The Kookaburra Creek Café

by Sandie Docker

  Becca was a quick study and by opening time all the morning’s prep was done.

  ‘Wash up,’ Alice said, handing Becca a cloth, ‘and then come out front.’

  Becca looked down her front and then back to Alice.

  ‘There’s another apron in the pantry.’ Alice pointed to the yellow gingham hanging on a hook just inside the door.

  Joey entered the café. ‘Morning, Alice.’

  ‘Morning. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Just thought I’d pop by. Hoping to catch Miss Hattie.’

  ‘She’s not in today.’

  ‘Oh. She’s not sick, is she?’ ‘She’s fine, just tired. Anything I can help you with?’

  ‘Ah, no. It’s fine.’

  Becca came into the dining room carrying glasses.

  ‘This is Becca. She’s helping me out today,’ Alice said.

  Joey fixed his gaze on Becca, who took a step back, her eyes darting to the exit.

  ‘Well,’ Joey said. ‘Nice to meet you, Becca. Don’t let her work you too hard.’ He turned to Alice. ‘I’ll take a coffee to go.’

  ‘Is that your boyfriend?’ Becca asked, scowling as she watched Joey leave.

  Alice sighed. ‘Ah, no. He’s . . .’

  What were they exactly? She didn’t know. What they once were, what they were now – she didn’t quite have the words.

  ‘He’s a friend.’

  ‘He doesn’t like me.’

  Alice had seen the look that had crossed Joey’s face ever so briefly when he met Becca. It wasn’t dislike, though. It was shock.

  ‘It’s a small town. Newcomers are always noticed.’ She thought back to the stares and raised eyebrows that had greeted her when she first came to Kookaburra Creek. ‘They warm up, though.’ At least, they had with her.

  ‘Won’t matter,’ Becca muttered. ‘What next?’

  Alice showed her how to fold the serviettes and left her to it, watching carefully for any hints, any mannerisms that might be familiar.

  At the end of the day Alice gave Becca 100 dollars – well over what she’d earned – and walked her to the bus stop just up the road from the café.

  ‘The next one should be along in about fifteen minutes,’ Alice said. She tried to sound chirpy, but somehow couldn’t muster any real enthusiasm. She wasn’t feeling good about this one bit. ‘It’ll take you to Glensdale, and they have buses to just about anywhere you might want to go.’

  Becca looked up at her, her lips pressed tightly together, desperation in her eyes, and Alice felt her breath catch in her throat again.

  ‘Unless . . .’ Alice said, her voice wavering. ‘Unless you’d maybe like some more work?’

  Becca shrugged but Alice thought she saw relief behind those familiar blue eyes.

  ‘You can stay here.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘I have a spare room.’

  Becca shook her head. ‘No. The deck. Can I sleep on the deck?’

  ‘It might get cold.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Okay.’ If that’s what it took to keep her here.

  ‘Just till I’ve got enough to get to Brisbane.’

  Alice didn’t point out that would only be about another day’s work. ‘You can stay as long as you want.’

  They walked back to the café.

  ‘There’s a shower round the side. Feel free to use it.’

  Alice headed upstairs to her little flat above the café and into her bedroom. From the back of the wardrobe she grabbed the jeans and T-shirt that hadn’t fit her since she arrived in Kookaburra Creek. She’d always meant to give them to charity. She didn’t know why she’d kept them all these years. A reminder of a life so very distant, perhaps. Well, they had a purpose now.

  She gathered up a towel and some soap and left them outside the tiny washroom behind the café, along with her old clothes. The washroom was rarely used these days, only when the summer heat got to Alice and she’d duck out to splash herself clean between the morning and lunch rush. It certainly wasn’t a luxurious place to bathe, probably the original outhouse of the property, but the water ran strong and hot.

  It didn’t take long for Becca to pick up the basics of how the café worked. In two weeks she’d mastered setting the tables and all the day-to-day cleaning. And she’d become quite good with a paring knife, though it made Alice a little nervous at times. Particurly during the torrential rain three nights ago, which had forced Becca inside. A troubled teenager, good with a knife, sleeping in the next room, wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought. Yet most of the time, when Alice stopped thinking and just listened to her heart, she was comforted by Becca’s presence. Even so, it was strange sharing her life with someone after living alone so long – having to wait to use the bathroom now that Becca was staying in the apartment, remembering to put extra water in the kettle, stopping herself from sobbing out loud when a random grief-filled memory took her by surprise.

