Falling Away

by Allie Little

  I take it and crumple, my gaze locked tight by two infinitely green eyes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Life settles into the normalcy of a new routine. It’s pressure-free and light-hearted at Café Blue. Riley stumbles in looking stressed and sleep-deprived. Gemma’s thinner each time I see her and I wonder if she ever really eats. She strikes me as the type who eats salad and stays hungry. Long chestnut hair hangs perfectly around her face, her tan tinted darker with each passing summer’s day.

  “Hey, Sam. We’re going out tonight. Do you want to come?” Gemma purrs excitedly. “Come on. If you come, we’ll have so much fun! We’re thinking of going to Shaft in Newcastle for a dance.”

  I hesitate, trying to conjure up an appropriate excuse. “Ah, no thanks. But maybe some other time, Gem.” Actually I can think of nothing worse. “My brother Ben’s coming home for the weekend.”

  She glares at me as if affronted although it appears to be an act. “Suit yourself,” she says, walking away to Emily and not looking back.

  ***

  Ben arrives home. The river’s a mess in the wake of weekend boats tripping up the Myall. Mum’s on a roll, ironing sheets and setting the deck as if expecting to have dinner with the Queen. Ben’s older and has another year of engineering before he’s qualified to build bridges. He’s lanky and tall, his dark hair the colour of soot. His eyes are dark too, but they’re blue like the sky on a deep cloudless day.

  “How are you, Sis?” he asks, rolling through the door with his duffle. He heads straight for the fridge, drags it open and retrieves a can of lemonade. Cracking the ring pull, he pours it carelessly into his mouth, spilling the bubbly liquid over the bench.

  “I’m good,” I say, glancing at the empty door behind him. “But where’s Lily? I thought she was coming with you.”

  “Nah, not this time,” he says, studying the river a little too intensely. And something seems off today. Something’s not right with him. Not right at all.

  “Things okay?” I ask.

  His shoulders slump. “Depends what you mean by okay,” he answers, fiddling with the lemonade can in his hands. “But no, things are not okay. Which is kind of why I’m here.” He turns his back on me to raid the pantry, opening up the cookie jar and shoving one in his mouth.

  I hesitate, watching him, because my brother is never like this. Ben usually radiates a laid-back, couldn’t-give-a-shit attitude. One that quickly becomes annoying, especially if you’re not in the mood. So today I’m worried.

  “So do you want to head to the beach?” I ask, hoping he’ll open up, because he sure seems like he needs to.

  Ben glances in my direction and gives me a vacant half-smile. “Yeah, why not. I need to see the sea.”

  ***

  Ben pulls into the car park as the lifeguards are pulling down the flags. He pushes out and leaves the engine running, checking the surf which rolls in perfect glassy peaks to the shore. After a moment he leans down to switch off the engine and pull the keys from the ignition. “Do you feel like a walk, Sis?”

  I give him a nod, because I do.

  “I think I might stay the week,” he says, shoving the keys deep inside his pocket.

  I raise both eyebrows. “Really? But what about uni?”

  “There aren’t any classes this week. I’m on study break.”

  “Oh,” I say, surprised. “Well, Mum’ll be pleased to have you here.”

  He turns away and laughs, his face hardening. “Yeah, won’t she.”

  I narrow my eyes. “So, what’s happened?”

  “You really want to know?”

  I frown at him. “Of course I do. I can tell something’s bothering you.”

  “Lily wants to dump me,” he says matter-of-factly.

  I blink, shocked. “What? She wants to break up with you? Why?”

  He rakes a hand roughly through his hair. “There’s some other guy.”

  “I can’t imagine that,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “Gosh Ben, I’m really sorry.” And I can’t imagine it, because Ben and Lil have always been so, well, coupley. Joined at the hip, literally.

  He sighs audibly. “I actually thought it was going to last. And I never had a clue about this. Not an inkling. Stupid, huh? She’s moving out this weekend and I can’t go back to an empty house.”

  “No, you can’t,” I agree, watching emotion curl across his face. “And you’re far from stupid.”

