The Briny Café (28 page)

In the pre-dawn heat haze of Christmas morning, Ettie wanders downstairs in her white cotton nightie. She checks the
Closed
sign is clearly visible, the locks still in place. No matter how piteous the plea for a container of milk or a loaf of bread, she is not opening for anyone today.

This year, she thinks as she prepares her early morning cuppa, she has so much to be thankful for. She takes the first hot sip with a sigh of pleasure before going outside to the deck. She picks a spot in the eastern corner, where the sun will hit in a while, and puts her feet on the rails. The peace, she sighs. The pleasure of not rushing.

Ten waifs and strays will gather at her table on the top deck for lunch: Marcus, Kate, Sam, Fast Freddy, Artie, the Misses Skettle, Big Julie, Jimmy. And his mum, Amelia, who has already told Ettie that she had so much time in minimum security she became an expert patchwork quilt maker. She hopes everyone is fond of the style.

Ettie drains her cup and checks her watch automatically,
finding it difficult to set aside the daily muffin-baking timetable. She gazes into water that's picking up thin strands of light now. The seabed begins to take shape. Tide-moulded sand, swaying seagrass. And fingerlings, barely bigger than tadpoles, flicking nonsensically back and forth. The air is already thickening with heat, the sun not even nudging the horizon. Why do we do it? she wonders as she does without fail every year. Hot turkey, hot potatoes, hot pudding in a hot climate.

She picks up the steady, high-pitched whine of Kate's boat and tells herself to get moving. A shower, clean clothes, an apron and on with the show. She has less to do than usual today. The pudding, heavily based on oranges, lemons, ginger and butter instead of suet, was wrapped in calico and steamed a month ago. Anyone passing through the café during the mixing process was invited to have a stir and make a wish.

Fast Freddy will do a quick run upriver to the Fisherman's Co-op for fresh prawns and oysters. To go with them, the chef will create a collection of perky little palate-pleasers using combinations of lime, chilli, shallots, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. Marcus is also cooking the turkey with his famous pork, veal and chestnut stuffing.

Ettie elects Kate to make the sauces for the pudding – brandy, hard sauce, custard, and cream whipped with brandy and icing sugar. She aims to keep Kate busy all day. And anyway, it is part of her culinary education.

She waves at the young woman as she approaches the café, so utterly transformed from the reserved character who pitched up a little more than three months ago looking for a place to belong. She watches her dock her tinny precisely,
hop out and tie on with two perfect bowlines. By the end of another year, Sam will teach her to read the sky for storms, the winds for danger, the sea for changing seasons. In turn, she will teach him to venture beyond the boundaries of tiny Cook's Basin, and hopefully only partially cure him of the boy bravado that he so often finds refuge in. And which is also, it has to be said, part of his charm.

Kate tramps up the jetty, steep with a low tide. “I'm ready to tackle the crème anglaise!” she announces.

“Custard.”

“What?”

“It's custard, not crème anglaise. Close relation but a fraction sturdier from the addition of a little flour.”

“And there I was, trying to impress you with my newfound knowledge. But I'll do my best, Ettie.”

“You always do, Kate. And I love you for it.”

Kate swallows. “Well. 'Tis the season to be jolly.” And arm in arm they walk into The Briny Café as the sun breaks loose of the horizon.

 

On Ettie's top deck, the table is laid with a white cloth and red gingham napkins, courtesy of Marcus who seems to have cupboards full of tableware for any occasion. Jimmy's mum, Amelia, has made a Christmas tree centrepiece out of scraps of red fabric and five red candles. Jimmy made the bon-bons with some gentle instruction. She says she had to stop every now and then to stare at her boy who, in her three-month absence, had grown into a very decent young man.

The Christmas tree, which fills the penthouse with the
clean scent of pine, is covered in handmade decorations that Ettie's mother and grandmother cherished. A single silver star is attached to the tip. Every so often it catches the light off the water and shimmers.

Gifts are wrapped and tagged and piled under the tree in colourful abandon, ready to be opened over a glass of champagne.

