Lovesome

by Sally Seltmann

  It was late one evening, and Lucy’s parents had been out at a dinner party. Her father was well over the limit when their car slid off the road and hit the wooden pole. Both died instantly. Lucy was an only child, so all their money went to her. Dave said Harland saved her. If she hadn’t had the restaurant up and running at that time, she would have collapsed in a heap and suffered a major nervous breakdown. (Dave’s words, not mine.)

  Lucy never talks about her parents, their death, or anything related to them. To me this seems really weird. I’m certain I’d need to debrief on a regular basis my thoughts and emotions on being parentless. Lucy’s reluctance to talk about her past is just another sign of how tough and fearless she is. That’s what I think, anyway. She’s fiery, fiercely independent, feminine and flirtatious. The four Fs.

  I grab my notebook, a pen and a bottle opener from the antique sideboard in the hall, opposite the Art Deco mirror. I slip them into the front pocket of my apron.

  ‘Good evening,’ I say to the couple Lucy left waiting in the entrance hall. ‘Your table is this way.’ I lead them to the best table for two in the house.

  It’s tucked in the front left-hand corner of Gatsby. A small fire burns in the ornate fireplace almost opposite their table, the orange and yellow flames swaying to and fro at their own will, giving a homely feel to the room. A framed oil painting hangs above the fireplace. I’ve critiqued it many times: too much brown, the rocks protruding from the cliff face look flat and two-dimensional, the canvas is too small for the subject matter. I can hear Mr Rogers in first-year Painting, asking the class in his hilarious faux English accent: ‘Does the painting generate an emotional response from you? What is the mood? Does the mood suit the subject matter?’

  The woman looks around and murmurs, ‘Oh, lovely,’ bringing me back into the room.

  I pull both chairs out from the table, and lay the menus on the damask tablecloth, in between the mismatched silver-plated French cutlery. I unfold the pressed white napkins and place them on the couple’s laps, keeping my paint-stained palms faced inward at all times.

  ‘Can I get you a drink to start with?’ I ask, with a lilting inflection.

  The woman draws a bottle of wine from her oversized maroon leather handbag.

  ‘Are you BYO?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her.

  She hands me the wine bottle, and I attempt to open it in front of them with the bottle opener. The cork is in so tight, and I unfortunately screw the opener in crooked. Damn! I can’t get the cork out! I pull an awkward face and bend my knees, gripping the bottle between my legs. I notice Lucy walking in to check on me; she shakes her head like a strict headmistress, making me feel like a complete fool. I straighten up hastily, removing the bottle from between my legs.

  Lucy comes up behind me and yanks the bottle from my hands. She pulls the cork out in one swift manoeuvre, then passes the bottle back to me and walks away.

  The woman at the table smiles. ‘Wow, that was impressive!’ she says, watching Lucy walk out of the room. She turns her face back towards me. ‘What a gorgeous dress.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  ‘Oh no, I mean the other lady’s dress,’ she says, making me feel extremely embarrassed.

  ‘I remember her from last time,’ the man tells her, confirming my belief that people only dine here because they have the hots for Lucy.

  I, on the other hand, am a forgettable twenty-one-year-old nobody. I remember serving this couple a few months ago. But of course they don’t remember me. They only remember Lucy.

  As I pour a glass of wine for each of them, I’m taken to a dreary corner in my mind where a Super 8 film is playing my least favourite childhood memory. The clickety-clack of the projector provides the soundtrack to Kitty Grayson in the school playground, teasing me. She’s saying, in her thin, ugly voice, that I’ll grow old alone and no man will ever love me. The memory haunts me to this day.

  I shuffle back towards the Bar Room, my self-esteem deflating rhythmically with every step. I expect to be roused on by Lucy, but it’s only Juliet I find, seated at the table, finishing her meal. She’s humming ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, and she sounds like a pre-pubescent choirboy with a blocked nose. It’s nauseating. Annabelle would call it sacrilege. I look through the Victorian windows and see Lucy sitting on the back verandah with her wine glass in hand and a red-and-black chequered mohair rug around her shoulders. She exhales a huge puff of smoke towards the stars; then she looks me right in the eyes and shakes her head. She chuckles, and once again I’m reminded that she’s constantly amused by my incompetent waitressing.

