The Briny Café (15 page)

He spreads his feet, bends from the waist and begins easing the succulents out of the sandy soil.

“You giving up the barge to go into landscaping?” Lindy asks, coming down the steps. She is wearing gardening gloves and carrying a bag half-full of weeds. “Whack it in here,” she says.

Sam stuffs the fleshy purple plants inside and takes it from her. “Just the person I want to see,” he says, wiping his face
with a bare arm. “Wanna tell me where to get rid of this?”

“Up the back. I'll put on the kettle.”

“Prefer an icy cold beer. Only if you're askin'…”

“Might be able to find one,” she says.

Lindy goes ahead and Sam takes a moment to enjoy the spectacle of the muscles in her smoothly tanned calves bunching as she climbs each step. She's a top sort. Unflappable. Cluey. Funny. Generous. Not a snotty bone in her body when anyone can see she and her husband are riding high on the sudden boom in offshore properties.

At the rear of the house, he lifts the lid off a compost bin, empties the bag. He feels a slight sting. Another. His legs begin to burn and itch. He strips off his shorts. Red lumps. Black dots.
Bloody ticks.
He dumps the bag and races into Lindy's kitchen in his jocks. “Covered in ticks, love. Hold the beer. Gotta go home.”

“Have a bath filled with bicarb,” Lindy advises without a twitch.

“Mate, I don't
have
a bath. You should know that, you sold me the bloody house.”

“Oh. Yeah. That's right. Well, strip off and get into ours. I'll bring in some bicarb.”

“You're a saint, Lindy. Always knew it. And if you've got that beer …” Sam scuttles towards the bathroom, ripping off his shirt. “Ah bugger, they're all over my chest. Better make it two beers, Lindy. One at a time, though, if you don't mind. Like 'em to stay cold. Then I'll tell you about a bloke who's planning to move on.”

“Sure, Sam,” she replies, thinking she'd make her husband fetch his own drinks no matter how many ticks he had.

Sam turns on the water full-bore, his old mantra –
No good turn goes unpunished –
playing in his head. Still, he's in a nice hot bath and about to enjoy a teeth-rattling cold ale. There is always an upside if you take the time to search for it.

Lindy knocks on the door. “You decent?”

“Nope.”

She walks in and hands Sam a beer through the steam, ignoring his naked body.

“Here's a clean towel,” she says, hanging it on a rail. “And the bicarb.” She sprinkles it into the tub.

Sam, striped white where his socks, shorts and sleeves end, churns the water with hands like fins. The bicarb fizzes. The water turns satin smooth and thickens like a sauce. “Suffocate, you suckers,” he orders, hooking the tiny seed ticks out of their burrows one by one with a ragged little fingernail, until his chest looks like a bout of teenage acne. “Thanks, love,” he adds, suddenly bashful and holding off having a go at the ones in his groin. “If you weren't married to Jason, I'd be proposing marriage myself. He's a lucky man.”

“Yeah. Tell him that every day,” Lindy says, closing the door and thinking he looked like a stranded, red-spotted beetle. A rare breed. Like him. And the day he proposed anything beyond a moonlight barge ride to a sandy beach to any woman, she'd shout the whole volunteer fire brigade a round of drinks.

She hears a rush from an opened tap. “Easy on the water, Sam,” she yells. “No telling when it's going to rain next.” She wonders why anyone would want to sell on the brink of a languid, steamy, blue-bathed Cook's Basin summer.

Sam sips his icy beer. Condensation plops from the bottom of the bottle into the tub. He feels the hot water ease his muscles, take the sting out of the bites. Kings didn't live better than this, he thinks, giving in to the warmth and drifting into a beery doze.

The door swings open, whacking the side of the bath.

“Jason! Mate. Gidday.” He lifts his beer in a friendly toast.

“Ah?”

“Just havin' a hot bath.”

“Yeah. Well. Right.” Jason hesitates.

“Want me to leave the water in for you?”

