Chapter 3
3
Ruth
When Allie showed up unannounced on my doorstep early-ish Sunday morning, I knew something was up. We didn’t make social calls on one another, and I was still in my dressing gown.
Her words came at me like a gut-punch. I frowned at her, conscious my mouth was opening and closing as if I was struggling to get enough air.
‘Come again?’ I said when I caught my breath.
‘Theo Adams is dead. Zach Cooper found him.’
‘That’s what I thought you said, but Theo was here, Thursday morning. I toasted his fruit loaf. He only wanted one slice. He didn’t finish his cappuccino. I wondered if his shuffle had gotten worse, but not bad enough to kill him.’
‘Zach found him Friday afternoon.’
‘Where?’
‘At his house. In his garage.’
‘How do you know all this? Let me guess: Peg told you.’
Allie shook her head. ‘Theo lives—lived—a few doors down from me, on the opposite side of the street. When I went home Friday afternoon the ambulance was parked in his driveway. It’d gone by the time the kids came home from school and I didn’t give it a second thought. It was often there when Mrs Adams was alive. But then this morning, just now, I nipped into the supermarket for milk and ran into Leslie Giles, who just happens to be one of Theo’s neighbours. They share a back fence.’
‘Leslie’s home already?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘That fortnight went quickly.’
‘Didn’t it. She said they thoroughly enjoyed the cruise but wouldn’t do it again. Merv ate and drank too much and she caught a cold on the third day. Luckily it wasn’t Covid or they would have had to spend the rest of the trip in their cabin.’
‘Oh. Do you want come inside? I’m having coffee. I’ll make you one.’
Allie glanced over her shoulder. ‘All right. A quick one,’ she said. ‘There’s groceries and milk in the car. The kids’ll want their breakfast.’
She came in through the flat’s sliding door and I waved a hand in the direction of the table and chairs. She wore faded cut-off jeans and an oversized T-shirt. Thongs on her feet and her hair in its usual ponytail. My unfinished coffee waited on the table beside the spread-out Sunday Mail .
I took down another mug and dropped a pod into the coffee machine. ‘So tell me, was he dead when Zach found him?’
‘Unconscious. He didn’t regain consciousness.’
I made the coffee how she liked it and put the mug in front of her. She was pale, fidgeting with the hem of her T-shirt.
‘Allie?’
‘He took his own life, Ruth,’ she blurted. ‘Gassed himself in his car.’ Her eyes widened and turned glassy and I thought she was going to cry.
‘Shit,’ I said and sat down, heavily. ‘That’s awful. Poor Zach. Poor Theo. My god.’
We stared at each other, mouths open.
‘There are two loaves of raisin bread in the freezer,’ I said. ‘No-one else orders it, not since I stopped baking it. I buy it in especially for him.’ Banal, I know. But don’t we often retreat to the banal when we’re hit with something we can’t quite get our heads around?
Allie nodded as if she understood completely. She picked up her drink, blew on it and then took a sip. ‘What shall I tell the kids?’ Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. ‘That’s if they don’t know already. You know how the grapevine works in a country town.’
‘Tell them the truth, I suppose. Better they hear the details from you rather than embellished by someone on social media.’
She nodded again. Cradled the coffee mug in both hands as if she was cold. I shivered, took a sip of my lukewarm brew and relished its bitterness.
‘You know he has children,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t big on conversation, quite dour in a way—miserable, you could say—but he did mention family from time to time … grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. I know there’s a daughter and that she visited him every now and then.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Allie said. ‘Funny how we see these people all the time, think we know them but we don’t really have a clue what’s going on in their lives.’
‘That’s not a bad thing, either,’ I said. ‘Keeping it all in context.’
‘Yes, I know, but maybe if we’d picked up on Theo’s distress …’ She shrugged, her expression sad.
‘That’s the thing, Allie, when he came into the cafe on Thursday he was chatty, for Theo. I remember wondering if he’d had some good news. Or maybe his grandchildren were visiting on the weekend.’
‘They say that, don’t they, that the person might appear unusually cheerful, if the suicide’s premeditated and the time is getting close.’
I glanced at her, eyebrows raised.
‘Last year the high school ran information sessions on suicide, after one of their students took his own life,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘I remember when that happened. Tragic.’ I contemplated the dregs at the bottom of my coffee mug. ‘I always thought Theo was a lonely old soul. Unhappy.’
‘Yeah. A few of them about. Leslie said he rarely spoke to her or Merv. The wife was the chatty one. She had dementia and he was her carer, so Leslie said.’
‘I wonder if he left a note?’
‘Dunno.’ Allie said finished her drink and stood. ‘I’d best get home with the groceries. Thanks for the coffee.’
I walked her out to her car, pulled in behind my station wagon. The flat had a separate back entrance. A glory vine wound its way over a tiny pergola, lush and green. It whispered in a waft of breeze.
Allie opened the car door. She appeared as reluctant to leave as I was to see her go.
‘Let’s hope for the family’s sake he did leave a note,’ she said. ‘And it gives them some kind of closure.’
‘Wouldn’t that depend on what he wrote?’ I said, but I don’t think she heard me.
She slammed the door and started the car. I waved and she was gone. I went inside. The news had left me feeling hollow and acutely aware of my own aloneness.
It’s not as if I’d actually known Theo Adams. He’d only become a regular in the years since his wife died. He’d sit in Rosie’s twice a week, for an hour each time. Almost every week, say fifty out of the fifty-two weeks of each year. That was one hundred hours a year. ‘Gee,’ I said out loud. I had friends I saw a lot less often than that.
