The Seachangers

Chapter 29

29

Ruth

The first day of my working week was off to a stellar start: the gas ran out, both bottles empty, which meant there was no grill or hot water. The worst part of it was I couldn’t recall when I’d turned over the bottles. There were two gas bottles and the routine was that when one bottle emptied another was ordered. That way we avoid the situation I found myself in at eight-oh-five on a Wednesday morning when the first customer of the day ordered a bacon and egg roll. After talking him into a toasted ham and cheese sandwich instead, I took out the sandwich press and, while it was heating, I rang the local depot. Of course replacement bottles couldn’t be delivered until I’d been online and ordered the gas first. Then I discovered the milk fridge hadn’t been restocked and salad sandwich fillings were low.

When Allie came in to start her shift, the gas bottles had been delivered. Her face paled as I recounted what had happened. ‘Oh, Ruth,’ she said. ‘That was me. I turned the gas over ages ago and forgot to write it on the white board. Sorry.’

‘It could as easily have been me who forgot. Don’t worry about it. Bryan came in for coffee and watched the shop while I went to the office to order it. Were you busy yesterday?’

‘Steady,’ she said. ‘But Lorna had to go at one thirty. Her mum had a fall. The lady next door heard her calling out and she phoned for the ambulance. I was on my own after that.’

‘I hope she didn’t break any bones. That’d be awful for her and for Lorna.’ And me, if it made Lorna less available to work.

The bell at the counter tinkled and Allie and I looked at each other. ‘I didn’t hear the door,’ I said.

‘Me either. I’ll go.’

Lorna leaving early the day before explained why the milk fridge hadn’t been restocked and the sandwich fillings were low. While I shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes, I sifted through the casual staff I had on the books, wondering if one of them might be prepared to learn the cooking side of things. If Lorna quit, I’d need a backup. It might be a good contingency plan regardless.

After the bumpy start, the week progressed along similar lines to every other week. Allie was more her old self but didn’t let on at all how things were at home, except to say that her fortieth birthday celebrations had been a success. Luckily, Lorna’s mum hadn’t broken anything. She spent one night in hospital under observation and Lorna stayed at her unit with her for the next couple of nights. I knew this because, as I’d discovered, Allie and Lorna talked often. It didn’t matter how well I got on with the staff and how easygoing I tried to be, I’d always be the boss and rarely privy to everything that went on.

Elliot and I talked a couple of times during the week. Brief conversations, mainly to ascertain the other’s wellbeing. My GP appointment was on Tuesday and I’d be staying with him overnight. I’d see then how he was genuinely faring. It’d brought me up short to admit how little I knew about his life and how he filled in his days.

The only significant change Robert’s death had brought about for me was that my concern for Elliot’s welfare had escalated. Honestly, before Robert died, I hadn’t given my brothers’ welfare much thought at all. The day I’d driven Elliot back home to Adelaide, his good humour had been over the top. He hadn’t fooled me and I’m sure he realised that, because when he’d waved me off, he’d said, ‘You mustn’t worry about me, old chook, I can look after myself.’ Of course that meant I’d worried.

Friday afternoon, Hamish came into the cafe minutes after Allie had left. I wondered if he’d been watching and waiting for her to leave. A ridiculous thought. There were a few customers dawdling over afternoon tea, so I made Hamish a coffee and we went through to the kitchen so I could continue the perpetual cleaning up and preparing for the next day.

‘How’s your week been?’

‘So-so,’ he said. ‘Quick trip to Adelaide to sign papers, drop off a few boxes of Mum’s stuff to Nat and pick up the last few belongings from my apartment. And the bed. Had a helluva job moving it. Had to borrow Pete’s trailer in the end. He came down and helped me. I organised for the electricity meter to be read. Settlement’s next Wednesday.’

‘How does that feel?’

‘A relief more than anything.’ He grabbed a tea towel and started drying the dishes I’d washed. ‘I was going to overnight it, you know, the last night I’d spend there and all that, but in the end I couldn’t be bothered.’

I left Hamish to the drying up and ducked out to see if the customers were happy. Peg wanted another cappuccino. She’d sometimes come in for coffee and cake and sit for a while before the fish and chip shop busied up in the late afternoon and evening.

‘I see the bins have gone from the op shop,’ she said when I delivered the second cappuccino. ‘Bit of unrest over it. And I hear it was your idea.’

