Last Bridge Before Home

by Lily Malone

  ‘When is my mum going to see your dad? It won’t happen. Mum won’t say anything and I’ll swear Irene to secrecy. Your dad won’t find out.’

  ‘You don’t know my dad.’

  ‘You should have something special for the day. We’re doing this so secret.’ He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’ll keep it secret for you because that’s what you need, but I’m proud of you. I’m proud that I’m going to be your husband and you’re going to be my wife, and I don’t want you to regret it when we’re old, that we snuck away because of your dad and we didn’t do it right.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be proud of me … I haven’t done much anyone could be proud of.’

  ‘You’ve kept your mum safe! You’ve kept your family going all this time with no help.’

  She clicked her tongue. ‘He can’t find out, Brix.’ The words faltered and she picked at a thread at the hem of her shirt.

  ‘Do you have any good memories of him at all?’

  ‘He taught me to fight, I guess. He taught me to protect myself. That’s a good thing.’ She screwed up her face and looked away, head tilted so that her black hair shone and swung, and she studied the climbers on the cliff as if she might memorise their moves before she sighed into the sunshine.

  ‘He met my mum in Manila. He was over there for a big martial arts tournament. When he was younger he was an Australian age champion at a form of Filipino martial arts called arnis, or kali, or escrima. There are a lot of names you can use but they mean the same. He didn’t win the tournament but he met Mum and convinced her family that he should take her home to Australia and they’d be married. Her family—my grandparents—they were over the moon to think Rosalie was going to something better, and he told them he would send money home to Manila. Mum said he was concentrating on his training, and the next year he went back and entered the same tournament. She went with him to see her parents. She was pregnant. Dad didn’t win the tournament, he didn’t even place. Dad did worse than the first year, and Mum says things changed after that.

  ‘When we got back to Australia, he stopped training and he started teaching kali to kids in our area and when I was big enough I was allowed to go to the lessons. I loved learning to use the sticks, and I got good at it.’ She squinted at him. ‘So that’s my best memory of my dad. Learning to fight. Learning a martial art that can be lethal.’

  ‘Did you ever see his family? Aunts or uncles? Grandparents?’

  ‘I must have met them, I guess. I have this vague memory of being at a backyard somewhere—there were other kids around—it could have been a family thing. I would have been very young. I could be remembering the backyard of a daycare centre in Sydney though, for all I know. I remember an Easter with my dad’s parents and getting chocolate eggs, but they were very old. He’s much older than Mum. I don’t think he ever kept in touch with them. I don’t think I have cousins. Not on Dad’s side. Mum says I have lots of cousins in the Philippines. She has four sisters and one brother.’

  ‘And you’ve never seen them?’

  ‘No.’

  He pondered her words for a while in the silence as the tap of the abseilers’ buckles and ropes echoed from the cliffs. ‘I thought you had to be the highest of the high to be a martial arts teacher, you know? The strongest of moral codes. Someone who commands respect. Not this nut who hits his daughter.’

  ‘They don’t respect him,’ Jaydah said quietly. ‘He lost face.’

  ‘Lost face?’

  She nodded. ‘I think eventually someone got the message that my mum walked into doors too many times. The community stopped sending kids to his training and we left Sydney not long after.’

  Brix leaned into her, running her hair through his fingers, drawing her into his chest.

  ‘I won’t let him hurt you or your mum, JT. Remember how I punched Nino Scarponi for teasing you on the bus? About eating fish-eye stew and jellyfish pizza?’

  ‘This is nothing like what used to happen on the school bus, Brix.’

  ‘I’ve got your back, JT. I’ve always had your back.’

  ‘You got suspended from the bus for a month and your folks had to drive you in to Mount Barker every day. You weren’t their favourite son!’

  ‘True but Nino never called you a Jap skank again. It was worth it. You’re worth it. Think about what I said. About wearing Mum’s dress. You deserve to have something special that’s only for you.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.’

  ‘Okay.’ She checked her watch. ‘You better take me back. Will you come into the club and see me later?’

  He picked up the takeaway cups. ‘You bet.’

  * * *

  By the time he dropped her at the club, he was prepared to forget about the dress. What did a dress matter anyway, if he had JT for life?

