The Cafe by the Bridge

by Lily Malone

  Besides, it didn’t feel like the right time to tell Will about Abe. About Abe and her, as well as Abe not being a loser.

  The phone continued to bark at her, a reminder that Bruno would be hungry too.

  ‘I’ve got to go but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Let me think about all this stuff, but you,’ she shook her finger at him, ‘you don’t worry about it. When was the last time your phone rang in the night? Does it happen often?’

  ‘Not so much this last few weeks.’

  ‘And what about tattoo-gas-delivery guy?’

  ‘That was months ago. That was just after—’

  He hesitated.

  ‘After what?’ Taylor pressed.

  A stain crept into her brother’s cheeks and he glanced away. ‘It was a couple of nights after I went over to her house, that night she rang me. When her ex had been there and she was scared.’

  ‘She wasn’t scared. She was playing you.’ Taylor’s mouth hardened.

  Will waved his hands. ‘What else am I supposed to do? Ignore her when she’s crying on the phone?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Doh!

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never pulled your head out of your upwardly mobile arse long enough to be with any guy longer than five minutes, except for that dickhead Hugh. You haven’t ever even lived with a guy and you’re older than me. Bet you never went to see a counsellor over your bust up with Hugh.’

  ‘I didn’t need to see a counsellor.’ I am a bloody counsellor. ‘I was fine.’

  ‘Sure you were. You moped for months.’

  She counted to ten in her head. ‘Why are you so angry with me?’

  ‘Because you’re attacking me!’ he spluttered at her. ‘How do you think I feel? I feel like the dumbest guy on earth. You’ve always been the smart one. Well, here’s proof. You’re smartest, we all know it. You’d never have got yourself in a cock-up like this one.’

  ‘We all make mistakes, Will. It’s called being human, but you’re doing the right thing. I know it must be hard staying away, and you’re lonely, but you’ve got your work and your family and we’ll all help you through it.’

  He shuffled his feet, kicking at a book on the floor. ‘Yeah. Right. Like it’s that easy.’

  He kicked at the book again, and that was when she got it.

  ‘It’s not over, is it?’

  Will made a sputtering sound.

  ‘Are you still sleeping with her?’

  His hands waved everywhere. ‘What am I supposed to do? She says she’s lonely too, Taylor. She says no one understands me like she does, and no one understands her like I do. It’s hard being a single mum. People judge her, she says, other mums at school, the neighbours. I don’t judge her, she says.’

  ‘I promise I’m not judging you, Will.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You always have. She makes me feel good about myself. Okay? I know she shouldn’t after everything, but that’s just how it is. When I’m with her, I feel good.’

  ‘Right, William Woods. You listen to me. Sociopaths are good in bed. Okay? I get that. You know why they’re good in bed? They have zero inhibitions and total focus on getting what pleasure they want out of every moment. I get that she’s a sexy package, okay? She’s also using you and bleeding you dry and it will be NO SURPRISE TO ME AT ALL if it turns out she’s the one who’s putting dead birds on your doorstep and eggs in your letterbox just to keep you in line! Okay? Got that?’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘You’re defending her. After everything she’s done to you.’

  ‘I know her, Taylor. You don’t!’

  ‘Stay away from her, Will.’ She would have said more but there was a rumble from her handbag, another call on her phone. ‘I’ve got to go. Take it easy.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’

  He turned away when she tried to kiss his cheek.

  * * *

  Three missed calls, all from Abe.

  Taylor had the Bluetooth system dialling Abe’s number as she pulled out from her parking spot outside Will’s place, desperate for some sanity and clear air.

  ‘Hey,’ Abe answered pretty quickly. ‘How’s it going, Doc?’

  She couldn’t help but smile. His voice was all late-night whisky in a New Orleans’ bar, and his Doc hurt places she didn’t know could hurt, squishing her heart up and shaking it loose all at the same time.

  ‘I’m good. I’m just on my way back from Will’s.’

  ‘How’s he?’

  She stumbled. Will was a wreck. Will looked terrible. Their night had been awful, but how much should she say? It wasn’t like Abe could do anything about it.

