Fava Beans For Breakfast

by Suzanne Salem

  CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO

  How quickly yesterday’s triumphs, solid and certain, could combust into vaporous steam. How quickly the small shoots of optimism could spoil like meat under the sun. Had he made the right decision? Unlikely. He did not trust Pritchett’s word, not one bit. Leverage was what he needed, and leverage he did not have. Not yet.

  Tom wasn’t certain that Pritchett wouldn’t go gobbing about his former entanglement with Cherie Blossom while rumours about the Rainbow Lilies’ illicit activities on the farm and in the town were spreading like heat rash. Pritchett needed to know that Tom could play dirty, too. The leverage he needed wouldn’t be found easily. He’d start with Goldie Pritchett. There was something unsavoury about Goldie Pritchett. The way she looked at Neema, there was something not right about her. He had no doubt that she hadn’t a pure intention in her taut, perky little body. Tom was counting on the maggot uncle to have a heart, to give a damn about his niece. It was a big assumption.

  ‘Get me something on Goldie Pritchett. Find out how often she goes to the Rainbow Lilies’ farm, what she does there … anything,’ he’d said to Mick Copes.

  In two days’ time, if the old maggot honoured his threat to expose Tom’s entanglement with Cherie Blossom and smear his name, the news would be all over town. Not going to happen.

  ‘Denise, please get me Rob Grimshaw on the line.’

  He felt his fingertips grow moist. There was a buzz. The line lit up. ‘Rob. I need you to organise something for me. Can you make it to my office this morning? It’s urgent.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll be over before midday. Can you give me the quick version?’

  ‘It’s best that we speak in person.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Tom placed the cradle on the receiver and cursed Pritchett. He’d get the maggot back for this.

  When Rob Grimshaw seated himself on Tom’s lounge, his jaw was taut. ‘Am I going to like what you’re about to tell me?’

  ‘I think you already know the answer to that,’ said Tom.

  Grimshaw raised his eyebrows expectantly. His pen was poised on his notebook.

  Tom placed his hands behind his head, a power position, he was told, in the hope he would feel more powerful. ‘Frank Pritchett’s making a few waves for me. The sale of the dairy farm to the Rainbow Lilies … you recall how that came about?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Well, Frank Pritchett knows all about it.’

  ‘So … he wants something from you?’

  ‘He wants a stake in the Horizon. A thirty per cent stake.’

  ‘Has the man gone mad?’

  ‘Quite possibly. Vengeful glasshole.’

  Grimshaw bellowed an uncomfortable laugh. ‘He needs to be committed.’

  ‘I’ve made a decision. I’m going to sell him the pier and the access point at the beach. For one dollar.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘He has this thing over me, about my relationship with the hippies. It’s bullshit, total lies, but he’ll use it and he’ll damage what we’re building with the Horizon. Every hurdle we’ve jumped so far will look like an ants’ nest in comparison.’

  ‘What will become of the cafe and the houseboat business with Mrs Ikram?’

  ‘I give up my fifty per cent stake in the cafe. Pritchett will decide what he wants to do with it.’

  ‘Big Bertha?’

  ‘I have to give up Big Bertha, too.’ I have to give up Neema, he thought.

  ‘You do realise that this will terminate the contract you have with Mrs Ikram?’ Grimshaw said, gravely.

  Tom nodded.

  ‘There has to be another way. Are you sure there isn’t another option?’

  ‘I’ve made my decision.’

  ‘Strange that Pritchett would equate the value of the pier and the houseboat business to a thirty per cent holding in the Horizon.’

  Pritchett had waited a generation for this moment; he’d hoarded his bitterness against Big Jack and was spending it on Tom. Pritchett understood that personal value could weigh more than financial value. For the first time, Tom knew it too.

  Rob Grimshaw looked at Tom quizzically. His eyebrows furrowed then reassembled. ‘There is some complexity involved.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom, finally. ‘I’m counting on one of two things happening once this agreement is effected. The state government makes Pritchett an offer for his parcel of land, including the pier. They’ll expand the Bindi State Forest. Then they’ll offer me a lease to run a kiosk at the end of the pier.’

