Fava Beans For Breakfast

by Suzanne Salem

‘Hope you don’t mind my surprise visit, Neema, I just wanted to see for myself how things are going here.’ He placed each of his immense hands on his knees. The corners of his mouth curled up. He could be quite handsome when he wasn’t acting so serious and big man of business. ‘We’ve been onto a good thing with the kiosk, and I want to thank you for a job well done … because it couldn’t have happened without you.’

  ‘Goldie too,’ she offered quickly. Not knowing quite what to do with Tom’s compliment, she pulled and twisted the top of her ear until it was hot against her fingers.

  ‘We saw the opportunity and we executed it well. To be honest, it has exceeded my expectations. It’s been a great success, wouldn’t you say?’

  Nayeema nodded in agreement. Tom’s inclusiveness of her role in this venture brought her an unexpected rush of pleasure and importance.

  ‘Well, what if I told you that it didn’t have to end? What if I said that the kiosk has long-term viability?’

  ‘What are you meaning?’

  ‘Look around, Neema. Look at those people in the queue. We don’t need the construction blokes to keep this place running anymore. Our customers are changing.’

  ‘Yes, the fossil people come.’

  ‘Right. They don’t come here for a swim before buying lunch like the construction workers do. The weather is irrelevant to them. They have research to do here.’ He flung his hands in the vague direction of the hinterland where the fossil discoveries were made. ‘They come to our kiosk because it’s the closest place that they can buy lunch. Have you heard they are looking to excavate more of that ancient lake?’

  ‘No. I no hear.’

  ‘So then, we keep going,’ he said triumphantly. ‘And once their research work is done up at the lake, I reckon this entire region will be swamped by tourists. You only have to look at the pyramids to know I’m right—they’re a drawcard to your country aren’t they?’

  ‘Well … yes.’

  ‘People will be coming from all over the country to see where these fossils came from. And once they start scratching around the rocks and caves as well,’ he lowered his voice, ‘there will be more surprises.’

  ‘What surprises?’

  ‘Let’s just say that there are things my family has known about for years … from the days of the quarry. You get my drift? Maybe I’ll tell you about that one day.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, I reckon that tourists will be flocking to Burraboo. They’ll be calling it the “Amphibians’ Trail”, can’t you just see it? They’ll be putting in walking trails here, setting up a visitors’ centre, charging entry fees. All of that.’ He threw his head back and grunted a half-laugh. ‘I’ve even heard that the state government is looking to fund the construction of a research lab, on site.’

  ‘This is good, hah?’

  ‘It’s bloody brilliant. And it all ties in with my Horizon development.’

  In his shining face, she glimpsed something of the exuberance he might have had as a child. The vague tint of summer was still on his skin. She wanted to reach for his head and bite his earlobe, hard. She blushed instantly for such a thought and turned her head away from his to look at the other end of the bay.

  ‘So why you tell me all this, today? Why so important that you come here from your busy day?’

  ‘I’m bloody excited, that’s why. The fossils have changed everything. There are big bucks coming into town. We can’t look at the kiosk as temporary anymore. We have to think long term. We need to make improvements so that we can take in bigger volumes. I think we need a bigger kitchen.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Nayeema excitedly. ‘Very good. We get new boat.’

  Tom laughed lightly in the back of his throat like a gurgle. ‘Sorry, I can’t do that right now.’ He touched her knee with his hand before withdrawing it instantly.

  She was surprised to feel a warm surge to her toes from his touch and the same flooding of curiosity and shame as her scrutiny of the Cleo centrefolds.

  ‘What I can do is have all the interiors ripped out. Get rid of the beds, the table and all the other furniture you don’t use. We’ll double the size of the kitchen … we’ll triple it, if that’s what you need. Then the rest of the space can be used for seating. That way we give these academic types somewhere to sit for a bit, you know, give them the space to have meetings over lunch and whatnot. We can bolt some small tables and stools out here on the deck. What do you think?’

  ‘Is good,’ she said, hesitantly. Sounded like a lot more work for her and Goldie.

