Earthly Delights Read Free Page B

assortmentof whatever gods happened to be paying attention to my shop on this bright morning. They might easily be visiting Meroe at the Sibyl’s Cave next door.
    I love autumn in Melbourne. The nights are cold and the days are sunny and the temperature is just right for someone who spent her whole adolescent Beach Baby phase sitting under a tree, trying not to melt. The sun was now slanting down between the buildings and the morning rush was over. The poor huddled masses, clutching their coffee and thinking of their overextended finances, had bought muffins fresh from the oven, croissants au beurre, pasta douro rolls with cheese inside and bacon-topped flat rolls as a substitute for what the civilised world calls breakfast. I watched them scurry away, from Gucci to Armani, heels tapping, briefcases under one arm and expressions harried. I was meanly and profoundly glad that I was no longer part of the Gadarene rush to get to the office before the boss got in. Poor bastards! They would have to stay there until the day was all gone and the boss finally went home. Whereas I got to close after lunch and tonight I had a possible assignation with a gorgeous man. Things were, indeed, looking up.
    Horatio was, as usual, sitting in a dignified posture next to the cash register, which he likes because I pat him every time I make a sale. Or possibly he is lurking. It is hard to tell with cats. Some ailurophobe complained to the health inspectors about him, but the man who came to check him out spent half an hour telling him what a fine, what a very fine cat he was, yes indeed (although Horatio knows that, he does like to be told again and again), and dismissed the complaint. As long as he doesn’t stretch out for a snooze on the actual bread I think we are safe. At least with that inspector.
    The rush had died down and I could leave the shop toKylie (her mother was a fan, poor girl), my shop assistant of the day. Kylie and her friend Gossamer (another victim of a fanciful parent) live one floor above me in 2A, an apartment belonging to Kylie’s father. They are nice girls, most of the time, though they do have a tendency to appear tipsy in the evening. This is, I ascertained, due to their discovery that they could only stay as thin as Kate Moss or whoever is the latest highly paid anorexic by giving up either drinking or eating. I fear daily for their metabolisms and live in hope that they finally do get that major soapie part for which they are hanging out. One which requires them to gain two stone. That would about bring them up to a human weight.
    Until that happens, Kylie and Goss help out in the shop and since they confine their drinking to evenings and I have an electronic cash register which tells you how much change to hand out, they are very helpful. And at least they won’t eat the stock. Also, Horatio likes them and they adore him. And sending them along to a corporate lunch with the Health Loaf makes all the yuppies eat up the nice sawdust like little lambkins, hoping thus to look like Kylie and Gossamer. They wish.
    I made up a nice basket of different rolls and went back inside Insula, my apartment building. It was built in 1920 by an architect who had either studied the classics or was, as Professor Monk suggests, completely insane. He decided that what the city of Melbourne really needed was a Roman apartment building, which is what Insula means. And in the best materials and with great attention to detail, he built one. All eight storeys of it. It is covered on the outside with peacock blue tiles. We have the
tesserae
, the tiled mosaics of various gods and goddesses on both walls and floors. We have the
impluvium
, an indoor pool with goldfish in it, beside which Horatio likes to sit and meditate—and, incidentally, drive thefish crazy. We have an entirely un-Roman elevator, though it does have Medusa-head bosses all over the ironwork. We have a roof garden which is open to all tenants, where we can sit in the