The Christmas Café (2 page)

‘I couldn’t park the bloody car, even at this time of night. It’s 2013, we can send shuttles up into space and we can fit more information than is held in the Canberra National Library on a digital postage stamp, but we can’t work out how to allow entry to a locked car park after hours. It’s a bloody ridiculous system.’ He flipped the bunch of car keys back and forth until they nestled inside his clenched palm.

Bea nodded. It was. Bloody ridiculous.

‘So, how’s he doing?’ Wyatt placed his knuckles on his hips; again, as if angry with her about something.

She stared at her son and twisted the bangles on her wrist. ‘He died, Wyatt. He died a few hours ago.’ It was the first time she had said it out loud. ‘It was actually very peaceful. He just went to sleep. I was holding his hand. He seemed to reach across me, as though trying to head off somewhere. I told him it was okay to go; like giving him permission, I suppose. Permission to leave me. And he went.’ She gave a brief smile.

‘Oh, Mum,’ he offered, neutrally.

She wondered what that meant.
‘Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry,’
or
‘I wish I’d got here sooner,’
or
‘Please, Mother, less of the dramatics.’
It was hard to tell. Wyatt was a man who coped better with the practical than the emotional. He no doubt wanted her to start talking about funeral arrangements and finances, things to which he could relate, rather than how she was feeling. But that was simply tough shit.

‘I didn’t know what to do, so I called you.’ She felt, awkwardly, that she had to justify the inconvenience.

‘Of course.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll take you home, when you’re ready.’ He placed his hand briefly on her shoulder, pulling away quickly.

She felt the imprint of his fingers on her skin, like a burn. She considered reminding him that neither heart disease nor in fact heartache were contagious. He was safe on both counts. She felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. Whilst it might have been nice to be swept up in an all-consuming hug, it would also have been acutely embarrassing; they were so out of practice.

Twenty minutes later, Wyatt’s big, shiny Holden Storm, with its warm leather interior and startling spaceship-like display on the dashboard, swept up Elizabeth Street and turned into Reservoir Street, at the heart of the affluent Surry Hills district. Both streets were almost deserted. The car’s headlights raked the walls and she winced, knowing they would wake several residents.

Pulling into the kerb, Wyatt turned to his mother. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come up?’ The way he left his seatbelt fastened and the engine running told her all she needed to know.

‘No, no, I’m fine. You get back to Sarah and Flora. Thank you for coming all this way, Wyatt, at this time of night.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Absolutely. It’s a good half-hour’s drive back to Manly. You get yourself off, love.’

She sensed the easing of his tension and realised that she too had dreaded the prospect of small talk and long silences over a cup of tea.

Bea climbed the stairs and twisted her key in the lock; the apartment was dark and quiet. Peter had been in hospital for ten days and she had popped back twice for showers and a change of clothes, yet tonight the rooms felt emptier than they had before, as if the bricks and mortar sensed that he was not coming home. She slumped down on the sofa and sat in the shadows, finding solace in the peace and particular hush that night-time brings.

Peter’s sandshoes sat side by side on the bathroom floor. His pyjamas were still in the laundry basket and his books were arranged in two small stacks on his bedside table. One pile waiting to be read and the other his favourites, which he liked to keep close. Rudyard Kipling’s
The Jungle Book
, which he had loved since his teens, was among them. Bea’s mind jumped back in time, to another Kipling book, another man, another life. A tall man with a green scarf, who had kept time on her heart with his palm. Thirty-four years ago now, and yet she remembered it like it was yesterday.

She picked up a green silk cushion and hugged it to her while she surveyed Peter’s things, all now redundant, including the spectacles that sat on top of their case on the coffee table. She gingerly scooped them into her palm and held them against her chest. It was strange that these innocuous items now held such significance, vaulting the line from everyday thing to precious talisman. She wept, her loss and exhaustion sweeping over her like a wave that left her gulping for air. She was not just crying for the wonderful man she had lost but for the true, unconditional love that she had been unable to give him.

‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’m so sorry.’