  ‘You’ll probably have to open up earlier and finish later. I am guessing our overall production could easily double in the next month. Also, I was thinking that you’ll have to do away with those grilled sandwiches, the grilling takes too long … it puts bottlenecks in the queue. Besides, the cooked food is what these research types are buying first, right? Then they buy the sandwiches when there is nothing left.’

  ‘The grilling takes long because the machine is so old. You buy me a new machine and the grilling is no problem.’

  ‘But they still buy the cooked food first.’

  ‘Well … yes. But maybe because they hear rubbish machine makes them wait very long.’

  ‘When the new kitchen is put in, you’ll get new appliances.’ He stretched back against the chair with all his weight, and locked his fingers together behind his head.

  ‘Brand new?’

  ‘Yup,’ he smiled. ‘Which brings me to my next point.’

  Nayeema clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and shook her head. A troubling thought came to her. ‘Tom, there is a special old wisdom my father used to tell me. He says, “Stretch your legs as far as your blanket goes.” You know this one?’

  Tom burst into laughter. ‘No, I can’t say I do.’ His liquid brown eyes softened.

  ‘It means you should not do what you cannot afford.’ She pointed at the inlet. ‘How do people get here? They must drive down road … the Frank Pritchett road. Yes?’

  ‘He doesn’t own that road. The access road from the state forest to the bay is a council road. He can’t stop anyone using that road.’ Tom stroked his chin. ‘You are right, though. Once people get off the road and out of their cars they are basically on Pritchett’s land.’

  ‘You sure he owns all this?’ she asked, nodding towards the inlet, and already knowing the answer, feeling miserable about all the land that Pritchett owned.

  ‘Pretty much everything you can see is his. If he wants to create a stink about the twenty measly metres from the road to the pier, he will. But he hasn’t yet, has he? Maybe a big stink from Pritchett is still ahead of us … but we’ll deal with it when it happens. We can’t stay still and miss this opportunity. These moments don’t come often in life, trust me … Even when there are so many questions unanswered, even when we don’t know how things are going to work out, we just have to jump. We jump into that uncertainty. Do you see what I’m saying?’

  He sounded wheezy. Exhilaration and exhaustion seemed to be feeding his nervous energy, and he was speaking so quickly she wasn’t confident that she understood everything he was saying.

  She looked down the broad river of his neck for a moment and noticed a splattered food stain on his white shirt, beside the second button on his thick, wide chest. She followed the seam of the shirt that swam elegantly into his shoulders, then down the long passage of his arms. The shirt fit him perfectly and even around his capacious stomach area, the fabric didn’t flounce like a loose sheet or gape at the buttons. The shirt must be tailor-made, she decided.

  ‘So I want you to be my partner in the kiosk. Fifty per cent stake each.’

  Nayeema frowned at the stain on his shirt. Was he making jokes with her?

  ‘I’m giving you the chance to own this place with me, to be a part of it from the beginning. Are you interested?’

  She rose slowly out of her chair and took three long strides to the safety rail at the end of the deck and grasped it with both hands. Felt the coldness of the meta
l beneath her fingers, the delicate spray of water on her face. She spun around to look at him. He was waiting for her to answer. A pleased, gentle smile glowed across his face. He must be crazy.

  ‘You want me for this?’ she said, barely above a whisper.

  ‘Who else?’ His smile broadened. ‘Come on, Neema. I didn’t think it would take you this long to decide. Talk things over with Fred if you need to—’

  ‘No, no need,’ she said abruptly. Her voice sounded hollow and strange. There was a rushing sensation in her chest like wind screaming down a tunnel, and she knew it was coming from the swell of happiness that was so fresh she didn’t yet know where to keep it. ‘I say yes.’

  She ran over to him, laughing, and he rose to his feet, clapping his hands and making a congratulatory hoot. For a moment she thought he was going to pick her up and twirl her around. She clasped both of his hands with her own and kissed him, once, on each cheek. ‘This is very wonderful for me. I cannot believe. Like a wow, baby.’

  ‘I am very happy that you’ve agreed,’ said Tom quietly, looking at the sky.

  ‘I am very happy, too.’ She looked down the waterway to where everything but the horizon seemed to taper. ‘How I pay you, to buy this business? How I get the money?’