“No, mate. Er. Another beer?” he asks.

“Thanks, mate. Love one.”

Jason finds his wife in the kitchen stirring a pot of chicken stew.

“Sam's in the bath,” he says, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

“Yeah. Probably ready for another beer. Take it in to him, love, would you?”

“No worries. Er. He staying long?”

“No. Just until he gets rid of the ticks.”

“Ah.” His face relaxes into boyishness. “Want me to find some of my clean clothes for him too?” Jason suggests, not meaning it and remembering too late that sarcasm is wasted on his wife.

“Good idea, love. Thanks.”

Jason sighs, beaten. He kisses Lindy's cheek and inhales the rich scent of garlic and onions rising in a hot cloud from a bubbling mass. He squeezes her backside in appreciation. She puts down her wooden spoon, a smile playing at the corners
of her mouth, and turns off the simmering pot.

“See yourself out, Sam,” Jason yells, grabbing his wife's hand and leading her downstairs at a gallop.

 

“You had a visitor,” Kate says, when Ettie returns at the end of the day.

Ettie lowers her shopping bags to the floor, a flush creeping up her neck. She pulls her hair into a ponytail and wraps it into a bun that quickly falls apart.

“He left something for you,” Kate adds, pointing to the box. “I told him you were fluent in the language of chocolate.”

“Marcus?” Ettie whispers, even pinker. She raises the box to her nose and inhales. “Ah, smell the bitterness? And Cointreau, maybe cassis or framboise as well.”

“Open it!” Kate says, laughing.

Ettie lifts off the lid. There are six almost black handmade balls, silkily smooth and swirled to a breaking wave at the top. “Oh my God. This is
serious
chocolate. If I had to guess, I'd say he started by roasting his own beans. It would have taken at least two days to complete the process.”

Kate peers inside. “He's keen. Definitely.”

Ettie looks affronted. “Let me explain. First the beans have to be roasted, then cracked and winnowed. The cocoa is then cooked slowly with butter and sugar, never so hot it burns. Burnt chocolate seizes—”

“Okay, okay!” Kate holds up her hands in mock surrender.

“You're in the food business,” Ettie says tersely. “Even in a café like ours, you need to know more than an egg comes from a chicken.” She snatches a hefty volume from a shelf
above her work table, bound in crimson cloth, faded to pink. “This is my bible, the accumulated knowledge of centuries of cooking. I suggest you start at the beginning. And no, I'm not sharing the chocolates. Not until you understand the effort, skill and, dare I say it,
affection
that went into making them. Now, did he leave a phone number?”

Speechless with the shock of feeling Ettie's disapproval for the first time, Kate points sheepishly at a yellow Post-it note stuck on the computer. “He declared the café a gem,” she says, finding her voice.

“He did!” Ettie spins with excitement. “He really said that?”

“Yep. Don't change a thing. Those were his exact words.”

Ettie sighs. The erratic hormones of middle-age notch up a couple of gears. It is the intimacy, she thinks, that she yearns for. The feel of another body alongside, skin on skin, loneliness swept away for a while at least.

With an overcast sky and the tinny smell of rain on the wind, the
Mary Kay
noses into the back deck of The Briny. Jimmy leaps out of the wheelhouse and scampers forward with the mutt nipping at his heels. He ties on and dashes back to the wheelhouse, raising his hand in a salute that almost pokes his eye out.

“You and the mutt. In the cabin. And don't move,” Sam says. “You're on duty, mate, and we're a team, right?”

“Right,” Jimmy says, dragging his banana-boat feet to attention.

Kate is on the deck of the café filling the terracotta tubs and a few old buckets with fresh soil and healthy plants. Snow White, Sam thinks, checking out her spotless trousers, shirt, apron, sandshoes. Bet she's still as pristine at the end of the day. In his experience, over-fastidious women rarely kept you toasty at night.

