The Cafe by the Bridge

by Lily Malone

  ‘Scorpio. Not that I believe in any of that horoscope shit.’

  He bent to pick up a flat rock, studied the dull glint of stone and then hurled the stone as far as he could into the bush. It crashed through the undergrowth on the other side of Cutters Creek.

  ‘So, about the kids. Why not? Any reason?’

  ‘You’re really hammering the kid thing, Abe.’

  Was he? ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I guess it’s just I thought most women wanted kids, you know?’

  ‘I think most still do. I don’t think anything’s changed.’ They walked another stretch in that same cool comfortable silence, and then Taylor drew a breath and said, ‘I’m not particularly maternal, put it that way. I’ve never been the type that sees a pregnant woman in the supermarket and wants to rub my hands all over her tummy. I have friends with kids and I like to visit them and buy them presents, play with them … but I’m pretty happy to leave them after and go home.’

  ‘To your dog,’ he added. The instant he said it, he wondered if there was a man in her life. It didn’t feel like she had a man in her life, but his instincts were lousy. Look at Amanda.

  ‘My friend is a vet and she kind of forced him on me. He’s a rescue puppy. But I love him now. He’s a good dog.’

  They were nearing the end of the river walking path. Ahead, Abe could see the iron roof of the Bowling Club glinting through the trees.

  ‘There was this thing that a friend of my mum’s said to me a long time ago, that I always remembered—about having kids,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to have kids of your own to have children in your life. Something like that, anyway, I might not have it quite right. It’s true, you know. I have the kids I work with. I’m Godmother to Izzy’s little girl. I have foster children I sponsor around the world and I love seeing pictures of them as they grow and go to school, and thinking that I’m helping in some way, however small.’

  ‘It’s enough, hey?’

  ‘I think so. It’s enough for now.’

  They stepped out of the trees where the road curved left, heading back into town, and to their right the carpark opened up to the Club where punters were already arriving for Friday afternoon bowls and drinks.

  ‘Thanks for walking me this far,’ Taylor said, calling Bruno and reclipping his leash. ‘I know the way from here.’

  Abe didn’t want their conversation to end because the wet cement feeling in his head had gone while he walked with her by the creek, and he didn’t want it to come back. He didn’t want to let Taylor go.

  It had served him reasonably well in the last half hour, so he tried the blunt approach again. ‘If I went back to the café and grabbed the leftover fish curry … would you be interested in me bringing that around to Ella’s place for dinner? Maybe with a bottle of wine?’

  Orange-streaked sunlight hit the reddish glints in her hair, turning them the colour of malt whisky by firelight. She smiled straight at him. ‘Sure. That would be great. See you soon.’

  ‘Be there in a few.’

  He turned back the way they’d come and was soon hidden in the sweep of willows and brush. Another stride or two, and he broke into a jog.

  CHAPTER

  10

  The knock on the door was soft and, even though she’d been expecting it, the dull tap caught Taylor by surprise. Abe was early. He must have run.

  She smoothed her fringe with her fingers and sucked in her stomach. Did her hips look bigger in the flared grey skirt from the second-hand shop, with its giant white polka dots?

  Horizontal stripes added the kilos. Giant spots should be okay.

  ‘Taylor?’ Abe called into the house, not waiting for her to open the front door to his tap.

  Bugger her hips. She liked the skirt. ‘Hi. In here. Come in.’

  From the backyard, Bruno rumbled low growls of greeting, nose huffing against the glass. The front door snapped closed and she heard footfalls in the corridor.

  Abe poured into the space, vibrating with energy even as he came to a stop with his hands full of cooking pot, bottle of wine tucked under his arm, another bottle of—what was that in the bag? Soft drink? A lime. A lemon.

  He left the fruit and the soft drink—tonic water—on the nearest bench, offloaded the wine and placed the pot of fish curry onto an unlit gas burner on Ella’s stove.

  Something was wrong with the picture the two of them created in Ella’s kitchen. It was as if the trees were painted upside down, or the artist shaded the sun blue.

