The Cafe by the Bridge

by Lily Malone

  The sheet was useful too. The Romans were wise beyond their empire all those years ago. They’d known the value of a skilfully draped sheet that covered far more than it revealed.

  Abe’s fingertips stroked her nipple. He really was delightful.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Taylor said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Where do you stand on long-distance relationships?’

  The barest hitch in the slow exploration of his fingers on her body.

  ‘Well, there was this girl in the Albany Caravan Park when I was nine. She came from Geraldton … we didn’t last.’

  Taylor allowed him a small smile, and waited.

  ‘It feels good … you and me,’ Abe said, hesitatingly. ‘I’d like to see where it goes. But I’m messed up. You saw me yesterday. You saw me tonight. You could do a helluva lot better than me.’ He laughed. A strangled sound. ‘Sometimes I think I’m only just hanging on. Not sure I’m good for anyone.’

  Taylor put her hand on his, squeezed it hard where he’d been gentle on her breast. ‘You’re good for me. You chill me out. Slow me down. I know it hasn’t been long but I get this connected feeling with you. It’s nice. I like it.’

  ‘I like it too.’

  She rested her hand in the groove where his hip met rib. ‘I guess what I’m asking is, will you be exclusive with me for a while … while we see where this might go?’

  ‘There’s been no one else for me since … well, you know who. I was worried I’d be way outta practice.’

  ‘Trust me, you’re good.’ Taylor lowered her eyes, couldn’t help the way they lingered on his mouth. For a young guy, he had a beautiful grace and patience in bed. He’d been slow and patient with her, drawn her out, made her wait, made everything build and then crash like a sonata perfectly played. He’d been … wow.

  ‘What about you? When was your last boyfriend?’ Abe said.

  Hugh. The very married Hugh. She didn’t want to get into that. ‘It’s a few years. I’ve been on dates. Nothing serious. My life’s been in career mode for a while now.’

  ‘I was in career mode. I’m not anymore. I’m in playing catchup mode now.’

  ‘The café is a new start, Abe,’ Taylor said. ‘Running your own business. Being your own boss. You’re calling your own tune.’

  ‘Pity I hate the place.’

  ‘You don’t hate it.’

  He touched her fringe, pushed it over her ear. ‘I don’t hate the house. I always loved my nanna’s house. But I don’t like the café much. It’s not what I want to be doing.’

  ‘Then what else would you do?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be home in Chalk Hill licking my wounds for a start. I never liked this place. Couldn’t wait to get away when I was a kid. Pretty much the day I got my driver’s licence I was outta here.’

  ‘Then move. Do something else. Something that makes you happy.’

  ‘Where would I go, Doc? I got nothing.’ His words stayed gentle, but his eyes went bleak at the edges. ‘The family bailed me out so I could give this café a go. I can’t chuck it in yet.’

  ‘Your family would understand if you explained it to them.’

  ‘My dad wouldn’t bat an eyelid. “Abel stuffs up again.”’ He made the quotes with his fingers. ‘I’d like to prove the old man wrong for once. I really would.’

  Her heart broke for him. There was something seriously messed up in Abe’s relationship with his dad. She’d like to explore it. She could help him work through it. Right now she wasn’t sure what the bigger problem was: his father? Or Amanda?

  She spoke the thought on her mind. ‘You’re an enigma, you know that?’

  ‘Nah. I’m just an idiot.’

  ‘Give yourself more credit. Everyone makes mistakes.’

  ‘A mistake is a cross when you shoulda ticked the form. It’s taking a wrong turn off the freeway—’

  ‘Then you get a new form, Abe; and you turn around at the next freeway exit,’ she interrupted. ‘No one makes you drive off into the sunset forever on the wrong damn road.’

  ‘Some shit sticks. It’s months since …’ Again he baulked on Amanda’s name.

  ‘Would you speak with someone about … what’s troubling you, if I gave you a name? I have some good colleagues in the city.’

  ‘Can’t I speak to you? You give good couch.’

  ‘I’m compromised now I’ve seen your butt naked. I’d be going against my professional code of conduct.’