He rubs his hair with both hands in a dry wash, spits on his finger and smooths his eyebrows. He dusts off his singlet
with greasy palms, brushes his shorts, bangs his boots on the gunnel to dislodge any mud and hops onto the back deck.

“This place is getting so toffy I'll have to dig out my funeral tie before long,” he says to her.

“Ah. And there I was wondering if you were sprucing up for a hot date.”

“Word is Ettie's a genius, which we all knew, and you're getting the knack, which we were all a bit doubtful of. Thought you'd like to know the lie of the land.”

His mobile phone suddenly goes off like a drill in his pocket and without a word he heads back to the barge, pointing his finger at both bow and stern to let Jimmy know to untie.

 

Ettie waits a whole day to call Marcus to thank him for his gift. She tells herself anticipation is a large part of the thrill of romance and he will understand that fact. She tells herself that to rush forward without considering either of their pasts is foolish. She also tells herself that she is on the brink of a distraction that could demand more time than she can afford to give right now.

But the truth is, she is afraid. Afraid that when she lifts the phone and he answers, she will find the gift was to say thank you. Nothing else. That any other hopes or dreams are a figment of her imagination. And oh the horror, she thinks, of a word out of place that kills all possibility of more.

Eventually she dials his number, intending to say nothing beyond polite acknowledgement and thanks. He picks up on the first ring. “I have been waiting by the phone,” he announces. And she knows all reason is gone and she is
tumbling into whatever lies ahead. Without a thought for where it might lead.

 

Late in the afternoon, Marcus Allender strides into the café for the second time in his life. Hair uncombed, his khaki shirtfront smeared with blood and guts and his old boat shoes sodden. He holds a glistening silver kingfish high in the air like a trophy. “A noble fish deserves a noble end,” he announces. “If you would do me the honour of dining with me tonight, Ettie, I will prepare this giant warrior in the way he deserves.”

“You're turning into a flaming orator, mate,” Sam says, wandering in behind him.

Marcus is euphoric, a man who's fought a great battle with a fish and emerged victorious. “And you, my friend, are also invited. We will make it a small party, yes? Kate, you must grace the table, too. I am a man on a winning streak. Impossible, therefore, to refuse.”

Sam runs his tongue along a sun-split bottom lip. “Well, mate, reckon I'm up to it. If Kate's game. How about it?”

She nods. “Yeah. I'm game.”

Marcus beams. “I have been out hunting and gathering to prepare a feast for you, Ettie.”

The object of his affection stands mute behind the counter, unable to think of a single word to say to this wildly passionate man who is wooing her in such heroic ways. She smiles and nods.

Marcus does a funny little jig and disappears – only to return moments later with a gesture of apology. “Seven
o'clock, please don't be late. Food spoils easily and can never be repaired.”

“Rock up to the back door,” Sam advises the two women when the chef is gone again. “I called on him to offer the services of the
Mary Kay
a few months ago and he told me that front doors were for bailiffs … Anyway, I came in to tell you Jimmy's done upstairs. You can move whenever you're packed and ready.”

Ettie, who once again feels like her world is speeding beyond her control, collapses in the office chair so heavily the wheels take off. She rolls across the café until she hits a ridge in the floorboards and nearly tips over. “I am a lucky woman,” she sings, softly. “Lucky, lucky me.”

 

The evening sun whacks out a little warmth. Ettie, Sam and Kate gather at Marcus's pontoon, where every rope is coiled into placemat perfection. Shards of light bounce off the cleats. A varnished timber boat, which looks suspiciously like a genuine Monte Carlo runabout from the Grace Kelly era, is tied to one side to make room for their battered tinnies. His house – a recently renovated and extended cottage that sits on the seawall like a stranded boat – blazes with light.

Ettie is suddenly overwhelmed by so much perfection. Her dress is old and out of date – mumsy even – when she'd meant it to be casual, hippy retro. Her sandals are scruffy. She hasn't had time to polish her toenails. Her thighs are dimpled, her stomach soft, and her breasts are pendulous. His standards are way beyond her. She has to fight an impulse to
leap straight back into her calamitous tinny with its mess of buckets, rags, paddles and ropes.

