Devil's Choice

by Graham Wilson

  Then Catherine said, “Maybe we should all be partners in making this pub work, I think that once we have cleared the debts there is plenty of money in it for us all to make a good living.”

  In a flash she knew clearly what she would do, she could feel her mothers business brain kicking in along with all the little things her mother had taught her as a child; how to give others a share of the business and motivate them.

  Ella looked at her strangely, “What do you mean?”

  Catherine said, “Well my mother started her own business in Broome when she was fifteen, all on her own. By the time she was twenty one she owned three businesses and a warehouse with twenty staff. Those who had worked well for a couple years mostly shared the business profits. Her motto was a share for the business and a share for the workers.

  “So I was thinking, you have worked hard to help Mathew make a success for a couple years, really it is you as much as him who has made it work so far. So perhaps we should formally give you a share, though of course it is not mine to give away but Mathew’s, but then if we are going to get married I suppose it will be both of ours.”

  Mathew hugged her tight. “I can see why I want to marry you, it is that business brain I need.”

  So over a cup of coffee in the kitchen it was agreed. If she worked for them and only took the drawings the business could afford until the debts were under control, in return she would take a twenty percent share of the profits, on top of her regular wage from the end of the year. And, who knew, but if the business was doing well next year maybe it could cover her to buy a pub of her own, that was Ella’s real ambition.

  Mathew offered to write it out on a piece of paper. The other two shook their heads. “If we don’t trust each other the paper is worthless. If we do we don’t need the paper for now, later the bank and a solicitor can draw up whatever formal contracts we need.”

  Wedding

  The wedding of Catherine and Mathew was planned for the first week of April. It was to be held in the church at the top of the hill in Balmain, the church where she and her Granny went and where Lizzie went as a child. For their honeymoon they were booked to go to Broome and out to the desert for a week to meet all Catherine’s aboriginal family and then to fly to Perth for a week where they stayed in a fancy hotel looking out over the Swan River, that was her Mum and Dad’s gift to them, along with ten thousand dollars to help get the business on more solid ground.

  Catherine had been inclined to refuse the money but Mathew, after a private chat to Robbie about Catherine’s independence, just like Lizzie’s it was said, formed the view it was a good idea. So Mathew got Catherine’s agreement that it could be treated as a loan if she really wanted, paid back when the business was on more solid ground. It took the pressure off for the next few months and that was important for them both.

  It had all happened so fast. That morning they walked back to tell her Gran. She had not been too surprised; it was funny how other people could see things one could not see. She said she had always liked Mathew since he was a boy, and with David gone away now it was like getting another son back into her family along with keeping her much loved Granddaughter nearby, so really she was delighted. She said their difference in age was no one’s business but their own. If it did not matter to them why should it matter to anyone else.

  Her Mum and Dad were a bit surprised, after all they had never met this man, though his name had come up around the dinner table over their holidays a couple times and they knew how his brother had been David’s best friend at school. So it was not like he was unknown. In fact he was one of the boys around Lizzie’s own age that she had known slightly as a child at school, but that was a life time ago.

  When Cathy told her Mum he reminded her of her Dad, and she felt just the same way about him that Lizzie did about Robbie and vice versa, Lizzie knew there was no point arguing. Robbie had a natural affinity for Mathew as someone who had served in combat and been injured.

  Two weeks after they made their announcement her Mum and Dad had flown back for an engagement party held in the hotel and Lizzie had stayed for an extra week to help her Grandma plan the wedding though the other children stayed at school in Broome.

  Once they met Mathew they both liked him at once and agreed that as they had made up their minds they might as well just go ahead and get married. So, a mere six weeks and four days after that night when they decided, the wedding bells were ringing.

  Robbie felt so proud bringing his daughter on his arm to the front of the church; she was sparkling and radiant in her white wedding gown. She had Lizzie’s intense eyes and searching look, but she had something all of her own, a more delicate look and a softness and roundness. Since first he had held her, he had felt enormous affection for this child.

  He remembered that night when he had fallen in love with Lizzie, the first full night she had spent with him, only a couple weeks after they met. He remembered how Catherine, a tiny but perfect baby, lay sleeping in a crib in the corner of his room as he and Lizzie had loved each other in the night. He remembered how, in the early morning of grey light, Cathy awoke making little baby sounds and Lizzie had stirred in her sleep, face beautiful with dark hair across the pillow. He could not bear to disturb her dream so he slid out of bed and took up this tiny child who had snuggled in to him, nuzzling with small gurgles as she searched for a breast.

  So he had carried Catherine to the bed and passed her to her mother’s breast while Lizzie barely stirred. He had watched, absorbed by her simple baby world, as she drunk greedily and then fell asleep. Then he had placed her tiny body between theirs as they lay sleeping in Melbourne all those many years ago.