At noon on the dot, the
Mary Kay
glides into sight like the dowager queen of the bays that she is. So much an everyday sight that she brings comfort and a sense that while she chugs across the water, all is well. Her deck and funnels froth with festive garlands that twinkle in the sun. Amelia, Jimmy, Fast Freddy and Marcus are dressed in a mix of red and green with reindeer antlers on their heads. The perennially pink Misses Skettle have abandoned their favourite colour and are swathed in strawberry from top to toe. At the front of the barge, like an admiral of the fleet, Artie sits on a white cane chair. Wet-haired, he is resplendent in his best long pants and a voluminous red-checked shirt, with a broad-brimmed cream straw hat tilted at a rakish angle.

Big Julie arrives at the café on foot pushing a wheelbarrow full of presents. She tells Ettie that hoarding money didn't do Bertie much good and she plans to live for the day and spend without remorse. “It's no good to you in the hereafter,” she announces.

“You've taken care of the drainage pipes, though, haven't you?” Ettie says, concerned.

“Relocated them to a safety deposit box. I've also booked a world cruise,” she adds with a wink.

When the barge docks, Jimmy flies off like a rocket and
roars upstairs to the penthouse, his eyes darting in all directions. He ignores the gifts under the tree and instead opens doors and cupboards, searching frantically.

When he fails to find even one of Boag's old hairs, he flops in a chair, holding back tears of disappointment.

“This what you're looking for, mate?” Sam says, grinning. He reaches under his shirt and holds out a wriggling little black-and-white mutt that will one day grow into a handsome border collie.

The kid leaps to his feet, his eyes ready to pop from their sockets. He tenderly takes the pup out of Sam's huge hands. “Hiya, Longfellow,” he whispers, kissing the pup on the head.

Longfellow?
The chef is the first to react. “A noble poet,” he says, approvingly. “And therefore a noble name for a noble breed. It is a perfect choice.”

Jimmy rushes downstairs, slams through the screen door leading to the deck and jumps on board the barge. He races to the bow where he sits cross-legged and explains to the pup, in a very serious voice, that when he is old enough this will be his look-out post and that he is to bark at the very first sight of a shark. “Isn't that right?” he calls to the adults who are watching from the deck. They raise their glasses in reply.

An hour later everyone sits on the pontoon, feet hanging over the edge in the cool water, champagne glasses topped up. The Misses Skettle are already giggly. Amelia bursts into tears whenever she looks at her son. Artie consoles her with a pat. Fast Freddy and the chef expertly shuck oysters with the tip of a sharp knife. A glorious array of dipping sauces is lined up on a red lacquer tray not far from a bucket filled with ice and glossily fresh king prawns. Cook's Basin meets three-star.

Ettie fluffs around making sure the Misses Skettle are comfortable, and that no one fills their glasses for a little while.

Upstairs, a golden turkey rests under a covering of foil. The ham is due to be taken out of the oven in ten minutes. In her only nod to the heat of summer, Ettie has prepared a bean and cherry tomato salad but – to everyone's relief – couldn't bring herself to give up crisp potatoes roasted with garlic, rosemary and sea salt. The chef has brought a pot of his cranberry sauce made with cinnamon and orange peel, as well as a light gravy created from scraping the pan drippings into a long reduction of a bottle of white wine.

“Kings …” Sam announces, when Kate emerges from the kitchen declaring her custard has thickened nicely.

“Never lived this good!” shouts the crowd.

 

They dine in the splendour of a perfect Cook's Basin afternoon, watching the light fade and gulls fly across the milky blue sky. As evening falls, they light the candles and sit around while the worn-out puppy sleeps soundly in one of Ettie's old baskets. Jimmy is fast asleep right alongside.

When it seems the Misses Skettle have had enough celebration for one day, Sam tucks them onto the banquette in the wheelhouse of the
Mary Kay
and takes them home. He kisses them goodnight and thanks them, as he always does, for their open hearts and endless generosity.

By the time he returns to the café, Fast Freddy is ready to help him restore a sleepy but impressively sober Artie to his floating palace. Kate offers to take Amelia and Jimmy home in her tinny.

The chef announces he and Big Julie will take charge of the cleaning up and that Ettie is to lie back on the sofa in ease and comfort. Ettie, who can't remember a more effortless Christmas, murmurs that yes, perhaps she is a little tired after all. And does exactly as she's told.

