‘Okay,’ he says cheerfully and smiles at her.
Charlie’s good humour has been the one thing that has brightened Elizabeth’s days. He’s old enough to know his father has gone but young enough to still live in the moment. Events are measured in how many sleeps away they are, and Charlie has no concept of dwelling in the past. That’s a punishment Elizabeth gets to keep to herself.
‘Come on,’ she says, holding out her hand to him. ‘Let’s go and see what’s in the fridge.’
He grins and takes it, swinging on her arm.
‘Mu-um,’ he says.
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Can we go to the park?’
Elizabeth closes her eyes and inhales. He’s been asking to do this every day for weeks now. But outside, beyond this house, is a world she’s not ready for yet.
‘Maybe,’ she says, as she does every day, and his smile tells her that the answer is good enough for him. For now.
CHAPTER FOUR
Thedin of a restaurant kitchen as service ramps up is something Kathy is used to. That slight nervous anticipation of the hours ahead – not knowing what sort of people are going to walk through the door, whether they’ll be pleasant customers or the sort who complain at the drop of a hat, the tightrope walk of making sure all the meals come out on time and to the right people – is also something she is used to. What she is not used to is being answerable to someone else about how the restaurant runs. Kathy’s been in charge of staff for so long that she no longer knows how to obey. Which may turn out to be a problem because, despite her years of experience and her most recent job being that of restaurant manager, the only job she’s been able to find at short notice in the supposedly burgeoning hospitality industry of Noosa Shire is as a waitress with occasional bartending duties at a nice little establishment by the river.
The restaurant has a view. That’s something. There are houses on the opposite bank, and boats between them, and pelicans most days, all of which they can see through the glass that forms the entire front of the restaurant. The view can be seen from the banquettes too, which are new enough not to show signs of wear and tear, and from the tables that are large enough to accommodate main meals and side dishes – not something Kathy takes for granted after working in tiny Melbourne establishments wherethey were lucky to fit the bread basket on the table along with the meals. What she didn’t have in Melbourne were the biting midge things that manifest at sunset for anyone who decides that a stroll along the riverbank would be a good idea. This isn’t the lifestyle Kathy aspired to when she left Melbourne and moved here two weeks ago.
Two weeks of scrambling to find a decent place to live and a job that pays her enough to cover the rent. She supposes she could have allowed more time but time isn’t usually a component of snap decisions.
A year ago, in a flush of romantic love, she and her beloved, Jem, had decided that the Sunshine Coast seemed like the ideal place to live with its eternal summer. Or, rather, not-Melbourne weather. Kathy had visited once and found it bright and bustling with promise: there were businesses opening, and homes with front and back gardens. At that stage Kathy was living in a narrow place in Carlton North with some paving out the front, a couple of square metres of fading lawn out the back, and a huge deciduous tree that covered everything with leaves in autumn. It was her former marital home, which was likely a factor in her daydreams of living elsewhere.
A month ago, Jem had announced that Kathy was no longer wanted as another paramour had been found. A younger, firmer individual whose breasts still bounce and who may, one day, want children. At fifty-four and with two grown-up offspring of her own, Kathy is beyond having babies. She’d been pleased about that, for a while. Until the point where her inability to have more children became the rationale to break her heart.
She knows that wasn’t the real reason, though. It was the convenient reason. There were others, hinted at earlier when Kathy hadn’t been prepared to up-end her life to do what Jem wanted to do, which was to move to Warrnambool and farm sheep. Freezing bloody Warrnambool, where the winds come in off the Great Southern Ocean and everyone is pleasant andcommunity-minded to make up for it. Kathy used to have holidays in Warrnambool, back when she was married and her children were young. A long time ago. So she hadn’t wanted to make that particular change, yet here she is with an up-ended life anyway. At least this version is the one she chose.
‘Hmm, only half-booked,’ Hans, the restaurant’s co-owner, says, scrutinising the reservations book.
‘It’s a Tuesday,’ Kathy says lightly. ‘I think a lot of the tourists go home on Tuesday.’
He nods and narrows his eyes at her, like he’s trying to work out if she really knows anything about it. True, she isn’t familiar with the area yet. But she knows hospitality and its rhythms. How there are certain weeks of the year that are dead quiet, and it’s the same weeks each year and has nothing to do with school terms or full moons or even the weather. They’re just quiet. Sometimes she wishes a scientist or someone would do research on it so she can find out why it happens.
‘If we were to close one day a week,’ Hans says, looking at her sideways, ‘which one would you choose?’
Kathy wonders if this is a loaded question: if he’s about to ask her to cut back on a day of work. Or maybe he genuinely wants her opinion.
‘Wednesday,’ she says, because she’s been chatting to the kitchen staff about the busy and quiet times. ‘That’s the dead day in the week.’
Hans raises his eyebrows. ‘You would not do this in Melbourne,’ he states.
‘No,’ Kathy agrees. ‘But that’s a completely different scene. Melbourne has a lot of business lunches throughout the week. From what I understand of this place, the tourists go home on Tuesday and the next ones arrive on Thursday. It’s all about long weekends.’ She smiles to show that she’s trying to be helpful.
He didn’t have to hire her, this young man with slicked-back hair and an Hermès belt. She’s a generation older than therest of the staff, and she knows from friends who used to be colleagues that finding work at their age is almost an impossibility. At fifty-four, apparently, she’s too old to be useful. But not to Hans. He was almost apologetic about having only a waitressing job to offer her and promised he’d promote her as soon as he could. She didn’t tell him that this was the only job she was offered and while it wasn’t what she’d hoped for she wasn’t in a position to be picky.
‘I think you are right,’ he says. ‘I have talked to the other owners about only doing dinner service on this day.’ Another sideways glance. ‘This will not affect you.’
His reassurance is kind.
‘Okay,’ Kathy says. ‘Let me know if you need a hand with anything.’
She doesn’t know why she said that. Does it sound condescending?
‘I appreciate your experience,’ Hans says quietly and closes the reservations book. ‘Would you like a coffee before the hordes arrive?’ He grins, presumably so she knows he’s being ironic about those hordes.