‘My idea? Who told you that?’ I said and laughed. ‘Audrey Franco has been carrying on about those damned bins and the rubbish people dump in the alley for as long as I’ve lived in this town. If something isn’t working, any sensible person would change it. Find a solution that did work.’

‘You and I know that but unfortunately not everyone has our common sense. And let me warn you: those women at the op shop will need someone to blame if the change doesn’t work out.’

‘But how could they possibly lay the blame at my feet? All I did was make a suggestion. I’m not involved in any way with the op shop. I’ve never even taken stuff there.’

Peg tutted and waggled a finger at me. ‘Ruth, you would have discovered by now how small towns work. Let me tell you how I learned my lesson. Years ago, I was offered locally caught fish. I refused to buy it and I won’t go into the reasons why but they were all valid and I was in the right. “Someone” dumped a drum of rotting fish guts into our front yard. I swear that, to this day, I can still smell it when it’s stinking hot.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘Not in a heartbeat,’ Peg said. ‘In my experience, people whinge, but the bottom line is, they do not like change, they just like to bitch. You have my word that when I hear anything about the op-shop bins, I’ll be sure to set them straight about your role in it.’

‘Thanks, I think. Should I say something to Audrey? It must have been her because I haven’t said a word to anyone else. Why would I?’

‘Up to you, but as you’ve probably worked out, she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, that one. By the way, you make excellent coffee, Ruth, and the muffin was pretty good too.’

I went back to the kitchen shaking my head. Had Peg just warned me to stick to what I knew best: making coffee and baking muffins? Surely not.

‘What was that all about?’ Hamish said. He’d been watching from the kitchen doorway.

‘This town,’ I replied and rolled my eyes. ‘One of the few times I’ve ever said what I thought! Is it closing time yet?’

The door opened and a cluster of teenagers surged inside, laughing and stirring each other. School was out so no, it wasn’t closing time yet. Unfortunately.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Hamish said. ‘If you feel like a drink and a debrief later, come around. I’m not going anywhere. I can rustle us up something to eat.’

‘I’ll message you,’ I said and fronted up to the counter to take orders. The kitchen door clunked shut behind him.

It wasn’t until two-and-a-half hours later when I went home to the flat that I remembered Hamish’s invitation. The school kids had been cashed-up and hungry and I hadn’t ended up closing until well after four. Then Laurie was uncharacteristically chatty when all I’d wanted to do was complete my prep for Saturday morning. Now, as per usual, I had at least a dozen things I needed to do before bedtime. A drink with Hamish really was out of the question.

See you shortly , I messaged anyway, because I needed an hour away from my responsibilities. And I wanted to know what he’d been doing at Bryan Chalmers’s office on Tuesday afternoon.

Because I’d been on my feet all day, I drove the short distance to East Terrace. The rubbish skip was gone and the front yard was immaculate. The man was a machine.

He came to the door just as I lifted my hand to knock. ‘No sign yet?’ I said and glanced back over my shoulder.

He pushed open the screen door. The hole had been patched. ‘I’m not with you?’

‘The For Sale sign? Wasn’t that why you were seeing Bryan?’

‘Ah,’ he said, an amused gleam entering his eyes. ‘Not exactly. Come in and I’ll pour you a glass and tell you all about it.’

Intrigued, I followed him down the passage and into the kitchen.

‘My goodness,’ I said. ‘Light and airy.’ I took in the skylight. ‘Certainly has made a huge difference. You have been busy.’ The kitchen cupboards were devoid of clutter and the stainless steel sink almost sparkled.

‘Elliot helped with the skylight. Would have taken me twice as long on my own. He’s pretty clever.’ Hamish fetched a bottle of white wine out of the fridge along with a stubby of beer. I took down a glass and he poured me a generous serve. We were both still in our work clothes.

‘Outside?’ he said and I nodded.

‘When do you sleep?’ I said as we sat on the verandah. I was amazed to see that the backyard had been tidied up and the pad for a new rainwater tank halfway prepared.

‘Plenty of daylight hours this time of the year and Laurie gave me a hand another day. He worked damned hard all day and I offered to pay him but he wouldn’t hear of it.’

He produced a bag of salted mixed nuts, ripped it open and put it on the upturned crate between us. It was a mild evening, not a breath of breeze, and on the drive around I’d noticed billowy clouds building on the western horizon.

‘We might be in for a storm,’ I said.