 

The moon is high in the sky by the time Sam climbs the steps to Kate's house. He tells himself he is simply dropping by to check she is okay. And that is true.

He tells himself that he can help her if she will let him. And that is also true.

He also tells himself that if he is met with resistance, he must accept that is how she feels. And that she needs time. True. But God, how he hopes for so much more.

“What took you so long?” says a soft voice from the verandah, and his stomach flip-flops. He laughs out loud and bounds up the steps three at a time.

Available October 2013

 

With the early-morning sun beating through the cabin window and a dawn breeze pleasantly cool on the back of his neck, Sam Scully steers the
Mary Kay
off her mooring, checking behind to make sure the stern is well clear before pushing forward the throttle. Through the cabin windows, he looks rock solid. Square. Shoulders as wide as his hips, powerful legs, all muscle. His hair is a helmet of tight squiggles — as though it's been singed all over by a sudden burst of flame. His clothes, faded by the sun, look dusty: he could have stepped out of a drought-stricken paddock instead of onto a working timber barge. He spins the helm with a single finger, his ear tuned to catch the slightest off-note from the diesel engine thrumming under his feet. At one with the sea and his vessel.

The light, more orange than pink now, fires up the escarpment, treetops; it drills into the water before bouncing back, poker sharp. He is struck, as he often is, by his good fortune. How many men can claim they live and work in paradise? He quickly reaches to touch a small overhead trim made from golden Huon pine. Like all good seamen, who understand the deep blue waters are dark, mysterious and endlessly unpredictable, he's as superstitious as hell.

In the distance, he sees Kate Jackson's half-cabin, snub-nosed fibreglass runabout explode out of the shadows of Oyster Bay, going so fast it skims the satin-smooth water like a bird. A dead ugly commuter boat but stable as a cement slab, it barely rolls in even a heart-stopping sea. Perfect for over-confident novices who often fail to grasp the force and fury of the physical world until they are threatened by it.

He watches her through narrowed eyes. Nearly a month, he thinks. Certainly not long enough to accurately call it a relationship but long enough to pin down what makes her tick and truthfully, he doesn't have a clue. Some days, he feels unspooled like a yo-yo. Wound in tightly one moment and unraveled the next.

Up ahead on the mainland shore, The Briny Café tilts haphazardly eastwards, blasted every August by winds straight from the South Pole. It's haloed by a shimmery heat haze or sea mist: he's not sure which. He points the bow towards it, noting for the umpteenth time that the warped and rusty corrugated-iron roof badly needs replacing. If the café's new owners can continue their promising start through the short dark days of winter, when locals rush past to avoid bumping blindly home over a black sea, he'll gently suggest it.

He swings the barge alongside the creaky rear deck, throws a rope around an oyster-crusted pile worn needle-thin by more than a century of tides. Ties up. Picks his way through a motley collection of tables and chairs, cast-offs donated by Cutter Islanders: the financial status of the café is still precarious. Arrives at the café's private pontoon in perfect time to help Kate, who's drifted dockside with a centimetre to spare, secure her boat. Not such a novice any more, then.

‘You look a million dollars,' he blurts, happy to see her. She looks at him blankly. ‘The clobber,' he continues, steadier now. ‘Nice jacket, trousers well cut. Silk shirt that's seen the flat side of a hot iron, for chrissake. First-rate professional gear. And those heels will knock the bluff out of any lawyer.'

Kate glances at her clothes as if she's seeing them for the first time. ‘The heels are tame, Sam. Trust me. And city people will take one look at my shaggy hair and see
country hick
at a hundred paces.'

‘You'll knock 'em dead, love. You're a dead-set star turn. Sure you don't want me to come with you?' A tinny roars past. The wake strikes out and whacks the pontoon with a thump. He thrusts out a hand, huge, scarred, sunburned to a crisp, and grabs her arm to keep her steady. ‘Freaking moron,' he mutters. ‘One born every day.'

‘Gotta run, Sam. I'll call you.' Her slight figure disappears up the gangplank, the sun casting blue highlights on sleek black hair. He sighs. She might have let him get away with the
moron
bit but the
one born every day
was a lay down misère loser line. Made him sound like a die-hard whinger looking back on years of disappointments when all he really cares about is her wellbeing. He glares as the renegade tinny is noisily rammed into a row of equally decrepit boats further along the sandstone seawall at commuter boat dock. Feels an uncharacteristically violent urge to garrotte the driver. Love does your head in, there's no doubt about it.