  Mostly, though, Alice was getting used to it. And she was definitely enjoying having someone help her in the café. Especially in the mornings.

  Alice could see Becca was getting better with the customers, too. Except for Joey. She was still very wary of him.

  ‘Can you grab the salad out of the fridge?’ Alice called in to the kitchen.

  ‘Tell me again why he has to come,’ Becca yelled back.

  ‘Because he’s my friend and it’s tradition,’ Alice said when Becca came in to the dining room, carrying the large glass bowl stuffed full of lettuce, cucumber and capsicum. ‘We’ve been doing this for so long now, I can’t even remember how we got started.’

  ‘He still doesn’t like me,’ Becca mumbled.

  ‘He just doesn’t know you.’

  ‘You don’t know me.’ Becca shrugged.

  ‘But I’m a much nicer person than grumpy old Joseph.’ Alice thought she saw a hint of a smile cross Becca’s face. ‘You just have to give people a chance.’

  ‘No one ever gave me a bloody chance.’ Becca threw the serving tongs onto the bench. Alice stepped up to Becca. The girl shifted slightly away. ‘Why are you bothering?’ she asked, not looking up at Alice.

  ‘Fair question. I guess . . . well . . . look. I don’t know what’s brought you here, Becca.’ She shrugged. ‘But I don’t think it was an accident you ended up in my pantry.’

  ‘Oh God, you’re not one of those psychic kooks, are you?’ Becca said.

  ‘No.’ Alice laughed gently. ‘Not even close. But I reckon there might be something to fate and that maybe things happen for a reason.’

  ‘I’m not worth trying to save,’ Becca said. She looked at Alice with a defiant expression.

  ‘I wasn’t going to try,’ Alice replied. She opened the fridge. ‘I’m no saviour, but you’ve proved yourself useful and I’m kind of getting used to you. So I hope you’ll stick around a little longer.’ She took the salad from Becca. ‘I know Joey can seem a little . . . rough around the edges, but he’s the best of men. Really.’

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘I’m here. Are you ready?’ Hattie burst through the café door.

  ‘Always.’ Alice grinned.

  ‘Evening.’ Joey came in behind Hattie, a little nervous if Alice wasn’t mistaken.

  ‘Becca,’ Hattie called. ‘Come out and join us, why don’t you?’

  Even Becca had learned that Hattie rarely ‘asked’, and she walked into the dining room, head slightly bowed.

  ‘Sit next to me. I want to hear all about how you’ve been getting on here in the café. I hope your boss is treating you well.’

  Becca sat dutifully, but remained silent.

  ‘So,’ Hattie said, trying to ease the tension. ‘I ran into Reverend Harris today. It would appear Fiona is back in town.’

  Alice’s chest tightened at the mention of the oldest Harris child’s name and she glanced at Joey, who didn’t seem to react at all.

  Despite her efforts to sound jovial over dinner, Hattie’s thoughts were clearl
y elsewhere, and not in a happy place. She tried to tell stories, but they kept coming off flat. And that wasn’t like Hattie at all. She was usually able to hold an audience’s attention with consummate ease. ‘And you wouldn’t believe what Claudine said at bridge last night . . .’ Alice could see through the facade, but said nothing.

  As soon as Joey spooned the last pieces of sticky date pudding into his mouth, Alice jumped up to start clearing the table.

  ‘I got this,’ he said. He stood, collected everyone’s plates and headed in to the kitchen.

  ‘Becca, be a dear and help out.’ Hattie pulled Alice back to her seat. ‘Now, tell me,’ Hattie continued, once Joey and Becca were out of the room. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘She’s working out wonderfully. Doesn’t give me a lot, you know, about her past. Well, about anything at all, really. But she is a huge help . . .’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about Becca. I can see for myself how that’s going. I’m talking about Joey. He seems upset.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I think he’s struggling with Becca being here. It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘Petal, it’s never nothing between you two. Neither of you ever seems certain of whatever the something is that passes between the two of you like this, but it sure as eggs is never nothing.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder, well, you know. If only . . .’

