The Scandalous Life of Sasha Torte

by Lesley Truffle

  Even though they are notoriously shy in the presence of humans, wild animals never seem to mind my presence. When I told Lily about my experience with the Tasmanian tiger she said, ‘Sasha, you’re damned lucky to possess the gift of psychic insight. I suppose it could be viewed as compensation for having to live in the shadow of the Kane Curse.’

  ‘Lil, do you have psychic insights too?’

  ‘Yes but sometimes I wish I didn’t. Mind you, it can be useful knowing what your loved ones are going to do before they’ve even done it. But when Bess was dying it was horrific because I merged with her pain. I used to tell myself that it wasn’t possible to commune with animals.’

  ‘But you knew you could?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I could hardly breathe. I hadn’t imagined what was going on with the Tasmanian tiger after all.

  Directly below Dead Man’s Gorge, a lamb carcass was being devoured by a pack of black Tasmanian devils. They emitted bloodcurdling growls and shrieks as they tore into the tender flesh. Bones, wool and skin disappeared into their voracious mouths. They were only the size of small dogs, but they displayed powerful wide jaws and sharp incisors. Two devils signalled their intention to fight by sharply sneezing at each other. The others joined the fracas with harsh coughs, snarls and screeches.

  Close by a bat emitted high-pitched sounds in his quest for prey. I knew the resulting echo would enable the bat to judge the shape, texture and distance of an object. Sure enough a bat shot past me, scooping unwary moths into its wing as it went. I stopped when a whole colony of bats clattered out of the canopies and took to the sky in formation. Satan shuddered as they brushed past us. It was eerie but quite magnificent to see them illuminated in silhouette. I watched them until something white caught my eye. It was Lily’s nightdress hanging on the lower branches of a tree.

  I slid off Satan and crept up the incline. Lily was about halfway across Dead Man’s Gorge. She was stepping out gracefully, head straight up, not even looking to see where her feet sought the rope. Naked with her long hair streaming in shadow down her back and arms held sideways for balance. Her fingers moved slightly as though keeping time with an orchestra. I held my breath. I wanted to yell out a warning but I knew concentration was paramount to her safety.

  She reached the other side and I gasped with relief. But she then executed a backwards somersault before continuing back across the rope. Lil moved through several balletic poses, then dropped and spun languidly over and up, dicing and playing with fate. She was so incredibly graceful and fluid. The moon illuminated her face and she was smiling dreamily, listening to music only she could hear. It was too much to bear and I closed my eyes. But when I found the courage to look again, Lily had gone.

  I woke late the next morning, hoping Dead Man’s Gorge had been just another nightmare. A morning breeze drifted through the balcony windows and lifted my muslin mosquito net. The world looked pretty much the same as it had the day before. I could hear the sounds of Appletorte starting up. In the hallway Jacko clumped around, as he returned our cleaned shoes and boots. In the bathing room a maid was singing a sad love ballad as she prepared my morning bath. In my mind’s eye, I saw Charlie yawning as he shooed the kitchen cats away from the bloodied game which had been dumped on the kitchen stoop.

  On rolling over I was startled to see Lily standing quietly at my bedroom window, gazing out over the fields and orchards. She was dressed in her travelling costume and already had her gloves on. ‘Lil, where are you going?’

  I knew the answer even before she dropped the curtain and turned to face me.

  ‘I’m going back to Europe for a while. I need the distraction of Paris.’

  ‘But why? This is your home.’

  ‘Sasha, don’t get upset. I have my reasons. My world fell apart after I asked Tim O’Flaherty to marry me. He refused me, even though he says he loves me as he’s never loved before. Perhaps I should be proud of my achievement but the truth is I’m devastated. I didn’t think Tim would knock me back.’

  I flung back the bedclothes and rushed over to hug her. She’d been crying and looked like she hadn’t been to bed at all.

  ‘Lil, I just don’t get it. If he loves you, why won’t he marry you? Hell, every bachelor in Tasmania wants to marry you.’

