The Kookaburra Creek Café Page 8

  When the last bell of the day finally rang Alice stepped quickly and quietly through the corridors, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

  Outside she could see Dean waiting for her beside the school gate. She really did wish she could walk with him, just for a bit, to take her mind off where she was headed. But he’d ask questions. He’d want to know details.

  She doubled back past the maths rooms and came out of the main block near the canteen. She took a few steps beside the short wire fence that bordered the school before jumping over it and running off before he could spot her.

  It wasn’t long before she reached the cemetery and, as she made her way along the dirt path to her mother’s grave, she fiddled with the white daisy in her hands. She’d taken it from the bouquet outside the general store as she’d run past. Mr Williams wouldn’t notice. She came up to the grave and knelt down beside it and brushed the headstone clean of dirt and laid the flower at its base.

  God didn’t exist. She knew that without doubt. But she said the little prayer they’d learned in scripture at school anyway, the one about bread and trespassing. She never really understood it, but it seemed like what you were supposed to do under the circumstances. She was sure she’d mucked up the words, but it wasn’t as if anyone was listening, so she figured it didn’t really matter.

  She sat down in the dirt.

  She didn’t cry. She never did. Not there. Not where her mum could see.

  It was hard to believe it had been five years since her mum lost her battle with cancer. Five years since Bruce lost his battle with despair and let the alcohol consume him. Five long years of loneliness and pain for Alice, gone in the blink of an eye.

  Every time Alice visited Sonia’s grave haunting images flooded her mind. Her mum hooked up to what seemed like every machine in the hospital at Cutter’s Pass; hair shaved, cheeks sallow, eyes staring blankly into the distance; her dad standing in the doorway of the room, eyes on the floor, unable to come in and hold his wife’s hand or hug his daughter so desperate for him to come back to her, rescue her.

  Every time Alice visited her mum’s grave she waited for the images to pass, until she could remember the mum with long brown curls, happy chubby cheeks, and bright laughing eyes.

  A cool breeze swirled the dirt around Alice’s feet, and the sun, low in the sky, cast long shadows across the graves.

  ‘I’d probably better get going. It’s getting late.’

  She stood and touched the top of the headstone. ‘See you soon, Mum.’

  When she arrived home, Alice quietly opened her front door. With any luck Bruce would have drunk himself unconscious and she could slip into bed unnoticed and wait for midnight so this day could be over and done with.

  ‘Alice? Tadpole? Where are you? Where is she?’

  Alice’s shoulders dropped. They were going to do that dance again.

  Bruce strode towards her, anger, adrenaline or some other force Alice didn’t understand overriding the alcohol coursing through his veins. She could smell him well before he got to her.

  ‘Sonia said she’d be home for dinner.’ His eyes were wild and distant.

  Alice breathed deeply. ‘She’s gone, Dad.’

  ‘Gone?’ He shook his head. ‘Gone where?’ He looked left and right, behind him, behind Alice.

  ‘Dad.’ Alice sighed. She just wanted to lie on her bed, turn her music on, let the day fade away. ‘She’s dead. Remember?’ That was her mistake. She should have just turned away.

  ‘She wouldn’t die. She wouldn’t do that to me.’

  Alice could see his eyes full of rage as he stepped towards her. The same rage she’d seen in him that Christmas after her mum had passed away. The first of many alcohol-fuelled rages. She started to back away, finding herself pressed against the front door. He grabbed her shoulders, squeezing so hard Alice wanted to scream.

  ‘Stop, Dad. Please,’ she whispered.

  ‘No. You stop.’ He shoved her. The screen door gave way and Alice stumbled out onto the lawn. ‘How dare you make up lies for your mother?’

  ‘They’re not lies,’ Alice spat. ‘She’s dead. You should remember. You were there. Not for anything else. Not before. Not after. But you were there when she died and you left me.’ She couldn’t help herself.

  Bruce stormed outside, fire in his eyes. He picked up Daisy, the last addition to Sonia’s gnome family. The gnome Alice had searched for high and low for Sonia’s birthday the year her life changed for good. She’d had to order it from a catalogue, and it took months to arrive, landing on her doorstep the Christmas of her twelfth birthday. The last Christmas with Sonia.