  ‘That’s wishful, Tom. I hear spending has blown out.’

  ‘I have reason to be optimistic.’

  Rob raised his eyebrows. ‘How optimistic?’

  Tom grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t bet my house on it. But let’s not rule it out, because once an offer is made to take the land public, we have to be ready to secure a lease to operate a cafe from the pier.’

  ‘But you will have sold Big Bertha and the business as an ongoing concern …’

  ‘So I start a new business—I get in before Pritchett does.’

  ‘It sounds shaky.’

  ‘Which takes me to the second possibility … my guess is that once Pritchett owns the pier, he’ll try to offload it, probably to Neema, at an exorbitant price. I’m counting on the bastard to approach her with a price. He knows how much she loves the bay, and how important the houseboat is to her. He knows because his duplicitous niece tells him.’

  ‘Surely, then, Pritchett knows, courtesy of his niece, that Mrs Ikram is in no position to make this purchase … financially.’

  ‘He knows that I’ll help her. It’s his way of screwing me twice. He’ll get me to spend a lot of money to get my pier back.’

  ‘You don’t have to play ball.’

  Tom clenched his jaw.

  ‘In fact, you can’t afford it,’ Rob pressed.

  ‘I’ll find a way.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘No. But we’re going to press ahead anyway. I have a good idea as to how things will play out.’

  ‘It’s a gamble.’

  ‘One thing you must include in the contract is that Neema has two months from the date of settlement to continue to operate the houseboat. Pritchett must not impinge on her, or on her customers’ ability to access the beach, the pier or the houseboat. For two months.’

  Rob nodded thoughtfully. ‘Buys you time. Still, he may not make that offer to sell the pier. Mrs Ikram may never have that opportunity.’

  ‘He wants me to bleed. He’ll name a hefty price.’

  ‘You’ll be advised against buying the pier back above its value.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Don’t let your emotions get in the way. That’s how we got here in the first place. Your father—’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Also, the state government may not even make an offer to buy the land from Pritchett.’

  ‘You’re right, Rob. This is a gamble. But I’m feeling lucky,’ he said firmly, to shut down his lawyer. Another big fat Grieves lie.

  * * *

  The thought of what was ahead of her today was making her breakfast curdle in her stomach. Bed and duvet and the latest Cleo were a tempting trio of safety that cooed at her from the moment she awoke. Damn and fudge buckets. She would do it. The Fossil View Cafe would manage without her for one day.

  She had made some baklava last night, on Fawzy’s urging, for Fawzy alone. It was the first time he had ever asked her to cook him a dessert that invoked his childhood. ‘As good as Madam Rosa’s on Saad Zaghloul Street,’ he’d praised her, devouring piece after piece. This undisciplined version of Fawzy, he who ate more than he needed, was suddenly attentive to Nayeema. He lavished her with adoration. His hands crawled around her waist. He read the local newspaper with greater diligence than ever before, and was ever zealous in notating grammatical errors with a flourish of circles and crosses. It was clear to Nayeema, as clear as Fawzy’s baleful eyes, that their future was entirely de
pendent on the machinations of a schoolgirl.

  Annabel’s whereabouts remained unknown. Her friends confirmed that she had been unhappy but claimed they had no idea where she might be. The possibility of a sinister end to the schoolgirl received almost daily ignition from the regional newspaper, which provided a regular supply of hysteria and postulations as to her disappearance. Nayeema was convinced that the girl had run away. Annabel was young and bold and on the hunt for adventure. She hoped the girl was safe. Above all, she hoped the girl would make contact with her parents. She and Fawzy were connected to this girl now. Their plans had disintegrated into a fantasy thinner than cheap papyrus, more fragile than an egg.

  Pat Morris was keeping longer and more regular hours at the pharmacy, as a growing number of locals refused to receive service from Fawzy. Since Annabel’s disappearance, Pat required Fawzy to go home early and ‘relax’ every afternoon. The absence of an occupation for half of the day left him in a peculiar mood.

