Lovesome

by Sally Seltmann

  First published in 2018

  Copyright © Sally Seltmann 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 287 8

  eISBN 978 1 76063 609 8

  Set by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Cover design: Sandy Cull, gogoGingko

  Cover images: ‘Moment in time’ series 2012 painting by Barbara Kitallides; English Ivy wallpaper pattern #554092 by Waverly

  For Darren and Judy

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  1

  I have a collection of photographs stored inside my mind. All very detailed. Portraits, group shots, exteriors, interiors, décor and everything. They’re predictions of how I imagine the big milestones in my life might turn out. Riding in to work tonight I ponder my most recent mishap, comparing it to my very different pre-imagined version. As I’m doing this I pass the small weatherboard houses and take a left turn onto Darling Street. I continue on, gazing over at a well-dressed couple walking along, arm in arm. The air of contentment that floats between them is a bit much for me to handle this evening, so I pedal harder as huge wafts of laughter, broken beats and cigarette smoke drift out onto the road from the Emerald. My local. It’s cold and wintery, so I’m scarfed up, and have somehow managed to fit my black beret under my bike helmet. I dip down the hill, feeling the icy breeze on my face and the rush of adrenaline as I pick up speed, rolling along beside the parked cars. All the warm yellow glowing windows of the sandstone cottages flash past me, until I come to the section of my journey that I lovingly refer to as ‘the valley’. I keep riding on the flat black bitumen road as fast as I can, lifting my bum up off the seat as I approach the hill, then pedal my heart out. I know I’m nearly there when I catch my usual glimpse of the harbour. The reflected night lights flicker on the water’s surface as though tiny coloured jewels and diamonds are being tossed around in a black blanket.

  Out of breath and feeling truly invigorated, I hop off my second-hand ladies’ bike and wheel it up the sandstone gutter on the left-hand side of the road. I feel my chest rise and fall as I look beyond the white picket fence at Harland. Looks like someone’s hung a new wreath on its front door. I wheel my bike towards the side gate, admiring the twisted, overgrown wisteria vine that climbs up the columns supporting the awning over its small front verandah. Being winter, the vine is bare, with no leaves or grape-like flowers, but I love the tangled patterns of the wooden stems just as much as when the vine is in full bloom.

  I keep heading down the side path, then lean my bike against the wall of the shed next to the little outhouse toilet. Unfastening the clasp of my bike helmet and latching it onto one of the handlebars, I hear my silver bell give a slight tinkle, and I can’t help smiling. I stuff my hair underneath my beret, and climb the rickety wooden stairs. Looking down beyond my black-and-blue floral dress, I note the variegated pattern of dark green moss on the sandstone step at the top. My hand-knitted black cardigan, under a blue denim jacket, is hardly enough to keep me warm in this weather, but I liked the look when I stood in front of my full-length mirror fifteen minutes ago, so I went with it. I open the broken screen door, then push the heavy, dark-brown worn-looking door behind it with my shoulder. Walking in through the back entrance I can smell the regular mix of chicken and veal, vegetables and parsley, pastry and butter. The heat from the log fire warms my cheeks, and the empty chairs tucked under tables fill me with a sense of excitement. I love the calm before the storm.

  Six months ago I found an advertisement in the hospitality column of the jobs section in the Saturday paper: Waitress Wanted for French Restaurant in Balmain East. After my trial run one busy Friday night, I was given the job. Five nights a week, starting around six, knocking off between eleven and midnight, and Tuesday and Thursday nights were to be my nights off. A few weeks later I moved out of my share house in Ultimo, and into my current place, meaning my travel time to work is now only about ten minutes.

  ‘Hi Dave,’ I say, smiling, as I poke my head into the kitchen.

  ‘Joni! You’re early! How was your day?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Only okay? I’ll come and have a coffee with you.’

  Dave has an enthusiastic bounce to his step. He walks out of the kitchen into the little bar area, where a coffee machine sits alongside bottles of wine and liquor.

  ‘Latte?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes please.’

  Dave’s apron hangs low around his tiny hips, its tie in a loose bow over his baggy chequered chef pants. I sit in my favourite spot, in the cosy back corner of the staff table beside the floor lamp, so I can take in everything that’s going on. I always feel relaxed and at home at Harland. I’m comforted by the vintage furnishings, the mismatched china plates, the cat Tiger-Lily, who lives in the back garden. There’s a romantic and free-spirited energy that fills the place. Everything’s a little old-world and worn-out, in a nostalgic kind of way. Harland really is quite magical.

  I sometimes imagine what it must have looked like before it was converted into a restaurant. The stand-alone, double-fronted weatherboard house with sandstone bricks at the bottom. So typical of the Balmain area. Lucy told me that the Red Room, Gatsby and Lillibon used to be the three main bedrooms in the house. They are now set up with old cedar dining tables and chairs. The lounge room and bathroom were converted into what is now the kitchen. I’m guessing this all would have happened about fifteen years ago, in the early 1980s, just before Harland started operating as a restaurant. The Bar Room and staff table, where I’m sitting now, was probably once the second lounge room, or the children’s play room.