  ‘This feels weird, doesn’t it?’ Abe said, and relief slid through her that he acknowledged it too.

  ‘A bit.’

  Weird, yes, but not uncomfortable, just different.

  ‘I should have changed clothes. It feels like a date,’ he said, then he looked at her as if seeing her properly for the first time—gigantic polka dots and all. ‘Look at you. You changed.’

  ‘I had to. I looked like I’d been flour-bombed. I had tomato seeds on my sleeve.’ She tried to keep it light, but her heart hammered under his intense scrutiny and it robbed her of words.

  ‘You scrub up okay, Doc.’ His voice had the husky smoke and music of a New Orleans’ bar. ‘Very fifties’ housewife. Nice skirt.’

  And she couldn’t hold his gaze. There was too much to it. How could a pair of eyes be reflective yet so deep she couldn’t see the bottom? Abe’s eyes were like that ... and what was with the way her pulse quivered whenever he called her Doc?

  ‘What can I get you to drink, Abe? I’ve got a white wine open in the fridge. Or would you like a beer? Or there’s red too. Whatever you like.’

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘I’ll have the white.’

  ‘Sounds good. Put this one in your fridge, then.’ He handed her the bottle he’d brought with him.

  She got two glasses out of the cabinet, got the opened bottle out of the fridge and poured. The simple actions soothed her nerves. She passed him his glass and he clinked it with hers.

  ‘Thank you for your help today in the café. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  She took a sip as she considered the elephant in the room: the state Abe was in when she found him in the café today.

  Elephants in rooms didn’t sit well with Taylor, never had. She liked to talk through problems till she found solutions. But she couldn’t do that with Abe. She couldn’t address what happened to him today unless he started the elephant conversation, because that was the only way. She couldn’t help him if he didn’t want help.

  ‘Have you fed Perkins III tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Job’s all yours if you don’t mind doing it.’

  ‘Sure.’ He put his glass down and went to the laundry, and Taylor used the time to put the burner on low to start heating their meal.

  Just as he’d done the previous night, Abe checked with Taylor about the doors and windows and then he let the bird out of the cage while he put the fresh seed in.

  Last night, the bird scared her. Today, she welcomed the distraction. She guessed Abe did too. While the bird hopped about the furniture, he studied Ella’s records in the bookshelf against the rear wall.

  ‘She has an amazing record collection,’ Taylor said. ‘I don’t know anyone who keeps records these days.’

  He made a selection and took the shiny black record from its sleeve, moving to the sound system and pressing buttons, and then there was the near-forgotten static hum of a needle on vinyl. Seconds later, the soundtrack to Bowie’s Young Americans filled the room. Abe turned the sound lower so they could talk comfortably, then he picked up his wine and leaned on the kitchen counter, watching Taylor in the kitchen.

  ‘Most of Ella’s collection is disco. She has shelves and shelves of disco,’ he said.

  A little push couldn’t hurt, and they were talking about music, so she pressed him. ‘What’s the song you didn’t like today?’

  The tight line of his shoulders, as well as his constant energy buzz, had relaxed while he’d fed the bir
d, but now he clammed up again. She wished she hadn’t asked.

  ‘Don’t know. I don’t know the name of the song. I don’t know who sings it. I just know I don’t like it.’ He took a sip of his wine.

  She let it go. ‘What kind of music do you like then?’

  ‘I’m more of a Johnny Cash fan. Tom Waits. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Folksy American stuff. Bluegrass.’

  Perkins III hopped to the kitchen counter and strolled along it, tiny claws slipping on some real estate lift-out sections from newspapers Ella had left there.

  Taylor gave the fish curry a stir. The kitchen smelled amazing.

  ‘I meant to tell you I saw your brother this morning,’ Taylor said.

  ‘Yeah? Where?’

  ‘He was parking outside the Post Office, and I’d got chatting with a lady coming out of the butcher’s shop. Jaydah.’

  ‘Ah,’ Abe said. The most genuine grin she’d seen from him lit his face. ‘That’d be right. Brix’s been in town five minutes and already he’s run into JT.’