  Actually, Abe could do something about it. Abe could offer to talk to Will. Abe could press charges. Abe could go to the police.

  That wasn’t a conversation for now, but Taylor promised herself, soon.

  ‘Will’s not doing so good, but he’ll be okay,’ she said, sending a fervent wish soaring into the city of lights that it was the truth.

  She drove across the Causeway, looking up at the birds-nest hulk of the new sports stadium near the casino, and wished Abe was sitting in the passenger seat with her and she could reach out and touch his thigh.

  She didn’t want to talk about Will or Amanda anymore.

  ‘What about you, Abe? How was your day?’

  ‘I had a different kind of day. My dad rang this morning. He says my mum’s in hospital in Tamworth. He had to take her into the emergency department last night.’

  ‘Oh, Abe. I’m so sorry about that. Will she be okay?’

  ‘They don’t know. Dad rang tonight. He said she has to have an MRI. She has some kind of lesion on her brain.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How are you?’ She put emphasis on the you.

  ‘I’m okay. It’s not me with the lesion. Dad’s pretty upset.’

  ‘I bet. When will you know more?’

  ‘Gonna be a few days. Have to be, I guess. She’s in the best hands where she is.’

  Taylor slowed for a set of red traffic lights that conveniently turned green before she had to stop. She changed lanes, ready to take the right turn towards her house.

  ‘In a bit of good news, I got a response to my ad looking for help in the café already,’ he said.

  ‘That was quick. I wonder if she’ll be as good as me behind a coffee machine?’

  ‘No woman on the planet is as good as you, Doc.’

  Whisky. Bars. Music. Dark dance floors. Dirty corners. Oh, she had honest-to-goodness flutters all up her chest.

  Taylor flicked the switch on the garage remote as she neared her house, and slowed. The door slid up as she pulled in, engine revving so that the confined space vibrated like a speaker turned up loud. She pressed the switch to shut it again and turned her engine off, listening to the grind of metal as the garage door closed.

  Bruno barked from the yard and she could see his paws in the gap at the bottom of the rear door, shadowed in the garage light. He’d have to wait another couple of minutes. She wasn’t finished talking.

  ‘I wish you were here,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Why’s that, Doc? No one to make you scones at midnight?’

  ‘No. I just miss you.’ Because it felt like time to tell the truth.

  ‘I miss you too, Taylor.’

  Taylor, not Doc, and it meant more.

  After a moment of resonating quiet, he said, ‘I wanted to ask if you’d call that friend you mentioned. That colleague. I thought it would do me good to have that chat. Or do I need to get a referral to see a—what do you call yourselves—counsellor through a GP? I know you don’t like shrink.’

  ‘I can do it for you. You don’t need a referral.’ Hope bloomed in her chest.

  ‘Could you see if she has any appointments Monday? I thought I’d come visit you, after the café closes Sunday. I’d drive up, stay Sunday and Monday night, leave at the crack of dawn Tuesday, and I can do some grocery
shopping for the café while I’m in the city before I head back down. If that’s all okay with you?’

  ‘Of course it’s okay. It’s perfect. I’ll call my colleague in the morning and I’ll let you know how I go.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s not cheap, Abe, and Medicare can’t help unless you’re referred by a GP. I can help you with Larissa’s bill—’

  ‘I’m not on the bones of my butt quite yet, Doc. You don’t need to pay my bill.’

  She got the message. ‘Okay. Just checking.’

  They talked a little more before Taylor wished him goodnight, and she sat in the warm car for a few moments longer, thinking. This was such a huge step for Abe. The first step to admitting you needed help was always the hardest. If Abe spoke with Larissa about Amanda and the scam and it helped him, maybe she could convince Will to speak with Larissa too.

  Things were looking up.

  * * *

  Abe hung up the phone. It was late but he wasn’t tired; there were too many thoughts in his head. Too much guilt.

  Maybe if he chatted to Taylor’s shrink friend, a few things might begin to make sense. He couldn’t be right in his head if he wished a brain lesion on his old man, for one.