“Off you go, Ettie. You first,” Sam says, pushing her forward. She wonders if he's read her mind and shut off a quick exit on purpose.

She hauls in a breath that hits the far corners of her lungs, takes a leap of faith. Lifts her flouncy, tie-dyed blue peasant skirt, and makes a charge along the jetty that leaves the others way behind. By the time they catch up, she is standing uncertainly at a half-open door. What the hell? she thinks. She sticks her head inside to shout hello. Gets hit with a whiff of wood polish and eucalyptus oil when she'd expected garlic and thyme.

“Come in!” calls the chef. “Kitchen is straight ahead. I am at a critical point with the grilling.”

Ettie turns to the others: “Should we take off our shoes? This basket says ‘Shoes' in French.”

“Nah.” Sam is firm.

They pick through a small anteroom of mops and buckets, brooms and fishing rods, and a large round copper tub of logs. Marcus is standing by a wall of ovens, elegant in biscuit cotton chinos and a white cotton Indian shirt. The kitchen is sleek, functional and as spare as a doctor's surgery. He looks immaculate. It all does. Ettie's heart sinks once more.

He waves a wooden spoon in welcome, then pulls a tray from the oven and slides it carefully onto a marble bench. He switches off the grill, discards the gloves, dusts his hands and turns to them with open arms. He kisses everyone on both cheeks. Even a stupefied Sam.

“Champagne. I hope it suits.” Without waiting for a reply,
he fills four long-stemmed cut-crystal flutes with wine the colour of ripe wheat and hands them around. Sam quietly shoves his six-pack in a dark corner. “To The Briny Café,” the chef says, raising his delicate glass and leaning forward to touch Ettie's with a gentle clink. “Now, go inside and I will bring dinner in a few minutes. When you start work early, you must eat early and go to bed early. I was a chef. I know these things.”

“Can I help?” Ettie puts down her drink, waiting to be told what to do.

“It is your night off. I am here to spoil you.”

More accustomed to being asked to peel lychees, chop garlic, cream the butter and sugar, she almost purrs.

To everyone's astonishment, the sitting room, though as orderly as the rest of the house, is shabby and faded. Cracked and worn dark leather armchairs reside on either side of the stone fireplace. Barley-coloured linen sofas with blood-red piping sit against the walls. Gold-framed paintings, small and quietly evocative of the dusty Australian landscape, hang in careful groups. There's an antique pine sideboard covered with blue and white china. It looks European in origin. Odd chairs are scattered around, like a catalogue of changing trends. It is a room of old family treasures, Marcus's history neatly exposed. In a way, it is how The Briny would look if it were a home instead of a café. Relieved, Ettie relaxes.

With the instinctive nosiness of a journalist, Kate wanders around. She reads the spines of books. Hemingway. Steinbeck. Irving. Karen von Blixen. Xavier Herbert. Eclectic, she thinks. Lots of travel books. Both kinds: ones with big and beautiful pictures and captions, others all text. No cookbooks.
She picks up bleached photographs in battered silver frames. Silent, motionless people, looking serious and awkward in front of the camera, stare back at her.

“Looking for an old wedding picture, are you?” Sam asks, peering over her shoulder. In his huge hand, the fragile wineglass is like a Christmas bauble.

“Curiosity and an open mind, Sam. It's how you learn. You might want to think about that.” Kate replaces a photo of a leathery man, a frail woman and a blurry-faced baby trailing a christening gown. They stand in front of an old Valiant with mud stuck to dark duco above the wheels.

Sam flops into a chair that gives a blurting noise. He grins. Ettie gives him a look that makes his toes curl.

