Fava Beans For Breakfast

by Suzanne Salem

  ‘You need to tell the investigators that maybe you didn’t always know where she was … you didn’t know where she was when she wagged school.’

  ‘No different to any teenager.’ She shrugged and turned to Nayeema. ‘You’re running scared because you know that the heat is on your husband. Bargearse is watching him real close. He may have searched your house and found nothing but that doesn’t mean that he’s off the hook.’

  ‘Barry has more information now he’s interviewed half of the town,’ insisted Tom.

  Noelene looked at him with half-closed eyes. ‘I don’t have to listen to you. Please leave.’

  ‘Look, if the police think that she was part of some kind of gang, they will have more leads to follow, and that will change the nature of their search.’

  ‘Police are already looking out for her in Sydney. They are following all sorts of leads. But there is nothing you can say that will convince me that her pervert husband didn’t have something to do with my little girl going missing.’

  ‘Being caught stealing may have made Annabel panic, yes. That’s probably true. But you and your husband … you have to accept responsibility for letting her run wild,’ said Tom.

  ‘You’re as bad as them wogs. I can’t bear the sight of youse. Get lost,’ she growled and slammed the door. Tom had just enough time to pull his hand away from the door’s hinges, which were about to close on his fingers.

  * * *

  Nayeema and Tom had returned to his house and were drinking tea in the sunroom. They were both sullen and preoccupied on the short drive back to Hungerford Place.

  ‘You tell me your bad news now,’ said Nayeema, not wanting to hear Tom’s news at all. She touched her birthmark lightly with her fingertips as it pricked and prickled into angry lumps that were on the edge of splitting like the skin of a capsicum over an open flame.

  Tom drew a deep breath. Slowly, he exhaled over the top of his tea. ‘I warned you about your friend … about Goldie.’

  ‘Tchhh. Not this again.’

  He reached for her hand and squeezed it. ‘You’ve done such a great job on the houseboat. Everything I asked of you, you’ve delivered in spades. You have great character. None of what I am about to tell you reflects on you,’ he said, pulling his hand away.

  She clamped her lips together tightly. Black dots floated over her vision like a veil between her and Tom.

  ‘I’ve had to sell my stake of the cafe. To Goldie’s uncle. I’ve sold him the pier, and the access point and my fifty per cent of the kiosk. And I’ve let you down.’

  Nayeema stared at him mutely as she digested his words. She was more than just let down by Tom, she’d been treated like an afterthought. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I am half of the business. You think I will have anyone as business partner?’ She spat out the words as something hard and bilious rose from her stomach.

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘What do you think,’ she shouted at him. ‘We are supposed to talk about everything. You and me—we are supposed to be partners.’

  He looked out of the sunroom’s window.

  ‘What’s going to happen to the cafe?’

  ‘I don’t know. But he has to keep the cafe running, with you as manager, for the next two months. That was part of the deal.’

  ‘Part of the deal, huh … I was part of the deal? Tell me … what else was part of the deal?’ Her dark eyes flashed and squinted at him. ‘How much you sell him your fifty per cent?’

  ‘It’s irrelevant.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like I am a donkey fool.’

  ‘It was inconsequential to my decision. I had no choice,’ he snapped.

  ‘You have choice. What about my loan? The money I already pay you?’

  ‘The loan is finished. Assume you have a fifty per cent stake right now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Look, I have a plan. I can make this right.’

  ‘What about my piercing palace?’ she wailed, and clapped a hand to her forehead.

  ‘Listen, I think I can buy it all back.’

  ‘Everything you teach me about business is a rubbish waste of time.’

  ‘Come on, Neema. You’re upset. Let me explain.’

  ‘Rubbish waste of time! Did you even think of me before you throw away our business?’

  ‘I was pushed into a corner. Frank Pritchett had some information about me. Information that I wanted to keep secret.’

  ‘Tell me about this secret.’

  Tom shifted his weight from one leg to the other. His David Cassidy lips had gone hard and serious and his face was suddenly red and splotchy. ‘There was a woman that I was … seeing.’

  Nayeema’s rage fell almost instantly. ‘You have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Not really, but sort of … yes, I did. But not anymore. It’s all over now,’ Tom answered, as he stared at the ceiling cornice.