  Dave pokes his head out of the kitchen. His cheeks are red from the heat of the stove and his skin is a little shiny. Tonight he wears his shoulder-length mousey brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, a few loose strands falling in front of his small blue eyes.

  ‘I still want to know what happened last night,’ he says with a grin.

  ‘I know,’ I say quietly, the sting of my failed bottle-opening attempt easing. ‘Later, later. You hanging around for a knock-off drink tonight?’

  ‘Am I hanging around? Joni J, I always stay for a drink!’

  I walk into the kitchen and get close to him so no one else can hear.

  ‘Well, I need to get you alone to tell you, okay? I don’t want Lucy and everyone else listening in. I’ll try to clear the Pines, or reset it or something. Let’s talk when I’m down there, and I’ll tell you about it all.’

  ‘Gotcha.’ Dave throws the greasy tea towel over his shoulder and gives me a wink.

  The reason I want to confide in Dave is because he’s such a good listener. And I value his advice. Plus, he brings a funny slant to anything and everything I tell him, so I know he’ll help me to lighten up about the whole thing.

  I’ve gotten to know Dave well since I started working at Harland. We’re good friends, whereas all the other staff members feel more like co-workers and not really close buddies. I’ve learnt all sorts of things about Dave, like how he was the state champion in high jump in 1988, which to me is quite surprising, mainly because he isn’t very tall. But I guess he has the ability to bounce up and rise above things, making the whole high jump win a fitting metaphor for his disposition.

  Dave’s mum brought him up on her own. Him and his brother Jake, who is slightly younger and uglier. When I met Jake, he was standing beside Dave and it made me realise that Dave is actually pretty good-looking. And their mum—Dave tells me—is amazing. A glass-half-full woman, who left their dad when Dave was two, and brought them up while studying at uni part-time.

  ‘A very bad decision’ is how his mum describes Dave’s biological father. But she made life fun—always—which cancelled out Dave’s desire to have a father present in his life. Plus, Dave got the glass-half-full gene. Glass-two-thirds-full, actually.

  After I leave Dave to get back to it in the kitchen, I tidy up the staff table, and give it a good wipe over with a cloth. As I do this I’m reminded of the time Dave told me—when we were all talking about religion and beliefs—that life should be about learning, having meaningful friendships, and enjoying yourself. From my point of view, he’s constantly putting his own personal motto into practice. And he does it with an effortless grace. A blokey sort of grace that draws people in.

  I think it was his mum who taught him how to live like this, just from the way he’s described her. And I can see that Dave’s admiration for his mother’s academic achievements, and the way she raised two happy, motivated boys on a single income, is what inspires him to keep the learning/friendship/enjoy yourself doctrine alive.

  I like Dave. Very much. He’s into so many things that I’m into, and he has a real appreciation for the arts. He even loves Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard as much as I do.

  But we only have a brother/sister kind of thing going on. I think.

  3

  Juliet and I greet more couples and groups as they come through the front door of Harland. We seat them and w
e serve them, while Lucy flits around criticising our service skills, throwing witty jokes at the boys in the kitchen, and smoking cigarettes out the back. Lillibon and the Red Room also have small fireplaces, and Lucy keeps an eye on them throughout the evening. She stokes them with ornate brass pokers, and adds more firewood when needed.

  The best-looking fireplace is in the Red Room, and it’s also the only room in Harland with dark caramel-coloured wood panelling on all the walls. It gives it a folksy, second-hand-store feel. There’s a collection of red vases on the mantelpiece, which Dave told me once belonged to Lucy’s parents. Larger red urns and vases from the collection also sit on the high shelf that runs along the wall of this room, opposite the doorway.

  Below the medley of larger urns and vases hang three framed prints of black-and-white Harold Cazneaux photographs. They each have the title and year captioned in neat handwriting at the bottom. I like the one on the right best: Wharfies, Circular Quay (1910). It features a bunch of men wearing suits and hats leaning against the fence at Circular Quay. Behind them is a ship, or large ferry. A huge cloud of steam rises from what looks like the funnel of a smaller ferry in front. It’s a mysterious, painterly fog. I often get lost in this image, imagining what all the men are thinking.

