by Lilly Mirren
If only Nan were still here, she could ask her about it. Ask her who this boy was who’d stolen her heart, and why they weren’t married the way they’d obviously planned to be.
What had stopped them?
She slapped the diary shut and put it back where she’d found it, then dressed to go downstairs to breakfast. Reeda, Bindi, and Mima were already seated at the breakfast table. Through the back screen door Kate saw a black cat with white socks and a white nose crouched at a bowl of food, eating.
Jack was wiping his boots off at the back door. He met her with a quiet smile, then took his place at the head of the table. There was something peaceful about his presence. It offered her a sense of safety, security. He didn’t say much, but he brought so much to the room. She smiled in response and picked the seat beside Bindi. The table held plates of bacon, scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and a tub of creamy mango yoghurt.
“I don’t know, I think I’ll take some time off to travel or something.” Bindi finished her sentence as Kate joined the group. She glanced at Kate with a half-smile, her eyes full of emotion.
“You’re going to travel?” asked Kate, as she reached for the plate of scrambled eggs.
Bindi nodded as she pushed a spoonful of yoghurt into her mouth.
She swallowed. “Maybe. I feel like I missed out when I was younger. I wanted to be a journalist, so as soon as I finished school, I went off to uni to study. Then, all the good positions were being snapped up at the major newspapers and television stations in my final year, so I jumped on the bandwagon. I didn’t think about taking time off to do something as luxurious as travel, to see the world. My only focus was my career, getting that perfect job, the one that would catapult me into journalistic stardom.” She let out a sarcastic “ha,” then shook her head. “How ridiculous.”
Kate chewed a mouthful of eggs with a frown. “That wasn’t ridiculous. You dreamed of becoming a journalist and you went after it. I’ve always admired the way you did that — and now you’re one of the top television journalists in Australia. I see you on TV all the time, whenever the Brisbane news broadcasts a national story, there you are, reporting live from Canberra, or Melbourne, Singapore, or Tokyo. You’ve travelled a lot.”
“Yeah. But not for fun.” Bindi kept her head down, eyes fixed on the bowl in front of her. “So, how’s the chef life treating you?”
Kate sensed her sister was changing the subject on purpose, but she could also tell Bindi wasn’t ready to talk about whatever it was that was eating at her. Bindi always came around, she only needed time and a little space. At least, that was how she’d been when they were girls, and maybe things hadn’t changed as much as she’d thought.
Kate drew in a deep breath. “It’s been great… well, it was, until I came here for Nan’s funeral. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean?” asked Reeda, around a mouthful of toast.
Kate pursed her lips. “I was about to launch the new menu that I’ve been working on for months, and that Marco took his sweet time approving. He’s a complete control freak and hates to try anything new at the restaurant. So, it was a huge deal that he approved it, and it was all set to happen, but I had to come here. I’m not complaining, of course I’m not, but that meant my staff had to try to launch the menu without me, and apparently it was a disaster.”
Reeda shook her head. “I’m sorry, Kate. That’s rough.”
“I’m sure he’ll give you another chance. You’ll be back in Brisbane before you know it, and you can try again,” encouraged Bindi with a half-smile on her lips.
“I don’t know… the longer I stay in Cabarita, the more I think he’s looking for a permanent replacement.”
“But you’ve been there forever,” said Reeda, her brows drawn together. “Haven’t you?”
“Five years. But Marco isn’t exactly loyal. He’s… more concerned about his business than his staff.”
“Well, if that’s true then good riddance,” said Mima with a sniff. “You can work here. We need a good chef in the kitchen.”
“But you’re the cook at the Waratah,” objected Kate.
Mima sighed. “I know, but I won’t be here forever. You girls need to think about the future, what you want to do with this place. And you’ll have to think about what you’ll do without me and Jack someday. We’re both getting a bit long in the tooth.”
Jack looked up from his plate of bacon and eggs with a frown. “Hey, speak for yourself.”
Mima chuckled. “Yes, you are getting old, Jack, my friend. Even you.”
* * *
Later, when Kate and Bindi had cleaned up the breakfast things, and Mima was sitting in the breakfast nook with Reeda, talking knitting patterns and the best kinds of yarn, Kate felt the pull of the diary hidden beneath her pillow.
She shook her head. It wouldn’t be right to spend the day tucked up in bed reading. Not when there was so much to get done. It’d do her good to get out and about, breathe some fresh air, maybe go for a run.
Suddenly she knew what she wanted to do. She dressed in her yellow bikini, then covered it up with tracksuit pants and a jumper, and threw on a rain jacket as a last-minute addition, just in case. Her car was still parked in the empty lot at the front of the inn. She turned the key, and it idled a moment before roaring to life in the cold morning air.
The car tyres crackled on the gravel driveway as she pulled the car around the outside of the inn to where the garden shed sat, squat, dark, and leaning slightly to the left. Leaving the car idling, she jogged into the shed and reached for the surfboard that lay against the wall in one corner of the shed.
Covered in a fine layer of dust, the surfboard was badly in need of a wax, but she didn’t have time. Buoyed by excitement and a desire to keep moving, she fixed the board to her car’s roof rack, then slid into the driver’s seat.