  Then he remembered her when he returned to Lizzie in the desert, this solemn eyed girl of six, his instant ally and friend. She had claimed, not without some truth, that she had arranged for his return. He remembered the delight he felt on that first day when she had called him Dad, he the adopted father of a child who had known no father, and on that day he had promised himself he would do anything he could to be the best father of this child who had taken him into her heart as much as her mother had.

  As the years had gone by she had alternated between calling him Robbie and Dad, but even to this day she mostly called him Dad, and every time she did it warmed something at his core.

  Now she was all grown up but still so young and vulnerable. Here she was marrying a man that she said reminded her of him and he could understand why. Mathew was a bit broken inside the way Robbie had been until he had returned to Lizzie, not to mention they both walked with a limp, his from a motorbike accident and a leg rebuilt with bits of steel, Mathew from a piece of metal that had smashed part of his hip.

  So, while it was not the glittering life for Cathy that he may have imagined, he knew that she had found a good man who shared his love and affection for his daughter, Cathy. When he saw Mathew look at her he remembered the love he had felt for Lizzie on the day they too had walked down the aisle of this same church. It was the love he still felt every time Lizzie smiled at him.

  He knew they would try and make a good life together which was all that could be asked. So today he was glad for Catherine, as was Lizzie. Sometimes he felt that Catherine was too young for what she was taking on but, as Lizzie reminded him, she was only fifteen when she had made a life on her own and, compared to her, Catherine was positively grown up.

  The ceremony was over all too soon, and then it was a reception in the local hall next to the church. It was filled to overflowing with the good people of Balmain, Lizzie had organised this with her typical efficiency. They had together decided on moving away from the typical formal reception to something like a drop in centre, after they had been inundated with requests from the town’s people to come and share a drink with their publican friend. It was hard to believe that so many people knew and liked Mathew. More than they could count offered to contribute towards an event where they could have a drink with him and give their well wishes, the local
boy made good.

  So, in the end, they decided that after the wedding service finished at about 2 pm any friends who wanted could drop in for a drink and chat, with the service of copious food and drinks until 6 pm, when the immediate family would go for a small and intimate dinner.

  It turned into a rowdy afternoon of good cheer as many came and went. A band played brackets of music from time to time and between people charged glasses, told stories of the Mathew they had known since a child of the streets, some added their own stories of Lizzie and other local identities, not to mention Patsy and other members of both families.

  In the corner was a pile of presents, Lizzie had said she wanted no donations to the reception but those who wanted could leave a present for the couple, anything from a note and card to something more. Now a great pile filled the corner, bottles of spirits, household appliances, a wonderful old carved table and chairs, glasses, china, silverware, and so many cards, often with money folded inside. While no one had really been counting it seemed like three of four hundred people had come and gone as the afternoon unfolded and tomorrow they would need a truck to shift all the gifts. It was a wonderful celebration of the love of the town for one of its own; they took this couple to their hearts like a fairy tale story.

  After they were married they stayed for three nights in the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney before flying to Broome with a night in Hotel Darwin. That night in Darwin they walked together around the town, down to the wharf with the boat wrecks still remaining from the bombing of the war, then back to the hotel where they shared a drink under the slow flap of the ceiling canvass fans.

  Together in bed that night, Catherine traced the scarred outline of that wound on Mathew’s hip and his hand lingered over the naked curves of her own rounded hips and breasts. She felt indescribably happy, as if her whole life had been waiting for this time and this man, he had made her wait until the wedding night for their bodies to join which had driven her mad at the time, but now she was so glad.

  Since that night when she first held him the tremors had almost gone away, just odd flashes in his dreams and he told her she had only to touch him and they would go away. Now with their bodies joined she was convinced she could draw all the poison from him and take it harmlessly away, put into a place where it could harm neither of them anymore. Already she was wanting for him to make a child inside her, a perfect formed expression of their love in new life.

  A Business Together

  Two months later Catherine knew she was pregnant; she thought it must have happened on her honeymoon as she had skipped the period which was due three weeks after they were married and now that over another month had gone by with still nothing, she was sure. She could feel the subtle changes that were happening inside her body, her nipples had enlarged and changed colour, her breasts were filling out and tingling, and sometimes in the morning she felt strangely unable to eat breakfast, though it always passed after an hour or two.

  They were staying in Sophie’s room in her Gran’s place at the moment; they had sold the house in Rosser Street for a good price though the cheque was yet to come in. They had put the money from her Mum and Dad into building a two bedroom apartment for themselves in an upstairs corner of the hotel, having taking over three old and run down bedrooms, a lounge room previously used for paying guests and a bathroom. They were turning this space into their own place within the hotel. It had a door to the outside, down a rickety flight of backstairs and inside it would have a small kitchen dining room, a lounge room, a good sized bedroom for them and a second smaller bedroom which currently served as an office but which could become a child’s room in due course. They were also blocking off part of the back yard of the hotel next to the stairs up to their place into a small private courtyard so they could sit outside in privacy if they wanted to.