  I love it when Lucy gives me the Red Room to take care of. The window looking onto the street is hung with red velvet curtains drawn back with brocade ties. They’re so beautiful. At first I thought it was a nod to Twin Peaks, the whole Red Room thing, but Lucy told me she set the room up like this five years before Twin Peaks was on TV. I think that’s bullshit, but I don’t dare suggest that she’s lying, because she would severely wound me with her sharp words if I ever murmured dissent. She wins every argument she’s part of. She’s a knife-throwing champion, her cutting remarks capable of leaving permanent scars. Yet there is a side of her I really admire. The interior designer, the ‘woman with creative flair’, who is capable of creating worlds as glorious as the Red Room.

  I mean, all the furnishings and the quirky details. Everything on display stimulates the imagination. When I stand in there taking orders, waiting for someone to choose between the pâté or the soufflé, I look around, taking it all in. The collection of old Valentine’s Day cards and ornaments that hang on little gold hooks, framing the door, keeps me entertained during the long pauses I need to endure after asking, ‘And what would you like for your entrée?’ The black silhouette of a man and a woman inside a red velvet heart is a favourite, even though it’s hideously kitsch.

  Or I turn to look at the urns and vases on the shelf. I love the ornate Japanese urn with multicoloured leaves wrapped around its bulging sides. And the brighter red glass vase, with its etching in white of a girl sitting in a tree. Her body is twisted, and her elbow rests casually on the branch. Her stillness reminds me of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ by Keats. Every night she watches me seat the groups of six or eight. She watches me take down the orders on my little notepad. She catches me accidentally spilling gravy, and apologising profusely, as I deliver the meals. The girl on the branch watches my every move. But she doesn’t see me when I leave Harland and ride home. When I paint during the day. When I snuggle up in bed on the mezzanine level of my bungalow. Or when I dream of one day having a boyfriend.

  Lucy keeps all the firewood outside, stacked in a small shed someone built out of old fence palings. Its corrugated iron roof hangs over a little extra on the left, acting as a shelter for our bikes. It’s beside the outhouse toilet, on the left of the path that leads down towards the Pines.

  Juliet is supposed to be keeping the fire alive down there tonight. That’s the deal when Lucy gives you the Pines as your designated responsibility. You keep the fire burning gently, letting it ease off to hot coals only towards the end of the evening. My guess, though, is that Juliet will completely forget to re-stock the fire tonight, because she has a tendency to overlook at least one of the duties Lucy hands her.

  At around nine-fifteen the first couple I served in Gatsby have left, leaving behind a large tip, which I can only assume is for Lucy. I reset their table, in case we get a walk-in, realising I’ll need to head down to the Pines to get some clean napkins to complete the setting. Before I brave the cold, I make a quick coffee for myself in the Bar Room. As I froth the milk, I turn and catch Tiger-Lily walking up close to the back window. Poor little tabby cat, out there in the cold. She wants to come in, but she’s not allowed to when we’re open for business.

  I take a few sips of my coffee, and its warm silken rush runs down my throat. I leave it on the bar, knowing I’ll be back soon to finish it off. Pushing open the back door, then the screen door, I feel the icy winter air on my face. Down the steps, along the dark path, on my way to the Pines. I tell myself, Don’t see a ghost, don’t see a ghost, until the sound of chitter-chattering and the clink of cutlery on china plates overtakes the mantra inside my head. I see the group of diners through the window, and they’re laughing and carrying on in a raucous fashion. A woman dressed in black, with a long bob, gold earrings and a loud voice, appears to be holding court. She sits with her back to the fire, which, as I had predicted, is out. Finito!

  I creep in and pull back the floral curtain which acts as a door to the storage area. It’s like a walk-in wardrobe. Lucy keeps the freshly ironed napkins stacked on a shelf in here, along with some tablecloths, spare wine glasses, coffee beans, silver spoons, sugar…a whole range of things. I count out eight napkins, listening in to their heated discussion about who is more likely to have an affair out of all the couples in their group tonight. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to be in a relationship with someone for long enough to be worrying about affairs.