My stomach rumbled. It was after nine and here I was still in my dressing gown and without breakfast. Okay for a Sunday morning. Without conscious thought I then did something I purposefully tried never to do on a day off: I went through to the cafe and rummaged in the freezer for the loaf of raisin bread. Somehow it seemed fitting that I toast two slices for my breakfast.
* * *
There was an unknown customer waiting at the door at eight on Tuesday morning when I flipped the sign around. I held the door open for him to enter. He was of average height, fit looking, with thick chestnut-brown hair threaded with grey pushed back from a high forehead.
‘Tell me you know how to make a decent cup of coffee,’ he said, not nastily but grumpily. He followed me to the counter.
‘Well, they keep coming back and I’m sure it’s not just because of my good looks,’ I replied—flippantly, I hoped.
He gave me a brief once-over; the perfect poker face. The fan of squint lines at the corners of his eyes and the deep furrows etched into his cheeks told of a life lived outdoors. He was older than I’d first thought, possibly around my own age, and I wondered how long it had been since he’d smiled. A while would be my guess.
‘What’ll you have?’
‘Macchiato,’ he said, eyes narrowing as if he expected me to stutter and ask what that was.
My hackles rose. ‘Have here or take away?’ I didn’t snap, but I had to work hard not to.
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Here. And one of those muffins.’
We made brief eye contact. He must have read something in mine, because he said, ‘Thanks,’ as an afterthought. His eyes were dark brown, like Haigh’s dark chocolate.
Now why had I noticed that?
‘Have a seat and I’ll bring it over,’ I said, with forced politeness. By then I was talking to his back. I started on the coffee.
The door squealed and in trotted Audrey.
‘For goodness’ sake, Ruth, will you please oil those hinges. I can’t stand it. Shall I send Reggie over to do it?’
‘No, thanks all the same. The usual?’
‘Please, and a soy latte for Bryony.’ She pronounced it Bry-ony, as if it were two words. Her gaze was fixed on the cake cabinet so I took the macchiato and muffin to the man at table three. He didn’t look my way when I put them down, didn’t even grunt in acknowledgement. His arms were folded, his jaw tense. He stared out the window, his glazed look suggesting he wasn’t seeing anything other than what was going on in his head. I opened my mouth to ask if he was all right, but the front door opened and the hospital admin girls bowled in. I doubted my concern would have been received with grace.
Everyone was early this morning and I felt as if I had lead in my limbs. Awake half the night only to sleep through the alarm. No time for coffee or breakfast and the customers didn’t let up long enough for me to grab something. Macchiato Man had a refill, picked at his muffin and left. When Allie arrived at ten, I was famished.
‘Apparently, there’s not going to be a funeral,’ she said. She stowed her gear in the cupboard. Now she was here I took a minute to make myself a toasted cheese sandwich out of crusts. Luckily, the crusts from the ends of the loaves were a favourite.
‘Understandable in the circumstances, I guess. But I wonder if that’s what he wanted? It all sounds a bit odd,’ I said.
‘My thoughts exactly. Leslie Giles has been talking to the daughter. She drove up from Adelaide on the weekend. Les said that, about a year ago, Theo’s GP diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease. I hadn’t noticed anything different about him. Had you?’
Before I had a chance to answer her—because yes, I had noticed—there was a loud clearing of a throat from the direction of the front counter.
Allie rolled her eyes and peeked through the servery window. ‘I’ll see to them. You eat your sandwich,’ she said and scuttled off.
I perched on the only stool and gobbled the food, careful not to burn my tongue on the melted cheese. I had noticed Theo’s shuffle had become a bit more … shuffly. That his hand would shake and he’d fumble with the newspaper and slop coffee into the saucer. And every now and then when I’d glance his way, he’d be staring into space, glassy-eyed, not moving at all. Just when I’d decide to go over and see if he was okay, the moment would pass and he’d be the same as he always was.
Allie was back in a flash with food orders. I downed what was left of my coffee, washed my hands and set about preparing the sandwiches, which were my least favourite because everyone wanted something different. I don’t know how many times I had to look at the slip of paper to remind myself what I was preparing.
‘It does seem weird that they won’t have a funeral for Theo,’ I said to Allie when she was collecting her things. The intervening hours had flown by; it felt as if she’d only just arrived and here it was, close to three.
‘Like you said earlier, understandable in the circumstances, I guess. And maybe it is what he wanted.’ She paused. ‘You know, I only ever saw him when he came here. Not once have I ever so much as glimpsed him in the garden or putting out his wheelie bin. I used to see her a bit, out in the garden. She’d always wave or pass the time of day. She seemed nice. Les said they’d always kept to themselves.’
‘Did they always live in Cutlers Bay?’
‘Don’t think so. But they were there when I bought my house over a decade ago.’
I opened the dishwasher and was enveloped in a cloud of steam. ‘It’s a known fact that men don’t cope as well with widowhood as women do.’
‘And not just widowhood,’ Allie said. ‘See you tomorrow, Ruth.’
‘Bye.’
While I unloaded and then reloaded the dishwasher, I kept an ear out for customers and thought about Theo. What a sad ending to a life. How lonely and unhappy he must have been. Had he not wanted to be a burden to his family when the Parkinson’s disease progressed to the point where he couldn’t care for himself any longer? He would have known what an undertaking it was to care for someone unable to care for themselves.
Then I thought about my own parents, both dead. Dad had died years before Mum. She’d grieved deeply for him but hadn’t let that grief stop her living life to the fullest, in her own quiet way. Would Dad have managed if Mum had gone before him? It was something I’d never contemplated until now. I liked to think that he would have, with the support of me and my two brothers.