Page 13 of The Vet from Snowy River
He slid his hand under Mrs LaBrooy’s arm and walked with her down Dandaloo and across the pretty park that formed the town’s centre. ‘Poppy’s no little babe anymore. Fifteen now.’
‘Fifteen? Never say it.’
He grinned. ‘I know, right? Her last birthday clocked over and it was like the gates of hell opened. Sass, eyeliner and obnoxious music all arrived in my life at once.’
She chuckled. ‘Josh Cody, brought to his knees by his teenage daughter. Lordy me, how happy am I to see this day. And … um …’
Here it comes, he thought.
‘And Beth?’
‘Poppy’s mother’s doing fine. She’s married to an architect, and they have twin sons that just started school. She’s even back teaching.’
‘Really? Teaching high school students? I would have thought that—’
He stopped her right there. ‘Beth is my very good friend, Mrs LaBrooy. No-one criticises her in my hearing, is that clear?’ He kissed her on her plump, vanilla-scented cheek. ‘Not even dear old friends who’ve promised to bake me apple pie.’
She turned watery eyes on him. ‘Josh, my love. You are so right. Accept the apologies of a foolish old busybody, won’t you?’
He tucked her hand back under his arm. ‘It’s forgotten. I’m just on my way to get coffee. How about you take pity on a lonely thirty-something bachelor and join me?’
She giggled. ‘Like a breakfast date?’
He laughed. ‘Like I even remember what a date is. So, you’re the expert. Where do we go to get the best coffee in town at this time of the day? Last time I was here, I was more of a chocolate milk from the servo kind of guy.’
Mrs LaBrooy gave his arm a squeeze. ‘I know just the place. Remember the old bank building?’
He looked over at the lake end of the park, to the corner of Paterson and Curlew. ‘Sure. Mr Pidgin, wasn’t that the bank manager’s name? Always wore a bow tie.’
‘Fancy you remembering that.’
Josh ambled beside Mrs LaBrooy through the roses growing in their neat beds of mulch, past the pale marble cenotaph. There was Cody history there, too: Preston Wilfred Cody, his grandfather’s uncle, lost to the Great War on the other side of the world when he wasn’t much older than Poppy was now.
‘I never forgot Hanrahan, Mrs L.’
‘You must notice some changes, though.’
He smiled. ‘Well, sure. The tourists, for a start. Who knew the place could be so busy either side of the ski season? There’s always a bus or two parked along the road out to the Alpine Way, and people snapping photos of the ducks down along the Esplanade.’
‘Have you seen the new development down on the southern outskirts of town? Fifty houses, I heard. City people buying them up as weekenders. House prices have skyrocketed too.’
‘I haven’t driven down that way,’ he murmured, his eyes on the distant ranges. This northern arm of Lake Bogong was narrow enough for him to see the grass plains on the far side of the lake, the stands of eucalypt hunched together like old men around a campfire. And above them, stark and rugged, the towering peaks of the Snowy Mountains. Snow still shone white in crevices and crags, and some huge raptor—a wedge-tailed eagle, perhaps—soared serenely from peak to peak. No-one who’d grown up here could have forgotten these mountains. This view.
‘Here we are,’ said Mrs LaBrooy, squeezing his arm. ‘The Billy Button Café. The new owner used to be a big-city journalist. She’s having herself one of those tree changes, I expect.’
Trust Mrs LaBrooy to have all the inside goss; this town didn’t need a community section in its newspaper.
The café stood on the end of a row of terraced Federation-style buildings, with tall windows and deep stone windowsills. Aged red brick that had seen a century of summers gleamed behind the wrought iron of the upper storey’s railings. The terraces looked like the shorter, younger siblings of the Victorian stone buildings on the opposite side of the park where the clinic was. Hanrahan had the gold rush to thank for the money that had been spent on the town’s infrastructure in the late 1800s … and fate to thank for being high enough to escape the flood when the Snowy River was dammed nearly a century later. He should take some photos, perhaps visit the local Historical Society museum; make sure the renovation plans he had for the Cody building were sympathetic to the era.
As they pushed open the heavy timber and glass door, Mrs LaBrooy leaned in to him.
‘You’re going to want to try the sourdough butterscotch donuts,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how the new owner dreamed them up, because they’re not like any donut I ever saw. Like a sugared ball, with a dimple, and that dimple just oozing with sticky sweet goodness. Tom brought some home with him the other day. Are you listening to me, Josh Cody?’
But Josh wasn’t listening. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if his ears still worked. His thoughts had scattered, too, details of architraves and Federation fretwork and gyprock driven out by the vision splendid before him.
‘Mrs LaBrooy, who isthat?’
‘Who is who? Oh. That’s the new owner. Vera, she calls herself. Moved up here from Canberra, I think. Took up the lease on this place and had it all kitted out like an olden-day film set in no time at all. She’s a worker, and boy, can she bake.’