  Keeping my head down, I exit the Pines. Don’t see a ghost, don’t see a ghost, I say to myself, hanging on tightly to the napkins. Halfway along the path I raise my head and find I’m about to bump into Juliet. She’s leaning over the firewood in the little shed, with a log in each hand.

  ‘It’s already out,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t know if you’ll be able to light it again unless you take some kindling.’

  ‘Joni, you’re always worrying about something,’ Juliet says.

  ‘I’m not worried about it, I just don’t think you’ll be able to get in there behind Loud-Talking Long-Bob.’

  She brushes past me. ‘I’ve done this a million times.’

  Yes, you’ve neglected the fire and let it burn out while our customers freeze to death. Many times. Probably not a million times, but at least twenty times.

  As Juliet passes me I smell her Fuzzy Peach perfume, a Body Shop fragrance I once thought was cute and fruity, but now despise. Anything on Juliet smells annoying.

  ‘Have no fear—your friendly fire-lighter is here!’ I hear her announce, as she walks back into the Pines.

  Juliet has her own thing going on, which I give her credit for, but most of the time I find her extremely irritating. She seems to cling to the idea that she’s a creative powerhouse, when really I don’t think she has a creative bone in her body. Okay, possibly one or two; but I’ve seen her resin jewellery and it’s definitely not quite there yet. She told me once that she dreams of being able to live off selling her resin bangles and earrings, as well as the wooden jewellery boxes she makes with plywood and paints with watercolours.

  But she’s been developing these products for over a year now and, amid all the complaints and whining, what she’s producing does not look like it’s anywhere close to becoming something that anyone would want to purchase. She tells me she’s already started selling them, but I’m not sure whether to believe this, because she didn’t look me in the eye when she said it.

  As I wander up the garden path, I remember back to a few months ago, when Dave, Juliet, Lucy and I had shared a round of knock-off drinks up at the Emerald. Juliet somehow managed to corner me and give me a brief summary of her youth.

  ‘My parents ran the Wallaby Arms Hotel in Lismore,’ she’d said, in her yelly, broad Australian accen
t. ‘They still do. We lived upstairs, growing up, you know? And all the kids in our neighbourhood thought I was so cool, because Mum and Dad ran the classiest pub in the area.’

  Dave later told me this wasn’t really true. He did a road trip to Byron Bay with Lucy and Juliet last year, and they’d dropped in to Juliet’s home town. Dave said the pub had an exterior paint job that screamed Shocking Colour Scheme. In the bistro the tables and chairs were white plastic, with grubby grey scratches all over them, and there were clear plastic tablecloths, if that’s what you’d call them. Dave said that despite this, the interior was pretty cool and relaxed, but definitely not ‘classy’. He told me that the whole pub stank of sweaty men in singlets, mixed with the whiff of stale beer that rose like steam from the forty-year-old carpet. Meanwhile, across the road from the basic establishment run by Juliet’s parents, stood what was very obviously the real Classiest Pub in Lismore.

  But Dave did say that Juliet’s parents were hilarious and he and Lucy were in stitches taking part in their nightly storytelling sessions. Dave said he totally saw where Juliet gets her funny streak from.

  ‘I have three brothers,’ Juliet continued as she told me her back story at the Emerald. ‘They all live in Brisbane. All married with kids, and all successful businessmen. But I’m the white sheep, and I always have been.’

  She probably meant black sheep, but I couldn’t be bothered correcting her.

  ‘And I’m the creative one in the family. By the way,’ she said, while her spit made it onto my lip, ‘I’m named after Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. You know, the play?’

  Of course I knew, but I gave her a fake I think so look, hoping her story would eventually come to an end.

  ‘So yeah, I’m like the literary, arty one,’ she said, proudly sticking her boobs out, and flicking her hair out of her eyes. She took a slug of her chardonnay, during which time I managed to squeeze out of the corner and over to Dave, where I told him, ‘I find Juliet a bit annoying.’