  ‘What’s been happening today?’ Dave tilts his head, speaking loudly over the sound of milk being frothed in the stainless-steel jug.

  I pause until I see him pouring the warm white liquid into the glass tumbler. I know I should tell him straight away, but it’s too awkward, so I offer up small talk.

  ‘I’ve been working on that painting I was telling you about last night. Just playing around with how abstract I want to go. I’m using oils, hence my hands this evening.’ I hold up my right hand, revealing my vermilion palm. ‘I know Lucy hates it when I don’t get the paint off my hands properly. I did try, but I was in a rush ’cause I thought I’d be late.’

  I reach into my bag and fossick around for the rose hand cream I carry with me. Rubbing it in, I continue.

  ‘It’s for t
hat group show I was telling you about. I’m so excited! Can’t wait. I feel like I’m really getting there, Dave. New theme, new direction. It’s strong, I know it is. And it’s a great bunch of artists I’ll be exhibiting with.’

  ‘So you’ve found yourself. I thought you would,’ Dave says to me, turning his head as he continues to make his coffee.

  ‘I knew it would be hard for me to say goodbye to art school.’

  Dave turns towards me. ‘But you knew you’d eventually get back on track. Yeah?’

  When I first started working at Harland, I was in the midst of hanging my works for the opening of ‘Blue Lights’, the graduation exhibition at my art school. This was when I’d first met Dave and Lucy and Juliet, and the other Harland staff. Once the exhibition was over and I’d officially graduated, I felt relieved that I had Harland as a place to go, be busy, earn money, talk, analyse things. And now with Annabelle having been away in London for a few months, my world really does revolve around Harland. It’s kind of like a second home.

  Dave leaves the coffee machine with his espresso and my latte. He joins me in the corner, handing me my freshly made coffee.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  I slowly wrap my paint-stained palms around the warm glass and look down at the little star tattoo on the inside of my wrist. Bringing the cup to my lips, the aroma of the coffee and the rose hand cream are in conflict with each other. I look Dave in the eyes. I can’t hold it in any longer.

  ‘I need to tell you about last night,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Big mistake!’ I wince, unlocking my eyes from Dave’s, and lowering my gaze. ‘Really big mistake!’

  ‘What?’ Dave asks again, smiling.

  I turn to see Lucy walking into the room. Her blonde hair is swept up loosely, held together with gold hair combs, and she has flowers pinned above her left ear. She wears a red velvet dress that’s low-cut and revealing, and the gold rings on her fingers catch the light. I can smell her musky perfume.

  ‘Tell you later,’ I say quickly to Dave.

  Lucy’s carrying a pile of freshly washed and ironed white tablecloths. She’s busy, as always, and moves about quickly with a gorgeous bohemian swiftness that is mesmerising.

  ‘Hey Joni.’ She smiles. ‘I’m running behind tonight—do you mind setting up the Pines? It needs to be set for six people.’ She puts the pile of tablecloths neatly on the shelf below the bar, leaving one of them draped over her arm. I watch her closely, wishing I had a French accent like hers.

  ‘I’ve already put all the cutlery and plates on the sideboard down there. Thanks, my love,’ she tells me sharply, her tone of voice cancelling out the thanks.

  I leave my coffee on the staff table, take the damask cloth from Lucy and walk briskly out the back door, down the stairs and along the winding path. The Pines is a smaller cottage in the back garden, separate from the main house, but still part of Harland. I imagine it would have been used as a granny flat, back in the days when Harland was a family home.

  I have a love/hate relationship with the walk from the back door of Harland down the path to the Pines. I’m almost certain there are ghosts here. The youngest daughter of the family who occupied the house in the 1950s? Maybe. Did she die a tragic death in her teenage years, and is she here, haunting all the Harland staff? Or is it one of the other children who may have lived in the house? Maybe at the turn of the century?

  My imagination runs wild. I hear whispers, and I say to myself, Don’t see a ghost, don’t see a ghost, as if that will somehow ward off any supernatural activity. Even though I don’t think I really believe in ghosts. If it’s not ghosts, then there’s definitely someone in the bushes watching me every time I walk this path, I swear! I don’t know why Lucy has never arranged to have the path lit properly.

  I set up the table in the Pines. As I’m arranging the wine glasses, I hear Dave calling me from the back door. ‘Joni, dinner’s up!’

  I walk as fast as I can back up that haunted path, feeling the swish of my dress between my legs, hearing my breath quicken.

  Juliet has arrived, and is sitting at the staff table. ‘Hey Joni,’ she says.

  She sits confidently, splayed out, her upper body flopped over the wooden table as she whinges about the resin jewellery she was working on today. The moulds were disastrous; the resin did not set; the movie she saw this afternoon was rubbish. Juliet talks a lot. Complains often. Possibly more than anyone I’ve ever met.

  Her skin is pale and slightly freckled, and her light brown hair looks as if it’s trying to be red but hasn’t quite got there. Her face resembles a full moon, and her small button nose is possibly her most attractive facial feature. Her almost-not-there eyebrows arch above her light brown eyes, and she’s kinda short. Shorter than me, and shorter than Lucy.