  He raises his eyes as if to say you reckon? “Come on, then,” he adds, striding off toward the beach at a cracking pace.

  Weathered silver boards lead us down to the beach, the sand creeping across the surface. Ben heads south and I almost have to run to keep pace with him. Yacaaba’s silhouetted against a pastel sky and sea eagles soar above the reaching headland. Ben’s hurting. Silently. And it’s only that he’s my brother that I recognise this.

  The ocean sucks back, revealing patches of shells in tiny spirals of colour. When daylight leaves the world’s so pretty my heart lurches like it’s in love. In the distance a familiar figure with a fishing rod treads forward through the sand. He’s carrying a red bucket noticeable for its colour and wearing a baseball cap pulled low on his head, so it’s only when he draws closer I recognise him. He glances from me to Ben with what seems like wordless questions in his eyes.

  “Hey Sam, how are you?” he says, adjusting the cap further up on his head.

  I hook windblown hair behind my ear knowing conversation’s expected, otherwise it would just be awkward. Like it wasn’t awkward enough already. “Caught yourself some dinner?” I ask stupidly, gazing up at him. And I see that he’s tall. Really tall. All six foot two of him tall. I swallow nervously.

  “Yep, this is dinner tonight,” he says proudly, holding out the bucket for me to peer into. “They look pretty good, don’t they?”

  Ben looks across at me, waiting for an introduction. In the blink of an embarrassing moment he realises it’s not going to come. “Hey mate, I’m Ben,” he says, shooting me a you’re really hopeless look. I get these a lot.

  “Jack.” They shake hands like two old men greeting each other with a distant respect.

  Ben examines the catch. “They’re good sized fish, mate.”

  And he’s so much better at this. Ben’s the articulate social butterfly, totally at ease in his skin. My skin doesn’t fit most of the time. It feels like an oversized sloppy Joe – and a distinctly embarrassing one.

  “Yeah, at least I didn’t have to throw any back in today,” Jack says. “Looking forward to a fish on the barbie with a cold beer tonight.”

  “Could do with one of those myself,” Ben adds, the nuance of his comment not lost on me.

  They laugh in unison and I glance from one to the other. “Jack and his dad have bought the ferry service. They’re new here,” I say by way of explanation.

  Ben is obviously impressed. “Cool, man. That’d be awesome – being out on the water all day. The ferry service was for sale for ages. No-one here believed it would ever actually sell.”

  Jack laughs. “Well, it sold eventually. And for now it’s perfect.” He looks down at me with those sea-green eyes and I wince. I’m sure he notices because his mouth curls ever so slightly at the corners.

  His face breaks into a broad smile, lighting up his eyes. “Well, I’m heading home. Good to meet you, mate.”

  “Yeah, you too,” says Ben.

  “See you on the ferry, Sam.” He gives us a white-toothed grin and ambles off toward the paint-peeled surf shed sitting on the dune.

  “See you, Jack,” I call, hazarding a quick peek across my shoulder. And the guy is gorgeous. Truly freakin’ gorgeous.

  Ben catches me looking but doesn’t say a word. Just arches a brotherly knowing brow before the fog descends across his face. It does anything but veil what he’s feeling.

  “So do you want to talk about Lily?”

  He pauses to consider my offer, then slowly gives a shake of his head. “Not really. I just need to
come home for a while.” He plonks down onto the sand and I join him, folding my knees and sinking down beside him.

  The night closes in. Forks of light flare on the horizon where a storm is striking the sea. The sand loses warmth and the breeze holds bitterness but I sit with him because he needs to be here. He glances across, flicking errant hair away from his forehead.

  “Hey. Thanks,” he says.

  I lean back, nestling my elbows into the sand. “What for?”

  He shrugs abruptly. “I don’t know. Getting me, I s’pose. Knowing me too well.”

  I sit up and give him a sisterly shove, toppling him over sideways. He laughs hollowly, a sound I haven’t heard from him before now. “Come on, it’s getting late.”

