The Scandalous Life of Sasha Torte

by Lesley Truffle

  There were several gangs operating in Wolfftown at the same time. The Scags were a razor gang and the lowliest criminals in the gang pecking order. They were a motley collection of local boyos from the slums and tenements and they lacked the criminal skills of the other gangs. The Scags main source of revenue was dragging well-dressed folk into the alleys behind the Tub of Blood, beating their victims senseless and then making off with the victims’ valuables, clothing and shoes. It wasn’t uncommon to see folk staggering home buck naked in the middle of the night. The Scags were despised by everyone, including all the other gangs who considered them to be nothing more than opportunistic thugs and rank amateurs.

  The Bastardos gang were more predatory and corrupt than any other Wolfftown gang. They were skilled pickpockets in good times and aggressive bounty hunters in the lean times. Whereas the Ollies were duellists, mavericks and skilled boxers, the Bastardos were killers, extortionists and thieves. The Bastardos were organised by a woman named Cow-legged Kit but they had no self-discipline and were a law unto themselves. Kit got around town with a pistol concealed under her petticoats, a switch blade in her boot, a bludgeon strapped to her wrist and a red woollen skirt held up by a pair of men’s braces. A well-founded rumour had it that she’d once bitten off a lover’s ear and pinked his cheating cock with her trusty switch blade. Nobody gave her any stick and gentlemen stepped off the pavement to let her pass when they saw her coming. Kit was the only female in Wolfftown who could intimidate Brendan Kane.

  The only person with any control over Kit was her elder sister, Nora O’Brien. I remember when I was a child, eating lunch with Grandpa, and Ma O’Brien ticking off her sister. ‘No, Kitty, the no weapons rule applies to you as well. Get your goddamned pistol and tools up here where I can see them, on the fucking bar. And just watch your fucking language. I don’t want to be hearing young Sasha blaspheming and swearing the way you do.’

  Too late, too late.

  Kit enjoyed her vegetables as much as I did. From the corner of my eye, I’d watch her moving her peas around her plate and expertly flicking them under the table. She taught me quite a few shifty moves regarding the disposal of turnips. But Ma O’Brien didn’t miss a trick. She’d spot Kitty’s misdemeanour, lean across the bar and wallop her across the head. I never once saw Kit retaliate.

  The Cads gang saw themselves as a cut above Wolfftown’s other gangs. I was told it was unanimous when Roger Dasher was voted in as leader. His charisma, audacity and wealth made him irresistible. After he took over, the Cads became the terror of Wolfftown. They had no boundaries and would bet on anything, regardless of what the outcome might be.

  The Cads didn’t like to get their hands soiled and paid others to do their dirty work. And so Roger arranged it that some of the most corrupt Bastardos were in his pay. Once graft was involved it meant that Cow-legged Kit’s authority was undermined.

  Rumours did the rounds that Roger Dasher had paid four Bastardos to burn down a row of Wolfftown’s shop dwellings under cover of the night. Why was Roger under suspicion? Because it was known that he’d set up an in-house betting book for the Cads on how keenly certain shop keepers would defend their livelihoods in the event of a fire. Given Roger’s lack of moral fortitude I think it’s entirely possible that he would have thought it a jolly jape.

  Two babies, three young mothers, a twelve-year-old boy and his father perished in the fire. But so great was fear of retribution from Roger that not one single witness came forward. Clearly bribery or intimidation had been at work.

  After the constabulary failed to find one single witness, Grandpa discreetly paid Wolfftown’s most notorious spies and snitches to do their worst. They came up with nothing. Eventually Grandpa had to admit defeat and gave it away.

  Although nobody accused Cow-legged Kit of being directly involved in the tragedy, everyone suspected that she knew who was behind the whole dirty business. Namely because on the morning after the fire, she repaired to the Water Rat and drank herself comatose for two weeks. Eventually Ma O’Brien stormed down to the pub and dragged her sister out by the hair. Kit was dispatched to relatives in Sydney and not seen again for two years.

  Several members of the Cads gang resigned, including Roger’s second in command, Thomas Brown. Other Cads were bullied or drummed out when they tried to bring Roger to heel. Roger got off lightly with a brutal beating from Thomas Brown. But a week later Brown’s body was found at the bottom of Dead Man’s Gorge riddled with bullets. I shall leave it to my readers to draw their own conclusions. The Cads were then out of action for some time until Roger managed to whip them back into shape.