  She was curious to learn about this woman, about the type of woman that Tom Grieves desired, but suddenly her lungs felt as though they could no longer support her body. She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled slowly. ‘Yes,’ she said, as lightly as she could manage.

  ‘She’s one of the Rainbow Lilies. Actually, she’s a very clever girl. But you know how small this town is … and how people like to gossip. But I wasn’t thinking real straight when I was visiting her at the farm.’

  Humph, thought Nayeema.

  ‘There’s been a lot of talk that the Rainbow Lilies have been growing and selling marijuana. Have you heard this?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you’ll know that people around here blame me for bringing them to Burraboo. They say I should never have sold the old dairy farm to the hippies. There have been threats made to the Horizon, to burn it down, just like my car. So you can imagine … the last thing I needed was to have anyone find out that I was, you know, romantic with one of the hippies.’ Beads of perspiration glistened on Tom’s forehead. ‘I had to keep that a secret.’

  ‘She was your secret.’

  ‘Not a very good secret … Frank Pritchett, he saw me with her once. But he waited until I was the most vulnerable and then he blackmailed me. He said he’d tell the town about my … er … seeing her, and that I was always at the farm. He’d say that no decent person could spend time at the farm, and that I was somehow complicit in hippies growing drugs, just by being there with them.’

  He who mixes himself with chicken feed will be eaten by the chickens, thought Nayeema.

  ‘You know, there’s something else I have to tell you. The last time I was at the farm, I saw Goldie. She was looking very cosy there, like she knew everyone very well. I was real surprised. It’s strange, don’t you think?’

  ‘Goldie is at the farm?’

  ‘It’s why I asked you to get rid of her … I didn’t want the hippies getting comfortable on our houseboat. I didn’t want them to ruin what we had built. I wanted to keep you away from that.’

  ‘And your hippy woman … which one is she?’

  ‘You won’t know her,’ he said, gently.

  ‘The hippies sometimes come to the houseboat.’

  ‘Her name is Cherie Blossom.’

  ‘The one with the red hair?’

  ‘You know her?’

  They sat in immovable silence for a moment, the heat from the sun like a warm blade on Nayeema’s cheek.

  ‘It would have ruined me … destroyed everything I was working on with the Horizon. There have been so many bloody threats.’ Tom’s voice was pinched and his neck had ballooned out like a pommes soufflés.

  Stop, she wanted to shout. Stop. Instead, she stared at him mutely and let him speak. He told her everything about this very terrible transaction with Pritchett. She slumped back into the box seat in quiet despair. A thin finger of light fell across her face as the sun found a narrow passage through the clouds and she felt her eyes sting. Tom’s promises were like night talk and memories, melting like butter under the sun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY
- THREE

  There was a memory of yesterday’s troubles in the morning sky. Indifferent, angry clouds festered above her head. Tom Grieves was at the epicentre of a rage she couldn’t shake. He had nourished her dream, allowed it to assemble in her mind and then he dismantled it. She would never open a piercing sanctuary. Her fantasy was ended. Damn shit. She had trusted Tom. Her planning, her savings, their agreement was nothing but cold and congealed butter on the drip tray of promises. What Tom had given her was night talk. Night talk in the warm light of day.

  On the houseboat she clattered and banged cutlery in the kitchen. Crockery was broken. Drawers were almost wrenched off their frames. She was in a state. Customers cajoled her. She couldn’t tell them. How could she? Everything was changing and it was all going to damn shit. Tom Grieves could go to the hell.

  She was twenty-one years old. Already, she’d made a habit of being surrounded by men who imposed their will on her. They made decisions for her. Were they good decisions? No! They were terrible decisions. Perhaps she would not have minded if they had made good decisions? They kept making bad decisions because she wasn’t a factor in their consideration. She was an afterthought.

  She couldn’t stop the images playing over in her mind like a tape reel. Of Jayney, the dirty-haired hippy, and Tom. Together. Her disappointment plunged into new darkness. Something beautiful had unravelled from her grasp. His character. Her hopes. His judgement. Her own judgement. They were all without seams, they pulled apart so easily.

