Chapter 26 Tea House
TEA HOUSE
In the morning Ronnie woke first. The house smelled like milk and baby formula.
From the family room drifted the sounds of the older joeys jumping around and rattling cages to Blaise’s Jane Fonda jazzercise VHS tapes.
Carefully, holding her middle, she rolled over.
Hissing, she moved onto her back, then onto her other side. Her hands and feet were asleep.
She lay in bed, waiting for the pins and needles to fade from her limbs, watching her friend sleep.
She touched the scar on Nev’s chin, wondered how she had gotten it, then studied the crows feet at the corners of Nev’s eyes, realizing she didn’t know if her boss had ever been in love.
Had the owner of Upsend Downs ever had a partner?
Had she lost someone she loved? Had someone broken her heart?
It seemed more likely that Nev had broken hearts, given the wandering lifestyle she had lived.
Did she ever wish she had found someone? Did she like being alone?
Ronnie ran the backs of her fingernails through the short hair at her friend’s temple. Up close, Nev’s hair was a mix of strawberry blonde and white. Nev must have gone grey early, because her hair had been this color when they met. She hadn’t aged. If anything, she appeared to be getting younger.
Pale eyes opened, blinked. Nev’s pupils contracted, focusing. Ronnie watched, curious to see how her friend would react to waking up in an unfamiliar bedroom.
Nev subtly stretched her spine, which cracked, then smiled. Nev freed her arms, then lifted one off the mattress, making her invitation clear.
Ronnie scooted closer, closed her eyes and relaxed again, exhaling deeply. Her hands, pressed against Nev’s chest, found their way out and around in a symmetrical loose embrace. She relaxed again.
Nev’s breath slowed and became even.
Ronnie didn’t have anything to compare this to. It wasn’t like any romantic relationship she had known. She wasn’t even sure if it was romantic, but hoped it would be. Nev would be a gentleman in a way that none of her previous partners—male or female—had been.
There was a reciprocity to it, a hesitancy, like climbing a tree and testing every branch.
The next time she opened her eyes the sun kissed the curtains and Reg stood in the doorway. “Knocky knock. Wakey wake.”
Nev, who lay curled facing Ronnie on the side of the bed closer to the door, stretched and rubbed her face, then groggily muttered, “right, what?” before immediately falling back asleep.
Reg grinned and made a heart shape with his fingers, which was something Mattie would have done.
“The rest of us are driving to the Tea House at Lake Barrine for brunch. They have the fresh scones with jam and clotted cream that you like. Keen to tag along? My sisters are coming. They want proof of life. If you don’t go, they’re threatening to come over after. ”
“Is Rainbow going?”
Nev blinked, rolled over, spotted Reg in the doorway, then covered her eyes with her hand like a kid trying to make someone disappear.
“It was her idea. You’re invited, too, Bickerman. Morning, cougar. Where’s my shotgun? Never mind, I haven’t got one.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” Nev muttered.
“You? Never,” Reg teased. “You two bogans coming? Does Brokeback Mountain do brunch?”
Ronnie took stock of the sensations in her body. Stiff. Sore. “Five minutes.”
“Get dressed, have a wee. We’ll meet you there.” Reg disappeared but left the door open.
She watched Nev reach for a shirt and shrug it on with an effortlessness that made her jealous.
The sheep farmer had slept in matching grey cotton panties and bra—duplicates of the same ones Nev always wore.
One-type-of-undies, one-type-of-socks basic bitch, like Ronnie.
Reg had reacted exactly the way she had known he would.
He didn’t care what she did so long as she was safe and happy.
Nev cleared her throat. “I expect you forgot all about this because it was a while ago, but I finally got around to mailing that climate change emergency relief grant you told me to apply for after the flood. It was a pain in the ass. Maybe the greenies who work for the state will throw some money at us for the moldy hay. Worth a shot. Thanks for suggesting it. I’m no good at asking for stuff like that. ”
Ronnie held out her fist. Fist bump. “That a girl! Leveling up in life.”
“More like plumbing new depths of humiliation.”
Sometimes it was the same. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Rainbow walked in without knocking as Nev was buttoning her jeans. Nev didn’t blush, didn’t run away—that was new. The girl looked like a tween in a white tank top and cut-off shorts. She approached the side of the bed and loomed over Ronnie, frowning. “Are you sick?”
Ronnie pulled the sheet up to her chin and sighed. “No, but I would like privacy while I get dressed, if it’s not too much to ask.” She didn’t want the girl to see the bruises. They looked worse than they were.
Rainbow turned her judgement on Nev. “What are you doing here?”
Nev respectfully ignored her.
