by Stella Quinn
But then there was the new bit of trouble—the spark that had been kindled in her cold, bitter heart in the dimly lit foyer of the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic.
She didn’t want the spark. Sparks were trouble, and she was so over being in trouble.
Her aunt’s face didn’t change, but Vera kept going. ‘You know the great hairy mess of things I made back home? The charges, the arraignment, those hideous articles in the newspaper? Well, I’ve been given a choice: take an easy way out so I can move on, so we can move on, or dig my heels in and fight.’
Her aunt breathed in, and out, and her sparse grey lashes fluttered on a blink. Her earlier vim had sputtered out.
‘What would you do, Aunt Jill?’
Her aunt said nothing, but she didn’t need to. Vera knew damn well her aunt would have said to hell with those drongos. Do what feels right.
She took a long breath in of mountain air. Okay, then, decision made. She’d put this phone call off long enough.
‘Sue?’ she said as the dial tone connected. ‘It’s Vera.’
‘Finally. What’s it to be?’
She took a breath. ‘I don’t believe I’m guilty.’
‘Vera, we talked about this. A section 10 dismissal isn’t about you being saintly and earnest and taking a Mary McKillop stance. It’s about wrangling through a legislative loophole and getting your life back.’
‘I know. But here’s the thing, Sue, I don’t want to wrangle through loopholes. I do not feel that what I did was wrong, and I am not going to be made to feel guilty for that on top of everything else.’
‘Vera—’
She was on a roll now, and even the thought of her lawyer’s money clock spinning ecstatically with every word she spoke wasn’t going to stop her.
‘If I were being charged with selfishness for placing my aunt in an aged care facility that I hadn’t thoroughly vetted beforehand, I’d plead guilty. If I were being charged with having lousy taste in men and being the biggest fool on the east coast of Australia, then lock me up. I’m guilty as charged and wearing all that guilt already; it’s wrapped around me so bloody tightly some days I can’t breathe.’
She took a moment to get some control over her voice. ‘That’s why, Sue,’ she muttered at last. ‘That’s why I am not going to plead guilty to breaching the Surveillance Devices Act.’
She could hear her lawyer tapping on a keyboard.
‘Okay, Vera. Understood. We do this the hard way.’
‘Thank you, Sue. I’m sorry I’m not taking your advice.’
‘Don’t be sorry. I love doing it the hard way, it gives me a visceral thrill. You know how hard it is for a woman my age to feel a visceral thrill? Trust me … you’re doing me a favour. In terms of our legal stance on this, now we need to shift our mindset into offensive action rather than defensive reaction. We take these charges down. You ready for that, Vera? You’d better be.’
She swallowed.
‘Um, yes? How about you?’
‘I was born ready; I’ll be in touch.’
As the call ended, she let her phone slip to the table, wishing she’d been born with just one per cent of Sue Anton’s confidence.
‘Well,’ she said, resting her hand on her aunt’s pale one. ‘Decision made, Jill. I think you’d be a tiny bit proud of me.’
Jill’s head was nodding, as though she was the type of woman who agreed with whatever was going on around her.
Vera snorted. As if.
Jill—the old Jill—was at her happiest when she was neck deep into an argument about politics or climate change. Jill would have had no hesitation about taking on the legal system. She’d have had no hesitation about flirting in a dimly lit foyer either.
‘Cup of tea over here, ladies?’
She looked up as an orderly in navy scrubs approached them. A trolley had been set up beneath the wisteria. ‘Oh, yes please. Black for me, Jill has hers with milk and—’
‘Milk and one,’ finished the man.
She smiled at him. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘Tim. You need a little butter for that scone you’ve brought?’
Vera glanced at her waxed carton and the scone she’d torn into bite-size pieces. ‘No, thank you, Jill’s not a butter fan.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ said Tim. ‘Here you go.’ He set two cups before them, durable china with a sturdy handle for her, and a sip cup for Jill. ‘She can hold this herself, she tells me. Now, can I interest you in some reading material from my trolley? Lots of the residents enjoy having the paper read to them. There are magazines up in the common room, too, if you’d prefer to read something about four-wheel drives or surprise royal babies.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Er … Thanks, Tim.’
