The Cafe by the Bridge

by Lily Malone

  Just go home.

  The problem was, it was kind of nice having Ella take an interest, and for someone who spent her life listening to other people’s problems, it was really nice having someone listen to her problems for a change, and Ella was so easy to talk to.

  ‘I can’t believe you dented Abe’s car door,’ Ella said, shaking her head.

  Then she couldn’t stop laughing, and Ella was so lovely when she laughed that it set Taylor off too. The pair of them had been cackling for a while.

  ‘I can’t believe nobody saw you. I mean, your car isn’t exactly inconspicuous,’ Ella said.

  ‘I wasn’t in my car. I borrowed my mother’s. She drives a boring little white sedan. Looks like every other boring little white sedan. It was perfect for spying.’

  ‘You dented your mother’s car door by opening it into Abe’s? That’s even worse.’ It got Ella laughing again.

  ‘I paid mum’s insurance excess. She didn’t get too upset. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. I had no idea who Abe was. All I knew was that he’d got caught up with this Amanda chick too. When I followed him from her house that day I thought if I could catch up with him I could talk with him about what was going on. But then I realised I didn’t know him from Adam and he might have got violent if a strange woman admitted to denting his car—’

  ‘Oh, Abe’s not violent,’ Ella said.

  ‘But I didn’t know that then. So I wrote a note and put it under his windscreen wiper. I thought he’d call me and then I’d have his name and a contact number at least. If everything had gone pear-shaped for Will, like I suspected, I’d have had a way of contacting the other guy.’ Taylor looked at Ella, sitting wide-eyed across the kitchen table. ‘Dumb idea, hey?’

  ‘I can see a few glitches,’ Ella conceded. ‘Daring plan, though. So he called you? That’s how you knew where to find him?’

  She shook her head. ‘He never called. He lost the note.’

  Ella’s brow wrinkled. ‘So how did you know who he was?’

  ‘It took a while,’ Taylor admitted. ‘When a month passed and he didn’t call me, I started stalking that restaurant where he’d parked. I never saw his car there though. Eventually I went inside and asked if they had a customer who drove a blue Passat, and they explained one of the business owners used to.’

  ‘They gave you Abe’s number?’

  ‘They wouldn’t. They said he wasn’t one of the owners anymore and didn’t work there. They spouted that whole privacy information legislation.’

  Ella sat forward. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘What everyone does. I Googled the restaurant and I just got lucky that they hadn’t updated the ownership page. Abel Honeychurch was on the ‘About Us’ page and there was a photo. Honeychurch isn’t like trying to find someone called Smith, or Jones, or Brown. It didn’t take too long to find the Honeychurch family in Chalk Hill. I saw a news article online about them renovating the old house into a café. It had Abe’s picture.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police? You know, about Amanda.’

  ‘With what?’ Taylor said. ‘I had nothing. I was certain she was grooming Will for money, but Will wouldn’t hear a word against her. He was so in love with her. I kept waiting for Will to tell me it was all over. I even admitted that I’d followed him to her house and I’d seen this other guy coming and going.’

  ‘Did you tell him about the day you saw Abe go there, when Will was there?’ Ella asked.

  Taylor nodded. ‘Amanda told him Abe was a jealous exboyfriend out to cause trouble. Will believed her. Will believed every lie she told him. It wasn’t till she started borrowing more and more money from him that he finally saw through her. By then, she owed him thousands.’

  ‘Abe gave her thousands too,’ Ella said darkly. ‘He’s so angry inside about it. You saw him chase that woman from the café yesterday about the coffees. He doesn’t trust anyone.’

  ‘And I made it worse. I should have come out with it and been honest about what I wanted from the beginning. Now he thinks I tried to trick him,’ Taylor said. ‘A bloke who already thinks women are liars, and I wasn’t honest with him.’

  Both women sighed into their tea.

  A text pinged into Ella’s phone and she checked it and sat straight, brushing hair back at her temple. ‘Omagosh, is that the time?’

  Taylor checked her watch, didn’t believe what it told her, and glanced up at the clock on Ella’s wall. It was almost one in the afternoon. They’d had tea so long they’d missed lunch.