  ‘What’s their story? I liked her, the little bit I had to do with her.’

  ‘Jaydah runs the bar up at the Club. She and Brix were childhood sweethearts and then something mucked them up. Something to do with her family I think—’

  Taylor pointed with the stirring spoon in her hand. ‘Because, come on now, it couldn’t be anything to do with the Honeychurches. You’re all perfect—’

  He smiled. ‘So anyway, as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted, Brix went to Adelaide to study winemaking and Jaydah stayed here.’

  ‘She isn’t with anyone else? She’s stunning to look at.’

  ‘Plenty of blokes have tried. Don’t think they get anywhere,’ Abe said. ‘Brix has been back a couple of times over the years. He catches up with her when he’s home. Mum reckons she never sees him much when he’s supposed to be staying at the farm, put it that way.’

  ‘That sounds a bit sad,’ Taylor said. The buzzer on the oven timer went off and she shut off the gas beneath the rice to let it sit, resetting the timer. ‘Are you hungry? Dinner’s five minutes away.’

  Abe came around the counter into the kitchen, finding cutlery in a drawer, finding plates, moving through the small space without making Taylor feel crammed. He did make her feel short, though, as did Ella’s kitchen. She needed a step-stool to reach into the higher cupboards.

  ‘What about you, Abe? Do you have any childhood sweethearts floating around Chalk Hill?’

  ‘Your turn to be blunt, Doc?’

  She folded her arms across her chest, tipped her wineglass at him before taking a sip and said nothing. Two could play at this game.

  Eventually, he relented. ‘Nah. Not for me. Not like Brix and JT. I didn’t hang around as long as Brix and Jake did. They loved it here. I couldn’t wait to get out. The farm was never my thing. I sucked at farming. Just ask my dad.’

  ‘And you don’t like sheep.’

  ‘Stupid bloody animals. That’s how much I let the Honeychurch name down.’

  She studied his face as he said it. His lips held a wry curve of amusement but the set of his jaw added bitterness to it. When you dug around in people’s heads by trade, it got hard to get people to talk without them feeling like you were probing and she didn’t want Abe to feel like her patient. There was more to his relationship with the farm and his family, though, she was sure of it.

  The oven timer again cut into her thoughts. ‘Dinner’s up.’

  She spooned rice into bowls. Abe ladled the sauce on top. She poured the remainder of the white wine into each glass, and they moved to Ella’s kitchen table.

  Perkins III followed like he couldn’t bear to stay apart.

  ‘He can’t be hungry,’ Taylor said, indicating the fresh seed Abe had put into the bird’s cage, not yet touched.

  ‘He just likes people, don’t you, boy?’ Abe said, as the cockatiel fluffed his feathers and jumped from the table to the high back of a chair. ‘He’s probably lonely, here on his own all day.’

  Taylor forked a piece of the white-fleshed fish, stirring it through the sauce, using her finger to balance a section of rice that would have tipped. ‘I had this for lunch. I could eat it for lunch and dinner again tomorrow. I reckon I could eat this for a week. It’s so good.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad. Now eat,’ Abe said, and they both tucked into the meal.

  After a while, Taylor asked him, ‘What would your brother be doing for dinner tonight?’

  ‘I reckon he’d be eating at the Bowling Club,’ Abe said, straight-faced.

  ‘Because Jaydah is there?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  Abe downed the last of the wine in his glass and then put the glass on the table. He kept his two fingers on the base.

  ‘So, seeing as how you’ve asked about my brother … I should ask about yours, I guess.’ His eyes were on her face.

  An opening. The first opening he’d voluntarily given her. It meant a lot.

  ‘What do you want to ask?’ Taylor said.

  He shrugged. ‘You were the one who wanted to talk about him yesterday. I dunno. Why didn’t he press charges against Amanda? Why wouldn’t he go to the police?’

  Taylor put her fork down. ‘He was embarrassed. Will is a financial adviser. A partner at a city firm. He thought it could ruin his career if it became public that he’d been scammed.’

  ‘When did he work out what her real game was?’

