by Stella Quinn
George cleared his throat. ‘Bloody women.’
‘I know, pet,’ she said. ‘And I’m taking that as a yes, and don’t worry about deciding on your hobby, I’ve decided for you. I’ve had an idea.’
A bony finger poked Josh in the back. ‘Really, it was my idea,’ whispered Kev.
He heard a little snort beside him, and caught Vera hiding a grin behind her hand. So. The new café owner had a sense of humour, did she? If he didn’t have Poppy and Hannah and the future of his just-started vet career to worry about, he would have liked to get to know Vera a little better. He let his eyes rest on her face, on the dark sweep of lashes hiding serious eyes, the generous curve of mouth … yeah, a lot better.
He tuned back in to Marigold, who had a head of steam up now. ‘The Hanrahan and District Community Association is having a few hiccups at present, as I’m sure most of you know. Our hall is closed for renovations, and Vera’—she smiled her thanks at Vera, who stood beside him, blini tray in hand, reminding him of a roo paralysed by a set of high beam headlights—‘has made us welcome. So welcome, in fact, that as President of the Community Association, I have made a decision. I think that instead of postponing our weekly craft meetings until the hall is back in use, we should move it right here into The Billy Button Café’s back room. Once a week, like always, Wednesday evenings. And you, George, can bring along Joyce’s unfinished craft projects and do yourself and the world a favour by joining in.’
‘Oh, hell,’ muttered The Billy Button Café’s lucky proprietor by his side. He glanced at her, ready to offer a commiserating smile at the way she’d been roped in so sneakily by Marigold, when his attention was snagged by the spectacle beyond her, staring in at him through the street-facing windows.
He’d know that kilt anywhere. Hideous orange, with a broad black plaid, teamed with stockings you could use to catch fish and a blouse that had so little fabric it’d struggle to catch a butterfly.
The tortured goth look he could cope with, but there was something new, something glinting silver amid the heavy eyeliner and powder plastered on his daughter’s face. Christ almighty, Poppy had a ring sprouting out of one of her eyebrows.
Oh, hell was about right.
The door to The Billy Button Café swung shut behind Josh and he inspected the glowering face of his daughter.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Six hours and fifty-eight minutes,’ Poppy fired at him. ‘You said it would take five hours tops.’
‘Do I get a hug? Or are we moving straight into the bickering? I’m fine with either.’
‘Idiot,’ Poppy said, and then she stepped forward and he wrapped his arms around her.
‘I missed you, too.’ The prickle of cheap metal dug into his bicep and his mouth kept talking before his brain had a chance to caution him. ‘I’m not loving that eyebrow ring, Pop.’
She stiffened into a plank of outrage and drew back.
‘Too bad,’ she said. ‘You won’t like my tattoo, either.’
‘Tattoo? Wait, it’s illegal for kids to get tatt—’
Her eyeroll silenced him. ‘You’re winding me up, aren’t you? Come on, let’s get over to the clinic and I can show you around. You were a toddler last time you saw your great-grandparents’ building. Hey, where’s your luggage? And come to think of it, how did you get here? The train ends in Cooma.’
‘My luggage is on my back. I caught a bus. I have no interest in old buildings. I do, however, have a keen interest in doing a pee, so maybe you could continue your interrogation when we get to wherever we’re going.’
‘That eyebrow ring has made you very stroppy, Poptart.’
She shrugged, but she didn’t pull away when he reached down to tuck her hand in his, so he left it at that. The backpack she was wearing was more like a decorative handbag with crisscross shoulder straps than actual luggage—clearly, his daughter wasn’t planning on a long visit to Hanrahan.
Well. He’d have to do something about that.
He headed across the park to Salt Creek Flats Road. ‘What are your thoughts on helping out with the clinic animals while you’re here?’
‘You keep animals now?’
‘Sure. We have a sleepover room with cages which connects to a grassy area out the back. Dogs recovering from snake bite, rabbits with hotspots who need to be on antibiotics, that sort of thing. Your Auntie Hannah runs her practice more like an animal hospital than a day clinic, so there’s always a house guest or two that needs its ears scratched or its water bowl filled.’