  She laughed but it sounded hollow. ‘Tim’s pride will not allow him to marry a woman already in firm possession of her own fortune. He’s decided to go into business with his brother in Arizona. They’re buying a gambling house. If Tim succeeds and makes his mark, he’ll marry me.’

  ‘What happens if he doesn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sasha. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Brendan reckons I’ve got nothing to worry about but I’m devastated.’

  ‘But why leave us? Can’t you at least wait a bit and see how it goes?’

  ‘It’s only for a few months. A close friend has set up a chic dress salon in the Place Vendrone and she’s asked me to come back to Paris and design clothes for her establishment.’

  ‘But you could do that here in Tasmania. Everyone’s always asking me who designed or made my clothes. And they’re really impressed when I tell them it’s you.’

  ‘Sasha, I need to be in Paris. I may only be gone eight months or so. I’m losing all my self-confidence and succumbing to melancholy. Please don’t be angry with me. I hold no fears for your future but if there’s a crisis I’ll come straight back.’

  Months went by but Lily didn’t return. However she did write regularly and it was from Lily that I learnt that Tim was begging her to join him in Arizona. She told him she’d think about it when the Paris season ended but I knew she’d go. I was confident everything would work out just fine for them. My gut feeling told me that they were destined to be together to the end of time.

  Looking back I’m astonished at how naive I was. For despite the way I’d been raised, I still clung to the childish belief that everything would turn out well in the end. Deep down I knew otherwise but I persisted in lying to myself. And as Giacomo Casanova wrote, ‘If one tells a lie a sufficient number of times, one ends by believing it.’

  12

  FLAMBÉED AMBITION

  The seasons changed but I was so busy getting myself properly educated and studying the fine art of pastry making that I didn’t pay too much attention to what was going on in the outside world. Eighteen months slipped by and my French language skills improved to the point where I could easily translate even the most obscure recipes in Antonin Carême’s cookbooks.

  Under Charlie’s patient guidance I practised Carême’s art of sugar boiling for confectionary purposes. We started with Au Lisse; the first degree and moved on through to Au Caramel; the sixth degree. Charlie taught me how to test boiling sugar water by first dipping my fingers in iced water. And when I finally mastered the sixth degree, we danced a wild celebratory jig around the kitchen table.

  Grandpa and I still really enjoyed entertaining at Appletorte and so I took charge of our grand dinners and organised them exactly the same way Lily had done. Naturally this involved lots of list making. It was fun working out with Viola which young men we fancied enough to invite to dinner.

  Viola and I frequently visited Nanny in her cottage on the wharf. We confided in her and she turned out to be quite good at deciding which lads we should concern ourselves with and those we should avoid at all costs. Some fine times were had but I never developed any passion for the young men who met Nanny’s and Grandpa’s approval. Something was missing but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I was also concerned about Viola. She’d stopped taking an interest in our list of eligible young men and was becoming increasingly subdued in public. At our dinners she’d always been flirtatious and funny and up for any naughtiness. I had a sneaking suspicion that there was something she wasn’t telling me. It really bothered me because we’d never had any secrets between us.

  The grand dinners were also useful for trying out exotic cuisine and discovering what people loved eating as opp
osed to what they merely tolerated. Accordingly I found that most people enjoyed sampling cuisine they’d never get to eat at home. So I consulted Carême and dazzled our guests with dishes such as: turtle Madeira soup, stuffed quails with bread sauce and salmon in French champagne. To finish off the dinner we’d indulge in Carême’s preposterous sugar edifices. The most popular was an Irish pavilion on a bridge.

  Viola was my taste tester when Charlie was busy and she was very good at intuiting what was going to be a rip-roaring success and what was doomed to failure. Like Charlie she egged me on to greater heights of culinary outrageousness. She was fearless.