  ‘Not till she owed him a heap of money and went on holiday to Bali without him. That was about March.’

  ‘What did she do with Keeley when she went to Bali?’

  ‘I think she left her with the father.’

  ‘And your brother never got his money back?’

  ‘Not a cracker. He told me he did write formally to her asking for what she owed him …’

  ‘You don’t believe he wrote the letter?’

  She shrugged. ‘I think he wrote the letter. I don’t think he got any response.’

  ‘Can’t he take her to court to get back what she owes him?’

  ‘Court should be the last resort. You write a Letter of Demand, and attach proof that you paid the money. Receipts, for example. Bank statements showing transfers.’ She scoffed a half-laugh. ‘Not that you can give receipts for cash exactly. He could go to a debt collector, but he won’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what hold she has over him. He won’t talk to me about it.’

  Abe took a sip of his wine. ‘With me, she said she needed money because Keeley needed braces. Who knew braces cost about eight grand? I lent it to her, I didn’t mind and Keeley’s a cute kid, anyway she wrote me a letter on the computer saying how much she’d borrowed and that she’d pay it back and she gave the letter to me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. A couple days later she asked me if I’d realised she did a typo on the date. The year was 2081 not 2018, and she laughed about it. She said her printer was out of ink but as soon as she got more ink cartridges she’d rewrite it.’

  ‘She never wrote you another letter, hey?’

  ‘Nup,’ Abe put his empty wineglass down, ‘and I forgot all about asking for another letter.’

  ‘The thing with sociopaths is, they don’t think about other people,’ Taylor said. ‘They have no real concept of things like consideration. They have no remorse. She won’t feel bad about what she did to you, or to Will, or anyone else on her backlist. She wouldn’t think twice about offloading her daughter on someone else so she could enjoy herself in Bali without having to be responsible for a child.’

  Abe’s legs kicked beneath the table, his shoe nudging Taylor’s hard enough to hurt her toe.

  ‘You said Will saw me come to Amanda’s flat that day … the day he was there. He never questioned then what a strange bloke was doing on her doorstep?’

  ‘Not at the time. He said she told him you were a jealous ex, and that was ea
sy for Will to believe. He was so into her he wasn’t surprised at all that other men would want her. It was only later he put it together. When I told him I’d seen you at Amanda’s place before. When everything else started to add up … the money … the gifts … the lies.’

  ‘She always wanted more, you know? Didn’t really matter what I bought her, I never felt it was enough. If I bought her a silver necklace, it should have been gold. If I bought her a mixed bunch of flowers, it was like if I really loved her, I would have bought her single-stemmed red roses.’

  ‘Gerberas are beautiful,’ Taylor said, remembering the bunch of sunset-coloured flowers.

  ‘That day you saw me—the day you dented my car door—I had a ring in my pocket. I was going to ask her to marry me. I thought that would prove that I loved her and make her feel secure. I thought that was what she wanted.’

  Taylor’s turn to shrug. ‘Sociopaths eventually show their true colours. Women like Amanda get what they want by being everything their partner dreams of. They make you think they share your dreams—that you’re soul mates. It’s a heady feeling, but it doesn’t last. You would have seen through her.’

  ‘When I met her … the night I met her … I met her in my bar. We got talking and sometime before closing, we realised we wanted the night to keep going, you know? We went to the casino—’

  ‘Do you remember who suggested that?’

  ‘Me, I think. But she said it was what she’d been going to say.’

  ‘I bet she did.’ Amanda must have thought she hit the jackpot. Taylor leaned forward, opening her palm out on the table. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered what you said, Abe, wherever you said you wanted to go. She would have said the same thing. That’s just what I was thinking, Abe. You read my mind. It’s how they create the bond with you. It’s that soul mate thing all over again. It’s part of their cunning.’

  ‘This shit makes my head hurt,’ he said, as he pushed his chair back and stood, scrubbing his hand across the top of his head. ‘I was such an idiot.’

  He stared out the back window and Taylor quietly removed their plates, giving him space. She stacked the dishwasher and ran a cloth over the counter.