The Kookaburra Creek Café Read online

  ‘Then we’ll figure something out.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  ‘Please? If Gen’s happy here, we can come back on weekends. Come back with me, Harry.’

  ‘How? How can I ever trust you again?’ All the anger she’d bottled up for so long came rushing out of her. ‘You slept with another woman and it took you a bloody year to figure out you’re sorry.’

  ‘Can’t we just let the past go? We could be so good together.’

  Tears pricked at Harriett’s eyes. Let the past go? Yes. That’s what she needed to do. Let it go. But not the way he meant.

  ‘Too much has happened, Buckley. Please, just go.’

  ‘But Harry.’

  ‘I’m sorry. This is how it has to be.’ Her voice was low, strong. She would not let Buckley seduce her. ‘Just go.’

  He tried to grab her, but she pulled away.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Clive appeared, pushing his bike as he came towards them. ‘Harriett?’

  ‘He was just leaving.’ Harriett turned her back and stood looking at the creek, willing herself not to cry.

  She heard Buckley walk back to his car and start the engine. She couldn’t stop him. Her place was here with her sister. She’d ruined Genevieve’s hope of a normal life, stolen any chance of a future. At least here the people of Kookaburra Creek had accepted her. They no longer stared at her ghastly scars and had been encouraging about starting up the café. To start over again somewhere else? No. Harriett would work every day for the rest of her life to make it up to Genevieve. Here, in their café together.

  And that meant saying goodbye to Buckley Hargraves.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Clive asked.

  Harriett didn’t reply. Instead, she turned and walked back inside.

  2018

  Hattie gazed upon the café, all that so long ago now. If only she’d stopped Buckley driving off that day, how very different things might have been. But would they have been better? Genevieve still would have ended up in a home – maybe later, but still. And, judging by the stories in the gossip magazines that Hattie so diligently cut out over the years, Buckley’s eventual marriage to Delilah was less than ideal. If even half of what was written of Buckley’s exploits with other women were true, had they ended up together, Hattie might still have led just as lonely a life.

  Funny how time and distance play with perspective. She almost felt sorry for Delilah. Almost. But wounds so deep didn’t ever truly heal.

  Hattie drew up her shoulders. Buckley and Delilah had destroyed her first life. She’d be damned if she’d let them ruin her second. She wasn’t just fighting for herself and Genevieve, either. She was fighting for Alice and Becca, and Tammy. All of Kookaburra Creek. And she still had some fight left in her yet.

  Lawson’s Ridge, 2003

  week after the final exam, Pip’s dam was pulsing with laughing, splashing bodies. It seemed half the school were there as Alice and Dean walked hand in hand towards the crowd. Louise ran up to greet them.

  ‘Hey, you.’ She embraced Alice tightly before giving Dean a quick, awkward hug. ‘Brian’s picked out a spot for us over there with a blanket and esky.’ She pointed to the tall gum. ‘The water’s really nice.’ She ran towards the dam and jumped into the water.

  ‘Shall we?’ Dean winked, stripping down to his board shorts when they got to the picnic blanket.

  Alice took off her clothes, revealing a sky-blue swimsuit with a small frill across the bust. She still felt guilty that she’d dipped into her savings to buy it.

  ‘Wow,’ said Dean as he looked her over, and Alice’s guilt washed away.

  Hands clasped tightly together, they ran towards the water.

  It wasn’t easy getting a turn on the rope, so Alice didn’t even try. She was happy splashing in the dam, her arms wrapped round Dean’s neck as they laughed at every funny face being pulled each time someone flung themselves into the cool water.

  Louise, it seemed, was also quite content, with her arms first around Bobby Jones’ neck, talking loudly, and then around Doug Trainor’s. She splashed Mike Smith and made him chase her and then got bored with her game.

  She swam over to Alice. ‘Drink?’ She pointed to their spot under the gum.

  ‘Sure.’

  Dean joined the rope queue.

  As the afternoon drifted into early evening, Louise and Alice sat on the picnic blanket watching the boys try to outdo each other with tricks off the rope, some with courage heightened by beer intake, others fuelled by their natural teenage bravado. Triple somersaults were attempted, only to end in bellyflops.