  One afternoon when Snuff and Dolores were out doing the marketing, gang warfare broke out in the patisserie. It was three o’clock and Maggie and I were flat out. Our tea tables were crammed with Wolfftown’s wives, courtesans, whores, widows and spinsters. There are no class divisions when it comes to scoffing fine cakes and pastries.

  Five Scags were chased into the shop by three members of the Bastardos. Their vile stench filled the shop: rotgut booze, eye-watering body odour and stale tobacco. Charlie had just stepped out to do our banking. There wasn’t one bloke among our clientele and things were looking decidedly grim.

  Our ladies were paralysed with fear. One could see half masticated morsels in open mouths and pastry forks suspended in mid-air. Wolfftown’s leading courtesan, Miss Marietta Zendik, panicked and swallowed the better part of a madeleine the wrong way and I had to thump her on the back to disgorge it. Her eyes bulged as she damn near choked to death. She collapsed back onto her chair gasping. The poor woman had not expected a filthy street urchin to swoop through the door of my emporium and belly-dive onto her tea table. Maggie rushed over, kicked a Scag out of the way and administered water to Miss Zendik.

  During the ensuing fight, two long glass mirrors were smashed and four tea tables capsized. Teapots exploded on the marble tiles and glass shards showered the warm apple tarts Maggie had just fetched in from the kitchen.

  Miss Marietta Zendik forgot herself and screamed, ‘You fuckers! How dare you. You’ve bloody well destroyed our last remaining tartes Normandie aux pommes.’

  She seized Mrs Edith Clyde’s heavy shopping bag and belted the nearest Bastardo over the head with it. He collapsed at her feet and lay there staring up at her. Her beautiful face was contorted with disgust. ‘You filthy, filthy fucker. You smell like a goddamned ferret!’

  The thugs stopped in their tracks. The ferret curled up in a ball trying to protect his genitalia from Marietta’s vigorous kicks. Everyone was agog, they all knew that she was Wolfftown’s premier courtesan and that she reigned over all the other professional beauties. Marietta was renowned for her social connections, her rich lovers, classy style, and ladylike manners. She had more power and influence than Mayor Wolff. There was not one gang that had ever seen fit to rob her as she went about her business in Wolfftown. She was untouchable. So to speak.

  Alerted by our kitchen apprentice, Snuff crashed in through the front door followed by Dolores. Snuff grabbed two long knives from the cake counter and shouted, ‘Ladies, stay calm and move quickly into the kitchen.’ He gestured at the Scags and Bastardos. ‘Come on you pusbags, I dare you to take me on!’

  There were no takers. Snuff brandished his knives menacingly until Maggie and Dolores had marshalled our ladies to safety. I slammed the door behind them, armed myself with a meat cleaver and stood guard in front of the kitchen door.

  I was worried the Scags might take our clientele hostage and strip them of their clothes, jewellery and gold wedding rings. However, my main concern wasn’t about the loss of material possessions. I’d been terrified of the Scags since the age of seven, when I’d witnessed a victim refusing to cooperate. In broad daylight my governess, Agnes Pinkerton, and I had been trapped by the Scags in a back alley with Agnes’s dearest friend, Mrs Maisie Smith. A Scag held me by my hair and another had Agnes in a headlock. Agnes had quickly handed over her purse but Maisie refused to pa
rt with her brand new gold wedding ring. The Scags’ response had been to threaten to cut her finger off with the ring still attached. Two Scags grabbed Maisie, pinned her to a brick wall, and the third Scag pressed a cut-throat razor on the base of her ring finger. Agnes screamed, ‘Maisie, give it to them! You can always get another ring.’

  Maisie yanked her wedding band off and threw it at the Scags. And only then did they let the three of us go.

  That afternoon in the patisserie Snuff whacked a Bastardo in the back of his knees. He buckled to the floor and crawled out the front door. Meanwhile two lads bolted out through the side door but Snuff barred the rest of them from leaving. He grabbed the nearest Scag and, gripping him by the neck, cleanly lopped off all eight brass coat buttons and slowly drew his knife across his victim’s throat. I could tell it was only a flesh wound but it bled so profusely that Romeo Pinkerton looked like he was about to pass out from sheer terror.