  Yesterday, she’d stomped through the lunch service in a haze, barely registering faces, going through the motions of being civil, of being alive, plating food like she was delivering pig slop. Goldie had gone wide-eyed with surprise when Nayeema told her that her Uncle Frank now owned the pier and Tom’s stake in the Fossil View Cafe. During a quieter moment, with Goldie working next to her, she slammed down a serving spoon.

  ‘Strange, huh?’ she said, with bitterness.

  ‘What’s that, honey?’

  ‘Strange that your uncle would do this thing with Tom and not tell you.’

  ‘He’s a strange man, honey. We’re not that close.’

  ‘And yet you look after him and take care of him. You live in the same house …’ Nayeema shook her head.

  ‘Since the angina attack, he’s had the nurse. He hasn’t needed me so much.’

  ‘How long did he know that you have been working here?’ Nayeema pressed.

  ‘A while … I can’t remember exactly.’

  ‘A month ago he makes the offer to Tom. Nothing makes sense.’ She slammed down a plate.

  ‘Careful, honey, don’t take it out on the plate. Look, Tom didn’t have to sell.’

  ‘Your uncle, he blackmails Tom.’

  ‘What did he blackmail Tom with? What has he got on him?’

  ‘Tom doesn’t tell me,’ Nayeema lied. She bit her lip.

  ‘Hmm. That sounds suspicious.’

  ‘There is a secret. Something to do with the Horizon development. Your uncle makes a big threat.’

  ‘Someone like Tom Grieves has more than one secret … have you decided what you are going to do?’

  ‘Your Uncle Frank is rotten. I don’t want him as my partner. You must find out what he is going to do with the pier and the houseboat. Why he doesn’t tell you about this already? Very fishing.’

  ‘Fishy,’ said Goldie, gently. ‘I agree, honey. I’ll talk to him about it tonight. What else has Tom told you about this deal?’

  ‘Nothing changes for two months. Your uncle must wait two months before he can make any changes,’ said Nayeema. ‘After that, who knows? Maybe he doesn’t want pier to be used by public. Maybe he wants to buy my fifty per cent in the cafe. Maybe I take my money and we go. Fawzy and me, back to Sydney. I need to speak to your uncle.’

  ‘He’s not one for a lot of small talk,’ Goldie said, choosing her words carefully.

  ‘I’m his new partner. He has to talk to me.’

  ‘Well, nothing changes for the next two months. You have time.’

  ‘I have to make plans.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go, baby … to Sydney. Don’t leave me here.’ Goldie pouted.

  ‘Tell him I want to talk with him, please tell him this.’

  ‘I’ll speak with him tonight,’ Goldie promised.

  Below her collarbone Nayeema felt the peculiar, hot tingle of her birthmark. Yo-oh. Not again. She didn’t know what to make of it.

  * * *

  Today, she was calmer. Frank Pritchett was going through the accounts of the houseboat. He had agreed to meet her next week. Goldie was confident her uncle would be reasonable.

  She hummed as she worked, accepted the gentle ribbing from the houseboat’s customers for being cranky yesterday. She paid attention to Michael’s earlobe, Damien’s bulbous tragus, and the charming misshapen Fibonacci relationship of Mrs Mrytle’s chin and ear.

  Towards the end of the lunch service, when the baking trays were emptied of food, the patrons departed with full stomachs, the tables cleared away and the dishes ready to be washed, Nayeema felt a stab of heat on her left ear. She instinctively reached for her earlobe and looked up. Goldie was staring at her, with her head cocked to the side and a hard inquisitive gaze that smacked the back of Nayeema’s neck.

  ‘How’s your husband these days? I keep meaning to ask,’ said Goldie.

  ‘He’s okay,’ Nayeema lied.

  ‘Any news on the missing girl?’

  ‘Police say they look for her in Sydney. We don’t know anything more. They tell us nothing.’

  ‘Is Fawzy still, um, you know … a person of interest?’

  ‘I think yes. They tell us nothing.’ She clamped her lips together and looked past the cabin door to the blue of the sky. ‘So nice outside. Let’s have rest from the dishes.’

  ‘Sounds good, honey,’ said Goldie and linked her arm at the elbow with Nayeema’s.