She waited until he’d moved to other residents enjoying the sun, then pulled the letter she’d written from her handbag. No surprise royal babies there. ‘Shall I read to you while you have your tea, Jill?’
No answer, so she cleared her throat and began anyway. ‘Dear Aunt Jill. It’s me again, Vera, your niece. I have a little fun news that you might enjoy …’
By the time she finished, her aunt’s gaze had drifted above the treeline to the smudge of mountain purpling the distant sky.
‘Jill?’
No response.
‘Is there anything you’d like to talk about, Aunt Jill? Anything you need?’
Still nothing. She glanced at her watch. There was nowhere she needed to be, and she had plenty of time. Perhaps she could put Tim’s advice into practice. Her eye fell on the newspapers he’d stacked on the wicker table, and she rifled through a few pages of the Snowy River Star. National politics was a nope, dry as dust; worries about drought; a bushfire out of control in the high country. She turned the page to an exposé on a local businesswoman who’d made a donation to the repertory theatre and smiled. Right up Jill’s alley.
She started reading. Businesswoman and former mayor Isabella Lang is the platinum sponsor of the upcoming Snowy River Region Repertory Theatre summer season. Opera, melodrama, and some new Australian drama is heading your way this year, with a focus on—
She paused as the name Cody caught her eye on a side bar. She read the heading, Hanrahan Chatter, and realised she was looking at a community page. She smiled. She may have only moved two hours’ drive from Queanbeyan, but in some ways it was like she’d moved a century back in time.
Our very own Josh Cody returns to Hanrahan after fifteen years and takes up a role as veterinarian in the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic founded by his younger sister Hannah Cody. Mr Cody is the only graduate of Hanrahan High ever to receive a full scholarship to the University of Sydney.
What a shame he didn’t go. He’d sure put plenty of practice in at the school science lab, or so we hear, and—
Vera frowned. Was this the standard of news local readers were subjected to here in the Snowy Mountains? This sounded like the sort of trash Poppy had been subjected to that had resulted in a crying jag in her back alley.
‘What a load of rubbish,’ she said, moving her eyes up to the date on the paper’s banner. Yes. Last week. That poor kid.
‘Oh hell,’ she said as a thought struck her. What was today’s date? Or more to the point, what was today?
Wednesday. Bloody hell. Tonight was the inaugural craft group gathering at The Billy Button Café and she’d done nothing to prep for it!
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Graeme, who was on the early shift. Graeme! I totally forgot, tonight is curtain’s up for the first craft meeting. Six o’clock start. I’ll be there after lunch to get prepped … would you mind checking milk and egg stocks? I can pick some up here in Cooma before I drive back up the mountain.
Her phone beeped seconds later.
Milk and eggs in stock. I’ve set Poppy to work prepping a tea station on the buffet in the back room. Maybe some fresh flowers, if you’re passing the markets, would be a nice touch. Might want to buy a bottle of gin and some f
resh lemons too, Vera, in case you need a sneaky G & T in the kitchen to get you through the evening, LOL.
She grinned. Her lovely Graeme … always brainstorming the good ideas.
Love your thinking, she tapped back.
You’re the only one rostered after five pm. Want me to ask Poppy or Jackson if they can work late?
She hesitated. Having a spare pair of hands was marvellous, despite the pain her till takings felt every time she paid her casual staff their wages. And who knew how many would be coming to Marigold’s evening craft group?
Let’s ask Poppy. She’s going back to Sydney early next week for the start of Term Four, and she’s keen to get as many hours in as she can. If it’s quiet, I can duck out to walk her home.
You’re the boss, boss.
She smiled. Damn straight, she was. She glanced at her watch. There was no need to hurry back. Graeme could run the café with one of his manicured hands tied behind his back, and Poppy had taken to café work like a duck to water once she’d overcome her outrage at the early starts. Vera had plenty of time to work up some sandwiches and cake for the evening ahead.
