Season of Shadow and Light

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘I am, yes.’

  The woman peeled her boots off inside the door, lining them up with two other pairs, then slipped on some sandals more in keeping with her very floral and frilly outfit. ‘Always nice to get out of those things for a change.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Paige replied, feeling awkward about her Thank-God-I’m-a-country-girl get-up.

  Far from being the safety footwear she’d hoped, the boots had proven hazardous while negotiating the tufts of paddock grass. Their weight alone, combined with her dud leg, had her tripping through the front door as she misjudged the step’s riser.

  ‘I used to teach young Sharni. I was school principal for a long time.’

  ‘Not anymore?’ The woman looked young and far from retirement age, her disposition warm and effervescent.

  ‘For long enough. My hubby, Pete, and I travel these days. We’re the grey nomads who prefer wings to a Winnebago. We fly somewhere once a year and favour South East Asia. It’s close to home, plus we get to maintain Honey’s folded fan supply. I gather you’ve seen the way she wields that folded fan-whip around the pub,’ Brenda tittered. ‘But I hear you’re having to move out of the cottage, and so soon.’

  ‘No trouble,’ Paige said.

  ‘Trouble, hmm, I heard,’ the woman muttered, her words drowned out by the rattle of a small roller door ripping open to expose a make-do kitchen on the other side.

  A smaller work area Paige had never seen. How on earth was she—and her boots—going to fit in that small space with a chef?

  ‘You’re here,’ Aiden said. ‘Good. G’day, Brenda. Thanks to you both for pitching in at short notice. I mostly need a hand setting up and carting food.’

  ‘Happy to stay busy, Aiden; you know me. I’ll do my usual and rally the troops to get the heavy lifting done. We’ll have food tables up in no time and the bar operating well before that.’

  ‘Onya, Bren, thanks,’ Aiden called out, followed in a low voice to Paige, ‘Watch her go. That woman can round up a mob of beer-swilling boys faster than any kelpie I’ve seen working the yards at shearing time and make them move on command.’

  Paige laughed. ‘And what are my orders, Chef?’

  ‘Hang on.’ Aiden responded to a beeping sound, digging his phone from his chef pants pocket. He scanned the screen and Paige saw his smile drop away.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Bad bloody timing.’ He tossed the phone the way she’d seen him do in the kitchen that first night and stormed away, leaving Paige a few feet from the offending telephone.

  Curious, she inched closer, leaned casually across the servery and, using a finger to spin the screen right way around, read the message: Heard Rory’s headed home. FYI.

  Paige waited, alone at the service window, wondering what had happened to Aiden, until more people arrived and she relieved them of plates and bowls brimming with food. She struggled over a few awkward hellos as she introduced herself, each time the same question: ‘Where’s our Aido?’

  ‘Taking a breather,’ she repeated.

  When Aiden did return, his face was flushed—wet like the collar on his black polo shirt, as if he’d splashed water over himself. Cooling that temper, Paige suspected.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said curtly. ‘We need to get cracking. Are you any good at platters?’

  Paige bit her lip to quell the smart alec smirk. ‘I think I can manage,’ she said.

  ‘Come on in then, around the back and through the side door.’

  The ad-hoc kitchen suddenly seemed a lot smaller from the doorway. She shoved her bag on a low shelf inside the entrance and when she turned to face Aiden his gaze seemed stuck on the floor. On her feet, to be precise. On . . .

  ‘Those boots. They’re . . .’

  Ridiculous! When was Paige going to learn that Alice, the undisputed champion of knowing best, was always right? The woman was as honest as the day was long. She never lied, and she most certainly would never lie to Paige or let her make an idiot of her herself in public. If she’d changed clothes Paige wouldn’t be standing there feeling so silly, her feet under scrutiny, riveted to the spot by the man’s stare.

  ‘What the hell?’ was all Aiden said, his face contorted, his head tilted like a curious kelpie pup.

  I get it, okay? Paige wanted to shout. The boots are overkill. Can we please move on?

  ‘Shit,’ he said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘That smell is . . .’ Aiden moved towards her, sniffing the air. ‘I think it’s you.’

