12 Days At Silver Bells House (7 page)

She ran her finger over the edge of the frame. No dust. Perhaps he'd put the photo into the drawer before offering her his bedroom last night. Or maybe he kept the photo in his bedside drawer so as not to be hurt by looking at it every night. Maybe he took it out and gazed at it just before he went to sleep. Maybe he spoke to the brunette beauty in the photo, telling her about his day and what he'd done.

She put the frame back into the drawer; carefully. Concealing it as best she could with the notepads and pens, making it look like it hadn't been disturbed.

If the lady in the photo was the one who'd broken his heart, his heart must hurt like hell. Younger than Jamie though. A good ten or twelve years younger, Kate guessed. But oh, so beautiful. Wind blowing her long brown hair, dark-brown eyes smiling, and a flush of pleasure on her cheeks.

Darn. Kate didn't do jealous. Kate had no need of jealous. No, siree. But as she wandered back downstairs, still hatless, her mind burned to know more about the woman Jamie kept a secret in his bedside table. Perhaps she only came to life in his dreams.

She opened the cupboard under the stairs. A coat closet. Gnarled walking sticks, a couple of golf umbrellas and an array of hats. The baseball cap too big and with no way of tightening it. The purple beanie a definite no in a heatwave. The straw hat then. She plucked it off a peg and shook the dust off the crown and the large brim. She'd slathered herself in sunscreen, force of habit, but certainly didn't want to burn her face. It might be an hour's walk into town.

She stuffed the hat on her head and checked her reflection in a mirror on the inside of the cloakroom door. She decided she looked different and perhaps a bit eccentric, but if she didn't want to burn she'd have to wear the dang thing. Her fingers itched to yank off the two fake white daisies but it wasn't her hat to improve. Anyway, this was the country. She'd probably just blend in.

****

The land either side of All Seasons Road wasn't too parched yet, but it was dry. Like Kate was beginning to feel. The sheep were resting in flocks, nibbling the green bits of grass still left, looking all cute and cuddly and in the shade. Unlike Kate.

Bad move with the wellies. For one, there wasn't any mud, the roads were bitumen. Two; Jamie's socks were too thick. They might also have melted and stuck to her feet which now felt like two bricks in an electric blanket.

At last, a crossroads.
Main Street
, the sign said.
Swallow's Fall 6k
. Six kilometres? She did the maths. Ten minutes to walk one kilometre. One hour to go. ‘Holy bloody gumnuts.'

She took a slug from her water bottle, then trudged on.

Later, her heat-induced tiredness turned to anticipation as she rounded a bend and walked into the sanctuary of Swallow's Fall. The town seemed to spring open before her in a splash of welcoming calm. A cool, colourful array of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings lined the one-street town. The chosen colours for the half-dozen shops on the raised walkway along the right-hand side were mostly traditional Australian heritage. Yellows, greens, dove-greys, hints of red and a splash of pink at the northern end of town from the closed B&B. A sort of sad bumpiness settled in Kate's chest at the sight of the churned-up lawn and the broken railings on the veranda. What on earth had happened to the B&B?

She glanced up at the population sign hanging off a bracket on the historic and rather dilapidated Town Hall. Swallow's Fall, Population Eighty Six Seven Eight. Sammy had told her that she was number eighty-seven, Jamie must be eighty-eight. Kate pulled at the brim of her hat, shading her eyes in case someone suddenly pounced her from nowhere and made her honorary townsperson number eighty-nine. Swallow's Fall was too small for Kate. She was used to an expansive world. This little town was too isolated for her industrious mind. Cute and all that, with its never-changing atmosphere. But it wasn't for Kate. Should she decide to move to the country, there'd be other towns, close to the city. And if she moved to the country she'd have made The Decision to let
you know who
have it all.

Fat Jacques Burch. And she wasn't referring to his waistline. She meant fat as in greedy and petulant and downright nasty. Jumping jalopies, Jacques made her blood boil and her mind seethe.

Putting that scumbag to the back of her mind she stopped outside the petrol station and stared at a beautiful, pressed metal sign. A wonderful, welcomed and mouth-watering sign:
Ice Cream
. She nearly went down on bended knee in front of it to sing a halleluiah.

‘Good heavens. You walked all that way?'