  He shrugged. ‘The usual way would be to get a loan from the bank.’

  ‘You think a loan for me is possible? All the money is for Fawzy and his pharmacy.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He rubbed his neck. ‘Well, I can lend you the money and you can make repayments to me, over time. I can set up a payment schedule that is manageable for you over a period. That way you don’t have to involve the bank. Everything will work out just fine.’

  ‘How does this partnership work, exactly?’

  ‘Well, the way I see it, we will each have a fifty per cent ownership stake in the business, with an equal say in how things are run. We’ll get an estimate of the business value, but to be honest it probably won’t be all that much as it’s early days yet. Once we have an estimate, I will loan you the value of half that estimate, and we can set up a monthly repayment schedule. There’s also the extra cost of refitting the houseboat. But the important thing is that you will notionally own half from day one so that our entitlements are drawn down the middle every six months. That will make things so much simpler.’

  She frowned.

  ‘Do you need me to slow down?’

  ‘Tom, we have big problem. No point talking about these words I don’t know because I have no money for repayment. No money at all.’

  ‘Well, I will still be paying you a fixed wage for managing the kiosk, sorry, the business will be paying you a fixed wage. The difference is that you don’t get paid a percentage cut for every good week that you exceed the revenue target … instead we let the profits build. We grow it first.’

  ‘Fawzy, he wants to buy the pharmacy. All my wages will go to buying the rubbish pharmacy. This is his dream.’

  ‘Dreams are for everyone.’

  ‘Me … I want to go back to Sydney.’

  ‘You still want the earring parlour?’

  ‘Yes. Why do you think I change my mind?’

  ‘I just thought that, maybe, well … aren’t you happy here? Out on the bay every day? Running this kiosk?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You’ll have kids soon and maybe Sydney won’t be as appealing then … it’s a good life here. It can be, if you let it.’

  ‘What if I tell you I do this kiosk for a short while?’

  ‘You’re killing me.’

  ‘Why I kill you?’

  ‘I’m offering you something with legs, long term.’

  ‘What if I tell you this kiosk and all this cooking is too predictable? You see me as the migrant, the wog, who knows nothing but food and cooking. The one who will work in the fish and chip shop or the greasy chicken shop or this kiosk on the bay. You make me a cliché.’

  ‘Opportunity is no cliché. It is the sweetest thing a person can be offered. Your husband understands that.’

  ‘Don’t tell me about Fawzy.’

  ‘You think you don’t deserve to be happy as a partner in a wildly successful food emporium? Because it will be, you know—wildly successful.’

  ‘I know nothing about the emperors of food. I know nothing about business. I know about ears.’

  ‘So you tell me.’

  ‘What if I tell you I can be your business partner without being in Burraboo? What if I work in Burraboo at the beginning? After a while, I convince Fawzy we move to Sydney. I can still be your partner from Sydney. I can do ears as well.’

  ‘Totally impractical. Besides, how are you going to convince Fred to go back to Sydney, when he wants to buy the pharmacy here in Burraboo? He wants to build his life right here.’ He tapped the railing with his index finger.

  ‘I will find a way. The sugar has not fallen into the water, you understand me? He hasn’t bought it yet.’

  Tom groaned.

  ‘I tell you because … I am being honest. You prefer I lie and pretend la-di-da everything here is killer cool?’

  ‘You’re being stubborn.’

  ‘Everyone has a dream. You said so. There are many stories in a dream.’

  ‘Stories, dreams, fairytales … Neema.’ He turned to face her. ‘You have to know what’s real and what’s not.’

  ‘Nothing is real. Until you decide it is.’

  Tom turned back to the railing, and stared ahead at the thin band of indigo that sat like stitching between sky and water.

  ‘If my earring palace is a fairytale, you have no problem. I will never make it back to Sydney.’

  Tom raised his arm and pointed into the distance. ‘You once told me about the double-lion god, the two lions that face opposite directions. One guards the rising sun and the other guards the setting sun … Makes me think, you know, sometimes, you have to surrender what you wanted yesterday just to make room for today. Maybe you have to let the past go, just a little, forget just enough.’