  ‘Me what?’ Paige drew back.

  ‘You stink.’

  ‘I what?’

  ‘Your boots. What the hell did you step in?’

  Paige looked down. ‘Oh good grief! Have I—?’

  ‘Hop,’ he instructed before she could utter another word

  Hop? Paige could hardly walk on two legs in these clod-hoppers—evidenced by her ungainly entrance only minutes earlier—how was she meant to hop on one foot when the darn boots were bricks strapped to her feet?

  Smelly bricks.

  But before she’d managed a word, Aiden had a hold, wrapping a strong arm around her waist and jerking her body into his hip to take her weight. ‘Hold on to my shoulder and whatever you do, do not put that foot on my clean floor. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes cleaning the place down.’

  Stumbling along the short passageway, past the tiny storeroom, they were no sooner out the back door when Aiden yanked the boot off her foot, leaving her unsupported and hopping on the spot. Luckily, she wasn’t relying on her bad leg; she’d have been on the ground by now.

  ‘Couldn’t you smell that?’ His expression added a little more drama than was necessary, in Paige’s opinion. ‘What the hell did you step in?’ he persisted, every word adding to her mortification. He hooked the upside down boot over the tap before stepping back and adjusting the nozzle to water-blast the sole. ‘Cow crap?’

  ‘If you say so,’ she returned, reeling from having the offending item ripped from her foot, leaving one gleaming white sock, toes dangling over the dirt. ‘I, on the other hand, have no idea what it was because I can’t smell. Even if I could, I’m hardly a crap expert, something you clearly seem to be.’

  For a few seconds there was only the rising rhubarb from within the hall as more partygoers arrived, the sounds drowned out by the squeak of the tap as Aiden turned it off.

  ‘Point taken,’ he said for the second time in as many days. He handed the boot back, hesitating briefly to examine the pattern of stitching on the side. ‘These boots . . . They’re—’

  Oh good grief, now what?

  ‘Okay, yes, they’re not mine. I borrowed them, okay?’ Paige snatched the boot in a way that if Matilda had done the same it would arouse a motherly reprimand. She struggled to squeeze her dodgy foot back into a soggy shoe, her rambling explanation fuelled by humiliation: one, because the cow-poo catchers felt weird and seemed overly big and heavy, and two, because the boots belonged to persons unknown—something she hadn’t thought to question Sharni about before launching into her Cinderella moment. ‘I borrowed them because kitchen best practice and occupational health and safety require appropriate footwear. I thought the boots were a good idea. Besides that, I wanted to fit in, only right now I’m wishing I hadn’t even agreed to help.’

  Aiden was wiping his hands on a rag of a tea towel when he looked at Paige. ‘And you agreed to borrow them with or without the crap?’

  ‘You know what?’ she fired back, fully prepared to tell this guy where to shove his platters, only to see a smile creep across his face.

  So totally unexpected—so absolutely gorgeous—her brain felt suddenly sous-vide, with every expletive instantly and silently sucked out, the bag then sealed tight. Although why she worried about offending this guy, she didn’t know. So far she’d witnessed him cursing into his mobile, throwing phones, happy to leave cows stranded, issuing orders and generally being a prattish, mulish, moronic
chef. Typical, in other words, and Paige had met very few in the business who weren’t precious. Yes, he’d had cause to hit the roof about traipsing manure through a clean kitchen—any kitchen—minutes before service, but now here he was smiling.

  ‘Hey, that crap line was meant to be a joke. Sorry if it wasn’t a good one. Let’s say we start over,’ he said, grabbing a mop from a hook and shaking a lone spider from the tatty head on his way back inside. ‘I think it mostly stayed wedged in the tread of the heel. But if we’re going all health and safety, a quick mop should set us right.’ He winked. ‘Come on. Grab that bucket on your way.’

  Soon satisfied with the newly uncontaminated kitchen area, Aiden handed Paige a black apron, the ties of which she wrapped around her hips, bringing them back to the front to tie off over her tummy.

  ‘We all good?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘All righty, then, today’s next challenge is . . .’ He pointed to the collection of casserole dishes and cling-wrap covered bowls that had arrived in their absence.

