‘This is paradise,’ Julia says. She looks at the old Italian posters and cinema pictures papering the walls; her eyes scan the postcards and the shelf full of antique coffee-making paraphernalia. ‘Who on earth would have guessed this ghost town had a real café. And that machine, it’s an old Gaggia, isn’t it?’
‘Nineteen sixty-eight,’ Joe says, proudly.
‘Incredible. But where is everybody? This place should be packed.’
Joe shrugs. ‘The locals come in for my cakes. But they don’t appreciate espresso coffee so much here. Except for these boys.’ He nods at Bruno and Anthony, who really are old men.
‘How do you survive?’
‘I own the building, so my overheads are low. And out the back I make the cheeses — mozzarella, fetta, that kind of thing. I sell them to delicatessens and some supermarkets down the line, so I do quite well. But this café is more of a gesture than anything.’ Joe smooths his hand over the table. ‘I love firing up the espresso machine every morning, reading through the papers and watching people come and go. This café is my lounge room and kitchen; I open it up every morning for anyone who wants to join me.’ He laughs softly. ‘I am a foolish old man.’
Bruno and Anthony agree and Joe screws up a paper serviette and throws it at them.
When her coffee is finished, she takes the cup and saucer to the counter. Joe kisses her on both cheeks and tells her to come back again soon.
She laughs. ‘Like you could keep me away.’
I walk with her to the car. My heart is wider than the street. The ends of me are shimmering against the trees.
‘I have to go,’ she says.
I want to stay with her, because this coruscating energy I feel pressing against my heart is something I can’t surrender. Inside the safety of my head, I imagine telling her how incredibly beautiful she is. But I can feel my face getting hot, and already the little girl is looking at me through puzzled eyes. So I clear my throat and say, ‘Thank you for having coffee with me.’
‘Believe me, Tom, the pleasure was all mine.’ She opens the back door of the car while her daughter climbs into a special seat. ‘So, what are you up to today?’
‘I thought I might do some more yoga.’
‘You’re very dedicated.’ She leans over to buckle her daughter in the car-seat. I take another step towards her while her back is turned, so that when she stands up we are close.
So close, in fact, that I can feel the warmth of her skin. My limbs grow weak and heavy, drawn to the ground, yet other parts of my body become iron and alive and urge upwards. I am tangled in contradiction and wanting. Again that image of her skirt falling drops into my head and I close my eyes, for a second, trying to settle my breathing, trying to suppress the flames that are roaring urgently against my chest and throat. I can’t make my brain work enough to say anything rational. She’ll think me a fool.
But, when I open my eyes again, I discover that Julia has walked away. She calls out, ‘Enjoy your class then, Tom,’ over the roof of her car. And she gets into the driver’s seat, turns on the engine and drives up the street.
When I open the door to the yoga hall, the class has started; two students have their backs to me, their arms stretched towards the ceiling. Bryant smiles and motions me inside with his index finger. I take up a position at the back of the room and copy the other two.
Afterwards, Bryant has us lie down to relax. This time I refuse to let my mind wander and I force it to stay close to his voice, like the secure wooden wings of a cow press. I imagine the beach and my breath, visualising a gold light cleansing my body, just as my teacher instructs me to.
‘Nothing happened,’ I say to him after class.
‘Never mind,’ he says. ‘Sometimes —’
‘No, I mean, that’s a good thing. I didn’t fall apart. You must be curing me.’
He puts both of his hands on my shoulders, smiling warmth. ‘That’s wonderful, Tom. That really is. I thought the problem might have something to do with your third eye blockage and it looks like I was right. We’ll do another session soon and see if we can clear some more.’
‘Can we do it now?’
‘I can’t right now,’ he says and looks over my shoulder.
I realise then that one of the students hasn’t left the room: Summer, the butcher’s wife. She smiles at me.
‘But you know what?’ Bryant says. ‘I can see you tomorrow morning, say at ten?’
‘Ten,’ I say.
‘All right then.’