  One afternoon as Viola flipped through Carême’s illustrated cookbooks she said, ‘Sasha, you’re not being trained by Charlie to become a domestic cook. You are going to be Tasmania’s most famous pastry chef, so you might as well start now.’ She turned a page over and pointed. ‘Oh my goodness, look at this! Soufflé a la Rothschild. Oh yes, this is the pudding we’re looking for. And it was meant to be because you’ve already got the expensive plonk that goes into it.’

  She was referring to the bottle of Danziger Goldwasser liqueur Lily had sent me the previous Christmas. I’d been thrilled to discover it contained suspended particles of gold. I’d been keeping it for a special occasion and it was still sitting safely on a shelf in Charlie’s locked storeroom.

  I suspect the whole of Tasmania heard about it when I presented Carême’s sensational soufflés to a table of thirty dinner guests. The soufflés were a complex masterpiece involving the Danziger Goldwasser liqueur, sugar, eggs, milk and crystallised fruit. Timing is everything with soufflé. But our nimble manservants managed to transport the hot soufflés from kitchen to dining room well before the soufflés decided to lie down and take a kip.

  I’d been so absorbed in perfecting soufflés and finessing my daring culinary improvisations that another season slipped on by. I was stunned when Viola announced, ‘I’m going to be betrothed to one of my father’s parishioners, Lord Percy Balcombe. My parents are finally in agreement for once. They think Percy will make a wonderful husband and father.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  She looked at me as though I was mad. ‘Of course not. But Mama assures me that comes later. She says it’s enough that I find him tolerable and being fifteen years older than me he has maturity on his side. Papa tells me Percy has many fine qualities.’

  I was speechless. We’d been having such an agreeable time being footloose and fancy free that I just couldn’t understand why she’d given in to her parents and got herself hitched to a pants man like Balcombe.

  This wasn’t the Viola I knew; my Viola was a flame thrower, a maverick, the naughty girl who was always seeking the most wicked option. She was my confidante, my best friend and the person I’d been planning on travelling overseas with in the near future. We’d already spent many hours planning our itinerary.

  Viola continued, ‘Don’t look at me like that, Sasha. Making a good marriage has always been on the cards for me. I’ve never had the same freedoms you have and by marrying a wealthy man I can get the hell out of the vicarage. I’ll be able to do what I want and we’ll see each other all the time. It won’t make any difference to our friendship. I mean really, Percy can’t stop me having friends, can he?’

  She was wrong. He could and he did. I was hurt but there was nothing I could do about it. I found out much later, it was an open secret that Balcombe had mistresses stashed all over Tasmania. He also had more money than Croesus and his money didn’t just talk, it shouted. It drowned out his detractors, of whom there were many. But mostly Balcombe’s indiscretions were hushed up for he had a vindictive streak and was greatly feared.

  I was invited to Viola’s wedding at the vicarage, but once Viola became Lady Balcombe, she moved into a completely different social stratum from me. For Viola was now a young married woman and Lord Balcombe expected her to conduct herself in a decorous manner and mix exclusively with married couples, dowagers and the landed gentry. Unmarried renegades such as I were to be avoided at all costs.

  The conservative mores of Wolfftown stole Viola away. Percy Balcombe didn’t approve of me and he discouraged her from socialising with me. Initially Viola put up a fight but Balcombe had all the power and it was judicious for her to give in to his wishes. I had no choice but to accept that we were now living in two very different worlds. I missed Viola and worried about her. Then months went by and time diminished my sense of loss.

  On my seventeenth birthday we stuck with tradition and Grandpa took me to lunch at the Riff where I discussed my business plans for a patisserie. Being a gambling man he backed me all the way. Brendan Kane was openly proud to have me follow in his footsteps in establishing a commercial venture.