Poppy gave a noncommittal grunt, so he decided to sweeten the bait.
‘You’ll love Jane Doe and the gang.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Jane is a lost dog. She was brought in to the clinic a couple of weeks ago and we delivered eight pups. The mum’s a labrador, father unknown.’
‘I guess puppies are kinda cute.’
‘You should see the fat one. He’s a heartbreaker.’
Josh stopped on the footpath when they reached the clinic and looked up at the old Cody building. His old building … his and Hannah’s, and Poppy’s, too, one day. The midday sun was shining down on the granite gneiss blocks, making the façade gleam, and the fresh white he’d painted on the windows of the upper storeys gave the building a touch of the elegance it must once have had. Before some butcher architect in the seventies tacked on a plywood storefront to the ground floor.
‘Here it is. Home.’
Poppy looked up. ‘It’s, um … big. I guess.’
‘Yep.’
‘And kinda bodgy looking.’
He pulled her ponytail. ‘I’m working on that. Clinic’s on the bottom floor, you and me are in the middle, and Hannah’s got the top floor.’
‘I do have a bed, right?’
‘Bed, doona, pillows.’ He wondered if this was the right time to mention he hadn’t got the hot water working on his floor yet. Nope. Some news was best delivered over pizza.
They didn’t make it upstairs.
A rap on the windowpane from inside distracted him from his building-gazing. A woman was eyeballing him from the reception area, pointing at her watch.
Shoot. His noon appointment had arrived ahead of schedule.
‘Looks like you’ll have to show yourself around the apartment, Pop. Sandy—that’s the receptionist, you’ll need to keep on her good side if you want access to the high calibre biscuits—will show you where to go.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Come on, let’s drop your bag inside. Me and Han usually use the side door to get in and out without cutting through the reception room, but you see that woman staring us down?’
‘With the big hair?’
He grinned. ‘Kelly Fox. Went to school with me. She’s a little snippety, but she has a kid not much younger than you. Let’s say g’day.’
‘I’m not here to meet people, Dad.’
‘Whatever,’ he said, giving her his best Poppy impersonation. She frowned at him and he laughed. ‘Come on, at least come in and meet their guinea pig.’
He pushed open the front door of the clinic and ushered Poppy in ahead of him.
‘Kelly,’ he said. ‘And Braydon, isn’t it? Let me just grab your file and we can go through.’
Sandy’s eyebrows disappeared under her fringe when he walked over to the counter to collect the chart she was waving at him. ‘Is that your daughter?’ she whispered.
‘Sure is. Poppy, honey, come and meet Sandy.’
‘Hi,’ his daughter said.
‘Hello at last,’ smiled Sandy. ‘I love your boots!’
He chuckled. ‘Don’t encourage her, Sandy. Do you mind showing Poppy around while I see to the Fox family?’
‘Not at all. You’ve got a pair of cats in at two, then a break until Pete Harris at five. His border collie’s coming in to get the drain out of his ear and a few stitches put in.’
‘Gotcha.’
He turned back to Kelly and the kid beside her who had a shoebox w
ith—he assumed—an arthritic guinea pig tucked up inside of it. ‘Come on, team, let’s head into the treatment room. Pop, you want to meet Peanut?’
Kelly had made it into the treatment room ahead of him, but she only had eyes for Poppy. ‘So this is your daughter, Josh.’
Josh frowned. Kelly’s tone sounded a little too interested.
‘Yes. She’s visiting from Sydney. Poppy, this is Mrs Fox and her son Braydon.’
The boy was lifting the lid on the shoebox and Poppy was leaning in to have a look at Peanut, a smile on her face for the first time since she’d arrived in Hanrahan. Animals, Josh thought. The world’s greatest source of comfort.
‘So, is it true about your mum?’ the boy said to Poppy, wiping the smile from her face. ‘You know, what we read about her in the paper?’
CHAPTER
8
Dear Aunt Jill
It’s me again, Vera, your niece.