  Ella pushed to her feet. ‘I’ve got to get ready. That’s Jake. We’re going to Perth this afternoon to see …’ Ella halted. ‘Well, I guess it’s okay to tell you, seeing you know all this other stuff about the Honeychurch family. Jake has a daughter he never knew about. We’re going up to Perth to see her.’

  ‘Abe mentioned that this morning. It’s wonderful news,’ Taylor said, then she glanced away because she wasn’t sure if Ella would mind that she knew. News like that was private. Taylor picked up her cup and took it to the sink to wash it out. ‘Thanks for the tea and the talk. I really needed that. I’ll get out of your hair now and let you get ready.’

  ‘No, wait,’ Ella said, waving her hand. ‘You should try again to talk to Abe, you know. He’ll calm down.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Taylor said, drying the cup with a tea-towel and putting it on the sink.

  ‘This is important to him too, you know, only he doesn’t know it because he’s a man and it takes a long time for important stuff to get between their ears.’ Ella’s determined gaze pinned Taylor to the spot. ‘You’ll be good for him. He needs someone like you.’

  ‘Me? How?’

  ‘He’s been closing us out more and more all year. He gets more and more grumpy. He’s like a grumpy old man already and Jake says he never used to be. Jake thought that if he had the café he’d have something to look forward to, but the café’s not going great. Abe’s not good with customers, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘He was nice to me,’ Taylor said defensively.

  ‘Till he told you to get the hell out.’

  ‘Well yeah, but I meant before that.’ Taylor reached for her handbag.

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ Ella said. ‘Oh, I wish we had more time to nut all this out but we have to pull Sam out of school early and I don’t want to make Jake late. Look, Taylor, please, would you consider staying in Chalk Hill a bit longer? Try to talk to Abe again.’

  ‘I can’t stay longer, Ella. Besides anything else, I don’t have enough clothes. I only thought I’d be here one night.’

  Ella gestured with her arm towards the corridor. ‘Stay here. Use my washing machine. Make yourself at home. The backyard is secure for your dog. You can take walks and have a holiday over the weekend. It will be fun. And you can maybe try to talk with Abe again.’

  ‘Stay in your house? I couldn’t do that. I’d be imposing.’

  ‘I need someone to feed my bird. I meant to ask Abe at the café this morning but I forgot about it with everything else that happened. So really, you’d be doing me a favour. Think of it like house-sitting.’

  ‘But you don’t know me from a bar of soap, Ella. I couldn’t.’ She couldn’t. Could she?

  ‘I saw you shut the till yesterday at Abe’s café and you didn’t even look at what money he had inside it. You’ve got a gorgeous healthy dog who is obviously well cared for. Honestly, Taylor, I trust you.’

  ‘I can see why you’re good at selling houses,’ Taylor mumbled. The woman was convincing. ‘But this is your house. I can’t stay in your house.’

  ‘Of course you can. It’s a rental. It’s no palace. It’s not like you’re going to steal all my artworks.’

  Taylor glanced about the room. ‘You don’t have any art.’

  ‘Exactly. You can call into the second-hand clothing shop in town. They have great stuff in there. You can buy a whole wardrobe. The ladies in there will love to see you—a fresh face.’r />
  She could go for more long country drives, stretch the Redline’s legs. Run the new tyres in. And yes, she could make another effort to talk to Abe and apologise, and maybe if she got lucky, he’d listen this time. Maybe she had a chance.

  ‘If you’re really, really sure I wouldn’t be imposing and it’s no trouble …’

  Ella clapped her hands. ‘I’m sure. It’s settled then. There’s food in the fridge—you’re welcome to whatever you can find. The general store is open till seven most nights. Not Mondays, I think. I keep a spare key under the pot plant on the front step.’

  ‘This is so not the city,’ Taylor said.

  ‘I know. But I love it. I don’t lock my car, either.’

  Taylor rocked back. ‘I always lock my car.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Your car’s, well, it’s your car. People would want to steal your car. No one wants to steal my Mazda.’

  A horn honked twice on the verge outside. It was the first car horn Taylor had heard since she’d left the city, and it made her jump.