  ‘Codswallop.’

  ‘Codswallop?’

  ‘You heard me. When you get to my age you realise how much life you waste on “if only”. How much time you squander wishing things were different instead of making them so. And with Fiona Harris back in town, you can’t afford to be wasting any —’

  A crashing sound shot through the air and Alice jumped up and ran into the kitchen.

  ‘What the . . .’ she looked at the plates smashed into tiny pieces across the floor. Becca’s eyes were glued to the floor, her hands open beside her, slightly raised.

  ‘My fault,’ Joey said. ‘Tried to carry too much.’

  Alice had known him too long not to know he was lying.

  ‘Joey?’ Alice glared at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, bending down to pick up the pieces. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘I thought it was Greeks, not Italians, who smashed plates,’ Hattie said as she entered the kitchen.

  Alice shot her a look.

  ‘Would you walk me home, Joey?’ She linked her arm in his.

  As they left the kitchen Hattie turned back to Alice and mouthed, ‘Never nothing.’

  Alice turned around to see Becca walking out the back door. She counted to three and followed her out to the jetty.

  ‘Jetty’ was probably too grand a word to describe the old planks of wood that stretched over the water’s edge running behind the Kookaburra Creek Café, but Alice liked to imagine small handmade rafts or tiny rowboats tied up to it on a lazy Sunday afternoon, a man and his son waiting patiently, fishing lines bobbing in the water. Alice made her way down to the jetty where Becca now sat, jeans rolled up, legs dangling in the gently lapping water below.

  Alice sat beside her. ‘Sorry if he scared you,’ she said.

  ‘Scared me?’

  ‘Yes. You looked pretty frightened when I walked in. He really is the gentlest soul.’

  ‘It wasn’t him,’ Becca whispered.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It was me. I dropped the plates.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I dropped them. By accident. But I panicked. They cost money and I thought you’d be angry.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I begged him not to tell you it was me.’

  ‘Becca, sweetheart.’ Alice sighed. ‘Why on earth would I be angry at you for breaking a few plates?’

  She shrugged.

  Alice went to put her arm around the girl, but Becca wriggled away.

  ‘Have I ever given you any reason to think I would react angrily to something like that?’ Alice asked.

  ‘No.’ Becca shook her head. ‘But that’s what they do. Make you think you can trust them, then bam.’

  Alice hesitated. She didn’t want to push too soon. ‘Well, I’m not “they”, and I’ll never yell at you.’

  They sat in silence and took in their surroundings. A tawny frogmouth began his evening serenade as the moon rose into the sky. Alice loved clear nights when the stars blinking above her went on forever. She searched for the Southern Cross, divided the pointers and traced the imaginary lines through the constellation.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Becca looked at her with a frown.

  ‘Something my dad taught me.’ Alice showed her, just the way Bruce had shown her when she ten, how to find true south.

  ‘Why did Joey cover for me?’ Becca asked, her finger dancing amongst the stars above her head.

  ‘He covered for you because you asked him to,’ Alice said.

  I don’t trust him.

  The way he looks at me sometimes is unnerving. He didn’t dob me in tonight, but that’s what they do. Lure you in. Make you trust them. And then you’re trapped. And trapped is bad.

  Sometimes at night I slip back out to the deck and sleep there. Unlike a room with four walls and only one way in or out, easily blocked, the deck has options. Escape options.

  There’s no lock on the door of the room and when I do sleep there I push the desk across it just in case. I’ve got a bag of clothes, hand-me-downs the church ladies gave Alice, and a crate of tinned food I’ve been collecting buried in the bush out the back. At night I sneak out one tin at a time, slowly so she doesn’t notice. I’m building up my getaway supplies. Just in case.

  It is nice to be clean, though. It’d been six months since I’d had a shower. Six months of moving from one park to another, hitching rides from one deadbeat town to the next. Always running. Always moving. Six months since I’d had any real food. Hunger is a total bitch, a gnawing pain that never goes away. I don’t miss that. But I can’t get too comfortable. This won’t last. Nothing good ever does.