 

With a clap of his hands, the chef calls them to dinner in a small formal dining room. It is bare, not even a watercolour hangs on the wall, so there is nothing to focus on but the food. Sam stands aside for the women to enter but turns the polite gesture into mockery when he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and flags them ahead like an Edwardian fop. He knows he is being boorish. He cannot stop himself.

The room flickers and glitters in light thrown by two tall candles. An oval table is draped in a stark white linen cloth.

“Take your seat, please,” Marcus says, pointing at their places.

Sam glances at the table setting and battles to mask the fact that up against a toff like Marcus, with his silver and fancy linen, he feels more than a bit unpolished. But he knows at the precise moment that Marcus pours him a glass of dry white
wine –
to bring out the delicate flavour of the fish –
that he is not just unpolished but from a completely different league. There weren't any crystal glasses or bone-handled knives in the roughly cobbled boatshed where he was raised. His mum, a demon for
value for money
, bought up big when peanut butter and Vegemite was sold in drinking glasses instead of screw-top jars until she amassed a solid collection. She scavenged the family cutlery from Vinnies. Once or twice, Sam remembers, the knives and forks matched. Their plates were odds and ends, every colour under the sun. Back then, he thought it looked festive. Clothes were secondhand, too. What was the point, his mum said, of running wild in new shorts when they'd get ripped by the bush? Nearly all the neighbours were doing it just as hard, so none of the kids had any idea they were poor until they went to the city for a doctor's appointment. Even then, the lush extravagance on display was so irrelevant to Cook's Basin life that they couldn't see the point of it all.

Marcus lifts a heavy china dome from a gilt-edged serving plate and draws his catch of the day towards him. He runs a sharp knife down the fish's spine, carefully peels away a crisped skin and expertly eases hunks of snow-white flesh from the bone. He serves it slightly off-centre on almost transparent white plates, tumbling roasted red and green capsicum and quartered potatoes alongside. A salad of mixed baby lettuce leaves, highlighted with saffron-yellow mustard flowers, waits on an austere sideboard.

“You're a real showman, mate. One trick a minute.” Sam holds out his plate, indicating with a jiggle and a nod towards the fish that a larger portion would be appreciated.

The chef obliges. “A man with a healthy appetite. Good.”

But Kate kicks him under the table and he nearly drops the plate. He recovers and slurps a large slug of wine, leaning back in his chair until he balances on two fragile, antique legs. He opens his mouth to speak. Kate cuts him off.

“Sit up, Sam!” she snaps. “You'll break the chair and your neck.”

He is so shocked he does as he's told. He withdraws his linen napkin from a silver ring engraved with initials. “A family heirloom, is it?” he asks, laying it in his lap with a triangular fold that he hopes finds favour with the assembled gathering.

“Yes. My parents brought it with them from Germany. It has been in a tea-chest for many years.” Marcus swirls his wine, sniffs and sips. Satisfied, he tucks his own napkin into his shirt collar and nods that they should all begin eating.

“Too good to use, huh?” Sam says.

“My father did not have the heart to use it after my mother died. And on the farm, well, it was rough, you know. I was too young to appreciate finer things.”

Sam's face is hot with embarrassment. “Sorry to hear that, mate. Must've been hard.”

Kate decides to come to his rescue. “What kind of a farmer?”

“The struggling kind. But of course, that is all there is in Australia. My father, accustomed to rich German land, saw only the size of the farm when he bought it. I remember only the cold. Windows white with frost. My mother coughing.”

Sam shakes his head with sympathy, trying to make amends.

“Every winter,” Marcus continues, “I helped my mother stuff old towels under the doors to stop the wind. Made her cups of hot tea. She always sat so close to the fire in the kitchen stove. But she was never warm. Not even in summer. The cold, it was in her bones, you see.”

The room is silent except for the occasional clink of cutlery on china. Ettie gazes at the chef.

Encouraged, he continues. “My father, he told me that she started to catch her breath. It was a year after I was born. Eventually, the effort to breathe wore her out.”