  He’d always been closer to his mum than his dad. That wasn’t being mean about it, that was just a fact. Same as he’d always been the youngest of the three boys. Same as he’d always liked a bet.

  If your own father didn’t recognise your voice on the phone, something had to be wrong, didn’t it? He must have done something, somewhere along the line, to make his dad love his brothers more than him, and it couldn’t be that time he’d left the gate open and the sheep got out and ran for miles along Quarry Road.

  It had to be something bigger than that, but whatever he’d done back then, it really didn’t matter. He couldn’t go through life resenting his father for not being the one who died.

  The one who might die, Abe

  Might die.

  He thought of his mother and said a prayer.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Next morning, Abe rang the hospital before the café opened for trading and got put through to his mum’s room. He talked to his dad, who said the seizures had stopped and his mum had a better night.

  ‘She’s more comfortable this morning but that might be the medicine making her sleepy. It’s been a rough couple of days. She’s out of Intensive Care, though. That’s a good thing,’ Dad said.

  ‘Can I talk with her?’

  ‘She’s asleep, mate. I’d hate to wake her.’

  ‘Okay. I can call back.’

  ‘She’s been asking about that recipe,’ Dad said, in a voice gone so low, Abe struggled to hear him.

  ‘What recipe?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you that? Sorry, mate. My head’s been in a mess. I don’t know what day it is.’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad. What recipe?’

  A hesitation. ‘Christmas ham.’

  ‘She’s worried about a recipe for Christmas ham? Unbelievable. Only Mum could love Christmas to the point she’s worried about the ham when she’s in hospital.’

  ‘She’s been going on about it since she had the dizzy spell Sunday night. First thing she does when she wakes up is ask me if you’ve found it yet.’

  ‘Where is it? I’ll find it if it’s that important to her.’

  ‘She said it’s in her cooking diary. She said you’d know the one.’

  ‘Yeah, I do. I’ll take a look for it.’

  ‘Good on you, son. Thank you.’

  * * *

  Abe rang the hospital again when the last customers left the café that afternoon and he could drag the Open sign inside. His dad answered, spoke for a bit and then put his mum on the phone. Her voice sounded like the records on Ella’s record player: patchy, a bit scratchy, distant.

  ‘You sure gave us a scare,’ Abe said. ‘How are you feeling today?’

  ‘A bit better thanks, love. There’s always someone worse off than me.’

  ‘When are you getting that MRI thing?’

  ‘They have to schedule me in. There aren’t a lot of those machines about in the regional hospitals. Maybe Santa will bring me one.’

  His mother laughed as she said it, a high-pitched tinny sound, and Abe didn’t quite know how to take that, so he laughed too. Santa? Bring an MRI machine? It must be the drugs they had her on.

  ‘If you have to go up to Brisbane, or to Newcastle or Sydney, wherever the doctors say you have to go, Mum, make sure you get it done.’

  ‘I will. Did you find the Christmas ham recipe, Abe?’

  ‘Yeah, sure I did. I can get the ingredients for that, no problem.’

  A pause. A beat. Someone talking in the background. His father? Maybe a nurse.

  ‘Mum?’ he prompted.

  ‘You—’ a hitch, a big breath and then an ugly sob, more words he couldn’t work out all muffled over the phone and the next voice he heard was his father saying, ‘It’s me, Abe.’

  I know it’s you, Dad. ‘What happened? Has Mum had another turn? Is she okay?’

  ‘You didn’t find the recipe, did you?’

  This was about the recipe? Abe stumbled two seconds too long. ‘I’m at the café. I haven’t had a chance yet. I can look when I get home. Why the hell is Mum so worried about Christmas ham? Christmas is ages away. She has so much more to worry about than Christmas ham.’

  ‘It’s important to your mother, Abel,’ said in that voice. ‘She’s not well and it’s weighing on her mind.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I promise I’ll find it.’

