Where the scrapbook had gone was a mystery. Carol’s bedroom, she presumed, tucked out of sight in that cedar dresser of hers, perhaps, beneath a modest pile of beautifully ironed handkerchiefs.
Of the Clarence Gardens plan, not much was said. Jodie tried a bit of reverse psychology one evening over sausages with mash and peas, when it occurred to her how much Carol seemed to enjoy having company at home. She liked setting the table for two, she wanted to linger over a cup of tea and a biscuit at eleven o’clock each morning and talk about everything from what groceries they’d need in the next few days, to frog conservation amid the cane toad invasion, to the level of student debt young people were burdened with.
‘You’re probably right to pass on the old fogeys’ home,’ Jodie said. ‘Living at Clarence Gardens, having people around all day, endless cups of tea, forced to abide by the dictates of President Sloane of the residents’ association? You’d hate that, Carol. Staying here—by yourself—is a much better idea.’
‘I would crush that woman’s aspirations to longevity as president like a beetle,’ Carol said. ‘If I had to move there. Which I don’t.’
Her great aunt then rebutted Jodie’s cunning reverse psychology with a salvo of her own: ‘Company is lovely, though, pet. Which is why you should be thinking of making your stay here with me a permanent one.’
Permanent? Jodie nearly choked on her forkful of peas.
‘You already have a friend here—I’ve seen the way you and Will hobnob when you’re supposed to be setting up the market’s decorations.’
Jodie could feel a blush rising. To think theirhobnobbing—as silly a word as she had ever heard used—was anything other than—
‘I think you should hang a business sign up in the front yard.’
‘Aphysiobusiness sign?’
Carol ignored Jodie’s incredulity. ‘We could turn the good room into a bedroom for you; it’s not as though that old sofa is comfortable. And while the sleep-out is an odd shape for an ordinary room, it’d make alovelytreatment room.’
Jodie frowned. Carol sounded serious. She’d assumed this whole ‘be the Clarence physio’ idea was just a distraction tool from her mother’s dastardly plan and one-upmanship (one-upwomanship?) against Joan Sloane. ‘But …’ she said, flailing about to try to see a downside. ‘What about council by-laws prohibiting running businesses from home?’
‘What by-laws? There’s hairdressers and seamstresses in this town running businesses from their homes. Why would physiotherapy be any different? Besides, the mayor owes me more favours than you’ve had hot dinners. By-laws can be updated.’
Carol hadn’t thought this through. ‘But what about my life in Katoomba? I have friends there.’
‘Are you sure? You’ve been here weeks now and I’ve not heard you talk to anyone on that phone of yours besides Will.’
Jodie frowned. Was it true? Had she distanced herself from her past so thoroughly that she no longer had friends? Other than Will, of course. She’d very much like to count Will as a friend. His hamstring injury and his ridiculous fear of medical intervention had grown on her. He was sweet, and funny, and stubborn, he always looked so happy to see her each day when she walked to the beer garden for coffee, and he hadbiceps.
But this was all beside the point. Of course she would be leaving. Once the markets were over, it would be time to return to her actual home and pick up whatever pieces of her life could still be found.
‘But if you did have friends in Katoomba,’ Carol was saying, unaware that Jodie had moved on in her head to visions of handsome men in tight grey T-shirts who smelled of coffee and bacon, and from there to a grey life in a cold southern town where her only friend was her sofa, ‘they’d be welcome.’
‘I have commitments. A landlord.’ Even she could hear how lame and lonely this sounded.
‘Doing nothing but moping on a sofa is not a “commitment”, pet.’
Ouch. Also true.
But Carol mentioning her sofa-moping habit made her realise that she’d barelysaton Carol’s sofa, let alone moped. Life in Clarence, being at her great aunt’s beck and call, wasbusy. She’d typed up minutes, poured precisely measured quantities of whisky over cake (supervised), ordered pie warmers and bainmaries from a party hire place in Lismore, walked the pub’s beer garden with Will by her side and a measuring tape and spray paint to demarcate stall holders areas, topped and tailed green beans (again, under supervision)—she’d even been permitted to white glove a display of antique dairy farm memorabilia in the front window of the Clarence River Historical Society building. She’d felt happy and fulfilled and she’d evenlaughedagain.
‘Can I think about it, Carol?’
Her great aunt’s answer was to reach a hand out to hers and grasp it.
Jodie had to hide her tears.
A clue to the archival material Carol had brought home but refused to speak about didn’t present itself until the day Jodie was walking home from helping Will touch up the paint on half a dozenTwilight Markets Parkingsigns that were destined for the riverbank behind the pub where the markets spilled into, when she found a newsletter from Clarence Gardens in the letterbox. It was addressed to Jodie, as it happened, because Carol had refused to take the handout the manager had tried so earnestly to give them, but Jodie hadn’t. Nor had she forgotten to sign up.
Jodie felt no qualms at all about opening up the newsletter. Her plan was to leave it on the kitchen table, so that it could be read over cups of tea, and hopefully some sort of osmosis would occur that would dial down Carol’s antipathy towards the place.
As much as Jodie wanted Carol to be able to stay in her own home, she knew there would be difficulties ahead; living here had shown her just how many. The shower being over the bath was one. The laundry being under the house down a flight of back stairs was another. Carol’s reliance on the pension, too, meant maintenance of the many (many) ailments a house of this age suffered from would only fall behind.
She pressed the creases open so the newsletter lay flat and gave it a glance. It seemed like your bog standard community newsletter to Jodie. Not that she could recall ever reading one before, but the articles were what she would have expected to see in a newsletter that catered to both current and prospective residents: news from the gardening club; a puzzle page; a flashy picture montage of the refurbished foyer with its improved wheelchair access; a directory of useful services like Centrelink and the Aged Care Assessment Team for the Northern NSW Local Health District.
The blinding moment came when Jodie reached the middle of the newsletter and found aFrom the Residentspage dedicated to stories, memoirs and poems written by the people who’d chosen to retire at Clarence Gardens. Jodie tucked her hair behind her ears, pulled her chair in a little closer, did a guilty look round to be sure Carol wasn’t about to swoop in from behind her and whisk the newsletter away, and started reading.