I have a little fun news that you might enjoy. You know how you’ve spent years trying to convince me that craft is fun, not just a chore involving knitting needles or hot glue guns, and I’ve never, ever, ever believed you?
Well, I’ve been persuaded (bulldozed, really) into allowing a local craft group to use part of the café as its temporary headquarters.
There’s a very bossy woman in town, Marigold Jones; have you met her? She tells me she visits Connolly House pretty often. She’s about six feet tall, wears outfits that are sort of half hippy, half Gold Coast muu-muu. She has a deep voice so beautiful it’s like she hypnotises you and you agree to anything she suggests. Just today at a wake we hosted here (she seems to have about forty jobs, and one of them is being a celebrant at weddings and funerals), she started off saying a few words, and before I knew what was what, she’d volunteered my café for her craft group and strong-armed the husband of the deceased to turn up for knitting lessons!
The wake was busy, and I took some orders for cakes (your hummingbird recipe is a big hit). Hopefully, the people who came enjoyed their morning tea enough to visit us again.
All that craft talk reminded me of your boxes, you know, the ones we pulled out of storage when we left Queanbeyan.
Vera put down her pen to roll her shoulders. The function had gone well—except for that last bit when Marigold Jones decided to offer up The Billy Button Café’s back room for her craft group. Was that what had made her feel guilty about not unpacking her aunt’s boxes? Jill had been such a keen crafter in her day … and Vera’s sporadic attempts at unpacking had uncovered a stash of half-finished projects.
She’d barely begun rifling through them when crazy, scrappy fabric things in watermelon red and blueberry blue and paprika orange had surfaced. Half-made skirts, table runners, a plump assortment of patches that was maybe a quilt.
Perhaps there’d be some items in those boxes she could use to add a flourish to the café’s interior? Some exotic material that would make gorgeous cushions on the new green velvet banquettes, or an art deco vase or bronze candelabra to perch on the mantlepiece above the fire.
Vera twisted in her chair and tried to imagine the café gussied up with some of her aunt’s collection. It would be like Jill had visited The Billy Button Café in person to wish it well.
‘I’m off, Vera. Kitchen’s clean, windows are locked, till money’s hidden in the microwave.’
She turned, waved a hand at Graeme as he pulled his jacket off the peg by the door. ‘It went well today, didn’t it?’
‘Super well. So well, in fact, maybe we think about a waitperson or two—casual hours—to keep the tables cleared and the food served hot at busy times.’
The calico bag of takings she was going to drop into the bank in the morning was by her hand. She touched it with a fingertip. Counting up the notes and merchant slips in there had made her start to believe, just a little, that her mad, mad plan to keep her aunt in care even if she wasn’t around to earn a living might actually work.
‘Vera?’
‘Oh, sorry Graeme, I started daydreaming about café profits and drifted off. What did you say?’
‘You want me to look into hiring some more staff?’
‘Oh, yes please.’
‘No prob. Just one thing: Wednesday night is date night for me, so I’m not going to be much use for craft group. I’m sorry. Alex’s schedule won’t be flexible until the fire station roster changes.’
‘You have date night? That is so sweet.’ Well, not to her, obviously—date nights had been poisoned forever by her ex-boyfriend, along with romance, candlelit dinners and handholding—but she could be glad for Graeme. Only … oh crap. That meant she’d be the one who’d have to chat nicely about craft with a dozen of Marigold’s cronies every week.
Graeme’s grin was a little sly. ‘You know Marigold will rope you in to making tassels, or decoupage, or painting wild horses on velvet.’
She chuckled. ‘You’re making my blood run cold. I’ll manage. Thanks for letting me know.’
‘Don’t stay here too late, will you, boss? I can wait, if you want me to walk you to your car.’
What a guy. ‘No, Graeme, you get along home. I’m just finishing this letter to my aunt while the meringues cool off, then I’ll be on my way.’
‘Your Aunt Jill who lives in the hospice down at Cooma?’
‘Yep.’
‘Why do you write to her when you go visit her twice a week?’