  Bruce pelted Daisy at Alice. She turned and ran, heard the smash behind her as Daisy hit the pebbled path.

  When she got to Faraway Forest, she slowed down and climbed onto her branch. She slumped forward and began to sob. In the fading light she closed her eyes and allowed all the anger and sadness and confusion she kept locked up every other day of the year to spill forth. Her shoulders shook, her neck dripped with salty tears and she pounded the trunk of the tree with closed fists.

  ‘Pond? Is that you?’ Dean’s voice floated up from below.

  ‘Go away.’ Alice’s voice cracked in reply.

  ‘Like hell,’ Dean said and he scaled the ironbark before Alice had a chance to escape.

  ‘I said go away.’ She looked into his eyes.

  ‘And I said like hell.’ He held her stare steadily.

  ‘Go,’ Alice said, a little less forcefully.

  ‘Nope.’ Dean shook his head, the edges of his eyes crinkling ever so slightly.

  Alice fell forward and began to cry again, but Dean caught her in a strong embrace. And he didn’t let go. She could hear his heart beating, her ear against his chest. She could feel the warmth of his arms around her. It was comforting, safe. This close to him, Alice could smell a slight hint of cloves and honey. Ever so slowly her sobs eased.

  It was pitch-black when Alice finally pulled herself upright again. There was no moon in the night sky to offer illumination. She could no longer feel her left foot, but she could feel the crick in her neck. If Dean was suffering any discomfort, he wasn’t letting on. He reached out, brushing the remaining tears from her cheeks. His touch was soft, his gaze staring deeper into her than anyone ever had.

  ‘Th . . . thank you,’ she stuttered. ‘I . . . I have to go.’

  She manoeuvred into position and climbed to the ground.

  ‘Seriously?’ Dean slid down behind her. He tried to catch up with her as she sped away, but his cramped legs gave way. ‘Pond! Stop!’

  She couldn’t. If she stopped, then she would let him in. And she couldn’t let him in. So she ran.

  There were no lights on in the house when Alice got home and she exhaled in relief. Her dad was unconscious at last. She carefully swept up the shattered pieces of Daisy and put her in the bin, her thoughts drifting back to the branch, to Dean’s arms wrapped tightly around her, to his eyes piercing right through to the heart of her.

  There was no room in her plan for Dean McRae. She knew that. But she also knew that she hadn’t felt much of anything for the last five years, and with that one embrace Dean had changed everything.

  Alice pulled Gus the gnome out from behind the hose. Every anniversary Bruce smashed a gnome. Every anniversary Alice hid Gus from Bruce and later placed him back on his patch so Harry Brown wouldn’t wonder where his target was early the next day.

  Six gnomes now sat neatly on display.

  Dean had changed everything and she hated him for it. A shiver tickled the back of her neck and she turned around and saw a tall, skinny shadow on the street corner. There he was, leaning against the lamp post, watching her.

  Head down, she rushed inside just as he called her name.

  For days Alice’s thoughts had been a jumbled mess. Packing shelves at night in the store didn’t help her focus. Neither did going for ridiculously long walks. Standing her dad’s used beer cans into elaborate scul
ptures also didn’t help, though it did pass an awful lot of time. Time she should have been using to study. At school her distraction was always worse and nothing she did seemed to alleviate the problem.

  ‘Is this where you’ve been hiding?’ Louise asked, finding Alice crouched down between the stacks of books lining the library wall.

  ‘Oh, hi.’ Alice stood and looked around, lowering the text on Modern Economics for High School Studies that she hadn’t actually been reading.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We have a party to plan, remember?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Alice looked out the dusty window to the handball games in the quadrangle. He wasn’t there. So where was he? She looked behind Louise’s shoulder.

  ‘So? What do you think?’

  ‘Sorry. What?’

  ‘About a bonfire. For Brian’s and my eighteenth. Hello? Earth to Alice.’ Louise tapped Alice on the head.