  On one platter, someone had painstakingly positioned rows of sliced corned beef wrapped around mashed potato with a greyish asparagus spear tip—tinned, limp and not even close to green in colour—sticking out of either end.

  Paige thought she knew the brand of that sorry sucker from her blogging job.

  But the array of contributions, the generosity of the spread, was a kind of catering time warp, casting Paige back to the good old days of the family BBQ. Alice and Nancy had thrown their share of small, impromptu gatherings, with mostly work colleagues from the hospital. Remission had granted Nancy a second chance at life and love and happiness, and while able she had planned to make every second count. Some memories from those years were harder for Paige to conjure up than others, but not those too few fun years that involved Nancy’s fabulous party food, or her flitting and fussing, making sure everyone ate, drank and enjoyed themselves. That period of their lives had been so busy, as if Nancy had been fitting a lifetime of fun into a few months. Alice would man the makeshift bar, cracking bags of ice over chock-a-block eskies, later crushing empty aluminium tinnies. At each event, Paige would collect the prized ring-pulls people discarded, storing them in a shopping bag on the back of her bedroom door. By the time she’d collected enough of the things, a then bedridden Nancy had helped her link each ring-pull in a line to form long chains that Alice would hang, one at a time, as garlands in the doorway to Paige’s room. They jangled in the wind, or whenever someone passed through, and were much better than the hippy door beads a rich girl from school had bragged she’d got for her birthday the year before; Paige’s had been made with love.

  Paige needed to remember those fun times with her mother more often. Better still, she could adopt the same make-every-minute-count approach to life Nancy had back then and not wait until forced by bad news. But Paige Turner today wasn’t like her mother. She wasn’t like Alice, of course, and she refused to ever think she was like Turkey Baster—her unnamed sperm donor; a distant friend who they’d paid to, as Alice told it, ‘just cum and go again’. While Paige had wondered about the guy on the odd occasion growing up, she’d had no desire to connect with him.

  Did she now, though? Is that what had been making her restless and suddenly curious, desperate to connect with her mother any way she could? Paige didn’t think she’d been missing a sense of connection until the other day in the car with Aiden when he’d asked about finding her father.

  What fun they’d had on that trip to Saddleton—after she’d got over her fear of floodwaters. The pair of them had laughed so hard on the final leg of that journey Paige had wished the ride would go on and on. Only last night in bed she’d counted the things they had in common and the number of times Aiden had spoken her very thoughts, even finishing her sentences on a couple of occasions. Uncanny! Ordinarily she’d hate being interrupted, especially when Robert would cut her off mid-sentence or assume he knew what she wanted to say, but with Aiden she didn’t mind. Even after their tiff over the state of his kitchen floor tonight they’d moved on; like Sharni’s horses—no grudges.

  Paige wished she’d taken after Nancy, and while Alice insisted mother and daughter shared similarities, their looks were not one of them; not like those daughters she would see at the school drop-off zone, the ones who were little Mini Me versions of their mother. While there was no denying some similarities, it saddened Paige to think her physical appearance was obviously more Turkey Baster. Paige knew the man was tall, slim and attractive, with big blue eyes that Nancy had described as the colour of a luxury resort pool; the kind you want to dive into.

  Aiden’s two big blue eyes ogled Paige from across the servery.

  ‘Oh, sorry, miles away.’

  ‘I was saying thanks for helping out tonight. You didn’t need to cover for Sharni. I’d have managed with Brenda’s help.’

  ‘And miss this spread?’ She hadn’t seen so much food since forever.

  Real food, not stylised goo ready to be photographed, meats and vegetables processed out of all of their goodness, or cuisine that required tweezers to plate the minuscule micro herbs, then a magnifying glass to eat.

  Real food.

  She didn’t have to smell or taste it to know this food was fresh, most of it probably straight from the paddock to the plate. The colour and texture alone told her that.

  Okay, maybe not the asparagus.

  Another homemade dish arrived, piled high and delivered by a voluptuously-proportioned woman who stepped up to the servery like a Masterchef contestant, presenting her offering with a nervous twitter before taking a step back in anticipation, hands clasped behind her back, teeth biting down on grinning lips.