  ‘Look at those dorks.’ Louise nodded towards the rope.

  ‘There’s no way you can do a backflip with a twist off the rope and end up diving in normally,’ Brian shouted as Dean took hold of the rope.

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’ Dean stepped back. He turned to Alice and winked before launching himself off the bank.

  The almighty crack as the branch tore from the old gum set cockatoos screeching into the sky from trees all around the dam. Everyone turned, unable to believe what they saw as seemingly in slow motion Dean fell into the dam, tangled in the rope still attached to the three-metre-long branch. The branch that smacked into him with a sickening thud as he hit the water.

  Alice and Louise stood and grabbed each other’s hands, mouths open, eyes wide. Brian was the first to move, followed by Bobby. As they swam to reach Dean, everyone gathered on the edge of the dam. Except Alice. Louise pulled on her arm, but she couldn’t move.

  The gathered crowd blocked any chance of being able to see what was happening in the water. But Alice didn’t want to see. She stared at the ground, counting her breaths as she tried to slow them.

  ‘They’ve got him.’ A shout rose up.

  Six boys carried Dean slowly up the embankment, the crowd parting for them.

  ‘Go get Pip,’ Brian barked at the girl beside him and she took off, slipping in the dirt.

  Alice’s legs buckled beneath her and everything went silent. She couldn’t hear the frantic instructions coming from Brian, though she could see his mouth moving. The mumbled concerns from those standing closest to the epicentre of Alice’s imploding world didn’t reach her ears, the skidding tyres of Pip’s ute as he sped past her ten minutes later were strangely quiet. For what seemed an eternity, Alice heard nothing.

  Until the sirens.

  Slowly she stood and walked towards Dean’s wet, still body. People moved out of her way to let her pass. The ambos were bent over him, a light moving across his eyes, a brace around his neck, a blanket covering his legs.

  As they rolled him on to the gurney, Alice stepped closer.

  ‘Pond?’ Dean’s eyes fluttered open but his voice sounded weak and strange.

  Alice took Dean’s hands in hers. ‘You’re okay. Thank God you’re okay.’ Relief flooded her body.

  Dean smiled as he looked at her, but his eyes betrayed his fear, so desperate, so scared.

  She leaned down and kissed his forehead.

  ‘Told you I’m not smart enough.’ He croaked, his fragile laugh becoming a hacking cough.

  Alice stood still, watching the paramedics wheel Dean towards the ambulance.

  Only when the ambulance doors shut did she break eye contact with him, immediately crashing to the dirt. Louise wrapped her in her arms and they both started to sob.

  Hours later, Alice kept replaying the moment of the accident over in her head. The sickening crack. The hollow thud. Through the kitchen, down the hall and under the door, the phone cord snaked into Alice’s bedroom. Under the covers she waited, willing with all her might for the phone to ring with any news at all. Louise had brought her home. She’d taken her shoes off, helped her change into the T-shirt she always kept under her pillow and got her into bed.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ she’d whispered over and over, before leaving her there. ‘I’ll
wait at home. Mum’s on shift tonight. She might ring with news.’

  It was now dark outside. Alice wondered when that had happened. She could hear Bruce’s loud snoring coming from the living room, oblivious as always. She wondered if she should call Dean’s mum. She’d only met her the once, but she seemed nice enough.

  Alice stopped. That sound. Whirring. A helicopter.

  The only helicopter that ever flew over Lawson’s Ridge was the emergency medical chopper. The one that took patients from Cutter’s Pass to Sydney. Everything happened in Sydney.

  She pulled her knees up tight, slipping them under the T-shirt. Dean’s T-shirt. The one from the day they’d first swum together at the dam, which she’d never given back. Maybe if she closed her eyes tight enough and hugged his T-shirt close enough, maybe somehow he’d be okay.

  Kookaburra Creek, 2018

  he sick feeling Hattie was carrying around inside her was not going away. There was no way out of it. She’d had two sets of lawyers look over the paperwork and there was nothing she could do. Nothing. If only she’d thought to be so thorough all those years ago, or given it any thought at all, actually, this whole sorry mess could have been avoided. But she was so very young, so terribly angry. She’d taken Buckley at his word. How was she to have known?