  The sheet fell away, exposing more of her breasts. Abe leaned forward and rubbed the column of her throat with the beginning of prickles from his beard. Unlike his jawline, the head on his hair was soft, a silk brush against her cheek.

  A smile crinkled the corner of his eyes. ‘What do you think my biggest problem is, Doc?’

  ‘You’re making a joke of it, Abe, but I’m serious. We need to get you help. I’m worried you’re depressed, or borderline depressed, after what happened last year.’ Again she hesitated, but this time she went through with it, ‘I mean with Amanda.’

  Abe went very still.

  Taylor rushed to fill the gap. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Mental illness, mental disorders, they can strike anyone at any time. You lost your businesses because of what happened to you, Abe. Then you start a new business you say you hate. You’re allowed to feel robbed. She robbed you.’

  ‘I want to forget it and move on.’

  ‘I know, and that’s natural. But look where that’s got you? Forgetting about it isn’t working.’ I’m pushing too hard. But pussyfooting around his problems wasn’t helping either. ‘You’re not sleeping well. You bake scones at 3 am because you can’t sleep. You’re freaked out by a song. Yesterday I found you sitting on your butt on the café floor. Tonight you zone out in a club … Just talk with someone. I think it will help.’

  ‘And I guess me not talking about Amanda hasn’t helped your brother, has it?’ His words ripped through the room.

  She jerked back. ‘That’s not why I brought it up. This is about you, not Will. I wasn’t thinking of Will.’

  ‘But that’s why you came to Chalk Hill to find me, right? To get my help for your brother?’

  ‘Abe, that was before I knew you. It’s not how I’m thinking now.’

  ‘Then why is that all you can talk about?’ He shrugged himself out of the tangle of sheets and sat high in the bed, rubbing his hand through his hair. ‘It’s late. I should go.’

  Not like this. ‘Stay the night, Abe. Don’t go home angry. I’d like you to stay.’

  ‘Sorry, but I don’t think I want to.’ His eyes raked over her. ‘Not anymore.’

  * * *

  She didn’t follow him. She didn’t beg. She didn’t say another word. Not that she had to. Taylor’s eyes told him how much of a wanker he’d been, how much he’d hurt her, until she shut her eyes and closed him out.

  Abe snatched up his clothes and got out of Ella’s guestroom and its smell of Taylor and him together. By the time he had his pants and boots on, he wasn’t angry anymore. The red surge had come and gone, wasting itself on the shore.

  If he could have seen a path back to her bedroom, an opening to say he was sorry, peel those sheets back and climb in, he would. But he couldn’t see the path.

  Taylor didn’t need a man like him in her life. The way he’d acted tonight proved it.

  She was a professional, mature, beautiful woman who had her shit well and truly together; and he was an idiot with nothing to offer that wasn’t a batch of scones any loser could bake.

  He didn’t bother with buttoning his shirt, and the spring night froze his skin as he closed Ella’s front door and stepped out onto the porch.

  Even there, he couldn’t make his feet move because the only direction they wanted to take him was the one that led back inside.

  Hours before he’d watched her on that porch as she’d put her hat on, taken it off.

  She’d looked a million dollars in that two-buck hat.

 
Soft green light edged the window at the front of the house. She hadn’t turned the bedroom lamp off, and there was enough light to outline thick leaves on the biggest pot plant, the one that hid the spare key.

  He’d trusted Amanda that first night he met her and look what happened then? Who could say he wasn’t making another huge mistake with Taylor? He’d only known her for a couple of days.

  Abe sucked clean cold air into his lungs and blew it out. Very faint, the patter of rain played on the roof over his head. The front path glistened.

  Taylor wasn’t another Amanda. She was nothing like Amanda.

  If he seriously had a chance with her, he needed to grow up. Fast.

  He had to be bigger than a spoiled kid who chucked the toys out of the cot when he didn’t get his way. He had to admit he needed help or else he’d push all the good people in his life away.