The track she followed, slow and steady with the car in second gear, was as familiar to her as the inn itself. The small, private beach was part of the inn’s property, and was Nan’s favourite place to go to get away from it all, as she’d said. Though now she thought about it, Kate couldn’t imagine what Nan was getting away from in this sleepy and idyllic paradise.
Nothing had changed when she pulled the car to a stop in their usual spot. There was perhaps a little more undergrowth than she remembered, but the narrow path that led down to the sheltered beach was just the same.
She climbed out of the car and stood with her hands on her hips, sniffing the salt infused air. She smiled and reached for her wetsuit. By the time she was dressed, she was shivering from top to bottom so that her teeth tapped against each other like they were sending a message in Morse code.
With the surfboard firmly tucked beneath her arm, she jogged through the cold sand, along the path and down to the beach. Memories rose to the surface — Nan, pacing along the shore, or swimming at the water’s edge when the waves died down until the ocean wasn’t much more than an azure coloured lake. She’d laid on her back, hands fanning at her sides, and slid up and down the smooth rising and sagging of the waves’ gentle humps, her gaze fixed on the blue sky overhead.
Nan wouldn’t have gone for a swim today though. The wind tugged at the top of the water, sending sprays of whitewash skyward. Waves dumped on the sodden, sandy shore, and seagulls huddled in clumps behind dark, forlorn rocks that were scattered along the beach like the bony backs of sleeping cattle. Overhead, grey clouds surfed across the sky at a brisk pace, colliding and reshaping as moisture filled their bellies.
Kate hesitated on the shore, taking it all in with eager eyes. This is what she’d missed. The wild abandon of the ocean, the beauty of nature, the mystery of the unknown adventure that lay ahead. It gave her spirit a surge of hope, as anticipation of standing tall on those waves pumped through her veins.
Then, she was in the water. She ran through the last vestiges of a wave as it pulled back into the depths beyond the breakers with a hiss and a sigh. The first wave came at her and she
launched the surfboard forward, landing on it with a grunt as her stomach took the impact. Then, when the next wave reached her, she duck-dived beneath it, pushing the front of the board down under the thunder of saltwater that crashed over her.
By the time she’d caught three waves, she needed a rest. She sat on her board, out beyond the break, to catch her breath. A blanket of rain pattered over the water toward her, catching her in a heavy downpour. She rubbed the droplets from her eyes and smoothed her hair back, letting the frigid rain pummel her face.
A fisherman stood on an outcropping of rocks at the end of the beach. Clothed in a black raincoat, a hat pulled low over his eyes, he stood immobile, his fishing line stretching long into the restless water. She waved a hand over her head, wondering if he could see her. It was a private beach, after all, and perhaps she knew him. He waved back, a brief tap of fingertips to the edge of his hat.
As she sat there, watching wave after wave roll and fizz against the shore, her thoughts returned to Nan’s diary. The way Nan described her life, it seemed as though she was talking about someone else, someone Kate had never met. Who was this girl rebelling against strict parents, living on a farm, in love with a boy she planned to marry? Kate didn’t recognise in her the carefree, warm, determined woman who’d been her grandmother, who’d raised her after she lost her own parents.
She shivered in her wetsuit with her lips pressed together. Would she ever find the kind of love Nan described? Could she love Davis that way, or should she want that? The relationship she and Davis shared wasn’t the heady crush of two adolescents. It didn’t carry with it the sweet scent of rebellion against overly strict parents. It was a mature decision, a choice to be together, made by two adults. How could she compare it to what Nan shared with Charlie?
Still, something inside her craved it.
She tried to imagine what Mum and Dad would think of Davis. Would they approve? Her heart constricted, bringing an ache into her chest. They’d never get the chance to meet him, so she had no way of knowing. Each year that passed, her memories of them faded until she wasn’t sure which of the pictures in her mind were real and which she’d conjured out of her own longing.
Kate scrubbed her face with both hands. It wasn’t fair to lose them so young, but for some reason it almost seemed worse to realise the memories she had of them were weakening. Would they disappear entirely one day, and she’d wake up wondering who they’d been after all?
White caps surrounded her, so when the humpback whale breached only ten metres away from her, she had to swallow down a scream. It startled her, and she clung to her surfboard as its black back curved through the dark water, its blowhole shooting air and water toward the sky with one, sharp exhale.
When she’d regained her senses, she hooted loudly, yelling in delight, her heart thundering against her ribs.
“Woohoo!” she cried.
Two more whales broke the water’s surface a short distance away, and her broad smile widened further still.
“Amazing,” she whispered, her wide eyes fixed on the place where the creatures had disappeared.
She lay down on the surfboard and paddled after them. They continued surfacing every thirty seconds or so, breathing hard and rolling through the water with unhurried ease. She followed them, breathless, unwilling to say goodbye. They were magnificent, beautiful, awe-inspiring.
When she neared the rocks that marked the end of the beach, she pulled up and sat on her board to watch them go. She didn’t want to travel too far, her car was parked at this beach and she could feel the tug of a rip beneath her, pulling her out into the wide, harried ocean.