She sighed. ‘She doesn’t recognise me. When I visit, she thinks I’m my mother—her sister, Barb—who passed away a long time ago now. Jill’s geriatrician gave me some advice about communicating with her … aim for a peaceful environment, you know, so she isn’t distracted by noise and buzz, and use a method of communication that she enjoyed in the past. Music, cards, singing and so on. Jill always loved receiving letters, so I write these and we sit in the garden at Connolly House and I read them to her. I like to think somehow, somewhere in her thoughts, she knows what her niece Vera is up to.’
‘You’re a sweetheart, Vera, you know that?’
She swallowed. She was pretty sure if she was truly a sweetheart, she wouldn’t be facing a criminal prosecution. ‘See you tomorrow, Graeme. We can workshop how we’re going to run this weekly stitch-and-bitch event Marigold sucker-punched us into.’
‘You got it, boss.’
Silence settled in the spotless café when the door shut behind Graeme, and Vera leaned back in her chair.
Things really were going well. The Italian-style dinner menu she was experimenting with was receiving compliments, the coffee was exceptional thanks to Graeme’s skill at the espresso machine. The locals of Hanrahan were all coming for a look-see and buying a roasted-vegetable tart or a cake, and despite it being the shoulder season between snow skiing and bushwalking, holiday tourists were plentiful.
She turned back to her letter.
We (that’s me and my new manager, Graeme, who is a godsend. He’s a marvel with the customers and could run this place with his eyes closed) are going to try opening up a couple more evenings a week and test the market for more formal dinners. It’ll mean getting some help with food prep, as dinner menus aren’t my forte, as you know!
I’ll write again soon to let you know how it all goes, but it’s getting late, and work starts early in the kitchens here. The apartment I’m renting is just a few blocks away from the café, and the streets seem very safe here in town, but I don’t want to be heading home too late alone.
I’ll visit when I can,
Love, Vera xx
A bleep-bleep from her phone interrupted her as she was folding the letter into an envelope, and she fished it out of her apron pocket and checked the screen.
Sue Anton calling …
Crap. Sue never called with good news.
‘Hi, Sue.’
‘Vera. This is not my good news voice.’
‘I’ve given up expecting good news. What’s up?’
As much as she liked Sue, the woman charged like a flock of angry emus
. She’d learned the hard way to keep every conversation with her lawyer as short and succinct as possible.
‘Just an update on your arraignment. The court wants to bring your attendance forward, so we need to make our decisions on your plea. I need to make you aware of your options.’
‘What options, exactly?’
‘The first option is you plead guilty to the charges and we ask for a section 10 dismissal, which means you are found guilty, but no conviction is recorded, so it won’t affect your ability to work or travel in the future.’
‘I plead guilty? Sue, I’ve had to sell my apartment to defend my innocence, and now you’re saying I just roll over and accept the charges?’
‘It’s an option. It might not be your worst option. You’re paying me legal fees to give you advice, Vera, so listen to it before you bite my head off, all right?’
Vera snorted. ‘As though anyone could. I suspect you’re made of titanium, Sue.’
‘You’d be right. A non-conviction order would see you having to comply with a good behaviour bond. And there’d be certain conditions attached, like steering clear of writing damning articles about the aged care sector in Australia for example … but it might be the quickest way to get this shitshow behind you. To move on.’
She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘So if we agree to this—what did you call it?—section 10 dismissal, that’s it? I’m guilty, but I’m done with all this?’
‘It’s not that easy.’
Of course it wasn’t.
‘The magistrate decides whether or not they’ll grant it based on the seriousness of the charge, and they’ll take into account your character and criminal history, your concern for the greater good, that sort of thing. We have a solid shot.’
‘But no guarantee.’
‘Of course not. Where would the legal profession be if this stuff was ever clear-cut?’
Broke and bitter, she expected. Like she was. ‘What if I don’t want to plead guilty?’
‘Then we proceed as planned: we enter a not guilty plea at the arraignment, the magistrate will set a trial date, and we’ll argue it out.’