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘The whole year’s coming. Even Dean said he’d come.’ She tucked her hair behind her ear.

  The bell rang loudly and Alice picked up her bag. ‘We’d better get to maths.’

  Before walking out the door, Alice checked to see if the coast was clear.

  ‘So, some of you did really well on Monday’s test,’ Ms Robertson said as she walked around the room. ‘And some of you,’ she placed Alice’s answer sheet on her desk, ‘not so much.’

  Alice couldn’t believe it. The mark just didn’t compute. Perhaps she’d suddenly developed dyslexia and the numbers were backwards or upside down.

  As Ms Robertson weaved through the little wooden desks that had been in the same position in the same room for who knew how many years, Alice’s stare followed her. She would come back any second now, realising she’d given Alice the wrong paper. But she didn’t come back. She sat down to go through the answers with the class, and Alice stared at her in disbelief.

  *

  Dragging her feet along the path through Faraway Forest, Alice patted the sturdy trunk of her tree before lifting herself on to her usual branch. She leaned back into the V and closed her eyes, trying to picture anything but those two tiny numbers. How on earth had that happened? She’d studied, right? She knew the work inside out. Never before had she got anything below eighty per cent for a maths test. Never. What had happened?

  ‘Hey, stranger.’ Dean’s voice floated up from below.

  Alice sat up. ‘Ah . . . um,’ was all she could manage and the reason for her failed maths test suddenly dawned on her. She wondered if she could scamper down the tree and past him before he’d realise she was gone.

  ‘Can I come up?’ Dean asked, one foot already on the rock below.

  ‘I s’pose.’

  ‘How have you been, Pond?’ he asked as he sat beside her.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you much lately.’ He shifted so he was looking directly at her.

  She searched for a whole sentence with which to respond, but her mind was blank. She had to get out of there, but there was no way to leave.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Dean asked, looking her in the eye. ‘Why have you been avoiding me?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Okay, maybe a little.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s just . . .’ All of Alice’s excuses, both the genuine and made up, abandoned her as Dean brushed her hair behind her ear. ‘I’m embarrassed. About the other night. And I don’t want . . . I didn’t want . . .’

  ‘It’s fine, Pond. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But you do have to tell me this. Are you okay?’ He took her hand in his.

  ‘I will be.’ Looking into his eyes, she knew that to be the truth.

  He leaned in close, his lips nearly touching hers.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He reached his hand up behind her head, his fingers entwined in her hair, and he pulled her to him. His mouth was soft and the sensation was strange and not at all like she’d imagined. It was a good strange. A tingle at the base of her spine prompted her to open her mouth wider and Dean’s tongue searched for hers. It was unfamiliar and unexpected and wonderful. Her mind cleared of everything. Her whole body shivered.

  As Dean’s lips slowed and he moved away from her, Alice found herself not wanting to open her eyes, not wanting it to end. She pressed back into him, back into the safety of his embrace and allowed herself to simply be. There. With him. Warmth coursing through her every vein as he kissed her again. Deeper this time.

  Alice pulled back, sucking in great gulps of air.

  ‘Sorry.’ She cast her eyes down.

  ‘Oh no.’ Dean cupped her face in his hand. ‘Don’t ever say sorry for that.’

  Alice shifted on the branch.

  ‘You’re not going to run away again, are you, Pond?’

  For the first time in Alice’s life she felt perfectly still. Everything began and ended there, with him. She never knew a kiss could do that.

  She leaned into his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her. Dean held her hand, slowly moving his fingers over hers. They sat in silence, no need for words, their breathing one rhythmic movement. Dean traced his finger up Alice’s arm, sending shivers down her spine.

  ‘Do you think maybe we could stay here forever?’ Alice whispered.

  ‘That sounds perfect, but I should probably get you home. Mum’s expecting me and she’ll worry if I’m late.’ Dean sighed and shifted his body. ‘I went dirt-bike riding yesterday with Brian and she had a fit. And I didn’t even tell her about the part when I crashed. She’s such a bloody worrywart.’

  It must be nice to have someone to worry about you, thought Alice.