Kate swung to the only fuel bowser at the station and the lady standing next to it. She recognised the short, plump, smiling person with her hair piled high in a bun. Still-jet-black hair, even though she must be close to retirement age. Mrs Z? Mrs P? ‘I've walked from Silver Bells House,' Kate said, throwing a hand behind her to indicate the excessive kilometres she'd journeyed by Wellington boots.

The lady, whose smile hadn't left her face, beckoned her inside the petrol station shop. ‘Come on in, dear. You must be exhausted. What are you wearing wellies for?'

Don't ask
.

Once inside the air-conditioned little shop — no more than a clean white room with a counter, a twirling rack of postcards and metal shelving full of all the expected mechanical oils, jump leads and car air fresheners — Kate's heated skin and dehydrated internal organs breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Kate Singleton,' Kate said as way of introduction while the lady peered under the rim of Kate's straw hat. ‘I'm Sammy's friend. I think I met you at the wedding.'

‘I know. I remember you. Heard you were in town. Jamie's girlfriend, is it?'

Excuse me
?

‘Sammy and Ethan are away,' Mrs P or Z said. ‘But you know that. Jamie's been at Silver Bells House for over two months now. Fancy you and Jamie being together. Did you walk?'

‘Yes,' Kate replied to the last question, and, ‘No,' to being Jamie's girlfriend. ‘I'm not his girlfriend.' Sweet lady, but oh, so wrong about the situation. ‘There was a bit of a misunderstanding. I came down to rent the cottage for Christmas, not realising it had been bought, then I bogged my car because of a flock of parrots, and Jamie got me out and there was nowhere else to go.'

‘How kind of him. Such a gentleman. Were they gang gangs?' She held her hand out. ‘Mrs Tam. And I meant the parrots.'

‘Hello again,' Kate said, shaking Mrs Tam's little hand. ‘Lovely to see you. Not sure what kind of parrots they were but there were thousands of them.' Slight exaggeration but this was the country. Anything could happen, and for all Kate knew, probably did.

‘Fancy Sammy forgetting to tell you that Jamie bought the house.' Mrs Tam shook her head. ‘Most unusual.'

Wasn't it? Kate had been thinking along the same lines during the last two hours' trudge into Sammy's township.
Have you been playing me, Samantha
?

‘Can I buy an ice cream?'

‘Of course, and no buying. It's on me. Can't have Jamie's girlfriend wilting from heat exhaustion. Homemade, you know. Which flavour?'

Kate followed Mrs Tam to the ice cream refrigerator. Rainbow colours of ice-cold ice cream made her forget about the girlfriend remark. ‘Two scoops of raspberry-ripple please.' Pile it up. Bring it on.

‘Oh, good choice.' Mrs Tam got her metal ice cream scoop out of a little bucket and lifted the lid on the freezer.

Kate inhaled the cold and welcomed the momentary freeze on her skin.

‘People are like children, you know, when they choose their flavours.' Mrs Tam piled the ice cream into a waffle-wafer cone. ‘I'm trying a new recipe actually. Strawberry-marshmallow. There you go.' She patted the top with the back of the ice cream scoop. ‘I've got the strawberry, of course, but I'm having trouble blending the marshmallow flavour in.'

Kate licked the top scoop. ‘I wish you luck with it, Mrs Tam. Sounds delicious and this is, honest to God, the best ice cream I've ever tasted. Anywhere. In the whole world.'

‘Thank you, dear. Oh! Excuse me a moment.'

Kate followed Mrs Tam outside as a lone car pulled up for petrol. While Mrs Tam dealt with the petrol pump — personal service, the country was full of such delights — Kate took a good look down Main Street. So quiet. The poor little town didn't have much.

She nodded down the street towards the pioneer cemetery when Mrs Tam came to stand next to her. ‘Where's the Christmas tree?' Kate felt sure they'd put the tree up there. Best place for it. It could be viewed from both entrances to town — or exits, depending on which way you'd entered.

Mrs Tam tutted. ‘There's a bit of a to-do this year due to the newly formed town committee. Mr Penman, our grocer, has a condition.'

‘For the committee?' Kate asked.

‘Oh no, dear. Waterworks.'

‘Plumbing problem in the shop?'

‘He can't pee.'

Gee whiz, thanks for the explanation
. ‘Poor man,' Kate murmured. ‘Was he supposed to chop the tree down and haul it into town?'

‘Not at his age. Jamie's doing that. As soon as the feud's been settled.'