  ‘That’s Jake. I have to go. I’ll call you. What’s your number? Let’s swap cards,’ Ella rattled out.

  Ella handed over a business card that Taylor flipped to see the Begg & Robertson Real Estate logo and Ella’s name and number. She hunted through her handbag and found a card of her own to give Ella.

  ‘Here. I’m scribbling my driver’s licence number on the back too. And my home address.’

  ‘You don’t need to. I’ve got a good feeling about you. Have a great few days. We’re back Monday. Leave me a note when you go so I know how things went. I want to know everything that happens,’ she lowered her voice, ‘especially what happens with Abe.’

  Ella raced for the front door.

  Taylor heard snatches of ‘Did you see that car out the front?’ and ‘Did you see the wheels?’. Jake’s questions a deep rumble, Ella’s answers like a bubbling brook. ‘Staying in your house?’, ‘if you’re sure’, ‘sounds crazy to me’, ‘at least write down that number plate somewhere, bloody hell, Ella’, buffeting and bumping, wheels on a suitcase rolling down the steps. A male voice grumbling, ‘Do you think we’re going away for a month?’

  The front door shut. The house hushed.

  She’d been sucked into a whirlwind and spat out in Kansas.

  CHAPTER

  7

  ‘Do you mind ducking around to my place, Abe? I ran out of time to feed Perkins III.’

  ‘Yeah, Ella. No problem,’ Abe spoke into the phone.

  ‘You’re a legend, Abe. Thank you.’

  He ended the call from Ella—she and Jake were on the freeway heading into central Perth, Jake in the background yelling at her to get off the phone and check Google maps so they could find the damn hotel—and Abe wished it was as easy to push the button to end a day like you could end a phone call. He’d sure like to reach the end of today.

  Bad day. What he’d said to Taylor this morning had stuck in his head like shit on a shoe.

  Not that he could fix it now. She’d gone.

  Abe moved around the café, closing it up. It had been another quiet day’s trade but he wasn’t worried. The middle weekend of October signalled the start of the wildflower season in the Stirling Ranges, and business would pick up and stay busy through Christmas and into summer.

  That’s what the locals said. He’d been out of Chalk Hill so long he wasn’t a local anymore. He had to trust the people who knew the place like they knew the back of their hand.

  He untied the bow at his back and shrugged himself out of his apron, gave it a sniff and decided it could do with a wash. He took the receipts and cash from the till and folded the lot into his banking bag. Tomorrow, he’d get to the bank at Mount Barker first thing and sort out the paperwork. If he was early enough he could make the Friday fish market at Albany and stock up on the day’s catch.

  Abe climbed into his car, threw the banking bag on the passenger seat beside him and made one last check of the café as he reversed out of his spot.

  The string of lights on the verandah made the café look like the gingerbread house in the fairytale. Night lights glowed soft on glass cabinets; uplights haloed bottles of olive oil, packets of coffee beans and homemade preserves on shelves. Highlights on the chrome chairs shone.

  Like the woman who’d lived in it for so many years, Nanna Irma’s house didn’t judge. Lucky that. The house wouldn’t have much good to say about the way he’d behaved today.

  Abe cruised down Chalk Hill Bridge Road to the highway and turned east on the familiar roads out to the farm. At the town boundary sign he hit the brakes. Less than twenty minutes ago, Ella had rung to ask him to duck around to her place and feed Perkins III. How could he have forgotten already?

  Losing it. Really losing it.

  Turning onto the highway, Abe rattled around to Lavender Lane. He slowed a couple of houses off Ella’s place because there was a bright red car with twin exhausts and spoiler taking up the space where he’d normally park. There weren’t a whole lot of bright red V8 Redlines in Chalk Hill and he’d seen one exactly like this just this morning. He’d watched a curvy redhead with soft cheekbones and minty eyes climb into it, crying. And he’d felt like the biggest heel in the world.

  ‘Only you, Ella,’ he muttered under his breath as he steered his car into his future sister-in-law’s driveway, parking it behind her Mazda.

  Why would Ella need him to feed Perkins III if Taylor was already here to do it?