  I stand and haul him to his feet, wondering whether one short week will be enough to rescue him from the misery of his heartbreak.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My room has windows like portholes onto the river. Some days I peer like a peeping Tom on the river-life passing by. Today it’s quiet and replicate of glass. I throw on a tight black mini-skirt and standard Café Blue shirt, and force a brush through my muddled hair. I slide mascara densely over my lashes and grab my handbag from the antique chair lodging beside my bed.

  Ben’s at the car throwing his board in next to the wet tub. His face is lighter and the shadows have left him. “Want a lift to the wharf, Sis?” he asks as I emerge.

  “That’d be great.” I stand there gauging him for a moment. “So why were you so dark over breakfast this morning? Or is that a question that perhaps I shouldn’t ask?” I pull open the door of the old Subaru and slide into the seat, clanging the heavy door closed.

  Ben drops into the seat beside me and kicks over the engine. He revs the accelerator, ramming it into reverse and backing rather swiftly out of the driveway. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be so surly. I had the unfortunate experience of another morale-boosting conversation with Mum.”

  I roll my eyes. “O-kay. Say no more.”

  “She thinks I need to get back to Sydney to reclaim my relationship. That I’m giving up too easily. She was damn insistent about it, too.”

  I raise my eyes to look at him, tightening my gaze. “Typical. And what do you think?”

  “That it would be pointless.” The pain on his face lies right on the surface. Even his eyes are harder, unbreakable, as if he’s only just holding it together.

  “So have you heard anything from her?”

  He exhales heavily. “Just a text, saying she’s moving out tomorrow.”

  “Wow. That’s really harsh.”

  “Yeah. Tell me about it,” he says without removing his eyes from the road.

  He’s driving fast but I’m late. We pull in beside the old Boatshed Café and I drag myself reluctantly from the seat. “Enjoy your surf.”

  “Yeah, I’ll give it a go. I’m hoping to flush out some cobwebs.”

  I push out of the car and bang the door closed behind me, watching as he scorches off toward the Singing Bridge.

  ***

  The wind hits me when we enter the bay, the ferry slapping across the water. With the cold biting at my bones, I wish I’d brought a hoodie for the breeze. In the headwind the ferry’s slower, struggling through waves that are running across the bay. Dark cloud looms and seabirds hover weightlessly. Even the tip of Tomaree is disappearing into grey. Jack’s at the helm skippering the boat like a pro. I could watch Jack all day. Literally, all day.

  We’re half way across the bay when he glances back, catching me gawking at him. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to faze him. Nothing seems to faze him. “So how’s the job? Been there a few weeks now, right?” he calls over a pressed white shoulder.

  “Three weeks, to be exact. And I like it,” I call back over the breeze.

  He inches the oversized wheel to the left. “So is that where you met him?”

  I furrow my brow, tucking wayward strands of hair behind my ear. “Who?” I ask, feeling honestly confused. Searching for relevance it eventually twigs. Last time I saw Jack was with Ben on the beach. The day he’d arrived all miserable over Lil. “Oh, Ben?” I reply. “Ben’s my brother.”

  He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh,” he says like the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. “You never said.”

  “I didn’t think to,” I say, feeling a little heart flutter as I wonder what this means.

  He turns to watch as the bay opens up, cold in the wind blowing wildly off the sea. He inches the wheel slightly to the right now, staring vacantly into the horizon. Conversation halts and immediately I feel awkward. Tortured, even.

  After a few moments I summon something to say. “So where did you move from, Jack?” I call out.

  He turns back. “Sydney.”

  “Whereabouts in Sydney?”

  “Up at Palm Beach. We used to run the Palm Beach ferries, over to the Basin and north to the Central Coast. It was a choice job, before ...” he trails off, shifting focus. We’re coming in to Nelson and it’s busy in the bay.

  Before what? I want to ask, but resist the pressing urge. “Do you like it here?”

  He nods. “Yeah, I do. This is a beautiful place.”

  I smile, agreeing with him. “Yeah, it is pretty nice. But only if you like quiet.”

  “Quiet’s good,” he says. “Quiet’s very good.”