Had they met in her former life as a globe-trotting journalist interviewing the men and women who make the top-end decisions, he is painfully aware Kate would never have given him anything more committed than a nod. Blame the sea.
The sun. Summer madness brought on by the warm and sexy north wind, he thinks, not sure whether to curse or bless it. Essentially, they are an improbable coupling: a journalist and a bargeman. One end of the cultural stratosphere and the other.

He'd read the signs last night. Never mind the frigidly cold beer that was shoved hospitably in his mitt the second he walked through her front door. Never mind the cosy dinner with candles that smelled like a French tart – the kind you scooped onto a spoon with plenty of thick cream – and never mind the fact that, after less than a month, you'd expect to skip the foreplay and head straight for the main course. Which was the giveaway, when he thought about it. A barrage of social rituals aimed at softening the news that she'd prefer him to cross the enclosed waters between Oyster Bay and Cutter Island to sleep in his own empty bed. Feinting and demurring when all she had to do was say she felt like a night alone, thanks very much. At least he hopes she meant a night alone and nothing with more of a nasty streak of longevity attached to it.

‘Just spit it out straight and to the point, Kate,' he'd told her, trying to lighten the load by smiling over the words. She'd given him a look that was part relief and part ice because he'd seen through the rigmarole and seized the upper hand. ‘Old habits,' she said. ‘Journos spend their entire careers coming in from oblique angles to arrive at the main point.' (Jeez, he thinks now, the media is a roaring cacophony of white noise that no one trusts for that very reason.)

Later, crossing plate-glass water under stars that snatched away the importance of any human-sized moments, he'd
wondered if she believed sneaking towards the main goal had its own nobility. If she did he was in for some rough crossings.

He shakes himself like a half-drowned dog. He isn't himself this morning. A lonely night in a bed where the sheets needed changing and the dust was thick on the floorboards – he slaps the palm of his hand against his forehead, eyes squeezed tight with relief. No coffee yet. No wonder he's ratty. The caffeine fix is long overdue. A large mug with a double shot is all that's required to set him back on track. If it's combined with one of Ettie's fragrant raspberry muffins, he'll be a happy man. Sex or no sex last night.

‘Ettie,' he shouts through the patched flyscreen door of The Briny, ‘I'm a man who's teetering dangerously on the edge of complete physical collapse from lack of proper nourishment. A coffee and one of those delicious raspberry muffins that turns a dull morning into pure ecstasy. If you please.'

But he can't shake the niggling feeling that a forty-year-old man who turns himself inside out for the love of a woman is headed for the kind of beating that leaves him crippled for life.

 

 

Ettie Brookbank, the aging hippy co-owner of The Briny Café, is dealing with a long queue of tradies. With Kate en route to the big smoke to sort out her mother's last will and testament, god help the girl, she's knee deep in orders without any back-up and everyone in a tearing hurry because it's Monday and they're late for work and ferociously hung over.

One-handed, she cracks eggs on the smoking hot flat-plate, checking the whites are firm, the glossy yolks perky – which
means the supplier isn't trying to slip her dud stock while she's not looking. She lines up ten bread rolls like roundly plump soldiers, loads them with bacon strips and scrambled eggs. Her homemade tomato chutney is spooned on top. She gets a whiff of the spices. Mustard seeds. Cumin. Cinnamon. Fennel seeds. Mixed in with a cayenne pepper kick that would wake the dead. As good a cure-all as her famous chicken soup. For hangovers anyway. Ten bleary-eyed blokes, barely out of their teens, with hair sticking out from their sunburned scalps like corn stalks and wearing groin-skimming Stubbies that only serve to emphasise their knobbly knees, pounce on the food like starving dogs. ‘Thanks, Ettie. Ya saved the day.' She shakes her head, tempted to warn them about the evils of alcohol but bites her tongue. Not so long ago, the number of mornings that found her with a blinding headache had been turning into more of a problem than a social ritual.