  In exasperation, she threw the letter and offending documents across the room.

  ‘Curse you, Buckley Hargraves.’ She cried. ‘And curse your sodding spawn.’

  Who did they think they were? The unbridled nerve. Whatever happened to moral decency? That’s what she wanted to know. For fifty years they didn’t even know that Kookaburra Creek existed and now they thought they could lay claim to their piece of it. Her piece of it. The nerve!

  It wasn’t theirs. Never was. Yet those wretched lawyers said otherwise. And they were going to fight for it. Although they did understand, of course, Hattie’s sentimental attachment, and were very generously prepared for her to buy them out. At a price. They had to consider their own lost earnings and potential, naturally. Very generous her left foot. Hattie had read the stories, cut them out, how the Hargraves dynasty had fallen at the hands of Buckley’s addictions – the fortune he and Delilah had amassed slowly frittered away on alcohol and drugs. Delilah may well have been long gone, but her greed lived on in her family.

  What was she going to do? Hattie buried her head in her hands. There was nothing she could do. Absolutely nothing. She knew that. Tears dripped steadily down her cheeks.

  Alice woke to the sounds of clanging pots and pans and the smell of strong coffee brewing. She padded downstairs and into the café and found Becca standing in the kitchen among a mess: open egg cartons, half melting nobs of butter, flour scattered everywhere and what appeared to be every pan and utensil Alice possessed strewn across the bench.

  ‘I made breakfast,’ Becca said, her smile an attempt to portray calm and confidence. She ushered Alice into the dining room and sat her down, then disappeared briefly, returning with a plate of pancakes that she set down in front of her.

  ‘It looks delicious,’ said Alice.

  ‘I thought they’d be easy,’ replied Becca, her eager expression faltering.

  ‘They smell great.’

  Becca shrugged and sat down opposite Alice. She took a bite of the overcooked batter and spat her mouthful out, but Alice finished her whole overly salted pile.

  ‘I’ve been wondering,’ Alice said, as she pushed her cutlery together. ‘Do you want me to let your mum know where you are? Or that you’re safe at least?’ She tried to sound casual as she stood to clear the bench.

  ‘She’s long gone.’

  Alice stared at Becca. ‘Oh Becca. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Not dead gone.’ Becca shrugged. ‘I kind of wish she was. Runaway gone. She took off. Ages ago.’

  Alice watched for the telltale sign of Becca’s fringe being pushed to the left, but her hands stayed on the bench in front of her, her eyes looking directly at Alice. So she was telling the truth.

  ‘Right, then,’ Alice said, sensing she wasn’t going to get any more out of her. ‘What do you say to some therapy?’

  ‘I’m not seeing a stupid bloody shrink!’

  Alice laughed. ‘Not that kind of therapy. Retail therapy.’

  Becca stared at Alice.

  ‘Shopping. You must be sick of wearing church hand-me-downs.’

  ‘I s’pose.’ Becca fiddled with the shirt that was just a tad too tight.

  ‘There are some good shops in Glensdale.’

  ‘Really?’ Alice nodded. ‘Come on.’

  Becca, it seemed, wasn’t a born shopper. Not like Tammy. Tammy would try every outfit in the store on and want each one. Becca looked at the T-shirt Alice held up and shrugged. She shrugged at the shorts too. To get an idea of size, Alice had to hold the garments up to a fidgeting Becca and eyeball it.

  Tammy used to pick out matching shoes for every outfit, and jewellery if Alice let her get away with it. Becca picked up one pair of black trainers and was done.

  ‘Summer’s not far away. They’ll be hot,’ Alice said, and held up a pair of sandals.

  ‘They’ll be fine.’ Becca walked away.

  The drive back to Kookaburra Creek was quiet. Alice knew she had no right to think it would be the same, shopping with Becca. No reason to suspect she’d feel the same joy. Yet she had expected it. Alice fought back the tears she could feel welling up inside her.