  She and Mathew had drawn up the plans together, using graph paper to get the scale and had given these to a draftsman to turn into proper plans. Now the builders were at work. It would be finished in two more weeks and then they would move into their new home, it was partly convenience and partly economy that he led to the decision to live on the premises, it would save time, allowing them to devote their full energies to building up the business, and they both liked the idea of it being their own new home, the place where they had first met, not the continued family home of another generation.

  And freeing up the money by selling the house in Rosser Street would allow them to do both some much needed refurbishment of the rest of the hotel and to also pay down their debts with the bank, at least enough to give them a cost buffer so they did not have to worry each month whether they could afford the repayments.

  Catherine knew that deep down Mathew was a bit sad on the day his family house had sold. But he told her he had no regrets as they could now build a new life together, which was better than keeping memories. From the old house they had taken as much of the furniture as they could use along with old pictures and other memorabilia. That way the memories could still live on in these alongside the new ones they would create together.

  Next month they would move into their own new house. Catherine loved her room and living with her Gran, and Mathew loved her Gran too, plus her food was fantastic, much better than Catherine’s limited ability though she was now getting Gran to teach her some favourite dishes.

  But she could not wait until they would really start a new life together, just the two of them living in their own new place and by early next year, please God, they would have a third life in their family to add to their own. There was a simple goodness to their life together which reminded her of living with her aboriginal family and friends out in the desert.

  A Perfect Child

  Two weeks after New Year celebrations Catherine gave birth to a little girl in Balmain hospital. Despite the convention this was women’s business she had insisted that Mathew was there to hold her hand during the labour, along with her Mum and Gran to add their own support. Mathew was the first to hold the baby, obviously nervous but very proud, and after a few minutes the baby was passed to Catherine to hold herself. She thought her little girl was just perfect, beautiful in every way, a bit of her, a bit of Mathew and a bit of something else which she could not identify, but the whole package was a new and wonderful person.

  They had decided on the name Amelie, a French name which had been the name of an orphan girl in Vietnam who had attached herself to Mathew. At that time Mathew had promised himself if he ever had a girl child he would name it after this orphan waif, a bare eight years old, who had befriended him and then been so cruelly killed. Somehow the name suited their baby perfectly, from the minute she opened her eyes and first looked at them she had something of the waif like free spirit to her nature that he had remembered and described when he told Catherine the story. Catherine had added Elizabeth as her middle name, to carry on her own Mum’s name.

  Mother and child came home to the hotel apartment after a week and life settled into an easy routine. They place a cot next to their bed though for the first three months she often cuddled into bed with them; it was easier to feed her that way at night as Cathy only had to roll to the side to give her a breast.

  Catherine was surprised how easily she had settled into motherhood, perhaps it was the sense of practicality she had gained from her own mother, she enjoyed her baby but the child was easy and she did not feel the need to fuss over her, instead she loved her and gave her attention and still found time for her other life in the hotel. It was good to live and work in the one place, because she could work in the bar and in a minute, if her baby cried, she could be upstairs to attend to her.

  So the weeks and then months drifted by, soon it was autumn and then winter, and then it was back into spring. By now little Amelie was crawling around, they had blocked off the stairs with a baby proof gate at the top.

  Amelie particularly loved her Daddy, she was always crawling up to him and putting up her arms to be picked up, sometimes Catherine com
plained that he spoiled the child rotten as he would always stop whatever he was doing to bring her up and bounce her on his lap, or carry her tucked into one arm as he worked with the other.

  Amelie was very friendly and all the bar staff and the regular patrons clearly had a soft spot for her, though once the bar got busy after the mid-afternoon she was always confined to the upstairs to keep her away from people’s feet. Now she was learning to stand up and pull herself around the furniture. When she wanted something she would crawl to the top of the stairs, pull herself up and shout out to those below in her baby talk until someone came to attend to her.

  Her first birthday was planned as an occasion of local celebration, following just after the New Year festivities had passed and the town returned to its normal quiet place. They decided to hold the party in the big courtyard in the back of the hotel and invited all their staff, selected customers who had become family friends and some of their friends for the other small businesses from around Balmain, some who supplied services like the plumber and electrician and others who found time to pop in for a friendly chat and an occasional drink.

  Gran Patsy, Lizzie, Robbie and her brother and sister were not there as they had all gone to Melbourne this year to stay at Robbie’s Mum’s place for Christmas and now they were all back in Broome. But in two weeks Catherine and Mathew were flying to Broome for their first well deserved holiday since their marriage.

  Catherine particularly wanted to take Amelie into the desert and introduce her to all her black aunts and uncles, let them give her the allotted skin name and incorporate her into her tribal family.

  At the party Amelie ran around endlessly like an unexploded missile chasing other children and anything that took her fancy, barely stopping to eat, but with a smile which covered her whole face. She was full of chatter though the words were simple, Ma-ma-ma, Da-da-da-da, doggie-doggie, puddytat, me-me-me, Amelie.