  A haunted expression moves across his face, passing almost immediately so that I wonder if I imagined it. I want to ask why he moved here, why he’s running ferries back and forth across the bay from our tiny coastal town, but instead ask, “So how long have you been doing this?” It’s an easier question to ask, and far less intrusive.

  “I don’t know,” he says, shrugging a shoulder. “For quite a while. When something’s your life, you don’t sit around counting days.”

  “No, I guess not,” I say, recognising my own tendency for this.

  He negotiates the marina-filled bay to bring us skilfully into the wharf, where I appear to be forgotten amid the buzz of disembarking passengers.

  I step from the ferry under a melancholy sky, my thoughts fixed firmly on Jack.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Café Blue is busy. Riley’s in the kitchen and his relief is palpable when I walk through the door.

  “I thought you’d never get here, Sam,” he says with a tight smile.

  I shoot him a defensive glare, tossing my bag into my locker. “I’m not late.”

  “Well you’re not exactly early.”

  I scowl at him. “Who says I have to get here early?”

  “I do,” he says, rather curtly.

  And just who does he think he is? Before I can respond with a satisfying rejoinder, Gemma brushes through on her long tanned legs, pinning orders haphazardly to the wall. She doesn’t acknowledge me, just silently exits through the swing-doors with a grim expression plastered across her face. Emily crashes plates onto the bench, piling them toward the ceiling like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tension’s layered nervously through the room. I suspect it’s because we’re busy and George won’t hire more staff.

  Riley looks tired. Strain tightens the gaze in his amber-coloured eyes. He walks with a cocky swagger across the room and hangs an arm across my shoulder.

  “We’re bu-sy today, Sammy.” He draws the words out. I feel the weight of his arm and wonder what on earth he’s doing. He looks closely into my face. Really closely. I shift uncomfortably and he quickly drops the offending arm. “Can you cook another risotto for me, Sammy? Prawn and olive.”

  I move away, relieved to have something to focus on, other than Riley invading my personal space. “Sure.”

  Sniffing an acknowledgement he returns to the stove, fiddling with a huge tray of lasagne. He layers the pasta sheets like blankets over a baby while stirring up a béchamel for the top.

  I haul down a heavy-based pan and melt the butter, watching it ooze toward the outside edge of the pan. Tossing in some finely minced garlic, a pungent aroma immediately fi
lls the room. I throw in some more, worried there won’t be enough flavour, but when the wine goes in I’m satisfied. It smells so good my stomach growls with ungratified expectation.

  “Sam,” George says, walking past. “We need to talk shifts.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  He looks back. “Later, okay? When we’re not so stretched.” He closes the office door kind of abruptly, like always. I imagine him sitting behind his desk with the papers that cover it, coffee mug staining the timber with dark rings from beneath its base.

  “Come on, Sam. How’s that risotto coming?” Riley’s impatient. He either slow-drawls his words or fires them at me like an automatic weapon.

  “Getting there,” I say, pouring in the rice and watching the butter soak the grains. It’s strangely satisfying. Mesmerising even.

  “Well, maybe it could get there a bit faster?”

  “Yes, Sarg. I’m onto it.”

  He rolls his eyes, flashing me a contagious grin right along with it, so I can’t help but smile.

  In another pan I fry the prawns, morphing them from greyish-green to pink, their edges burnished with colour. I add olives to the rice, pouring in the liquid and stirring till it’s nicely swelled. I fold through the spinach, crumbling fetta through last.

  An ominous pile of tangled dishes is calling from the counter. Emily takes orders and clears the plates, bussing in the busy room. I open the dishwasher and the steam hits me full in the face, hissing like a volcano. I shake it away and pull a tray of gleaming plates from inside. I grab another and quickly fill it, rinsing the muck from the plates in the sink.

  “Hey, honey,” Emily says with stacks of glasses teetering precariously in her hands.

  I look up from the sink. “Are you doing the day shift again?” Emily’s been rostered onto nights for the last three weeks so I’m surprised to see her here.

  “Doing a double,” she calls over a tanned shoulder, exiting the kitchen again. Her shorts are so short beneath the Café Blue top that I wonder if she’s wearing any. With legs like that she totally gets away with it.