I can sense him stretching towards Summer. They almost press me together with their energy, one on each side, wanting to be closer to each other. The similarity of their song is remarkable, almost like siblings. Summer pretends to read the brochures at the front door.
‘Ten,’ I say.
He nods and ushers me to the door. I walk to the mall.
Mother is coming out of the butcher’s. Charlie tries extra hard with her, smiling until he must hear his jaw grind. I see him wave goodbye to her, although she ignores him. He had the title of local taken away when he went to live down the line for several years, but he tries damn hard to make up for it now; charming all who enter his butcher shop with smiles and jokes and weather forecasts.
‘What have you been up to?’ Mother hands me a cardboard box of meat and heads towards our four-wheel drive. She doesn’t buy Charlie’s meat but pays him to store and carve up a steer of our own. We’re onto the hindquarters.
‘I just had a look around.’
She lifts the back on the car and I put the meat inside. ‘Did you know Wilson’s mother has breast cancer?’
I shake my head.
‘I’ll have to send her some flowers.’ Mother walks around to the front of the car and opens the door. ‘Are you getting in?’
I go to sit up front and notice Dad there. He rarely comes into town. He smiles at me through the glass; an apologetic smile.
‘What are you doing, Dad?’
Mum starts the engine. ‘He’s been to the doctor,’ she says. ‘Let him rest.’
‘What’s wrong?’ My breath has left my body.
‘Just a check-up, Son’ he says. ‘We old buggers need to get checked up now and then. Nothing to worry about.’
I listen to Dad, but keep my eyes on Mother. Her expression will reveal far more. She presses her lips together and forces the clutch into reverse so hard it grinds. With a stiff back she pulls out onto the road and steers us home in tight silence.
Julia
The plan was to get Oscar away from school without too much fuss, but Ms Phillips is talking to him in the classroom and has a serious expression on her face. They stand beside the blackboard together; Oscar’s head is shaking slowly in disagreement with something she is saying. He is wearing a pair of purple trousers, too short in the leg, that Julia has never seen before.
The other mothers bustle behind Julia; flashes of colour and noise, they receive cuddles and loud kisses from their children; they search for lost jumpers and hats, carry lunch boxes, sand-filled shoes and messy drawings. They walk back to their cars, chatting together, kids running and playing, a little club they all seem to belong to.
There is something eerie about silent school buildings, something not natural. As the noise and motion recedes, Julia grows nervous and remembers the day Mr Jervis, her headmaster, called her into his office, not because she was naughty, she was never that, but because of her mother’s ‘accident’. She’d stayed in his office for ages, while he whispered on the phone, consulted with Julia’s form teacher, shuffled papers on his desk. The schoolyard had been dulled by afternoon light and empty when he led her through the staff car park and drove her home in silence.
Julia pulls a packet of mints out of her bag and puts two in her mouth, breathing carefully and slowly through her nose. Amber returns from watching the chickens and takes Julia’s hand.
‘Is he getting in trouble again?’
Julia shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
When Oscar spots her in the doorway he runs towards her, almost knocking her backwards. He squeezes her neck and wraps his legs around her waist like a wild monkey and won’t let go.
‘Did you have fun?’
His voice is loud in her ear. ‘I hate it here.’
Ms Phillips looks up and smiles. She has a way of holding herself; stiff and leaning ever so slightly to the left, as though the floor doesn’t feel level beneath her feet. She motions for Julia to enter the room.
‘He did very well today.’ There are dark circles under the teacher’s eyes and she looks tired. ‘Only one or two little scuffles with other children, but nothing too serious.’
‘No casualties then?’
‘No casualties.’ She leans closer to Julia. ‘But you might like to put a spare pair of trousers in Oscar’s bag. He had a little accident.’
That would explain the faded purple trousers, Julia thinks.
Amber is playing with her brother’s shoelaces, knotting them over and over again. ‘Did you pee your pants, Oscar?’ She is doing her stern mother impersonation. She lifts his leg by the shoelace and gives it a shake. ‘Did you?’
‘Did not. Did not,’ he says.
Julia kisses Oscar’s sweaty hair that smells oddly like mashed potato and tells him not to worry.
