMING. LOOK BUSY
. He was not offended. I had wondered. I received a bottle of that delightful Badedas bath essence which someone from America had obtained for him. A menu had been pushed under the door and we studied it.

‘If I had a belt, I’d loosen it,’ Daniel commented.

‘The Professor is doing us proud,’ I informed him. ‘So just eat a bit of everything, or he’ll be living for months on the leftovers.’

‘Not while Jason is in the world,’ he replied, and he was, of course, right. I collected my gift of Roman bath oil and the other things and we rose in stately fashion to the Professor’s apartment on the third floor.

We were greeted by Mrs Dawson, which was a surprise. She was wearing an ochre top and a marvellous wraparound skirt, tied on the hip. It was made of a soft cotton material with paisley and swirly patterns in long stripes of dark brown, green and cream.

‘My children are away,’ she said. ‘My son’s gone to Queensland with his family and my daughter is in Hobart—she hates the heat. Merry Christmas! Come in!’ She ushered us in and handed us each a tall glass full of kir royal, champagne and crème de cassis.

Meroe was there, nibbling Jason’s little vegetable muffins.

‘You understand that this is merely a Christian ceremony planted on the smoking remains of a pagan one,’ she informed me fiercely.

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘But you can still eat the food.’

‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘Even pagans can do that.’

‘I got your menu,’ I said to the Professor, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Here’s a small token of my affection, and I can’t see us eating all that provender.’

‘And mine to you,’ he said, kissing me in turn. ‘And I think we shall manage.’

He put into my hands a translation of Ovid’s
Ars Amatoria
, addressed to me and Daniel, though he ‘didn’t expect that we needed any instruction’.

Therese gave me my apron, emblazoned with
NEVER TRUST A THIN COOK
in white on green and I handed out the other things I had made.

Daniel had the simplest idea. He had just printed a lot of little certificates, good for ‘four hours work’. It was a lovely idea in a building full of people who were getting old, or who didn’t know how to hold a hammer.

Trudi gave everyone a tulip bulb, which she then collected back to plant for us. Mrs Pemberthy did not, she informed us, give presents. But she took my lavender bag with flowers embroidered on it anyway. Small black Nox was discussing a plate of finely chopped smoked salmon. That cat was a fish fiend and this was her Christmas present.

Jon and Kepler had bought lengths of the most luscious fabric for all the men, and wine bottle openers for all the ladies—a fine distinction, I thought. Mistress Dread, I was informed, had gone home to an unsuspected daughter. People were laughing. This was not the sort of Christmas I was used to … No arguments? No feuds?

Of course, as writers from Wodehouse to Saki have known, the essence of a happy gathering is to have a Mrs Pemberthy, whom everyone dislikes. This smooths over any little difficulties in the social round. She was doing such a good job that I took her another glass of champagne.

Mrs Dawson had even provided a plate of doughnuts for Daniel’s Hanukkah celebration. She thought of everything. He kissed her hand, a little greasily.

I drank the white wine—a fine sauvignon blanc from the colder bits of New Zealand. I ate an artichoke heart and a few slices of salami. Crackers were pulled. I put on my new apron. Pleasant carols were playing softly. Even Meroe was humming along. She had given me a packet of her wonderful hangover
cure, a tea which smelt like old cricket pitch but rectified the unbalanced humours almost instantly. Jason was serving drinks, glowing with conscious virtue, knowledge that he had produced the perfect glacé cherry, and the prospect of holidays.

‘Now we have all had our private party,’ said the Professor gravely, ‘I found all these hungry people in the cellar this morning, so I invited them to lunch.’

In came Rowan and Michael, Bec and Sarah, Janeen, Rupert and Alexander. They were escorting Manny and Brigid and the baby. I observed that someone had given Brigid new clothes. That, I guessed, would be Kylie and Goss. The girl, now wearing a pair of khaki trousers and a loose green top, no longer had iconic force. But she was a brave girl and Manny was a remarkable boy and we loaded plates for them of the roasted and the seethed and the beautiful salads.

Sarah, informed that the raw crudités and the hummus, the lentil loaf and the olives, nuts and fruit were for her, ate them without complaint or lecture on the rabidly carnivorous nature of the buffet. She even had a glass of wine. The others hopped into the food as though they had been starving since childhood.

