Page 26 of The Vet from Snowy River
‘Hi,’ his daughter said.
‘Hello at last,’ smiled Sandy. ‘I love your boots!’
He chuckled. ‘Don’t encourage her, Sandy. Do you mind showing Poppy around while I see to the Fox family?’
‘Not at all. You’ve got a pair of cats in at two, then a break until Pete Harris at five. His border collie’s coming in to get the drain out of his ear and a few stitches put in.’
‘Gotcha.’
He turned back to Kelly and the kid beside her who had a shoebox with—he assumed—an arthritic guinea pig tucked up inside of it. ‘Come on, team, let’s head into the treatment room. Pop, you want to meet Peanut?’
Kelly had made it into the treatment room ahead of him, but she only had eyes for Poppy. ‘Sothisis your daughter, Josh.’
Josh frowned. Kelly’s tone sounded a little too interested.
‘Yes. She’s visiting from Sydney. Poppy, this is Mrs Fox and her son Braydon.’
The boy was lifting the lid on the shoebox and Poppy was leaning in to have a look at Peanut, a smile on her face for the first time since she’d arrived in Hanrahan. Animals, Josh thought. The world’s greatest source of comfort.
‘So, is it true about your mum?’ the boy said to Poppy, wiping the smile from her face. ‘You know, what we read about her in the paper?’
CHAPTER
8
Dear Aunt Jill
It’s me again, Vera, your niece.
I have a little fun news that you might enjoy. You know how you’ve spent years trying to convince me that craft is fun, not just a chore involving knitting needles or hot glue guns, and I’ve never, ever, ever believed you?
Well, I’ve been persuaded (bulldozed, really) into allowing a local craft group to use part of the café as its temporary headquarters.
There’s a very bossy woman in town, Marigold Jones; have you met her? She tells me she visits Connolly House pretty often. She’s about six feet tall, wears outfits that are sort of half hippy, half Gold Coast muu-muu. She has a deep voice so beautiful it’s like she hypnotises you and you agree to anything she suggests. Just today at a wake we hosted here (she seems to have about forty jobs, and one of them is being a celebrant at weddings and funerals), she started off saying a few words, and before I knew what was what, she’d volunteered my café for her craft group and strong-armed the husband of the deceased to turn up for knitting lessons!
The wake was busy, and I took some orders for cakes (your hummingbird recipe is a big hit). Hopefully, the people who came enjoyed their morning tea enough to visit us again.
All that craft talk reminded me of your boxes, you know, the ones we pulled out of storage when we left Queanbeyan.
Vera put down her pen to roll her shoulders. The function had gone well—except for that last bit when Marigold Jones decided to offer up The Billy Button Café’s back room for her craft group. Was that what had made her feel guilty about not unpacking her aunt’s boxes? Jill had been such a keen crafter in her day … and Vera’s sporadic attempts at unpacking had uncovered a stash of half-finished projects.
She’d barely begun rifling through them when crazy, scrappy fabric things in watermelon red and blueberry blue and paprika orange had surfaced. Half-made skirts, table runners, a plump assortment of patches that was maybe a quilt.
Perhaps there’d be some items in those boxes she could use to add a flourish to the café’s interior? Some exotic material that would make gorgeous cushions on the new green velvet banquettes, or an art deco vase or bronze candelabra to perch on the mantlepiece above the fire.
Vera twisted in her chair and tried to imagine the café gussied up with some of her aunt’s collection. It would be like Jill had visited The Billy Button Café in person to wish it well.
‘I’m off, Vera. Kitchen’s clean, windows are locked, till money’s hidden in the microwave.’
She turned, waved a hand at Graeme as he pulled his jacket off the peg by the door. ‘It went well today, didn’t it?’
‘Super well. So well, in fact, maybe we think about a waitperson or two—casual hours—to keep the tables cleared and the food served hot at busy times.’
The calico bag of takings she was going to drop into the bank in the morning was by her hand. She touched it with a fingertip. Counting up the notes and merchant slips in there had made her start to believe, just a little, that her mad, mad plan to keep her aunt in care even if she wasn’t around to earn a living might actually work.
‘Vera?’
‘Oh, sorry Graeme, I started daydreaming about café profits and drifted off. What did you say?’