  Grandpa’s hunting mates were having lunch at the Riff that day. He didn’t mince matters. ‘My granddaughter is a chip off the old block. No bloody Torte shite here. Sasha’s got no interest in getting herself shackled to some gormless, titled landowner. She’s a keen businesswoman and patisserie is her game. In case you colonial boyos no comprendo, that’s pastries, chocolates and sweeties. She’ll be bringing a touch of class to this stranded province.’ His gaze narrowed and he peered at them intently. ‘And if I don’t see you lot getting your arses into her shop and buying a couple of pies or the odd currant bun, I’ll be onto you. Like a ton of bricks.’

  Initially I kept my plans of fancy cooking to myself. I had no love of the heavy suet puddings and currant buns which had remained popular since the Van Diemen days. I especially loathed cocky’s joy, which was a heavy treacle syrup. You just couldn’t get away from the wretched stuff, it was in everything.

  While other girls idly dreamt of handsome suitors and erotic interludes, my thoughts were firmly on delicacies such as bouchons. You may well be familiar with them. Chocolat bouchons are dense chocolate cupcakes in the shape of a champagne cork, studded with chocolate pieces. They are especially moreish when washed down with a glass or two of premium champagne. My reveries also involved: savarin Chantilly, tarte aux abricots, clafoutis aux cerises and madeleines. I tend to use the European names because Charlie did. Although to be honest it feels much more decadent nibbling on kugelhopf than it is to eat ordinary raisin cake. It’s crucial to bake kugelhopf until it makes a hollow sound when tapped and then age it a couple of days. I like to keep the brandy I soaked the raisins in and pour it over the finished cake. But sometimes I can’t resist drinking it.

  Grandpa organised the purchase of my new business premises, a large three-storey shop and dwelling situated on the corner of Main Street. It overlooked the port and was clearly visible from the ocean and docks. Workmen and artists toiled for months to create the emporium of my dreams. The top floors were gutted and completely renovated. I planned to live on the third floor, and the second floor was made into staff quarters.

  I developed something of an obsession with bathing rooms. I knocked myself out acquiring quality plumbing, brass pipes and first-rate porcelain features. The most magnificent plumbing was installed. I scoured European and American gazettes so I could import the latest designs in bidets, geyser-fed showers and T. Crapper valve-and-siphon lavatories. I also acquired a porcelain enamelled claw-footed bathtub; over five feet long with a hot and cold combination cock. It was very chic.

  But my pride and joy was the American Quaker thermal bath cabinet, designed for long Turkish steam treatments. Only my head protruded from the cabinet and I was utterly convinced it was invigorating and health giving. The advertisement in the Sears Roebuck & Co. catalogue won me over: ‘Thousands owe their lives to The Quaker. A grand relief for nervous prostration and suitable for overworked men and women of all classes.’

  You’ve got to hand it to our liberty-seeking American cousins. They’ve even tried to democratise the class system by applying the principles of hygiene.

  There were disused stables off the courtyard at the back of the patisserie and I had them refurbished so that Satan and a pair of carriag
e horses could be accommodated in equine comfort. To keep Satan company I also moved Lil’s horse, Otis, into the stables and they got along famously which was a relief. I never really knew what Satan was going to get up to next. I should admit that the other reason I wanted Otis in my stable was that Viola was very fond of him. I hoped she might drop by one fine day and we could go riding together.

  Appletorte was leased to a reputable doctor, a friend of Grandpa’s. Our staff were part of the deal and they were invited to keep their positions and stay on. The only fly in the ointment was that the new master of Appletorte became somewhat despondent on learning that Charlie would be joining the staff at my shop. I’d made the fatal mistake of inviting Dr Gustave Mulvey to Appletorte when Charlie was cooking. I should have known better, for once tasted, Charlie’s sublime cuisine is never forgotten.

  Grandpa gallantly stepped into the breach and brokered a deal. He put it to Dr Mulvey that Charlie wasn’t a domestic cook by any means. He was a professional pastry chef, au fait with the very best of French cuisine. Perhaps Charlie would be willing to play head chef for important social functions at Appletorte occasionally? Charlie agreed, everyone was happy and I heaved a sigh of relief. Charlie quickly packed his bags and moved into the staff quarters above the shop.