  I hate the cheap-looking cream crocheted vest she’s wearing tonight, wrapped over her long denim dress. But I would never dare tell her that. Her silver chain earrings are horribly unfashionable, and her black patent leather shoes look wrong with her dress. I know I’m being judgemental, but I can’t help it.

  ‘Blanquette de veau, ladies,’ says Dave, exiting the kitchen carrying two white bowls, each with steam dancing above the rim. He places them on the table, wanders back into the kitchen, and returns with another bowl. ‘Vegies and rice for you, Joni. Is that cool?’

  I’m the only vegetarian at Harland. Lucy always pays me out about it, but Dave happily puts a meal together for me every night, and hasn’t complained once.

  ‘Hi Joni! Hi Juliet!’ Michael calls from the kitchen. He’s the other chef at Harland, kind of Dave’s assistant. He keeps to himself and never really talks to me.

  Lucy flies down the hallway towards the Bar Room and grabs a bottle from the fridge under the bench. ‘Little treat tonight, girls.’ She pulls down three glasses and pours Juliet, me and herself a splash of chablis to have with our staff dinner.

  As always, Lucy doesn’t sit to eat hers. She has a mouthful, answers the phone, takes a booking, has another mouthful, clears a bench. She can’t sit still, that woman. She’s so suited to running a place like this.

  Juliet and I remain seated, eating, while Lucy reads from the large book that sits below the phone on the wall. ‘We’ve got a six in the Red Room, three twos and a four in Gatsby, and an eight in Lillibon.’

  ‘And a six in the Pines!’ I shout out through a mouthful of peas.

  ‘Is that set?’ asks Lucy, retouching her red lipstick while looking at her reflection in the silver coffee machine.

  ‘Yep,’ I confirm.

  ‘Okay, Joni, you’re taking care of Gatsby and the Red Room. Juliet, you’re in Lillibon and the Pines. I’ll float between rooms.’

  I love how all the rooms in Harland have a name.

  ‘Yay, the Pines,’ says Juliet.

  ‘Shit, it’s nearly six-thirty!’ Lucy announces, stuffing one last forkful into her mouth, then taking her plate into the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s Simon?’ she calls out.

  ‘Dishies are always late,’ I hear Dave saying, just as Simon walks through the back door.

  ‘I heard that. Here I am,’ he says, sounding more relaxed than the average person, which of course makes me think he’s been out the back smoking a joint and listening to our conversation for the last five minutes.

  ‘Simey!’ says Dave, and gives him a half slap-half hug on the back. Simon grabs an apron from the hook near the entrance to the kitchen.

  Juliet and I look at each other and smile, while Lucy turns up Best of Billie Holiday on the CD player, which we’ve heard a thousand times.

  I hear the sound of the bells, signalling the opening of the front door. Peeking down the hallway I spy a middle-aged couple. I grab my black apron off the hook, slipping into it as fast as I can.

  ‘Girls, we’re on,’ says Lucy, as she glides towards the front door. ‘Bonsoir. Welcome to Harland,’ she smiles.

  2

  I leave my black beret on the
hatstand on top of my cardigan and jacket. Then I do a Lucy, and check my reflection in the side of the coffee machine. My long brown hair looks free and loose and messy—exactly how I like it. Lucy walks briskly back into the Bar Room to check the bookings diary and see where the couple are to be seated.

  ‘Joni, tidy your hair and seat them on table two in Gatsby,’ she orders in an overbearing tone, bordering on rude.

  She takes a sip of her wine and light-heartedly taps me on the shoulder with two menus. I take them from her, breathing in deeply. I reluctantly smooth my hair with my free hand, catching another glimpse of myself in the Art Deco mirror as I walk along the hallway, readying myself for the night ahead.

  Lucy is like a bossy governess. A commander-in-chief, with a paradoxically flippant nature. There’s an alluring charm to the playful, yet firm, way she hands out orders. Sometimes she makes out that she’s on the same level as us employees, and at other times she shocks us with her authoritarian commands. She’s vivacious, with a perfect slender figure and flawless olive skin. Her large almond-shaped hazel eyes have a fierceness that’s quite intimidating; I can tell that she was the rebellious kid at school, who got away with everything and still scored high grades. She looks like a young Brigitte Bardot; and when she’s having her coffee break out the back, smoking a cigarette, she looks more like a Hollywood starlet than a restaurant owner. I’m certain it’s one of the reasons that Harland is almost always booked to capacity.

  I was intrigued when I first learnt that Lucy’s parents died tragically in a car accident, about ten years ago. She’s never told me this herself, but Dave filled me in one night. He said Lucy grew up in Paris, and her parents were furniture dealers. Furniture dealers who had a lot of money. I guess, born into it. Apparently Lucy moved to Sydney about ten years ago; shortly afterwards, her parents visited her here, and then…the accident. Dave said it made the nightly news and the front page of the papers. In April 1985, I think he said. A dark filmic image of a smashed car wrapped around a telephone pole on a country road comes to mind when I think back to how Dave described the scene of the tragedy. It’s like Australiana meets Hitchcock, my version. The headlights are still on, smoke is rising slowly out of the crushed bonnet, and the branches of the gum trees that line the road are lit up from below.