  She pressed the buzzer on Tom’s front door a couple of times. He opened the front door with his shirt open and as he fumbled with his buttons the irritation on his face dissolved.

  ‘Neema … What brings you here so early?’

  ‘I must talk with you.’

  ‘Well, there is something I have to tell you, too.’

  Without a word he ushered her into the house, through the large elegant rooms intended for entertaining and into the small sunroom. Once she was seated all her nerves seemed to clench at her breath. She looked at the hard light that streamed through the window as the sun popped away from a large cloud. It hurt her eyes but she didn’t flinch or squint, she kept staring at the light, refusing to blink.

  ‘The missing girl, Annabel … she has created a big problem for Fawzy, for us. People think he is a bad man … that he did something to her, that she is missing because of him. Some people are saying terrible things.’

  ‘I’ve heard.’

  ‘It’s because we are New Australians, the migrants, the wogs … people want to think terrible things, that we are savages.’

  ‘I know he’s a good bloke, you have to stay strong.’

  ‘There is a way, maybe, things can get better but I can’t do it by myself. Please, can you help me?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We see the girl’s parents. We talk to them about the stealing. We help them understand Fawzy was trying to help her by not reporting her stealing.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

  ‘I think we try, I think we must try, anything. But I cannot without you there. They will listen to you … people respect you in this town. Me? I am nothing but the ignorant, blind wife of a dirty wog who hurts schoolgirls, you see? They will not even open the door for me, I think.’

  Tom pressed his lips together. ‘If you want me there, I’ll go with you. But I think you’re overestimating any influence I might have.’

  ‘We go now, please?’

  ‘Okay. But first, there is something I must tell you.’

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me later.’

  Tom looked at her with his sad, liquid brown eyes and she couldn’t shake the feeling that today, she would lose everything.

  * * *

  Stepping past the gnarled rose bushes that sprawled across the rectangular flowerbed, Nayeema noticed how the soil around the roses was smothered by a fierce growth of long and unruly weeds. She stopped walking to look back at Tom.

  ‘Go on.’ He prodded her gently on her shoulder. She shook her head. A nervous puddle of sweat emerged from the backs of her knees. Her mouth melted into her chin. The stream of ungrammatical words, incorrect verb conjugations, and muddled prepositions that she was certain to spout in a few seconds’ time raced through her mind.

  He squeezed her shoulder and nudged past her. ‘I’ll go first.’

  She smiled with gratitude at his wide back as they walked towards the house. If Fawzy were here, he would make a judgement about the character of the Whites based on their garden alone. She imagined him accusing them of being lazy and indolent people. Despite their evident neglect for their garden she could see new green shoots blooming on the ends of the rose bushes. Tight flowering rose buds, as firm and as obstinate as a fist, caught her eye. More likely to drop into the fray of weeds, she lamented, than open up and reveal their beauty.

  She paused on the front steps to remind herself that it was Fawzy’s reputation, not the Whites’ garden, which needed to be salvaged.

  ‘You want me to do the talking?’ said Tom. She nodded like a mute donkey fool.

  He rapped at the entrance door with short, hard knocks. No response. He knocked again and pressed his ear against the door. Feet shuffled towards them. The door swung wide to reveal Annabel’s mother.

  She was a long-limbed woman with a face as broad as a bull mastiff’s. Her lips were fat and graceless. It was unlikely that she had ever been beautiful; certainly, there was an absence of anything lovely about her today. She wore a velour tracksuit in chocolate brown, which was threadbare at the knees. There was a hole or two near the thigh region.

  Staring at Nayeema, her plump mouth went sideways into her cheek as she opened her lips to utter her first damning words. ‘You’ve got some hide showing your face here.’ Her tone was venomous but her voice was lilting light, a cream-puff surprise of a voice that unsettled Nayeema. ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘Er, you must be Mrs White. Please allow me to explain why I am here.’ Stick to the script, just stick to the script, Nayeema silently repeated.

  ‘I shouldn’t give you the time of day.’

  ‘Take it easy, Noelene. We just want to talk to you,’ said Tom.