  Because Ella wanted him to set things right with Taylor. That’s if Taylor didn’t slam the door in his face first.

  Abe pushed through Ella’s front gate. On the porch, he paused. Usually, she kept a spare key under the pot plant, but if Taylor was here she’d have the key already. So he knocked, stepped back and waited.

  A dog barked a greeting from behind the house and Abe got the strangest tug in his chest. It felt like he was coming home.

  * * *

  Taylor was reading one of the books she’d found at the secondhand shop, legs tucked up on the couch, comfy socks on for warmth and glass of red wine within reach, when Bruno’s bark brought her head up from the page.

  The afternoon drew to a close beyond the curtains. Soon it would be time to get dinner ready, feed Bruno and feed Ella’s bird.

  But the book was good. Just a couple more pages.

  Bruno barked again and there was a knock at the door.

  She’d ignore it. No one knew she was here, so it couldn’t be for her.

  Taylor returned her attention to the book, but a second knock had her scrambling to her feet.

  ‘Fine. I’m coming,’ she mumbled to the sleepy-looking bird. ‘When am I supposed to put the cover over your cage, mister?’

  Taylor hadn’t ever owned a bird and Ella had left in such a rush there hadn’t been time for instructions. She could always call Izzy if she got stuck. Izzy would know what to do.

  She opened the door to find a man bent over on the porch, lifting a huge pot plant. She recognised that butt. She’d seen it playing tug-of-war with her dog earlier in the day. It was a very nice butt.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  He eased the pot plant back to the concrete, stood carefully—as if his back was sore—and Abel Honeychurch swung to face her.

  ‘I was looking for Ella’s key. I wasn’t trying to moon you.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a positive, shall I?’ Taylor said lightly, trying to judge his mood. Unlike the last time she’d seen him, he wasn’t swearing at her and he didn’t look angry.

  He looked like he hadn’t slept in a while.

  ‘Big day?’ she asked, feeling her grip on the book in her hand soften. ‘You look tired.’

  He scrubbed his hand through his hair. ‘Nah. I’m okay.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I didn’t. I thought you’d gone for good. Ella called me. She asked if I’d come around and feed Perkins III.’

  ‘Feed who?’

 
; ‘The bird.’

  ‘Oh.’ So he hadn’t come to apologise. He hadn’t come to finish the conversation they’d started. He hadn’t come for any reason to do with her; he’d come to feed the bird. Taylor leaned into the doorframe and tucked the book into her chest. ‘Funny name for a bird. Ella asked me to feed it too.’

  They waited, standing on Ella’s porch with only the pot plant for company. That plant looked like it could do with a drink.

  He must have seen her car out front—on Lavender Lane the Redline glowed like Rudolph’s nose—so if he hadn’t wanted to talk to her, he could have driven straight by.

  He let out a deep sigh, smiled, and it was the first time she’d seen a smile of Abe’s reach his eyes. ‘I’m sorry for how I acted this morning. I’ve been feeling lousy about being an arsehole all day.’

  ‘It’s okay. I botched what I wanted to say completely so I know it was a shock. And I really am sorry about denting your car. I’d like to pay the excess, or the repairs, or whatever it cost you.’

  A muscle tightened in his jaw. Too soon to mention the dent.

  ‘I don’t care about the car,’ he said.

  ‘I really do want to explain—’

  ‘What are you reading?’ He cut across her words. A clear, if pleasant, way to say he didn’t want to talk about dents, or scammers, or Will, or Amanda. Not any of it.

  Taylor followed his lead, turning to flip the cover of the book in her hands.

  ‘John Sandford. Hidden Prey.’

  ‘Crime fiction, huh?’ Abe said.

  ‘It’s good. It was at the second-hand shop. The Prey books are a series. I’ve read a lot of this guy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have picked you as a fan of crime books. I would have thought you’d see enough of that in your work. Abuse. Violence. That kind of thing.’

  ‘What sort of books would you have picked for me then?’ She said it easy, not meaning anything by it, but Abe’s eyes did a quick top-to-toe tour of her Chalk Hill second-hand-shop outfit and Taylor found herself holding her breath as well as her book while he worked out the answer.