Bea slowly opened one eye, peeking from her pillow at the new morning. The remnants of a dream lurked in her consciousness – she had been taken back in time, to the beat of a drum and the sound of a wide-decked, tall ship pushing through the waves. The wild torment of a younger body that yearned for the touch of her man, a memory of dancing under the stars on a swaying deck, the feel of his cotton shirt beneath her fingertips, his eyes, locked on hers, pulling her in. And his voice, deep and resolute, his words loud and clear, spoken on a still, hot, summer’s night as the cicadas chirped and the black flying-fox bats circled overhead
. ‘I want to take you away. I want to make a home where you and I are free to love each other without judgement, without having to hide. I wish I could marry you, right here, right now. I won’t ever let you go. I’ll carry you with me, in here
...
’
His two fingers had patted his chest in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

She sighed. The sun streamed in through the open window, casting spiky shadows of the full-bloomed Queensland lacebark against the wooden floor. She instinctively put a hand out to the other side of the bed. It was hard to believe that it had been a full year since she had said goodbye to Peter in that dimly lit hospital ward; but the pain was easing, a little. What surprised her were moments like these, when she reached out but failed to find him lying next to her in his stripy blue pyjamas, or when she wanted to call him with some titbit of information.

Bea glanced guiltily at Peter’s side of the bed. Even after all these years, an unsettling dream still had the power to do that to her: the flash of a memory, an image, a word. It could transport her back to a time before Peter, a time before her whole world had unravelled. And then, mercifully, he had swept in and saved her with his kindness.

She threw back the cool cotton bedspread and swung her legs onto the stripped wooden floor, letting her silk pyjamas unbunch themselves and slip crinkle-free down her legs, the sleeves falling in neat gaping triangles over her arms. She rather liked the contrast of the cream colour against the faint liver spots on the back of her hand. Deciding against her vintage silk kimono dressing gown, she left it on the bed and stood in front of the tall mirror, where she stretched her arms high above her head, turning sharply to the left as she waited for the familiar click of her neck. Next she bent forward with her hands clasped over her head and hung that way for a minute until her back, like her PJs, was kink-free. These were just a couple of the little rituals that she performed at the beginning of every day.

Bea held her breath and pulled the blind. She was, as ever, filled with joy and relief at the sight of Reservoir Street below, so very different from the dingy bedsit in Kings Cross she and Wyatt had shared for six years. Even after so many decades, the memory of that tiny hot room had the power to make her skin itch. She smiled as she took in the steep street with its pastel-coloured Victorian terraced properties and stunning wrought-iron balconies that sat proudly on either side of the thoroughfare. A runner laboured up the incline on the opposite side of the street, his headphones firmly in place. He raised his hand at the sight of her – funny how everyone knew her because of the business.

She sighed. It was a glorious day full of summer promise, and despite the loneliness that threatened there was something rather lovely about this early hour, the stillness of the place before the ensuing madness of the day. She had always been an early riser and this had proved most beneficial to the success of the Reservoir Street Kitchen. Up with the lark, she would have the lights on, ovens hungry and toasty, kettles filled, bread prepped and deliveries sorted and stowed before Kim and Tait made an appearance.

Bea took one last fond look at the slight dent on Peter’s side of the bed, which would never, she hoped, regain its original shape, allowing her to imagine him only temporarily absent, sipping coffee down at The Rocks or fetching the morning paper. That made it easier somehow, kidding herself that he would be back sometime soon.

Radio 2GB babbled away in the background and Alan Jones’ unmistakeable cadences filled the room, updating her on the state of the world. It was all she needed to lift her spirits. She still hadn’t heard from Wyatt or Sarah with regard to Christmas and at that precise moment she hated her need of them. She tried to remain stoical, tried not to dwell on the fact that she only saw or heard from them once a month, but the truth was, she did mind, especially because this sparse, inadequate contact meant she was kept away from her granddaughter, Flora, a bubbly thirteen-year-old whom Bea adored. In recent years, on Flora’s birthday she had made a point of going to the house in Manly twenty minutes early so as to catch a little time with Flora before she went out to play with her buddies. And each year, after Sarah’s Christmas barbecue, they would sit together on the sand and chat. Bea would ask Flora what bands were ‘in’, and Flora would tease her for being an old granny, even though she’d only turned fifty-three this year. It wasn’t much of an interaction, but as Bea reminded herself, they had busy, full lives and that little bit of contact was better than nothing.