  The key to his future lay under that pot plant, and he’d use it … but first he wanted to get something for Taylor, a peace offering. He knew the perfect thing.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Chalk Hill Bowling Club was pretty much all closed up, only a couple of cars left in the carpark, lights off, air cold, and everything smelling of stale cigarettes, beer and rain.

  Abe got out of his car and started a skip-run up the slope of concrete path towards the clubhouse. He could see a few hangers-on inside, but he had no intention of going in. Taylor said she’d knocked her hat off against the clubhouse wall when he had her out back. So he’d just trot round the outside and hopefully her hat would be easy to find and he could get back to what he’d so much rather be doing.

  Keeping Taylor warm.

  Making things right.

  ‘And that right there’s the reason my girl Jaydah’s been late home these last few nights, ain’t it?’

  The voice kind of scratch-croaked—like it had got through a lifetime of hard liquor and harder living—from the base of the brick wall in the shadows to the right of the path.

  First, it scared Abe half to death.

  Second, it scratch-croaked again, mean and hard as a knife scraped on cement. ‘Shoulda know’d there’d be a Honeychurch had something to do with it.’

  Abe squinted into the gloom and made out the shape of a man sitting, one leg crossed up over the knee of the other and a hat pulled low over his head. The orange nub of a cigarette lit in a brief flare, giving Abe a glimpse of craggy face and craggy mouth, and he knew who this was.

  Keith Tully. Jaydah’s dad.

  Which was a relief when you considered it could have been ghouls, ghosts or zombies, but Keith Tully so wasn’t who Abe needed right now.

  ‘Keith,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s Abe you’re looking at, mate. Not Brix.’

  ‘All ya father’s bastards. No difference ’tween the lotaya.’

  Abe blew out a breath and glanced towards the clubhouse. Jaydah was inside near the pool table with the same blokes they’d played pool with earlier in the night. No sign of the blonde girl, Lindt. No sign of Brix.

  ‘Are you waiting for Jaydah, Keith? Giving her a lift home?’

  ‘Nah. I’m waiting for whichever arsehole it is got my Jaydah staying out later’n she should these past couple nights.’ He flicked the cigarette to the concrete and stubbed it out under his boot. ‘Heard your mongrel brother was back in town. Sniffing ’round my girl. Thought you was him. You’re all the same in the dark.’

  Brix was the one who should be standing here copping this.

  Abe should be back in Taylor’s bed, where he belonged.

  ‘Where is that brother of yours, anyway?’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing,’ Abe said.

  ‘Still think he’s too good for this place? Off making his fine wine?’ The last words came out on a sneer.

  ‘G’night, Keith,’ Abe said tightly. That was it. He didn’t have to listen to this. Abe leaned his weight towards the clubrooms and moved away from the sour man.

  The lights in the club caught his eye as he moved past the corner of the low brick wall, but it wasn’t the lights that made him take a second, sharper look.

  He’d thought Jaydah was playing a friendly game of pool with the two boys—a game where she could wind down after her shift and offer the two blokes a last drink on the house before closing time. That didn’t look like this.

  She wasn’t holding that pool cue like she was about to line up the black. She had a grip on the cue like she was about to crack it around someone’s head.

  ‘Keith?’ Abe called back towards Jaydah’s father. ‘Couple of blokes in there might be giving Jaydah a hard time. Wouldn’t hurt to let them know they got company.’

  ‘Snooty bitch is getting bad as your brother with his fine wines. What wouldn’t hurt is her getting taken down a peg or two.’

  Brix always said Keith Tully was a dickhead.

  Abe loped up the ramp and pushed through the glass doors, glad Jaydah hadn’t locked them. They whooshed wide with a whump and a bang, and Abe blew in on an Arctic blast of attitude.

  Three heads shot towards the door. Only Jaydah smiled. ‘Abe!’

  ‘Everything okay here?’

  ‘Bar’s closed,’ Jaydah said. ‘Boys here don’t wanna leave.’

  ‘Aww, come on. Just one last game with the bar lady,’ one of the blokes, the stockier, heavier guy said, taking a grip on the pool cue that didn’t hint at any actual playing of pool.

  Easy to see the two blokes summing him up, beer fogging the brain, thinking about the numbers, two against one.