She watched for several long minutes as the whales continued their way northward, heading toward the main beach at Cabarita, and on to their final destination. Her pulse returned to its normal rate, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It was a sign. There was so much beauty in the world, sometimes it was difficult to see, but it was there.
With a deep breath, she paddled onto a wave. She stood to her feet and followed the wave toward the shore. Too late, she realised she’d caught the wave spine-tinglingly close to the rocks. She turned at the last moment, hoping to follow the break in the other direction, but lost her balance. As she tumbled from the board and into the water, pain burst out over one thigh. The rocks scratched her flesh and tore through her wetsuit, cutting into her skin as she rolled over and over.
Instinctively, she covered her head with both arms, and when the wave passed over her, she found her footing and climbed the rocks as quickly as she could. She tugged the surfboard behind her, grabbing it up beneath her arm as soon as she was able, then scrambled higher up the pile of sharp, black rocks as the next wave hit them.
Kate hunkered down against the rocks as sea spray showered her from behind, then stood again to hurry forward.
“Are you okay?” The fisherman strode toward her across the sand. He wore a hat, black with rain, pulled low over his eyes. A blue raincoat was zipped beneath his chin, waders covered his jean clad legs and became a pair of charcoal gumboots. He stopped a moment to push his fishing pole into the sand, then climbed the rocky outcropping, closing the space between them in a few strides.
When he drew close, she recognised him, and relief flooded over her. It was Alex, his eyes crinkled with worry.
She nodded. “I think so,” then, glanced down at her legs and examined her arms. Rivulets of blood wound their way from several places, but none of the wounds looked deep. Not that she could see, anyway.
He took her hand and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “Here, lean on me. Leave the board, I’ll come back for it.”
She nodded and slipped off her ankle strap. Then, leaning her weight on him, she hobbled over the rocks and down the other side, grateful for the respite of the cool sand on the soles of her feet.
When they reached the beach, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her easily back to her car and set her feet in the gravel.
“What were you thinking?” he asked, irritation darkening his features.
Her lips pursed, and she inhaled a sharp breath. “What do you mean? I caught the wave a little close to the rocks, that’s all. It was an accident.”
His hazel eyes flashed. “Well, you shouldn’t be surfing on a day like today if you can’t tell where to drop in and where not to.”
Her throat tightened. A lecture was the last thing she needed. Her legs were bruised, and likely her arms as well. What she needed was first aid. She blinked.
His voice softened. “I’m sorry, I was worried. I thought you might really be injured when I saw you fall.”
“There were whales,” she whispered.
His lips broke into a half-smile. “Ah yes, the whale pod, I saw them too. Pretty amazing. I usually see whales out here at this time of year, that’s why I like to come to this spot. It’s great for whale watching… and for time to myself.”
She hugged herself, her teeth chattering. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t, and anyway, it’s your land. I’m the one interrupting.”
“I used to love coming here. It was Nan’s favourite beach.” She stared back toward the water.
“I know, she and I used to fish here together sometimes.” His voice was soft.
Kate studied him, his black oilskin coat, brown jumper poking through, sodden Akubra hat pulled low over his brow, and gumboots pulled high over rain-soaked jeans. Nan had come here, to her favourite beach, to fish with this man? A man she’d never heard of until two weeks ago when she ran into him at the stables. She must’ve liked him.
“I’ll go and get your board before it’s washed away.”
He disappeared up the trail, and Kate quickly dried off and changed back into her warm tracksuit. She glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror, and was startled by the paleness of her skin, the way her freckles stood out against her thin nose, and the dark blue tinge to her lips.
“Here you go,” said Alex, pushing the
board onto her roof racks.
He secured the board in place, then stood in front of her with his hands pressed to his hips. “You okay to drive back?”
She gave one quick nod. “Fine, thanks. And thank you for your help.”
He smiled. “No worries.”
Kate climbed into her car and started the engine. Alex stepped forward and leaned down to look through her open window.
“Hey, I was thinking about what we discussed… you know, about the stables.”
Her mind scrambled to recover their conversation. So much had happened since then, it felt like a lifetime ago.
“I’ve got a few bits and pieces of timber and whatnot hanging around at home that my carpenter mate gave me. I thought I might go ahead and get started rebuilding the stables.”
She smiled. “That sounds great. Thank you.”
He shrugged. “No worries. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment. I’m happy to help.”
As she drove back to the inn, she couldn’t dislodge the image of him in her rearview mirror, standing with his arms crossed over his thick chest as he watched her drive away. She’d misjudged him during their first encounter. The way he’d helped her over the rocks, then carried her up the beach, it quickened her pulse and warmed her face.
She parked the car in the lot, then hobbled inside, already feeling her body stiffening. Mima exclaimed over her and bustled off to get the first aid kit. By the time she was patched up, she was yawning in the warmth of the kitchen. She hauled herself up the staircase, grimacing with each painful step, then fell into her bed. Her eyes felt leaden, and her body exhausted. And within a few moments, she was fast asleep.