He cast his eyes upwards. ‘Fingers crossed that the roof doesn’t leak around the skylight when it rains.’

‘So,’ I said, angling myself towards him. ‘Is the house on the market or not?’

‘Or not,’ he said. He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. ‘I’m in the process of buying Nat out of her share. My plan is to renovate the place and then sell it. That gives me somewhere to live and plenty of time to decide what to do with the rest of my life.’

‘Oh, I didn’t see that coming. I thought you were anxious to offload the place. Leave Cutlers Bay behind you.’

He took a long pull on his beer. I took a sip of wine. It was cold, crisp and dry. Perfect. I was hungry and if I wasn’t careful, I’d be tipsy after one glass, on top of the headache that had lurked in the background all day. I put down the wineglass and poured myself a handful of nuts. Hamish held out his hand and I filled it.

‘I thought I was too, but I like the old house.’

‘Is it because you’re not quite ready to let go of the final link to your parents?’

‘Hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but maybe. And the more I do around the place, the more potential I see in it. The trick will be to know when to stop spending money I might never recoup when it sells.’

‘Renovating anything always costs more than you think it will. Trust me on that.’

‘Yeah, but I’ll be able to do a lot of the grunt work myself. I’ve been asking around about tradesmen and the likes. A mate I play golf with in Adelaide is a builder, has his own business. He’s offered to drive across and have a look at the house. I have lots of ideas and he’ll know if they’re structurally doable.’

His tone was positive and his animated expression suggested he was excited about the project. Or perhaps about having a project. I remembered vividly what that excitement had felt like when I’d bought the building I’d turned into the cafe. It had been thrilling and fulfilling when it all came together. But not anymore, said the voice in my head. Something bit me on the ankle and I swiped at it.

‘Mozzies? I’ll get a coil.’ Hamish disappeared into the house. He came back a few minutes later with a box of mozzie coils and matches. ‘I thought with the old tank and the ivy gone, the mozzies would bugger off as well.’ He lit a coil and put it on the cement between us.

‘What does your sister think about your offer? Was she surprised?’

‘This way she’ll get her share sooner rather than later and that’s a win-win for her. Wants the place valued by two independent agents. Thinks I’m going to rip her off, or some such rot. It’s all in the hands of the executors, which she just does not get.’

‘You’re not close?’

‘Nah. Top-up?’ He pointed to the almost empty glass dangling from my fingers.

‘A glass of water, if you don’t mind. I’ve had a headache hanging around all day, probably because I haven’t drunk nearly enough water.’

He came back with a jug of cold water and two glasses. ‘Now, before I fire up the barbecue,’ he said, filling a glass and handing it to me, ‘I’ve told you why I was talking to Bryan Chalmers. Why were you?’

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

Hamish frowned. ‘What’s so funny?’ he said.

‘A letter addressed to Bryan was in with my mail so I took it over to him. It’d been sitting on the bench for a couple of days and I kept forgetting to do it.’

‘That was all?’

His scepticism was not misplaced, because along with the letter, I’d taken the opportunity to ask Bryan a few business-related questions, in confidence, of course. Bryan had been affronted that I’d assumed he wouldn’t automatically keep any business discussion we had totally private.

I tilted back in the seat so I could look up at Hamish. It was an hour or more until sunset but the back verandah faced east and it was swathed in shadows, making his expression difficult to read. He stood still, silent and watchful. I opened my mouth to speak and then straight away closed it again. The pressure inside me built. I wanted—needed—to confide all the things I was grappling with, but that went so completely against the grain and old habits were hard to break. I’d basically been doing it solo for most of my adult life. If ever I’d opened up to Mum, she’d listened but never interfered. And there’d been occasions along the way when I’d desperately wished someone had been involved enough to want to interfere. A trustworthy person I could have shared with, used as a sounding board. Especially with the more gnarly decisions, like whether to buy a rundown building in a small country town and turn it into a cafe, using up all my savings and having no plan for how I would support myself into retirement.

I took a slow sip of water, mainly to moisten my dry mouth. Hamish didn’t budge. I think we both knew we’d reached a significant juncture in our developing friendship. If I lied, denied or obfuscated, it would set the tone going forward.

‘I’ve decided to sell the cafe,’ I said, testing how the words sounded out loud. ‘I asked Bryan a few questions about the process.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Any specific reason why you’ve decided to sell now?’

