‘Let’s get a few things clear, Jodie. Firstly, I’m not moving out of my home. Secondly, don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m joking. About where I liveorcake. Clarence may look like a sleepy riverside country town to the outsider, but we have socio-political undercurrents going on here about which you know nothing.’
Jodie blinked. ‘You make it sound like there’s a war on, Carol.’
‘That’s exactly what’s going on, dear. A Christmas cake war. One I very much intend to win.’
Chapter 2
Lying in the hammock strung up under the party tree in the large beer garden of the Clarence Pub was an excellent way to spend a quiet morning. Dappled sunlight fell across Will as he swung back and forth, the waft of ground coffee beans hanging in the air. Snoozing below the hammock was the stray ginger cat who’d turned up one rainy day last winter and never left. A little like Will had turned up here at the pub and never left.
When he closed his eyes he could hear lorikeets in the mango trees that adorned the wide bank of the river, the chatter of women at one of the picnic tables and the rumble of the cat’s contented purr. He liked that. He likedcontentment. He especially liked it because, a while back, he’d wondered if he would ever feel content again.
Turns out, he would. All it had taken was everything he had.
‘Some mail for you, Will,’ said an Irish accent.
He opened his eyes as a wad of envelopes plopped onto his chest. Fergus was a backpacker working at the pub to earn a few bucks before taking off out west. He was a good worker and Will would be sorry to see him go, but there was no shortage of backpackers turning up wanting work. He finally had the pub running as sure and steady as the Clarence River, and a change in staff would barely push a ripple through his contentment.
Turns out, running pubs was a heck of a lot kinder on his coping skills than his last job had been.
‘Thanks, mate,’ he said. ‘You finished pressure washing the paths?’
‘Yep. Couldn’t lift all the green though.’
‘It’s the rainfall we get around here. Mould, moss, mildew … the Northern Rivers area is like a greenhouse for that stuff.’
‘At least the rain’s warm, though. You should try Dublin rain—it’s cold and bleak enough to slice you into ribbons.’
‘I bet. You right to open up the bar at noon? Livvy’s on kitchen, Matt’s on serving and wash up, and I’m—’
‘On hammock,’ Fergus said with a grin.
Cheeky bugger. ‘I’m on close tonight. Warren called in sick. Again.’
‘Sure, look, and there’s no surprise there.’
‘Plus, I’m revving myself up to start hanging Christmas decorations.’
‘If you’re wanting a hand tonight, I could do with the extra hours.’
‘Thanks. I’ll let you know.’
When Fergus had taken himself off again, Will lifted the pile of envelopes to sort through them. Pub bills, mostly, some junk mail, a postcard of the Kokoda Track from Joey and Kirsty, and a largish yellow envelope with a black ink smudge on an upper corner where the sender’s details had been before something—that warm Northern Rivers rain most like—had made them illegible. He tore the yellow paper and pulled out a copy ofThe Australian Journal of Psychology.
Crap. He’d cancelled everything to do with his past life, hadn’t he? How had this found him here at the Clarence Pub?
No way was he reading anything. No way.
A note slipped out from the inside pages and he was reading past the hello and into the body of the thing before he could stop himself.
Just wanted to let you know that the research paper we worked on together has finally been peer-reviewed and published. In theAJP, no less. Hope you’re doing okay and I hope you don’t mind me tracking you down like this. Please get in touch when you’re ready. Or even if you’re not. (Maybe especially if you’re not.) I’ve left the hospital and taken on a role at the university that’s part clinical, part teaching, and I’m enjoying it. You will heal in time, you know. Of course you know.
Regards, Voula
Will’s sunny mood dimmed. His enjoyment of the hammock and the ground coffee beans and the lorikeets wentpfft. Even the pub cat seemed to have picked up on the low vibe, because he seesawed to his feet, flicked his tail and stalked off in the direction of the pub’s rubbish bins.
Willwashealed. Sort of. Healed enough, anyway.
Leaving the post and the journal in the hammock to be dealt with—or not—later, he followed the cat. Not to the rubbish exactly, but to the storage shed tucked into the same narrow stretch of yard where the bins lived. He’d start with the ladder and the snowflake-shaped fairy lights that were going to look insanely good strung between the trees in the beer garden. He was a publican now, and a good one. He had a month to give this place a tinsel glow-up before the Clarence Pub’s Christmas Twilight Markets were on, and he was damn well going to enjoy the process.