  It wasn’t wrong to see this as some sort of second chance, was it? There was a reason Becca came into her life. A reason the girl with eyes that carried echoes of Alice’s past ended up in her café. There had to be. And maybe it wasn’t even about Alice, or Tammy. Maybe it was just about Becca, about giving her a second chance. Or maybe it was about all of them. Alice would give anything in this world to have her life back. But that wasn’t possible. Yet Becca was here, for whatever reason, and Alice wasn’t about to waste this chance fate had given her.

  She was afraid to speak. Her words would likely betray her foolish thoughts. As they passed tree after tree after tree on the long narrow road, Becca fell asleep beside her. And then Alice let the tears fall.

  A single light was on in the café when they got back to Kookaburra Creek and Alice wondered if she’d forgotten to turn it off before they’d left. Becca jumped out of the car and ran up the external staircase as soon as Alice pulled the vehicle to a stop. Had she been feigning sleep? Oh no, Alice hoped she hadn’t seen her crying.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said to herself as she entered the café to turn off the light.

  ‘Actually, petal, I was waiting for you.’

  Alice dropped her shopping bag and spun round.

  ‘Hattie! You scared me half to death.’ Her initial fright dissolved into worry when she saw her old friend sitting in the shadows, scarf folded in front of her, no matching stripe clipped in her hair.

  ‘Sorry.’ Hattie started to stand, but sank back down again.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Alice moved quickly and sat beside her. ‘Is it Genevieve?’

  ‘No, no. She’s fine.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Hattie took Alice’s hands in hers. Her long, thin fingers were cold despite the warmth of the room. ‘I do have to . . . There’s something I need . . . Oh, Lord, this is harder than I imagined.’

  ‘Hattie, you’re scaring me. Are you sick?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She shook her head. ‘Though that would be easier news to tell.’

  ‘Harriett Brookes, whatever it is spit it out right this second.’

  In all the time Alice had been in Kookaburra Creek, Hattie had never looked her age. Despite her wrinkles, she always somehow pulled off an air of someone much younger than she actually was. But there in the dim light Alice saw every moment of Hattie’s seventy-odd years and then some – traces that only a painful history can etch into the lines of your face.

  ‘It’s the café.’ She wrung her hands together.

  ‘What about it?�
� Alice started to feel dizzy.

  ‘Apparently, it technically isn’t mine.’

  ‘You mean it’s Genevieve’s?’

  ‘No. It isn’t ours at all.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither did I.’ Hattie laughed, sad, cynical. ‘We were so terribly young, so innocent of the world. I misunderstood. I didn’t know. I thought . . .’

  ‘You’re telling me neither you nor Genevieve own the place. So the bank does?’ Alice’s mind was racing to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

  ‘My trip to Sydney was for a funeral. For Buckley Hargraves.’

  ‘The Buckley Hargraves? The actor?’

  ‘The one and only.’ Hattie rubbed the fingers on her left hand.

  ‘What’s he got to do with all this?’

  ‘Well, technically the café belongs to him. Belonged to him. His children technically now own it.’

  ‘Stop saying technically, for God’s sake, Hattie. Do they, or do they not own the café?’

  Hattie looked down. ‘They do.’

  Alice shoved the chair back and started pacing the room. ‘And I suppose now he’s dead they want it back?’ She threw her hands in the air.

  ‘Yes.’

  The quiet reply barely reached her ears.

  ‘Shit, Hattie. How could you not tell me this tiny, insignificant, life-bloody-changing detail? All this time you never even owned the place?’

  Fractured thoughts raced through her head. It was never Hattie’s. Never hers. But they weren’t really going to lose it, surely? It was more than painted chairs and thousands of cupcakes. More than gingham curtains and burgers and salads. The Kookaburra Creek Café wasn’t just a café. It was home. And not just to her. It was home to everyone she knew. To Betty and her bowls crew, to Claudine and Mrs Harris, all of the Harris mob. To Joey. It was her home, Tammy’s home. All those years ago it was the café that saved her from her broken life.

  Every happy memory Alice had since leaving Lawson’s Ridge was tied up with this café. Every memory of Tammy. No. She couldn’t lose this place.

  Alice shook her head decisively. ‘Right, then. We’ll fight them. The will. I assume this is about the will.’