She made herself a mug of Earl Grey with a large slice of lemon and stood in front of the open windows by the Juliet balcony as she looked out over the warm Sydney morning. The big sky was clear in its azure brilliance, and she allowed her mind to wander back to the same time last year, to a similarly perfect summer’s day, which had seemed to spite her sadness. It was seven days after Peter had passed away and she’d sat on the sofa, resplendent in understated aubergine, remote and aloof, like a queen bee attended by a swarm of fluttering guests. Just like at weddings, everyone had wanted a small amount of time with her, the main attraction. The trick was not to monopolise or talk too much; funerals were all about short, meaningful sentences. ‘So sorry for your loss...’ ‘It’s a blessing...’ ‘A happy release...’ ‘He was a great bloke.’ The offerings had all been pretty much identical in both content and the manner in which they were delivered, heads cocked to one side, doleful expressions, and the volume barely above a whisper.

The only original sentiment had come from Flora, who had seen it as more of a party and had been refreshingly oblivious as to why it might not be appropriate to laugh loudly, sing or throw snacks down to the disinterested little wattlebird resting in the tree below the balcony. Bea had watched Wyatt glare at his daughter from the other side of the room – probably more effective than actually engaging with her. She realised that Flora had always been that way, slightly out of kilter with what was expected by the rest of the pack. And, truthfully, she approved of Flora’s attitude: funerals should be about celebrating a person’s life. Peter’s wake had been far too sedate; the delicate chink of glass against glass and the barely audible hum of conversation had been oppressive. She had watched Peter’s sister and brother conversing in whispers behind cupped palms, covertly raising their eyebrows and shaking their heads between sips of wine, in a way that made everyone in the room feel really awkward, excluded.

It was no secret that they didn’t like her and, truth be told, she wasn’t overly fond of them; she still remembered the way they had cold-shouldered her when they’d first met, all those years ago. The conversation as to why they held Bea in such low regard had never been had, but she suspected it was because she fell way below the standard they would have expected for someone like Peter. She was his first bride and a lot younger than him – a mere twenty-five years old to his mature forty-seven, which they probably didn’t approve of either. Arriving out of nowhere with a young son in tow and no respectable backstory – she had not been tragically widowed in her youth, nor forced to care for an abandoned child that was not her own – she was considered damaged goods. Now, having laid Peter to rest in a quiet grave in a sunny spot at South Head General Cemetery, overlooking the Tasman Sea, their dislike of her had morphed into resentment; this Bea knew was because the bulk of Peter’s estate was going to her, the imposter! Not that it was a vast fortune, but it was certainly enough to keep the wolf from the door and to give her choices. This was yet another reason for her to be eternally grateful to her lovely husband.

She had looked around the room and knew that the Bea of her youth would have shouted to the assembled,
‘Do you know what? I’d really rather be alone, and Peter didn’t like half of you anyway. Please, make your way home via the nearest exit and when you have gone, I shall drink wine and dance in my bare feet until I fall asleep!’
But this wasn’t the Bea of her youth; she was in her fifties and had learnt that sometimes it was best to observe the ‘least said, soonest mended’ rule. That was precisely how she got through the following hour of further platitudes about how time would heal all of her wounds. She knew from bitter experience that this was a lie. Thirty-five years on and her pulse still quickened as she remembered clinging to her beloved with her bare hands, begging, pleading not to be left alone. Time had not healed her wounds; it had merely placed a thin veneer of anaesthesia over them that dulled the pain, making them easier to live with.

Bea shook her head to clear the memory and lifted the cup of lemony tea to her lips as she wandered over to the sofa. Her wrist gave a familiar jangle. Twelve slim silver bracelets sat haphazardly on her left arm, each one bought by Peter for a particular birthday or anniversary; each one engraved on the inside with a declaration of love or a funny insight. The one he’d given her on her fiftieth birthday read: ‘You are now officially old! Welcome to the club!’