‘What feud?'

‘Mr Penman always plays Santa when we hand out the Christmas presents to the locals. But due to his condition, he can't sit for too long.' Mrs Tam patted the bun on top of her head. A big, black pie of a bun. ‘Can't stand for too long, either, come to think of it.'

‘Shouldn't he see a doctor?'

‘Already has. Nothing they can do but let nature take its course.'

Kate didn't want to imagine how. It would totally ruin the flavour of raspberry ripple in her mouth. ‘So what's the feud about?' Sammy was forever giving her snippets of information about Swallow's Fall and its passions, its glories and its gossip mill.

‘Ted Tillman,' Mrs Tam said. ‘He runs the stock feeders' and he's our committee chairman. He wants to play Santa in Mr Penman's stead. But that means the costume will have to be let out quite considerably and Mrs Penman refuses to give it to Mrs Tillman.'

Kate stood under the shade of the petrol station's veranda and studied Main Street as Mrs Tam spoke. The claret ash trees lining the street were countrified gorgeous. Glossy green foliage glinting in the sunlight. They'd look beautiful at night, covered in sparkly white lights nestling against the darkened leaves, looking like cheeky, bright-eyed elves in a forest. If you liked that sort of thing.

‘The families aren't talking,' Mrs Tam continued. ‘Which means we haven't got the decorations up yet. What a to-do. Never known the like of it before.'

Kate didn't mind there being no decorations. She wasn't doing Christmas this year but it was a shame for the townspeople, not seeing Main Street draped in tinsel.

‘I need to do some shopping,' she said, looking across the street. ‘Does Mr Penman sell pretzels?' She wouldn't be able to carry much more on the long trek home. ‘And sandals?'

‘You can buy all modern conveniences in Swallow's Fall,' Mrs Tam informed her with a smile. ‘So long as it wasn't created or produced after 1990.'

Kate grinned. Another great thing about the townspeople here. They didn't seem to have any misgivings about their lot. ‘What happened to the B&B?' she asked.

‘It was hit in a big storm we had just over a year ago. The Cappers haven't got the money to renovate yet.'

‘What a shame.' A pretty little house. Out of date décor inside, but it had a warm feeling. Even Sammy's mother, the ferocious Verity Walker, seemed to calm down from her never-ending complaints when she stayed there.

‘And what about the pub?' Kate asked, aiming her ice cream cone at Kookaburra's Bar & Grill across the street. It looked quiet. Dead. Lifeless. Closed. Thank God Jamie had rescued her Chardonnay.

‘Shut for the moment. We've got a new owner though. A young man. He's been here for the handover, gone back to Queensland to collect his things and promised us the bar would be open by Christmas. He'll be resident number eighty-nine, you know.'

Oh good. That saved Kate for taking up the position.

‘And there's Grandy.' Kate said, looking across to Morelly's Hardware store and the old man sitting on a bench out front. He was talking to a blonde teenager who had a pad or a sketchbook in her hand, and her foot on the tilted edge of a skateboard. Kate not only remembered Grandy, she felt she had the right to say she knew him. The grand old patriarch of Swallow's Fall. The man had more sense than most people gained in a lifetime.

Kate had been truly interested in the letter Sammy had sent her, detailing Grandy's ninetieth birthday party and the ruckus of yet another feud about who was going to bake the cake and how many tiers it ought to have. If only Kate's business world had been filled with such funny, abstract problems, she might not be in the position she was in now.

‘Why don't you go say hello, dear. He'll be pleased as Midas to see you.'

Kate put the paper wrapper from her now eaten ice cream into a rubbish bin. ‘I will, thanks for the ice cream, Mrs Tam. I'll see you later.'

‘Cheerio, dear.'

Kate wandered across the street. Mrs Tam had been spot on with her Midas analogy. From what Sammy had told her Grandy seemed to have the ability to turn folly into sensible gold.

‘What's with the heat?' she asked Grandy as she trudged up the stairs to the wooden walkway which supported the shopping side of Main Street. The pub, the grocer's, Cuddly Bear Toy & Gift shop and Morelly's Hardware store. ‘I thought the Snowies were supposed to be ten degrees lower in temperature than the rest of Australia.'

‘Sun must have come out to welcome you,' Grandy said. He lifted his cane and pointed the end at her feet. ‘Like your wellies.'