  Snuff kicked open the front door and threw Romeo out onto Main Street. When the remaining gang members hesitated, Snuff hastened their departure by pinking their arses with the tip of his carving knife.

  Maggie ushered our ladies out of the kitchen. They were overexcited and carried on like a flock of noisy lorikeets. What was interesting was that not one of them thought of rushing home. Miss Marietta Zendik was the heroine of the hour but she modestly brushed aside all compliments. Her white silk gown had been irretrievably stained with black coffee. I offered to replace the gown but she murmured in her sultry voice, ‘Oh, this old thing? Please don’t concern yourself Miss Torte. Worse things happen at sea.’

  They do indeed.

  Order was restored as Maggie and Dolores soothed our ladies’ nerves with complimentary gateaux, coffees and premium Cognac served decorously in teacups. I noticed a couple of ladies from the Temperance Union got quite tiddly and boldly requested more Cognac. Snuff went around the tables smoothing our clients’ feathers and restoring good humour. He’s always been popular with women so this wasn’t too difficult. Our ladies ended up having such a grand time that they stayed until closing time.

  When they finally left, I made sure every customer had been given a gift of chocolates, packaged in my signature pale-blue boxes tied up with gold satin ribbon.

  Snuff ensured liberal damage payments were extorted from both Scags and Bastardos in the middle of the night. He had no faith in the efficacy of the law and preferred to help himself to justice.

  Early one morning I cornered Snuff when he was alone in the kitchen kneading our daily bread. ‘I insist on knowing how you persuaded those gangs to cough up for the damage.’

  ‘Please don’t force me to lie to you, Sasha. It’s better if you can deny all knowledge of the transaction. But rest assured, nobody died.’

  He looked very thoughtful. ‘You know, it was remiss of me not to give more thought to the safety of our staff. Those cut throat gangs can stroll in here anytime and create havoc. They’re off their bloody heads on rotgut booze and all manner of oriental smoking drugs. Take for example Sam Pinkerton, Romeo’s older brother. Before Sam turned fourteen, he joined the Scags gang and went to sea. Within two months he was fornicating and fighting like a veteran. He also acquired a nasty case of pubic lice that needed treatment.’

  ‘I didn’t think you knew the Pinkertons all that well.’

  Snuff grinned. ‘Let’s put it this way, I got to know Mrs Pinkerton when I did a deal to buy our seafood directly from her husband. No point in lining the pockets of the middle man, eh?’ He shaped a baguette and gave it a tender pat. ‘I told Mrs Pinkerton that when Sam made port she should run him through the sheep dip a few times, scrub out his mouth with carbolic soap and then send him to me.’ The corners of Snuff’s mouth twitched. ‘Mrs Pinkerton told me yesterday that young Sam’s turned over a new leaf. And all it took was a cosy late night chat at the Tub of Blood. Imagine that, eh?’

  There was a lie in there somewhere; the Tub of Blood was not conducive to cosy chats. God knows what Snuff Rogers had done to young Sam Pinkerton.

  While the patisserie was temporarily closed for repairs, Snuff demonstrated his skills as a handyman. In one of the interior frescoes he cunningly installed a spyhole, so he could keep an eye on our clientele from the kitchen with minimum disruption to his bread making. He did this by drilling a hole in a painted cherry that topped the pie borne aloft by one of the naked goddesses. It tickled me to think of Snuff’s blue eyeball glaring at our customers from atop the pie.

  Thereafter anyone out of order, could be guaranteed a good thrashing if they were stupid enough to cause trouble. Snuff was just itching to have a go at Roger. He simply couldn’t stand the sight nor sound of him.

  16

  SEASONING THE LIAISON

  I’d discovered that if I took just a few drops of the Pharaoh’s elixir it restored my vitality without the aphrodisiac effect. I was working long, exhausting days in the shop and the elixir meant I could cut down on sleep. On rising if I took a few drops of the elixir, I could skip breakfast and immediately get stuck into creating, refining and making baked goods.

  I’d noticed at the Dasher Winter Ball that the ladies who’d only had a modest helping of croquembouche, and thus a small amount of elixir, did not react to its aphrodisiac properties. Those affected the most were the ladies who’d gone back for second or third helpings. Through trial and error, I worked out that if I consumed a tiny amount, it was beneficial, and I could maintain a cracking work pace. My business kept expanding and as I never took time off, the elixir enabled me to push myself to the limit.