‘It happens.’ Ms Phillips bends forward so her face is close to Julia’s and says in a dramatic whisper. ‘And a little bird told me something interesting today.’
Julia has a horrible feeling she knows what’s coming. ‘Yes?’
‘I believe you used to dance with the Australian Ballet?’
‘It was ages ago.’
‘Mummy was a ballerina,’Amber says proudly. ‘I’ve got a picture of her in a tutu.’
‘It wasn’t for long,’ Julia says, trying to put a full stop to this conversation. ‘Not even a year.’
‘Still,’ Ms Phillips weaves her head from side to side, as if swaying to unheard music, ‘you must come and talk to the children about it soon, Julia.’ She ceases to sway, adding brightly, ‘Perhaps even a little performance at the end of year concert? Mr Hobbs, the class two teacher, plays piano. We could get him to accompany you.’
Julia shifts Oscar to her other hip and offers a suitably vague, ‘Maybe.’ Even now, after eight years, the sound of classical music stirs up a sense of regret she doesn’t enjoy feeling. She has no intention of putting on her pointe shoes again.
‘Gosh, you’re getting heavy, darling.’ She sets Oscar down and takes his hand, which is gritty with dirt. ‘Well, we’ll see you tomorrow then, Ms Phillips,’ Julia says. ‘And thanks for fixing up you-know-what.’ She nods towards Oscar’s purple trousers.
‘Not a problem.’ Ms Phillips smiles, then winks at Oscar. ‘We’re doing craft in the afternoon, young man. That will be fun.’
Oscar tightens his grip on Julia’s hand, whispers, ‘I hate craft and I hate her.’
When Bryant comes home from the CFA meeting, he holds a pager up in the air. ‘You know what this means, kids? I’m armed and dangerous.’ He laughs at their blank expressions. ‘It means Daddy is part of the crew and I have to be ready to run out the door at any moment.’ He does an exaggerated running motion with his arms and legs. ‘It could be three in the morning, or ten at night. Fires, car accidents, you name it. I’ll be there. Well, I’m not actually allowed to help yet, because I haven’t passed all the exams, but they’re letting me tag along so I can get a feel for things.’
And he has some more ‘good’ news. His mother is coming to visit.
‘When is she getting here?’ Julia is careful to keep her voice light. The bond between Bryant and his mother is forged with iron girders. He lived at home until he was thirty and, after all those years of getting pampered and waited on, Bryant feels he owes her a debt that is too large to repay in one lifetime.
‘Oh, I don’t know. In a week or two. Three maybe.’
‘How could she leave Queensland for this?’
Bryant folds his arms and looks at Julia. She hasn’t disguised her dread well enough. ‘Come on, love. We want a happy visit, don’t we?’
A happy visit. Julia tries her hardest, she really does. But something invariably goes wrong or something hurtful gets said. It’s always been like that. Julia remembers the first time Barbara stayed with them, not long after Oscar’s birth. Their house had been a lunatic asylum: halfway through DIY bathroom renovations with a screaming baby. And Julia had been depressed. The doctor reassured her that many women went through a period of sadness after giving birth. At the time she’d put it down to Oscar’s constant crying. In hindsight, Julia thinks it probably had more to do with quitting the ballet six months earlier.
It seemed the only dignified option at the time, leaving the ballet, saying goodbye before the new season of performances started; a spur of the moment thing, probably due to a flood of irrational pregnancy hormones. Julia had been filled with an aching sense of guilt at looking dreadful all the time: her once-sleek body, like an unwieldy boat, moving in the wrong direction to bump into other unsuspecting dancers, turning endehors instead of endedans; her once immaculate memory down the toilet, where she’d spent most of every day throwing up. Rehearsals missed, choreography forgotten, technique — the one thing she’d always been able to rely on — now as sloppy as a drunk’s. Pregnancy did not bestow luminosity on Julia; it ravaged her. It was as if her body greedily seized the opportunity to fall apart; the perfect excuse to spread, to bulge at the seams, rebelling after so many years of tight control and deprivation. Even her feet refused to fit into her pointe shoes anymore.