  Then he thought about his mum’s face. She’d been so excited. How could he turn around now and disappoint her when she had so little time left?

  He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  After he dropped Jaydah at work he drove from the Bowling Club around to Lilac Hill Loop, got the dress out of the car and knocked on Irene’s front door. A dog yapped inside, kept yapping, and he could hear Irene scolding, ‘Stop it, Bertie. Bertie! Stop it!’ before she opened the door.

  ‘Brix Honeychurch! Well, I reckon the last time you knocked on my door was when you wanted me to buy a raffle ticket for your school camp.’ Irene stepped back as if to get a better look at him. The ratty white dog danced around her feet, sniffing at his boots.

  ‘You won that raffle, as I remember.’

  ‘I did. That load of firewood went down a treat. Come in. Come in. What can I do you for?’ Before he had a chance to answer, Irene’s grin faded. ‘I was so sad to hear about your mum. That’s such awful news.’

  ‘Thanks, Irene.’

  Her eyes flicked to the bag in Brix’s hands, then back to his face. ‘How’s she doing, love? Is she doing okay? Les Huxtable next door said Jake told him it’s a brain tumour and they can’t cut it out and there’s not much the doctors can do.’ It was a whirlwind of questions and it took Brix a few seconds to take them all in. Heck, he’d only found out the full extent of things yesterday and here’s Irene, a full bottle. That’s how the Chalk Hill grapevine worked. ‘It’s so sad. She’s not that much older than me. How’s your dad taking it?’

  ‘He’s putting on a brave face. We all are really, for Mum. She wouldn’t want a fuss.’

  ‘He’s a good man, your dad. Did I ever tell you about the time he asked me to the basketball fundraising dance? He was fifteen. I must have been fourteen. It would have been my first date, too. Your Grandma Irma, she told Stan to ask me because I had a good head on my shoulders and I wouldn’t embarrass him, you know, by getting into the fruit punch and getting tipsy. I was so excited to be asked. I was so looking forward to it, and then I don’t know what happened but I got some kind of allergy about two days before the dinner—my mum said it was a bad batch of prawns—and my whole face puffed up red as a beetroot and I couldn’t go. I was devastated.’ Irene’s red fringe flopped across her eye, as if it was devastated too.

  She took her first breath in what felt like a minute and then started again. ‘Listen to me. I’ve hardly let you say a word. Come in. Doug’s inside. He’d love to see you.’

  Brix wiped his boots on her mat and started to toe the left one off, swapping the bag holding his mum’s dress to the other hand.

  ‘Don’t worry about taking off your boots. Doug’s been mowing the lawn and he’s already tramped grass over my floor. I haven’t cleaned up yet. Can’t you tell? My house always looks like a bomb hit it.’

  The dog nosed at the plastic bag holding his mother’s white dress. Irene’s eyes locked hungrily on the bag too.

  ‘Whatever have you got in there? Get away, Bertie,’ Irene scolded, slapping her hand on her thigh to call the dog back.

  Brix followed Irene into her
house, and said g’day to Doug, who was eating cake over the Saturday newspaper. Coconut spattered the paper and the table, and Doug swiped the white crumbs out of the open pages. The little white dog hoovered them all up from the floor, tail wagging.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Irene said, closing Doug’s paper on the older man’s grumbles. ‘How can I help? Have you got time for a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’m fine for tea, thanks. I guess I wanted to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  Brix put the plastic bag on Irene’s kitchen table.

  Irene put her glasses on as Brix unzipped the bag, but he hadn’t got far when she stopped him with a squeak. ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute.’ She was up in a flash and opening a drawer in the side table, pulling out a cloth. ‘Doug, get that paper out of the way. Lift up, everybody.’

  Brix and Doug did as they were told and Irene whooshed a tablecloth across the kitchen table. ‘There. Sorry about that, but I don’t want to get Doug’s mess on that dress. It is a dress, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s Mum’s wedding dress.’

  ‘Oh!’ Irene’s hands dove reverently into the bag, bringing out the dress. ‘My goodness. How beautiful. She was so beautiful on her wedding day. I remember it. My mother made this dress, Doug.’