  ‘Magnificent as always, Joan.’ Aiden’s over-the-top gush surprised Paige, but clearly delighted Voluptuous Lady.

  Joan sighed, shoulders and smile easing, relaxed. ‘You know how much I love my food, Aiden, darling,’ she said, before her food-loving tushie sashayed away to where she did a little gushing of her own amid the crowd buzzing the makeshift bar, like the flies Paige was shooing away from the uncovered platter.

  ‘Argh, these flies.’

  ‘Precisely why the extra hands come in handy,’ Aiden returned. ‘Too slow getting this food out and eaten means the flies will have carried it away first.’

  ‘There’s no shortage of things to eat,’ Paige said, feeling a little overwhelmed.

  ‘And more on the way. Some dishes, Joan’s and Marg’s for example, are ready to go. No work required. Other dishes will taste great, but need a helping hand to make them visually appetising. Tonight is mostly cold platters. The only cooking will be juggling casseroles and chicken wings in two microwave ovens.’ Aiden hoisted a second microwave up on the bench and plugged it into an already overcrowded power board. Then he lifted the lid on a cardboard box of vegetables and herbs. ‘Sometimes the simplest food can be made more appetising with a little fresh garnish. Now, down on that shelf, there, you’ll find an assortment of plates and a couple of stainless steel catering trays. Take your pick. And if you know how to julienne carrot and celery . . .’

  ‘I think I can manage.’

  ‘They’ll accompany Brenda’s cob bread dip.’

  Bench space was at a premium, the small kitchen quickly filling with food, delivered in bags, boxes, on aluminium trays and in buckets. Best of all were the decadent desserts and treats that begged for a cup of tea to go with them: caramel and pecan slices, cheesecake, and scones with homemade jam.

  But first, how to plate up ten different varieties of salad!

  Paige had set up platters before. Years ago she’d styled food to make it shine for a photograph, sprayed lacquer for extra polish and to combat the hot studio lighting. But she’d never had to make something out of corned beef and potato rolls, a pineapple hedgehog made from cheese cubes, cherry tomatoes, baby pickled onions and pineapple pieces skewered on toothpicks, and Brenda’s cob dip—a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with wha
t could only be described as a warmed, vomit-like, green cream cheese.

  ‘Whoa there, that is one hell of a pav. See this, Paige?’ Aiden relieved the weedy-looking woman with the pointy nose and thin, downturned mouth of a silver cake stand. The pavlova was a mountain of cream, overflowing with the biggest strawberries on the planet. ‘You sure do know the way to a man’s heart.’

  Madam Pavlova, who looked a lot like Madam Joilé, Matilda’s ballet teacher, scurried away, leaving Paige to wonder what the coyness was all about. Was the guy such a culinary genius?

  ‘You okay there, Paige?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh sure, Aiden, yes. Just wondering what to attack next.’

  ‘The only advice I have is don’t over think things. We’re not aiming for hatted status tonight,’ he chuckled, warming Paige to him, though his laugh sounded restrained, as if he was holding something back. ‘The plan is to get it out hot if it’s meant to be hot and cold if it’s meant to be cold. Anything in between and we may end up giving our SES heroes a bout of diarrhoea.’

  Paige was well aware of the danger zone for food and was about to say so when he handed her a thermometer and said, ‘Mind you, within five minutes of getting this lot on the table the food will be gone. This mob is as good at bogging into the good grub as they are at bagging sand.’

  ‘I’ve never seen fresh produce this . . . fresh.’

  ‘I thought the same thing when I came home. I’d forgotten how good the folks around here grow it, process it, cook it, eat it and appreciate it. Kind of refreshing after seeing the food city people get to eat—or should I say how they don’t eat, especially the ones too busy worrying about how fast they can get it, or how many gym hours they’ll need to lose it. No gyms out here and I don’t see too many people worried about their weight. Stay active, eat the right food—fresh, tasty produce—and you can afford to eat hearty. None of this picking at your plate business. Drove me crazy watching city chicks poking around dishes us chefs put so much love into.’