  ‘If my husband was here he’d have given you a thick lip for bringing her to our home.’

  ‘Listen, we don’t want to upset you. But there’s no need for theatrics. Can we come in, please?’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘We are sorry, really sorry that you have this terrible and stressful situation with your daughter,’ Tom said, hastily.

  ‘Fawzy had nothing to do with her missing,’ Nayeema jumped in, regretting it instantly.

  ‘Nothing to do with it? Don’t insult me. You’ve got a nerve … you should be apologising to me for the way he terrorised her … made her feel like she couldn’t come home.’

  ‘He didn’t do that. I was there.’

  ‘He threatened a child … scared her senseless is what he did. It was him that did that … made her feel like she was a criminal.’ Her voice rose with bitterness and accusation.

  ‘Well, actually, she was stealing on a regular basis from the pharmacy, which is in fact a crime, which would make her … a criminal,’ Tom offered.

  ‘People saw him, witnesses saw him. Said he was upsetting her on the street the day she went missing. They said he looked guilty as a rat. Women I’ve known for years and I believe their word over his or yours. Maybe he’s got her tied up somewhere and dishing out some perverted justice for her stealing, maybe he’s just like that dirty wog caught in Sydney last year, that Branco guy who tied up his girlfriend for two months.’

  Perversion? What was she talking about? ‘So you admit that she had been stealing?’ said Nayeema. Oh crumbs, crumble pie. This was not in their script.

  Tom nudged her. ‘Had you ever heard her talk about stealing? Had you seen some suspicious looking medications in her room?’

  ‘I’m not admitting to anything like that. She’s a good girl.’ She frowned and her forehead wrinkled like an elbow.

  ‘She may be a good girl, but not a very happy one, was she?’

  ‘Look. Annabel can be a bit pig-headed, but she’s no different to any other kid. She’s no thief either, she wouldn’t do no stealing …’

  ‘Happy children don’t steal,’ said Nayeema.

  ‘You’re a liar. Who the hell believes a word you say? You’re his wife! No one I’ve spoken to thinks he can be trusted. He’
s on his own. He’s a dirty pervert and we all pity you, missus.’

  ‘Don’t get nasty. The truth is that her teachers at school say she was unhappy. She was wagging all the time,’ said Tom.

  ‘All kids bloody wag school. Hell, I did it too. Didn’t mean I was unhappy, it just meant school was boring and being with my friends was fun. Whoop-de-doo.’

  ‘Annabel wagged without her friends. I don’t think kids skip school to spend the day alone,’ said Tom.

  ‘I don’t think you are in a position to talk about children seeing that you have none. Are you done here? I want you gone.’

  Nayeema’s toes clamped in her shoes to keep them grounded, for fear that she might kick the brick wall.

  ‘If we stop arguing we might figure out a way to find her. We can do this, together. Please.’ Tom placed his hand against the door to stop her from slamming it shut.

  ‘Those wogs are not going anywhere near her again. You see what happens when we let anyone who knocks into our country? None of us locals are going into that houseboat or pharmacy again. Poor Pat, he should’ve known better than to employ an immigrant. Until the wog’s gone, we are boycotting. Striking. We want you gone, lady, once your husband is locked away.’

  ‘Please, just listen to us for a minute. We want to tell you what happened after Fred caught her stealing. Neema, why don’t you explain.’

  ‘Fawzy wanted … to save you from the police. Believe me, he wanted you to save Annabel … before it was too late.’

  ‘Save Annabel from what?’

  ‘From being a criminal.’ A tree trunk had more intelligence than this woman.

  ‘Look, whether you like it or not, we also want Annabel to be found so that everyone’s lives can be returned to normal. We want the same thing. So surely we can work together,’ said Tom.

  ‘This has nothing to do with you, Tom. I can’t believe you want me to help the pervert. Are you missing a crayon in the box? What do you want me to do exactly? Tell everyone the pervert is a good guy?’

  ‘We would appreciate you telling Barry that the situation with your family at home was … difficult. That Annabel was not coping.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’