  ‘Not tomorrow. Not next week.’ Then quieter, away from the phone. ‘He’ll find it, Val. He’s at the café but he’ll look when he gets home. He’ll find it, don’t upset yourself, love.’ And more noises that may have been nurses or doctors but the very worst thing was, the loudest noise of all was the can’t-get-a-breath wheeze of his mother’s crying.

  * * *

  It was a damn dusty job digging through the archive boxes in the room where Jake stored all their parents’ stuff. When his folks bought the house in town, they’d promised to take all these boxes with them, but somehow they’d never got around to it.

  Bloody Christmas ham.

  He’d never been so organised for Christmas cooking in his entire life. It wasn’t even November for crying out loud, but if it made his mum happy …

  Abe shoved a box labelled in thick black pen, Knitting, out of his way. Behind it was a box marked Jake, CHPS. There was an identical box for Abe and Brix. So much stuff their mum kept from Chalk Hill Primary School!

  He hefted another box. It was labelled Books, but when he opened it he found novels, no diaries and definitely nothing about Christmas ham.

  He bent at the waist, hefted yet another box marked Tax/Wills, and then one lone box remained.

  Kneeling in the space between Knitting and Tax/Wills, Abe turned the final box in a rough square until he found the label.

  Recipes.

  Hoo-bloody-ray.

  The lid stuck. He had to squeeze his finger under the cardboard to make a gap. Eventually he got it, and there was a crackling sound as it worked free and loosened.

  Cookbooks.

  He started lifting them out. Some of them must be older than him. Some must be older than his mother. Finally, buried at the bottom, Abe dug out a lace-covered book with a tarnished lock on it that had long since lost its key. Well, he hoped the diary didn’t have a key because he couldn’t see any key in the bottom of the box. It was wrapped instead with a white ribbon, tied with a bow.

  He had vague memories of the book his mum called her Cooking Diary on the kitchen bench when he was little, watching his mum turn the pages with a flour-dusted finger.

  He lifted the diary to his nose, inhaled, half hoping to smell raisins, flour, cinnamon. Got nothing but dust and closed spaces, the cover fragile in his thumbs and flimsy, like cobwebs.

  When he opened it, the spine flopped in his fingers. Page after page of his mother’s han
dwriting unfolded before him and he had to be careful to stop recipes snipped from newspapers and magazines from sliding to the floor.

  As he flipped towards the back, the little book felt different. The pages didn’t flip easily, then the flipping stopped altogether and Abe discovered a whole heap of pages, maybe fifty, had been cut out in rectangles, making a hollow.

  They’d been written pages of the diary once. His mum’s scrawled writing framed every cut edge in swathes of measurements, ingredients and numbers written in blue and black pen.

  Hidden in the hollow was a small envelope with his name written in his mother’s handwriting.

  For Abel. Not the Christmas ham recipe.

  He turned it over to check the back. The envelope was perfectly sealed.

  He turned it again.

  He didn’t want to open it.

  He really, really didn’t want to open it. There was no way it could be good news.

  Abruptly, Abe flipped the envelope in his hands and shoved his thumb under the seal. He ripped it across and pulled out the page inside, opening it out, flattening years of creases.

  The paper was crinkled, sparse and fragile, like an old lady’s skin, but although the blue pen had faded, the cursive script was neat and easy to read.

  To the smartest, most fun, most incredible twelve-year-old

  I know,

  My Abel, who I will always love

  It’s the night before your twelfth birthday and I’ve just finished making the cake for your party. It’s late and I’m so tired, but this cake looks great! It’s an ice-cream cake, lots of layers, flaked chocolate, those choc ripple biscuits crushed top and bottom and in the middle. I like making your ice-cream cake more than baking cakes for your brothers, but don’t tell them I said that.

  I hope you’ll remember this party for the rest of your life. I certainly will.

  We’re going down to Albany to the McDonald’s with four of your best mates, and the weather should be nice. As long as it isn’t raining we’re going to Little Beach to see if we can spot any whales and if it’s nice, we can go for a swim if I’m up to it.

  Brace yourself, beautiful boy. This is tricky to write. It will be tricky for you to read, but you’re tough, Abel. You’re my toughest tough cookie.