During a particularly bad rehearsal, she had staggered to a stop in front of one of the mirrors, horrified at her reflection, her hair wild about her face, her stomach no longer flat as the piano music rattled on behind her. The other dancers were nervous, friendly still, yet keeping their distance, as if whatever Julia had might be contagious.
Admin bought her a massive bunch of flowers, gave her a card crammed with signatures and well wishes, and Craig, her dear friend and fellow corps member, arranged a little farewell party at a local pub where the smell of alcohol made her queasy. And then they all waved her off into the well-charted, but terrifying, waters of motherhood — alone.
Barbara’s antidote for their chaotic household was to administer advice. Hold Oscar this way, dear. He’s colicky, you need to path is back, but not that hard; you’re not performing the Heimlich manoeuvre. His bottom needs lanolin. You need to relax when you’re breast feeding; relax, relax. Bryant doesn’t like his toast too brown, set the grill on four. Why don’t you put on some lipstick and nicer clothes?
‘Bryant, you know I love your mother.’ This is such a blatant lie that Julia can’t look at him as she says it.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘And it will be easier this time because the kids are a bit older now and better behaved.’ There is a loud scream from the lounge room followed by Amber’s crying. ‘And Mum’s looking forward to doing some of my classes.’
Julia clears her throat. ‘How are they going? Did you get more people this morning?’
‘Kind of. Summer’s volunteered her services and is going to help me with the classes.’
Julia keeps the smile on her lips. ‘And what are Summer’s qualifications?’
‘How do you mean?’ She can hear the irritation in his voice.
‘Well, what kind of yoga training has she done? People might ask.’
He straightens in his chair. ‘Why would people ask? Summer is naturally enlightened. She grasps the theories I teach and understands things on a much deeper level.’
He doesn’t say than you, but it’s there between them anyway.
Sometimes a husband is lured away from home, and that’s unfortunate but explicable, because men are easily distracted and imagine that their life will be better somewhere else. But they have to be reeled back in eventually, and Julia knows that, despite her lack of energy, tempting bait is what’s needed to en
tice her errant husband back home again.
Julia puts the kids to bed half an hour earlier than usual. While Bryant is at his CFA meeting, she prepares herself. She washes her hair, using a chestnut rinse that she bought years ago and is a month past its expiry date. She puts a protein treatment through her hair too, and that promises to restore bounce and life. She lathers her body with vanilla body wash and shaves her legs.
Sitting in front of the mirror she applies her make-up, taking her time, and the transformation is incredible. Julia stares at her reflection, as though looking into the eyes of a familiar, but long-missed friend. She smiles. Welcome back. She blow-dries her hair until it lies sleek and shiny down her back.
A few years ago, while stuck in a dentist’s waiting room, Julia read a magazine article entitled ‘Fifty Ways to Satisfy your Man’. Suggestion thirty-two had been: Surprise your man when he comes home from work. Lienakedonthekitchentableandcoveryourselfwithstrawberriesandcream!! Then, let him have his just desserts!!
Julia looks at herself appraisingly in the mirror and decides against going completely naked. And the thought of putting cream over herself, when the kids could get out of bed for a drink or toilet and see her, seems unnecessarily risky. So she wears her prettiest black negligee (that’s now a size too small) and lies back on the couch, with a huge bowl of sugar-dusted strawberries on her lap, and waits for Bryant’s return.
She is asleep by the time he opens the front door.
‘What are you doing?’ He has a huge grin on his face. ‘I thought you’d be in bed.’
Julia yawns and sits up, rubs her eyes. Half of the strawberries have fallen out and are squashed against her thighs. ‘What time is it?’
‘Ten,’ he says, frowning a little, smiling still.
‘It was going to be a surprise,’ she says, feeling stupid that she needs to justify why she’s lying here, half naked. ‘I read about it once in a magazine.’ He stands there grinning at her and Julia doesn’t know if it’s affection, arousal or amusement on his face. She just can’t tell. She can feel her cheeks growing hot. ‘Look, don’t worry about it.’
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