  Dolores and I were alone on the premises one morning, when the shop door swung open and a drunken sea captain fell into the patisserie. From the kitchen, I heard him come in but I left him to Dolores as she preferred to handle difficult customers on her own. On a previous occasion she’d stated her case clearly, ‘I can handle myself, Sasha. I’m not some idiotic female who cries at the drop of a hat. So unless I scream blue bloody murder, you’ve got to let me fight me own battles.’

  Fair enough but I often hovered over Snuff’s spyhole, just to reassure myself that she wasn’t copping more than she could handle.

  On the morning Captain Adam Dasher erupted into my life, I was embalming a batch of summer cherries for later use in our fruitcakes and eight-tier wedding cakes. By blanching and soaking fresh cherries in syrup, then resting them in jars, the moisture in the cherries’ cells would be replaced by the sugar solution. After that no living being, not even bacteria, could thrive in or on the glacé cherries. I always think how appropriate it is that glacé cherries feature so heavily in wedding cakes.

  When I heard the captain’s deep voice, curiosity compelled me to take a peek through the spyhole.

  He thumped an open brandy bottle down on the counter and seethed at Dolores, ‘Let’s dispense with the social niceties. I’m in a hurry. I want two dozen of your coeur de la crèmes and make it snappy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Captain, but one of Lady Balcombe’s coachmen came and bought the last dozen of them, like ten minutes ago.’

  He did not take this well. The captain took another swig of brandy and dug his thumbs under his wide leather belt. He seemed to be having trouble concentrating on the situation at hand. ‘Fuck Lady bloody Balcombe. I must have them now!’

  Dolores was taking deep even breaths. Her back was rigid and her chin was up. Not a good sign. Our Dolores has got a bit of a temper. ‘I’m sorry but we won’t have any more until tomorrow. You could come back then, Captain.’

  He appeared to be having trouble focusing. The captain gripped the counter and his eyes narrowed. Leaning close to Dolores he hissed, ‘Listen to me, you stupid shop girl, I am Captain Adam Dasher. And I’m not in the mood to be told what I bloody well can’t have. Damn you and your pretentious ways, Dolores. You had more integrity when you were a cock-sucking whore.’

  Dolores tried to speak but he thumped the counter again and silenced her with a furious glare. ‘I’ve survived tidal waves
, monsoons, typhoid and a massacre at sea and if you think that you, a mere chit of a girl –’

  That was enough. I shot out the kitchen door and addressed his back.

  ‘How dare you insult Miss Flügge in such a crude and untoward manner. Obviously lack of restraint is a trait you share with your libertine brother. Now get the hell out of my establishment and do not come back. Even if we had several dozen coeur de la crèmes on hand, I would ensure not one morsel passed your foul mouth. You are now banned for the term of your natural life. And if you return, I will personally make sure that Mr Snuff Rogers bounces your arrogant head off the cobblestones and feeds your entrails to the sharks.’

  The captain did not turn around because he was closely monitoring my rage in the mirror behind the counter. Our eyes locked in the glass. He smiled and his abusive manner dissolved as he removed his captain’s cap.

  He appeared to sober. ‘Sasha? Little Sasha Torte? For a moment I thought you were Lil Kane. But then I remembered you taking us by storm on your monstrous stallion. Your savagery and dedicated hatred of Mozart made me laugh. And here you are, all these years later, lashing me with your astonishingly febrile tongue.’

  ‘I gave up the piano years ago.’

  He raised an eyebrow and murmured solicitously, ‘A wise decision.’

  Captain Dasher unleashed a charm offensive. It swept over me and I very nearly drowned. His voice dropped to a soothing lilt, ‘I hear your patisserie is an unqualified success. As far away as Madagascar, sailors speak longingly of your . . . rum babas. Your produce has acquired the status of life-giving properties, almost religious significance. A lady of my acquaintance has been telling everybody that your coeur de la crèmes cured her insomnia.’

  I focused my instincts and sensed his mind performing contortions to overcome the booze flooding his body. By sheer dint of will Captain Dasher’s rude health was reasserting itself.