  ‘I can get home myself. You go.’

  ‘No, Pond. That won’t do. I’m going to make this last as long as I can.’

  He waited for her at the bottom of the tree and as she lowered herself off the branch, he reached up and held her hips, guiding her down the last few feet. She turned into him and he kissed her again, more gently this time. Briefly. He put his arm around her and walked her home.

  Outside her house, Alice stopped. Dean opened the gate and tried to step through, but she cut him off.

  ‘Too much chivalry in one day,’ she said, and forced a laugh.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Dad had a late job last night. Burst toilet pipe – joys of being a plumber,’ she lied. ‘He’ll be sleeping.’ Not a lie. She couldn’t let Dean in. She couldn’t show him the truth, and risk scaring him off.

  ‘No worries, Pond. Are you doing anything tomorrow arvo?’

  ‘Hanging out with you after work?’

  He leaned in and kissed her, holding her body tightly against his.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ Dean said, letting Alice go. She nodded wordlessly.

  Once he was well out of sight she opened the front door. The smell of stale beer assaulted her nose. No, she couldn’t show him the truth. Not now, not ever.

  Kookaburra Creek, 2018

  ridays were wonderful, especially in summer when the café opened for dinner. Mondays were comforting with their routine, and, though she was loath to admit that it made her happy, they delivered Joey as her first customer of the week. Thursdays were fun as they meant Betty and her lawn bowls crew coming in for lunch and staying till close, giggling like teenagers all evening. But Sundays in spring, they were special. Alice never thought she’d love Sundays again, after an adolescence of drudgery working in the corner shop, subjected to Bertie’s boxer shorts. But then she’d found herself at the Kookaburra Creek Café – and the first Sunday of spring was her absolute favourite. It meant all her friends descending on the café for brunch to raise funds for the Kookaburra Creek Rural Fire Service.

  This morning she’d got Becca up extra early to help prepare the brunch, but hadn’t warned her just how much work there’d be to get through. After all the chopping, dicing, slicing, shredding and spreading, fifteen platters of s
andwiches, four bowls of salad and five trays of mini sausage rolls lay across the kitchen bench.

  ‘Come and help me with the doors,’ Alice said to Becca, who was wiping avocado from her chin.

  ‘And we need to put these tables together.’ Alice waved her hands around.

  ‘Need a hand?’ Joey asked, appearing in the doorway with a basket of knotted wholemeal rolls, long white baguettes, sweet croissants and parmesan sticks, which he placed on the service counter.

  Becca jumped back, startled. Joey wasn’t a tall man, but he had broad, strong shoulders and a widening middle-aged girth. His brown hair, speckled with grey, was closely clipped and his crooked nose somehow amplified his deep voice. Alice had hoped Becca was getting over her wariness of Joey. Apparently not.

  She put her arms around Becca’s tense shoulders. ‘That would be lovely, Joey. Thank you.’

  Within minutes there were two extraordinarily long tables running through the café and out onto the deck.

  Betty arrived next and put some coins in a bucket on the counter, while Joey helped Becca bring the food to the tables. As the café gradually filled with noise and laughter, Becca stood against the back wall, hands clenched behind her back.

  Sergeant Carson arrived and threw his jar of coins into the bucket before slapping everyone in the room on the back in greeting. Except Becca, whose back he couldn’t reach, not that he’d have tried. All six of the Harris mob were there, including beautiful Fiona. Their red hair and bright blue eyes all lined up were quite the sight. Behind them stood Hattie, looking tentative.

  ‘Come in,’ Alice said, trying to catch Harriet’s eye. What was going on with her?

  Hattie, the consummate actress, brightened up immediately. She swanned into the café and greeted everyone.

  It wasn’t long before the café was full and happy voices filled the space. Claudine had brought an inconceivably large platter of cheese and crackers and dished up a hearty wedge or two on everyone’s plate.

  ‘Come on,’ said Alice, reaching for Becca’s hidden hands. ‘There’s a spot for you here.’ She could feel the tightness in Becca’s body as she guided her to the end of the table closest to the kitchen as everyone tucked in to the feast.