  ‘Did she?’ Doug said. His eyes tried to steal back to the news headlines.

  ‘Doug!’

  ‘I heard you, dear,’ Doug said mildly. ‘Sally probably heard you next door.’ He winked at Brix, who had to hide his chuckle behind a cough.

  Irene was too focused on the dress to notice. She pulled it fully from the bag, opening the skirt first across her own body, tugging it into her chest and swinging dreamily, as if she were dancing, before she laid it carefully on the tablecloth and sighed. ‘It’s so beautiful. Look at all these buttons!’

  ‘I’m wondering if it could be altered, Irene? Mum said you’re the best sewer she knows.’

  It was the right thing to say. Irene’s chest puffed with pride.

  ‘I could give it a red hot go.’ Irene’s eyes twinkled at Brix, and she asked the question he’d been sweating on. ‘Now, who am I altering it for exactly?’ But she didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘Is it Ella? It’s Ella, isn’t it! Oh, she and Jake … I knew it, Doug. I knew it! Is the dress a secret? Is that why you’re bringing it to me and not Jake?’

  That’s what gave him the idea to lie. Only a white lie, mind you. A tiny little white lie. Ella and Jaydah were pretty much the same size. Maybe Jaydah had bigger boobs. How exact did a dress have to be, anyway?

  ‘You can’t say anything to anyone, Irene. Not a word!’

  ‘How brilliant! Oh I won’t say a word. Not a word. Only, won’t Ella go shopping for her own dress? My goodness, wedding dresses can cost thousands. You don’t want her to go buy one if you’re planning to surprise her with something like this.’ Worried lines crossed Irene’s brow. ‘I think you’ll have to tell her, love. I don’t think you can keep it from her.’

  Bloody hell. Why had he lied? Actually, had he lied? He’d just let Irene jump to a conclusion, hadn’t he? Ella and Jake were getting married, they just hadn’t set a date yet. And technically, Ella hadn’t even divorced Erik.

  ‘I’ll have to think about that one, Irene. I’ll talk to Jake. Okay?’

  ‘So why didn’t Jake bring the dress over himself?’ Doug drawled in his easy, slow tone.

  ‘Because he wants to keep it a secret from Ella, Doug, so he doesn’t want any of our neighbours to see,’ Irene scolded him in pretty much the same tone she used for the yappy dog. ‘Oh this is just the best news. When’s the big day? How long do I have to work my magic?’ She adjusted the skirt, tucking some of the length underneath itself where the dress was spread on the table.

  ‘Pretty soon,’ Brix said. ‘You know … while Mum’s still with us. We thought, maybe, at Christmas.’

  Irene’s face fell. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I’m such a ninny. I can get onto it straight away, love. I’ll hold everything else! You just get me Ella’s measurements. Can you do that? Jake will know—oh, hang on, he can’t ask her if he’s keeping it secret. I can take a pretty good stab anyway. She’s a slim young thing. And your mum was lovely and slim too when she and Stan got married.’ She clucked her tongue and picked up the dress. ‘Look at this waist! There’s nothing of it.’

  ‘I thought you might be able to take the skirt up a bit too, Irene. And maybe take off this lace part here and do something about the buttons. I’m buggered if I’d be able to get those undone with my clumsy fingers.’ The more he’d thought about JT in the dress, the less of her legs, shoulders and throat he’d thought should be covered. JT was a free spirit. There should definitely be skin.

  ‘Well you wouldn’t want to be the one getting Ella’s buttons undone now, would you, Brix?’ Doug laughed.

  ‘Err, no.’

  Irene tilted her head to the side, a faraway look in her eyes.

  ‘Actually,’ Brix said, delving into his pocket. ‘I found—Jake found—these.’ He’d printed off a handful of pages from a night spent on Google researching wedding dresses and he unfolded them and laid them on the table, pointing at one. ‘This is my favourite.’

  Irene peered at the picture and then she took her glasses off and checked all the pages, picking a few up in her hand, and then she laid them flat and gave Brix a look that drilled him to the spot.

  ‘I see.’

  Even the dog looked up.