‘This is fantastic,’ blurred Rupert through a mouthful of roast beef. ‘Did you cook all this, Prof?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was provided by my most gracious friend.’

He indicated Mrs Dawson. We applauded and she bowed.

‘It was the least I could do for such excellent company,’ she said, and accepted another glass of a strong red wine from the Flinders Ranges.

Manny ate like he was starving. Brigid allowed Trudi to hold the baby while she collected a feast for herself. Jason, besotted, offered her a plate of fruit bread. Barmbrack, also called St Brigid’s bread. Sarah had been discarded for a safer object of devotion. I was delighted.

Naturally, there were presents for the baby. Meroe had told everyone—except me and Mrs P—that she would be at the feast. Professor Dion gave her a little gold locket which had belonged to his daughter. He touched her forehead and murmured an ancient Greek blessing. Translated, it said,
Welcome to the grain-bearing earth
. Therese enveloped her in a beautiful bunny rug on which she had hastily appliquéd a brown and white Dutch rabbit with a benign expression. Meroe obliged with a jar of her emollient, made of lanolin and just a faint scent of herbs, sovereign for preventing nappy rash. Mrs Dawson gave Brigid a necklace of rose beads, compounded of rose petals and smelling very sweet, because she said that no one ever gave the mother presents and she had done all the work.

Then the singers obliged with a carol in honour of the baby. I had never heard it sung before but it was the carol performed by the field mice in the Mole’s little house, and it had always touched me deeply.

I was feeling strangely giddy, as though I had drunk too much wine, though I hadn’t. I was feeling, Mrs Dawson informed me, Christmassy, as was only proper. I was exhilarated, like Ebenezer Scrooge post-ghost. I wanted to hug the whole world.

I sat down, in case I actually tried this. The food was wonderful. I peeled another slice from an ambrosial ham and ate it with a slice of my own bread and a strong mustard piccalilli from the Dawson Grandma’s recipe. Meroe, of all people, said, ‘Merry Christmas!’, and I lifted my glass and Jason filled it and kissed me. And we toasted Christmas and mercy and charity and compassion and even the vegans joined in.

There were things I would have to do soon. Find the freegans and fill them full of good things, for instance. Make sure that Mr O’Ryan kept to his bargain. Perhaps help Brigid find a suitable house near the Lake establishment. Feed Christmas raw tuna to the Mouse Police and Christmas smoked trout to Horatio, who doted on smoked trout. Pay Jason his holiday money and give him my mobile phone so he could call for help if he had to. Things to be done.

But for the moment all I had to do was be happy. Someone asked Brigid if she had named the baby yet.

She smiled very gently and told us that she and Manny had picked out a name already if the baby was a girl. We asked what it was. She held out the sleeping baby.

‘Her name is Serena,’ she said.

After that I had a toast of my own. I raised my glass again and quoted Tiny Tim.

‘God Bless Us, every one.’

The oldest recipe turned out to be the best. Thank you, the Goodman of Paris.

500 g cherries

500 g sugar

Stone the cherries and put them in a heavy-based saucepan. Cover them with the sugar and leave overnight. In the morning bring them slowly to the boil and stir frantically to make sure that the fruit does not stick. Cook for about 10 minutes. You will see the cherries turn translucent. Take them off the heat and leave them for two days in the syrup. They will absorb a lot of it. Then remove them from the pan, drain, roll them in caster sugar and put them on a wire tray in the sun to dry. Or in the bottom of a very cool oven. Don’t package them until they are really unsticky. The leftover syrup makes fantastic sorbet—just freeze it.

You can use this recipe to glacé anything—except, possibly, potatoes. For apricots, peaches, and so on, douse the fruit first in boiling water to remove the skins, and then stone and quarter them.

If you miscalculate this recipe you will get toffee cherries, which luckily are also delicious. Use them as decoration and try again.

This is a good family Christmas cake recipe. It also looks very pretty. If you don’t glacé your own fruits you can buy some very good ones.

300 g mixed nuts (pistachios, almonds, brazil nuts, macadamias, whatever you like)

600 g mixed glacé fruit (pineapple, peaches, figs, apricots, cherries. Include some sultanas if you like them)

¾ cup plain flour

pinch salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon baking powder

¾ cup brown or raw sugar

2 eggs

¼ cup brandy or rum

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

extra cherries to decorate and
cup warmed apricot jam for the glaze