  Alice will show her true colours at some point. They always do.

  It’s good to rest, though. To not run. Just for a little while.

  Lawson’s Ridge, 2003

  lice walked her usual route to the general store and pinned her name tag to her striped uniform. Mrs Reynolds would be in around ten to do her weekly shop. Alice would try to tempt her into buying a fruit cake Louise’s grandmother had made and delivered that morning, but it wouldn’t be on Mrs Reynolds’ list, so she’d say no. One day Alice would crack her, though. It was her mission. One of many missions she set to help while away the endless hours. Alice’s boss, Mr Williams, would turn up around 10.30, his curls unbrushed, after having breakfast with his not-so-secret friend Donna Dobson, who was still married to Mr Dobson, the only one in town who didn’t know of his wife’s indiscretions. Sally and Sue, the aptly named Spinster Sisters, would wander in around one o’clock and buy an apple each. And at two, just as Alice was clocking off, the Trainor boys would speed past in their beat-up ute and toot their horn, creating a mini dust storm behind them. Just another Sunday at Lawson’s Ridge General Store.

  Alice unpacked the newspapers, delivered overnight from Sydney (everything happened in Sydney), and placed them in the rack by the front door. The alarm on the digital clock near the register chimed with three short trills and Alice raced back behind the counter just before the glass door opened.

  ‘Morning, Bertie,’ she said, looking intently down at the cracks in the counter surface.

  ‘Morning, Alligator.’ Bertie stood before her in his brown dressing gown, grey hair unkempt, grey stubble in need of a shave.

  Reaching behind her for Bertie’s cigarettes, Alice kept her eyes down. Without looking up she took his money and gave him his change. He didn’t move.

  Alice knew he wouldn’t leave the shop till she looked up, so she raised her head. Bertie opened his dressing gown and put the cigarettes in the inside pocket.

  ‘Blue today, Bertie.’ Alice sighe
d.

  ‘Bertie good boy.’ He nodded, ever so proud as always of his boxers. Alice could only imagine how many times his mother must have told him as a child that every good boy changed their underwear regularly. She wished he wouldn’t show her, though. Just once couldn’t he put a singlet on under his dressing gown? Trousers, even? Not that it was his fault. There wasn’t any help for people like Bertie this far from civilisation.

  Just before closing she packed away the remaining two cakes Louise’s grandmother had made. Six sales today. Grandma Jenkins would be pleased. She grabbed the envelope Mr Williams had given her before he’d left at twelve and she locked the front door, pushing the keys back through the mail chute.

  As she turned to walk home she hit something solid and dropped to the ground.

  ‘Sorry!’ Dean McRae stood over her.

  She shook her head. ‘So you should be. Ouch.’

  Dean bent down to help her up, but she refused his outstretched hand.

  ‘Pond, huh?’

  Alice followed his gaze to the name tag she’d forgotten to take off. She fumbled to remove it.

  ‘I like it. Alice Pond.’

  ‘It doesn’t really matter if you like it or not. It’s my name.’

  ‘True. You’re a strange one, Pond.’ Dean followed her as she headed down the path.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Okay. Where are we heading?’

  ‘We?’ Alice stopped walking and looked him in the eye. ‘Of all the things people have said about you since you got here, crazy stalker hasn’t yet come up.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He took a step back, his expression giving away how hurt he was by her barb.

  ‘I normally walk home through Faraway Forest,’ Alice said with a sigh.

  ‘What-away what?’

  ‘Never mind. It’s this way if you want to come.’

  Dean fell into step beside her and they walked through the brown, dusty streets. There was a time, Alice remembered, when she was really little, when the shop windows were full of colour, showing off their wares with pride. Cute little tea cups and pots arranged in sets in the gift store, and ceramic angels hanging from fishing wire; the haberdashery store her mum used to frequent, with stripes and dots and florals and checks stacked on top of one another next to the mannequin draped in some fancy silk or satin, always holding a basket stuffed full of wool skeins. Now most of the shops were empty, their windows boarded up and abandoned. The pub still thrived, though. So did the TAB. No matter what happened to the town, old men always had money for booze and bets. Middle-aged men, too. Alice knew that all too well.