  Uh oh.

  Of course, he hadn’t really been thinking of Ella when he’d looked at those brides and dresses. He’d been thinking of JT. The models all had that ninja princess look about them: dark hair, darker eyes and an attitude that screamed, ‘Go ahead, put me in a pretty white dress, I can still smash your teeth with a toothpick.’

  They looked nothing like Ella.

  Brix cleared his throat.

  ‘Well, I won’t say anything to Ella or Jake, or anyone, you can count on that,’ Irene said, watching him closely. ‘But I think I’d better allow a bit more room in the chest, you know, just in case Ella goes up another bra size.’

  Doug choked on a piece of coconut.

  ‘Thank you, Irene. For not telling … anyone. It’s important it stays secret,’ Brix said, fighting back a grin as Irene belted Doug on the back.

  ‘You leave the dress with me. Let me write down your number if I need to ask you anything in the next few weeks.’ She reached for his hand and patted it, once, twice—much more gentle with his hand than she was with Doug’s back—and let it go. ‘I won’t say a word.’

  Doug looked back and forth at them, and then he shrugged and risked opening the newspaper.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Jaydah had just poured her last beer for Saturday night Happy Hour when the Honeychurch family—the entire lot of them—walked into the bar.

  She wasn’t the only one who did a double-take at the change in Brix’s mum. It had been most of a year since any of them had seen Val and if she hadn’t been surrounded by Stan and her sons, they might have thought her a stranger.

  The woman who’d coached most of the girls—not Jaydah—in netball when Chalk Hill played in Manjimup, and who never missed an opportunity to sew costumes or props for the high school end-of-year concert, and who always sat in the front row clapping until the curtain went down—she was gone. In her place was a woman who shuffled more than she walked, and while she tried so hard to show a brave face, the skin of her cheeks trembled.

  The boys came in, Brix and Jake all tall and broad-shouldered in the lead with Abe holding the door open for their mum, Ella and Sam, and Stan bringing up the rear and making sure the door closed.

  She could see the boys fussing about where to sit. They stopped in the arch of the entrance, glancing between the closest tables. Those were grouped in chairs of four and the boys were obviously trying not to make their mum have to walk far.

  It was Ella who scooted two tables of four together and got them all set
tled. Good on Ella. The boys would have clucked about for another five minutes when all Val wanted to do was sit!

  Brix and Jake came to the bar to order drinks and a slow stream of local families wandered across to the Honeychurch table to greet Val and Stan. The Chalk Hill grapevine would have done its work by now. Almost everyone in town who knew the Honeychurches would know Val was ill.

  ‘We’ll have a glass of Ace’s High white please, Jaydah,’ Jake asked, ‘and something fizzy for Sam. Lemon squash maybe. Mum wants lemon, lime and bitters and Dad will go a beer.’

  ‘Me too,’ Brix said.

  ‘Me three,’ Abe said, approaching the bar behind his brothers.

  ‘Make that four then,’ Jake said.

  All three boys began producing wallets.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Jake said. ‘You guys don’t have to pay for Ella and Sam.’

  ‘I’ll get the next round,’ Brix said.

  ‘I’ll be the freeloader who does a runner.’ Abe winked at Jaydah and she returned the smile. She liked Abe. She liked all the Honeychurch boys. She would have done just about anything to live in a family like theirs.

  ‘I’m really sorry to hear about your mum,’ she said to Jake and Abe. ‘It’s a crappy thing to have to deal with.’

  They said thanks, and Jake asked how she’d been, and they made small talk while Jaydah busied herself with their order. Abe and Jake carried everything except Brix’s beer over to the table.

  Brix took a moment to catch her hand and rub across her knuckles and say hello in that way of his that made her feel like the unluckiest girl in the world just got lucky.

  ‘Did you think about the dress?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really. It’s been busy.’ She checked that Bill Kennedy wasn’t listening, but Bill had his eyes on a Twenty20 cricket game on the big screen. She leaned across the bar, nearer Brix. ‘I don’t think we can risk it. I can’t ask Irene to alter it. I can’t keep it at my place. If my dad finds out … if he gets any idea of what we’re planning at all …’