  She thought of her nena, seated upright in bed with the blankets pulled up beneath her armpits, in the cramped room they’d shared since Nayeema was born. Her words sharp and insistent. ‘Night talk and memories belong to yesterday. They are like butter. They melt when the sun rises. Never trust night talk or memories.’ Oh, nena. Nayeema’s body ached as she remembered every word of her grandmother’s cautionary words on the perils of memory and the past. The irony was not wasted on her.

  ‘I need you to sack Goldie Pritchett,’ said Tom.

  ‘What? Sack?’

  ‘Give her the boot. I don’t want her anywhere near my houseboat. Give her the heave-ho.’

  ‘Why would I do this to my friend? I think you have woken up killer-crazy today …’

  ‘Thing is, Neema, how we spend our energy is important. Energy is a limited resource … I have avoided thinking about that Pritchett girl because I figured that would be a poor use of my energy. Turns out that I made a terrible mistake. I should have been watching her like a python watches a rat. Turns out she was the python and I was the rat.’

  Why was he talking about hunting?

  ‘I don’t trust her. I don’t trust who she is.’

  ‘You are hiding something from me. Be direct. Tell me about this information.’

  ‘Yup. I will, but not right now. For now, I just need her gone.’

  ‘Impossible. You are asking the impossible.’

  ‘Get rid of her … for the love of Pete, please! Employ someone else to replace her. There’ll be people chomping at the bit to work with you. She isn’t the only person who can bake in this town.’

  ‘Hah? She’s the best! She knows the French techniques. You know she is better than Kevin at the bakery. This talk of replacing Goldie is rubbish talk. Why are you angry with her?’

  The thought of working in the kiosk without Goldie made her ribs feel tender. What was Tom thinking? She would not forget that the beginning of anger is madness and the end of it is regret. There w
ere practical issues to consider; and there were considerations that she couldn’t entirely place. Considerations that wriggled beneath her skin and muddled her head. She wanted more time with Goldie, not less. She had to make Tom see that Goldie was more than just a Pritchett: she was also very wonderful. No Goldie, no kiosk.

  ‘Tell me, Neema, have you seen anyone from that Rainbow Lily commune at the bay?’

  ‘Sometimes I see people come for a swim.’

  ‘Do any of them come to the kiosk?’

  ‘Sure, I guess, sometimes.’

  ‘Do they come to talk to Goldie?’

  ‘Why are you asking all these questions? Goldie talks to all the customers, she is very good with them.’

  ‘Have you noticed a man with burns to his face?’

  Nayeema turned away from Tom. Goldie often took a cigarette break when melt-ear visited, which was all the time.

  ‘Does he come to the houseboat?’

  ‘I have not seen this man but why are you asking about him and Goldie?’

  ‘I can’t get into it right now. I’m sorry, Neema, but you have to find a way to get rid of her.’

  ‘We are partners, you and me. I say no.’

  His jaw tensed. His eyebrows seemed bushier, the hairs scattered in different directions as though they had each been startled.

  ‘Neema, I know you are friends with the girl. But this is business.’

  ‘You don’t like Goldie. That’s personal.’

  ‘Every minute she’s working for me, for us … she’s a danger to the business. You have to trust me on this.’

  Nayeema shook her head. ‘No Goldie, no kiosk.’

  Tom groaned.

  Nayeema raised two fingers. ‘I have two rules for this partnership. One, Goldie stays.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Two, we must make a secret from Fawzy. If I become partner, if I make loan from you and I pay you a little every month, Fawzy must never know. You understand what I am saying? Must be the secret between us. Then later, after Fawzy buys his pharmacy, then I tell him.’

  Tom stared at her. ‘You’re asking me to lie to your husband. He’s a good bloke, Fred.’

  ‘Not lie. Make a secret.’

  ‘If I agree to this, and I haven’t agreed, I have a condition, too. You must learn proper bookkeeping. You must learn how to manage the accounts, manage cashflows … you’ll need to know everything about the revenues and expenses of this business. I don’t want this to be an administrative headache for me. If I am offering you this loan, this is my condition. Do you agree? We can go through the details later.’ He pulled himself off the railing.