The young fellas exit the café, a ragged platoon, grease running down their sharp young chins. A lone straggler, avoiding Ettie's eyes, mumbles a request for the price of a buttered roll. He's broke, she thinks, and he's ashamed to admit it in front of the others. ‘Yesterday's are free,' she says. With her back to him, she reaches for fresh bread, fills it with ham, cheese and tomato. Whacks the sandwich in a white paper bag and twists the corners. ‘There you go. Would've had to toss it to the fish so you've done me a favour.' He hesitates. Unsure. ‘Quick, off you go,' she adds, ‘or you'll be left behind.'

He nods his thanks. Taking a quick break, she follows him out of the café and watches as he races off towards a small armada of barely seaworthy tinnies, outboards raspy as an old man's last gasp. The tradies jump lightly on board and
ship themselves off to various building sites. Spilling not a single drop of Ettie's famously frothy cappuccinos.

She makes a mental note to keep an eye out for the straggler tomorrow morning. He has the look of a half-starved dog. Not long off one of the boats, she reckons. And she's not talking about cruising pleasure yachts.

 

 

While he waits for his order, Sam pulls a small book out of the back pocket of the shorts he wears year-round no matter how far the mercury dips, thinking it's a bloody slim volume to claim it contains
The Concise History of the World
. Still, Kate told him once that she had a sub-editor who reckoned the bible could be cut back to twelve hundred words if you put your mind to it, so who was he, a bargeman who took his daily cues from the sky and sea, to judge? He silently chastises himself for referring to his beloved lighter as a barge. Habit. Tell people you have a lighter and they think you're talking about a Bic. He'd always been a matches man back when he indulged in sweet-tasting rollie tobacco. The stuff that gave off a scent – now that he thinks of it – not unlike the candles Kate'd whipped out last night to soften him before giving him his marching orders. He feels his emotions spiralling downwards again. Opens
The Concise History of the World
to page one to take his mind off the precariousness of romance.

He wonders what global
warming
will give rise to and quickly decides that on an evolutionary scale of six million years – or six hundred years, which seems to be the equivalent time-frame in the current high-speed world – it's not going to be his problem. And, looking on the bright side, who knows what amazing creatures will evolve out of the heat and dust? His eyes track the glitter of a plastic bottle floating under the deck. He's tempted to hazard a guess that wet footprints will be the next significant evolutionary step if the current epidemic of two-legged water guzzlers continues. The bottle emerges into daylight. Sam swoops on it like a hawk and heads inside the café to locate a bin.

Finding the café deserted, he leans on the polished counter and raises an eyebrow in hope.

‘Give me five,' Ettie says, still looking frazzled, even though the pressure is off. ‘I'm having trouble getting my head sorted this morning. Monday, eh? Bugger, where did I put the oven mitt?' She spins full circle. Wipes her brow. Goes bright pink.

‘No rush, love. Take your time. Er, the mitt's in front of you. There.' He points. Ettie snatches it up. ‘Bloody hell. Must be going blind,' she says, crossly, her face beet-root now.

Sam grins, joking: ‘Senior moments compressing, eh?'

Ettie gives him a look that shrivels his kidneys.

In Bertie's day, Sam recalls, the counter was a dusty mess of tins of antique baked beans, melted globs of sweets and
green-fringed bread. Cantankerous old bastard that he was, he'd done the right thing by selling The Briny to Ettie for a knockdown price. Understood money wasn't much use to a dying man and he might as well do something useful before the rock-hard knobs that had latched onto his lungs cut off his oxygen supply forever.

The community had rocked in shock when Ettie announced she was taking on Kate as a partner. The woman was newly arrived and more inclined towards loner than joiner, so everyone – him included – thought Ettie was nuts and that once again her instinct to nurture was over-riding her common sense. Kate couldn't cook and even wearing jeans (ironed, razor creases) and a T-shirt (ironed, blinding white) she looked more corporate than café. For Ettie's sake, they'd all given Kate the benefit of the doubt and she's done a good job, he admits. Slipped into dishes, mops and waitressing without a quibble. Even learned a couple of failsafe recipes (her spaghetti Bolognese with finely diced celery and carrots was right up there with Ettie's). But skills are really just window dressing. Personalities – their hard core – might broaden but do they ever switch gears completely? Truthfully, if he had to put money either way, he still wouldn't know how to place his bet.