  He hadn’t really paid them any attention when they’d played pool earlier. It was Lindt who was the one in their face, and the blokes hadn’t drunk enough to really get their courage up then.

  Dudes might be living in the area, working on the extension to the Chalk Hill Bridge Road, but they weren’t local enough to know how Jaydah Tully handled a pool cue. Girl was lethal.

  ‘You should mind your own business, mate,’ the taller guy warned Abe.

  ‘Listen, you cockhead. If you want to get your head smashed in with a pool cue, be my guest. I came in cos I’m looking out for your sorry arses.’

  ‘Don’t spoil my fun, Abe,’ Jaydah said silkily, moving closer, making both blokes give her a second look, then a third.

  In her black tank top, tight black jeans, black boots and her raven-cloud of hair, Jaydah would have looked at home on the set of a Bruce Lee movie and he didn’t mean playing the damsel in distress.

  ‘Where’s my brother? Thought he’d be here,’ Abe said, quiet enough for only Jaydah to hear.

  ‘We had a fight.’

  Abe shook his head. ‘Jesus, you two.’

  He kept his approach steady, but he hadn’t stopped moving since he cleared the doors, and he was pretty much with the group now, moving to stand off to Jaydah’s side. He made sure she had room to swing.

  The squatter of the two guys decided that right now would be a pretty good time to charge and lowered his shoulder.

  ‘We really gonna do this?’ Abe asked.

  Jaydah shifted weight beside him, left foot forward, moving the pool cue to her right hip. Abe saw a glint of her teeth in the light.

  ‘It’s your funeral, guys.’ Abe turned his back on both blokes, the pool table and Jaydah Tully. It was the only way he could see to save the two boys from broken teeth and Jaydah from an almighty dentist’s bill.

  ‘Be gentle with them, hey?’ He walked off.

  In the reflection of the glass windows he saw both blokes pause, trying to make sense of what just happened, and Abe had to hide his grin.

  ‘You seriously gonna leave her here with us?’ the short squat guy yelled.

  He answered without turning. ‘You wanna get turned to pulp, nothin’ I can do about it. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.’

  Another beat, long enough for Abe to clear the assorted tables and chairs and reach the entry wall where row upon row of Club Presidents and Senior Singles Bowls Championship plaques lined the wall.

>   ‘Aww, bugger this. Let’s get out of here. We were going anyway.’ The tall guy broke first, bypassing Jaydah like a banana split from its peel. He made a beeline for the rear door that led to the carpark and his mate followed.

  The door banged behind the pair of them, and Abe stood with the best grin he’d had for a good six months shining back at him from the glass.

  Jaydah wasn’t grinning. ‘You’re such a damn spoilsport, Abe. Like your big brother.’

  ‘Some thanks I get for saving you from having to scrub blood off your floor.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

  Abe turned to face her. ‘I saw your old man outside.’

  She didn’t answer, but her face went sharp around the edges.

  ‘Will you be okay to lock up? To get home?’ Abe asked. ‘Will you get a lift with him?’

  ‘My car’s here. I don’t need a lift.’

  ‘You want me to wait? Make sure those guys don’t come back? I can call Brix to come get you?’

  ‘They won’t come back. Not after they’ve left with their tails between their legs.’

  ‘Okay then. See you later.’ Abe pushed through the doors and cut to his right, taking his phone out of his pocket as he walked to the back of the club to look for Taylor’s hat. He used the torch function on his phone, sweeping the light along the base of the brick wall.

  The hat wasn’t hard to find, and Abe bent to scoop it up.

  He didn’t see Keith Tully when he left the club.

  He wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Keith when his daughter caught up with him, but just in case those two goons hadn’t been scared off completely, Abe rang Brix.

  His brother said he’d come back into town and make sure Jaydah was alright.

  * * *

  ‘Taylor?’ Abe’s whisper floated through the dark bedroom and woke her up. ‘Are you asleep?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  She pushed up to her elbows, reaching out for the bedside lamp and flicking it to throw soft green light through the room. ‘Sure.’