She leaned back in her wicker chair, held her aunt’s hand, and turned her face to the sun.
CHAPTER
13
Seven hours later, Vera was knee-deep in fabric scraps and empty teacups and had a headache playing rap music in her skull. Sixteen residents of Hanrahan were gathered around the big table in the back room of the café, but from the noise you would have supposed there were six hundred of them.
The table bristled with jugs of knitting needles, pots of glue, little yellow wheels which looked like pizza cutters but seemed to be designed to cut fabric into weirdly thin strips. Ribbon making? Hair ties?
Whatever. She’d given up trying to make sense of any of the activity going on. The food she’d prepared had been inhaled within minutes, and she’d be needing to restock her tea caddies first thing in the morning.
Kev caught her eye as she bent down to wipe up some glue that had dripped from a hot glue gun, down her second-hand sideboard, onto the wide floor planks.
‘It’s going well, isn’t it, Vera?’
‘Absolutely,’ she lied, wondering if she should go get her icing spreader to lever the glue off before it became a permanent fixture.
‘Even George turned up. Marigold’s set him to work on detangling Mrs J’s basket of embroidery threads.’
‘Excellent.’
The last of the glue flicked up under her fingernail, and she stood up. Perhaps it was time for that sneaky gin and tonic.
Kev leaned a hip against the sideboard. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me what’s got you in a bother?’
‘I’m not in a bother at all, Kev. You need something? More hot water?’
‘I need you to take a breath, love. If this is too busy, we can think about a new venue. Just because Marigold loves a bit of crazy craft chaos, doesn’t mean you have to love it. Let’s go find a table in a quiet corner and have ourselves a minute.’
Vera sighed. She would love to sit a minute. And the rush for sandwiches and cake had slowed. She followed Kev to a table tucked between the antique bookcase she’d restored and the fireplace and fell into a timber chair.
‘It’s not the craft,’ she said.
‘You want to tell an old man what’s got you so quiet?’
She did want to unburden herself. The weight of doubt had been eating at her since leaving Jill so non-responsive in her wicker chair. The truth was, Jill was dying. Soon, too soon, Vera would be on her own, and that future frightened her. Even in a whole room full of chattering, cheery people, she felt apart, like a biscuit that had been discarded on the baking tray because its edges were a little too burned.
‘I’m no good with people.’
‘People. Well, that’s a big word, my love. Reckon if I had to be good with every darn person out and about, I’d be quaking at the knees.’
She smiled. ‘I do not believe your knees have ever quaked, Kev.’
‘Shoulda seen me the day I married my Marigold. Wobbly as one of your toffee custards I was. Point I’m making, Vera, is you don’t have to be good with people all at once. That’s the great thing about us. We come in ones and twos as well as in great noisy bunches.’
She blew out a breath. ‘My track record with dealing with them in ones and twos isn’t so crash hot.’
‘You let someone down? Someone let you down?’
‘All of the above.’
‘You’re hurting, Vera. I’m sorry about that. But there’s good people here in Hanrahan, ones who won’t let you down.’
Kev reached a hand across the table, palm up, like he was waiting for her to place her hand in his.
She twisted the cleaning cloth she still held into a knot. ‘I wish I could believe that.’
‘Sure you can believe it. You’ve got me in your corner, haven’t you?’
She smiled, and gestured to the nook they were sitting in. ‘Literally.’
‘You know what I mean. Your café manager, Graeme? He in your corner?’
‘I guess he is.’
‘Little Poppy Cody’s been here working every day since she rocked up to town; she must think you’re okay.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘And my little Marigold’s taken a shine to you. She’s hoping you’ll join her yoga classes down at the park. She salutes the sun every dawn, and it’s a treat to see that pink sunrise reflecting off the lake.’
‘Okay, Kev, don’t take this the wrong way, but most dawns I’m here already with my whisk whipping up eggs in a mixing bowl, and your little Marigold is a six-foot-high tower of intimidation.’