  They trotted up the small steps out of the cabin and made their way along the side of the houseboat to the deck at the back. There were a couple of people lingering over coffees and teas.

  ‘So he seems to be coping okay?’ asked Goldie, once they seated themselves to face the pier and the inlet. She placed her feet up on the railing.

  ‘Fawzy? Not so bad, not so good.’ Nayeema looked up at the sky. Large clouds, stiff and dense like beaten egg whites, moved quickly across the blue expanse.

  ‘I’ve heard he’s copping a hard time at the pharmacy. I’ve heard that some people are refusing to talk to him. Pat Morris’s business is not doing so well, now.’

  Nayeema’s skin went cold. ‘Who tells you this?’

  ‘You know what these Burraboo cretins are like,’ said Goldie in a lowered voice. ‘A person can say anything about anyone and no one questions them. Look, don’t worry about it. Like I said, this town is full of half-wits. Your husband must be a tough campaigner if he’s holding up okay. This sort of attention can break a person.’ She shook her head and reached for Nayeema’s hand. ‘Life can’t be too much fun for him right now. Or you.’

  ‘It is very terrible. Bloody no good, is what I think. Girl goes missing and they waste time asking poor Fawzy about that and this.’ Her anger tugged at tears.

  ‘Do you think that maybe … he could be capable of doing something weird? Honey, look, I’ve never met your man, but something I’ve learnt is that everyone is just a little bit weird, just a little bit nuts. But then, some are lots nuts.’ She crossed her eyes to make Nayeema laugh.

  ‘No. Not Fawzy.’

  ‘Must be a strain on you both.’

  ‘He is strong. He will be okay,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘Girl will be found. Everything will be okay.’

  ‘When a man gets stressed, there is one sure-fire way to get him to feel better, but if he gets too stressed … then he doesn’t want to play at all,’ she said, saucily lifting her eyebrows. ‘Which is it with him?’

  Nayeema looked at her mutely. What was she talking about
?

  She burst out laughing. ‘I’m talking about what happens in the sack, baby, can he keep it together? Can he still dig it?’

  Oh, that. Nayeema blushed and looked at her fingernails. She and Fawzy were lucky to even share a hug these days. And she was relieved. How could she tell Goldie that it was she who didn’t dig it? She threw her hands up helplessly into the air and started to open her mouth but changed her mind.

  Goldie rubbed Nayeema’s neck with her closest hand. ‘Reckon those cops don’t really need to be looking as far as Sydney for the little Annabel White bunny,’ she said, with something like a triumphant look on her face.

  ‘Why do you say this? Is good they look everywhere. Is good for everyone when they find her.’

  ‘Oh, I dunno … sometimes the most obvious places are overlooked.’

  ‘Do you know something about this girl?’ said Nayeema.

  ‘When I was about eleven years old, back when I lived in that shithole that is Griffith, there was a kid that ran away. He didn’t get too far though. There was a massive search for him. As it turned out, he was hiding in the house of one of his school teachers, Miss Mason, who pretended she knew nothing about his disappearance, but the whole time she was feeding him and taking care of him … you catch my drift?’

  ‘Not a teacher! No. Very terrible.’

  ‘Yeah. You’d expect more, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘How old was this boy?’

  ‘About fifteen.’

  ‘Was he in her house like the prisoner?’

  ‘Oh, no … not at all. He was there because he wanted to be there. He was digging it.’

  They both sat in silence and stared at their shoes resting on the railing. Goldie wore flat brown boots with tassels hanging off the sides; Nayeema wore pumps with a small heel.

  ‘So how long he hides with teacher?’

  ‘I’d say it was a good couple of months. Towards the end, he got sick of all the hiding and being cooped up all day. So he started taking more risks. You know, like going for walks and stupid stuff like buying smokes. He’d cover up with sunglasses and a hat. He was such a dill he thought no one would recognise him. Eventually, he was caught fishing at the river. Stupid bloody idiot. He was never that bright to begin with, and then, when everything came out about what the teacher was doing, she lost her job and it all got embarrassing for everyone, especially the stupid kid’s family. In the end, the family left Griffith. Fresh start and all that, you know.’