‘Oh, I could give you one hundred reasons, but what they all boil down to is I just don’t want to do it anymore. I’m over being Ruth from Rosie’s Cafe. I just want to be plain old Ruth again, whoever she might be.’ I closed my eyes and sank deeper into the armchair. ‘If I have to keep working at the pace I am for much longer, I’ll get to resent it and then hate it and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.’

‘What did Bryan say?’ His chair creaked as he sat down again.

‘What options I have, but he didn’t sound overly optimistic about any of them, but then that’s Bryan and he’s been in the business a long time. To realise anything near what I’ve invested, I’d need to sell the shop and the flat and the business as a going concern.’

‘You would have kept the proper records—everything you’ll need to sell it—to demonstrate it’s a viable business?’

‘Of course I have,’ I said. ‘I built the cafe from nothing and it is a reliable small business, if you’re prepared to work hard and not pay out too much in other people’s wages. Bryan knows this, but he also understands how challenging it is to sell such businesses in country towns like Cutlers Bay.’

‘Might be prudent to sell the business and keep the real estate. Live in the flat and lease the shop to the new owner. What about the woman who works for you? Allie? She seems capable.’

‘She is extremely capable, but she’s bringing up two teenage children on her own and has her fair share of problems, financial and otherwise. I’ve made a living out of the cafe, but there’s only ever been me to support and I haven’t had a holiday in the whole five years I’ve owned the damned place.’

‘What’s a holiday?’ Hamish said. ‘More nuts?’ I held out my hand. ‘A long weekend on Kangaroo Island is the most holiday I’ve ever had and I was on my honeymoon.’

‘I bet the new wife wasn’t impressed.’

He snorted. ‘She was the one who couldn’t take the time off. The more I think about it, the more I wonder why we ever got married in the first place.’

‘The clarity of hindsight,’ I said. When I swiped at another mosquito Hamish said, ‘Do you want to move inside?’

‘I’m okay if you are. It’s pleasant sitting out here.’ We lapsed into silence. Then I cleared my throat and said, ‘In the interests of full disclosure, the thing that keeps me awake at nights is what happens if I can’t sell any of it. Because there’s only that business and the real estate between me and the poorhouse. Minimal savings, no superannuation to speak of, no rich relatives and not eligible for the aged pension for years. Like you and your marriage, if I’d known half a decade ago what I know now about running a cafe in a small town, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

‘You wouldn’t have done it?’

‘Not necessarily, but I would have planned an exit strategy and I would’ve held back some of my savings, not spent every cent when the cost of the renovations blew out.’

‘If you seriously want out, I suppose if the real estate doesn’t sell and no-one wants to buy the business, you could shut it down, sell off whatever you could and get a job. At least you’d have a place to live.’

‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet there are unlimited employment opportunities waiting for someone like me. The wrong side of sixty and used to being her own boss.’ I was beginning to sound like a whiny old woman but I didn’t for one moment regret sharing with him. ‘And what if one of the reasons I want to sell up is because I don’t want to live in Cutlers Bay any longer? What if I want to be closer to what’s left of my family?’

‘Make a list of your options, Ruth, the most favourable outcome through to the least favourable. The pros and cons of each. I’ll bet the person you bought the building from never imagined they’d sell it. How long had it been on the market?’

‘Six-and-a-half years, that’s why it was such a bargain. In the end, the renovation, buying the stock and covering the start-up costs was way more money than what the building alone cost. Making the flat liveable didn’t take much. I did the painting.’

‘How long since anyone had lived in the flat?’

‘Only about two years. The owner rented it to an elderly relative. My understanding is she eventually went into care and it was empty after that.’

He pushed himself to his feet. ‘I’ll fire up the barbie. You look as if you need to be fed. Fish tonight. Caught at Rocky Point.’

‘Your brother-in-law?’

‘Yep. That meal I promised you ages ago.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Make the salad. That would be overextending my culinary skills. There’s green stuff in the fridge.’

I threw together a salad and microwaved potatoes, adding dollops of butter. The fish had bones but the meal was tasty.

‘Next time, come and have dinner at my place,’ I said to him as I left. ‘I’ll make you something other than Vegemite toast or a big breakfast.’

‘It’s a date,’ he said.

On the drive home, I tossed those words over a few times. Is that what we were doing? Dating? I wasn’t sure, nor was I certain if that’s what I’d hoped we were doing. The idea of a trustworthy friend appealed to me more than anything. He was an attractive man but I wouldn’t know what to do with a romance.