Kev cracked a smile so wide she could see a gold filling glint in one of his teeth. ‘That’s my woman, all right.’
Vera looked over at the table where Marigold was slicing cardboard into strips: people were laughing and comparing projects, and old George was stirring a heaped teaspoon of sugar into yet another cup of tea.
‘One person at a time, Vera, that’s all it takes.’
One person at a time. Maybe she could do that. Maybe then she’d work out sooner rather than later if a person she was befriending was as big a rat as her ex-boss Aaron Finch.
‘Those people over there, some of them have reasons, like you do, to be shy of people. But they come out anyway, and have themselves a little chitchat and community time, and it puts a spring in their step. You just watch.’
Kev was right. George was clearly happy to be surrounded by chattering women. Everyone looked … content. She should unbend a little, socialise, stop suspecting everyone she met of being the next candidate to betray her friendship. The empty glasses could sit for a second longer while she chatted to Kev—he was as perfect a candidate as she could think of to practise socialising.
‘Thanks, Kev. They do look happy, don’t they?’
‘Happy as galahs in a wattle tree.’
She smiled. ‘A success, then. How was the food? Enough? And what about the tea? The orders seem to have slowed down a bit.’
He gave her a wink. ‘First night fever, my love. They’ll be regretting how much they’ve consumed when they spend all night shuffling to the bathroom.’
She giggled. Where was Kev when she was busy making bad decisions about guys?
‘Marigold’s put the word out. Everyone’s to leave ten dollars in the kitty for a biscuit and a cup of tea and a contribution to wages. They order anything off the menu, they’ll pay their own. If you find yourself short, you come and find me.’
That would cover it; more than. ‘Thanks, Kev. I appreciate it.’
Poppy swung her way through the kitchen doors carrying a tray of the fruitcake she’d sliced earlier into finger-thin soldiers, and began passing them around. The girl had taken to café work like … words failed her. Like a goth to eyeliner? Like a teenage girl to mood swings? She watched on as old George accepted a slice of cake and promptly dropped it in his basket of thread.
‘I’ll help you, Mr Juggins,’ she heard Poppy say.
‘Cake disaster,’ Vera murmured to Kev and rose from her chair to rescue the rest of the fruitcake so Poppy could help the old man.
‘Call me George,’ she heard him say.
‘Call me Poppy,’ said Poppy.
‘Poppy! That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl. Look out, don’t mess up my work, young lady. I’ve spent an hour sorting out this tangle.’
‘Yes, George.’
Vera could hear the girl giggling as she passed around the rest of the cake, filled water glasses, plucked cotton snarls from her black apron.
She smiled. So okay, maybe this community craft caper wasn’t all bad. And she’d taken three bookings for lunch next week from tonight’s guests.
Her thoughts drifted back to the half-made quilt she’d pulled out of one of Jill’s boxes. Maybe she should bring it along to the craft group and try to finish it; gussy it up a little. Take a seat at the table, push through her reluctance to get involved, and do something good for her aunt, at long last. Her aunt should have a little colour draped over her knees, not a bland beige hospital blanket.
Her eyes fell on Marigold. The woman was a dynamo, darting about the table, voicing her opinions as though they were commandments. She and her aunt would have bonded like fondant onto cake. Bringing Jill’s quilt along, and setting a few stitches in if the café was quiet, was doable. Winter would be a shock to both her and her aunt, this far up in the Snowy Mountains. She’d love to be able to tuck Jill’s quilt over her knees … all she had to do was get the thing finished.
Fabric, cotton, wadding, scissors. If she could make a lemon soufflé, surely she could bang together the other half of a quilt?
The guilt of all the things she hadn’t done for Jill—like ensure she was in a safe home—came crashing into her mood and she reached out a hand to steady herself.
‘Vera, we’re out of cake, and that’s the last of the sandwiches, too. Do we have any more?’
She stared blindly at the girl for a moment.
‘Vera?’ said Poppy. ‘You okay? You look a bit funny.’