“Try that again, but in a nice way,” Ronnie said. “You can say, what a pleasant surprise! I’m happy to see you here! She’s going to brunch with us.”
“Why are you still here?” Rainbow asked Nev.
“Your mother asked you to do something. Did you hear what it was?”
Rainbow stared at Nev like she had two heads.
Ronnie closed her eyes. When she opened them again Rainbow was gone and the door was closed.
Nev helped her sit up. Ronnie hissed, wincing, holding her incision.
Slouched on the edge of the bed, she took a minute to catch her breath.
The room spun. A wave of nausea came and went.
She swallowed a mouthful of saliva, then opened her eyes again.
“Can I ask a question?” Nev asked.
“Shoot.”
“Does your ex know you had major surgery nine days ago? Isn’t Rainbow supposed to be with your ex this weekend? Why is she here?”
“I don’t know. No one asked me. I don’t mind. I like having her here.” She didn’t say Rainbow’s name in case she was listening outside the closed door.
“What will you do after I leave?”
“Watch movies.”
Nev blinked once, slow. Disapproval.
“And walk multiple circuits around the garden.” When everyone else was gone she would be bored out of her mind again.
“You need hobbies,” Nev said. “Like reading.”
The last time she had been forced to stay indoors this long she had exercised hours a day in her cell, gotten high off endorphins, bulked up.
“Can you hold a guitar?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll teach you to play.”
“Really? That would be awesome. I would love that.”
The Tea House, built around 1930, was a charming historic building with a long green lawn and several daunting front steps.
As soon as they reached the carpark at Lake Barrine and she saw the walk to the front door, she knew she had overestimated her stamina.
Nev seemed to agree, based on how slowly she walked around the truck to open the passenger door.
Ronnie psyched herself up to step down from the truck.
Hissing, she unfolded herself slowly.
“I don’t like this,” Nev said. “I have a bad feeling about this.” An enormous amethystine python lay half-hidden along the edge of the carpark where the lawn hit the pavement and created a natural curb.
On the round crater lake, an old-fashioned white paddleboat chugged across like a trolley or a toy. She wanted to ride it, but had to stay focused on reaching the front door. She took her hand off the side of the truck, swearing under her breath.
“How do women with C-sections take care of babies?” Nev asked.
“Beats me. I can’t imagine taking care of a newborn right now. Breastfeeding…”
“Did you…?” Nev steadied her when she stopped. “Right, my nerves are shot. We should get you home before you fall and hurt yourself again.”
“It’s not bad.”
Nev laughed.
Inside, Ronnie headed for the table where her relatives were sitting. She hugged her aunts and uncles before sitting in one of the two empty chairs, feeling eleven pairs of eyes watch her lower herself with her arms.
Nev held the chair steady, pushed it in, then sat in the other one. “G’day, g’day.”
Ronnie’s aunt with the purple hair began. “G’day, g’day yourself. You look a dog’s dinner!”
“Thanks, auntie.”
“She lost four liters of blood,” Reg said, almost proudly, as if surviving was an accomplishment.
“How do you feel?” her aunt with the purple hair asked.
“Alive.”
Reg interjected. “If the ambulance had arrived ten minutes later, she would have had been dead or brain-damaged!”
“Is that all?” her uncle asked, unimpressed. “Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Could have been ebola, eh? One of those flesh-eating bacterias.”
“Ebola’s not a flesh-eating bacteria,” Rainbow muttered, nose in a book.
Reg patted Nev’s shoulder. “This ugly piece of shit saved her life.”
Her aunt with the nose ring frowned at her across the white tablecloth. “Crikey, Brum… Can you still have children?”
Ronnie sighed. Coming here had been a mistake. “Yes, and no.”
“How likely is it to happen again?” her aunt with the nose ring asked.
She picked up a menu and pretended to read it. “More likely.”
“You’ll have to do IVF?”
Ronnie glanced down at the menu, hoping they would take the hint. “Not planning to have any more kids come out of me. What’s new with you?”
“You can’t wiggle off the hook that easy. You’re the news. Everyone wants to hear about your near-death experience. Did you see a white light?” her uncle asked.
Rainbow sucked loudly on her straw. She had already finished a glass of lemonade and the ice at the bottom rattled around under the suction from the straw. “They’re sleeping together.”
Ronnie’s aunts and uncles gasped. Nev blushed. Ronnie touched her arm so she wouldn’t run away.
“Rainbow…” Ronnie warned.
“Ron’s a nun,” Nev muttered. “There’s a kilometer of surgical thread holding her together. She’d ooze out like a bowl of spaghetti.”