The Briny Café

by Susan Duncan

  Sam and the two Misses Skettle arrive on the Mary Kay a few minutes early, surprised by the numbers already gathered in colourful masses and taking up positions on white plastic chairs set out in wriggly lines on the hard ground. He gallantly hands the women off the barge, making sure their ankle-length, hot-pink taffeta skirts don’t catch on the bollards.

  “You’re looking magnificent, ladies, if you’ll permit me to say so,” Sam says with a slight bow.

  “Well, little Sammy, when we’re on a date we try to look our best.”

  “You’re not staying for the fireshed nosh-up, then?” He sounds shocked.

  “Of course we are. You’re our date.” They giggle like teenagers and tiptoe along the uneven jetty in their matching pink slippers with kitten heels.

  “Just checking you haven’t dumped me for a younger bloke,” he calls after them.

  He adjusts the collar of his clean red polo shirt, brushes dust off his dark blue shorts and makes his way to the fireshed in a pair of light tan boat shoes. As sartorial as Jimmy, he tells himself. But perhaps lacking a little of the boy’s instinctive pizzazz.

  “Ah gidday, Kate,” he says, spotting her hovering slightly apart from Ettie’s group of women friends. She has a glass of, jeez, water, in her hand. “You owe me a coupla beers.”

  Under normal circumstances – when the meeting’s agenda would include septic tanks, drainage problems, lack of tie-up facilities at public wharves, boat vandalism, the relocation of uninvited death adders or an announcement of auditions for the next Island musical – it would take at least half an hour for everyone to pour a drink, catch up and settle down. Tonight, however, the instant snap to attention is a sign of the significance of the problem facing the community.

  The president, an endlessly patient and pragmatic man, who collects local art and spends most weekends polishing his treasured timber putt-putt, stands behind the wonky trestle table. He puts forward a motion to have the Weasel castrated, drizzled with honey and laid out on an ants’ nest with a stake through his chest. It is meant as a joke. So he calls for restraint a little hysterically when the motion is seconded by a show of fifty hands all volunteering to do the deed. He thumps the table so hard it almost topples.

  The meeting begins in earnest.

  The Misses Skettle, in firm voices, read from a carefully prepared report that gives every last detail of activity at the Weasel’s boatshed, including winds and tides – but refrains from naming names. It is so comprehensive, Sam decides there’s no need to present the findings of his own night-long stake-out.

  A retired cop is asked for his advice, but is quickly cut off when he suggests employing the services of a hit man who owes him a couple of favours. All the Island mothers offer to boil the Weasel alive in an old tank at the top of the Island. Everyone offers to help collect wood for the fire.

  The audience is told that if it has anything to add that is based on fact, not fantasy nor a wishlist, each person has two minutes to speak. Even the usual troublemakers toe the line instead of ranting about noisy teenage parties, bad behaviour on the school ferry, dogs in feral packs or the rising problem of queue jumpers hitting the water main since the current dry spell kicked in.

  The end result however is unanimous. The Weasel will be given one warning by the president. If it is ignored, the police will be informed that they believe he is selling and supplying prohibited substances to underage children and seriously undermining the delicate social structure of Cook’s Basin family life. The aye-ayes ring out forcefully and everyone adjourns to the bar with relief just as the moon begins to rise, casting golden rungs across the bay, like a ladder to the black night sky.

  At 7.45 p.m. when there’s still no sign of Marcus Allender, the Kingfish Bay chef who is solely in charge of the evening’s fare, there are a few nervous faces. He is still an enigma in the community – a man who is sometimes seen passing mysteriously through the Square in a fancy suit and smart shoes (crocodile, or a good imitation of it). But he certainly loves his fishing. Hot, cold, wet or windy, he’s out there with his line, which counts for a lot in Cook’s Basin.

  Fifteen minutes after eight, his boat drifts alongside the seawall on a conveniently high tide. A brigade of men put down their beers to help carry to the kitchen twelve white Styrofoam boxes emitting a deliciously tantalising aroma.

  Bob, the wiry, unflappable chief of the volunteer fire brigade, encourages the chef with a friendly pat on the back, then slopes off to run the bar, where the queue for a frigidly cold is already ten-deep.

  No one is prepared for what happens next.

  The chef, a tall man with shaggy silver hair, a lightly tanned face and soft brown eyes, emerges from the fireshed loo in blizzard-white trousers, a white double-breasted jacket with a black kerchief tied at his throat, and a soaring toque.

  The crowd falls silent. Struck dumb. People watch, mesmerised, while he dusts off his hands and opens the fridge door with a theatrical flourish. Ready to go about his business. Then an agonised yowl carries clear across the bay. Every neighbourhood dog, locked at home so they don’t snaffle the kids’ sausage rolls out of their hands, joins in a chorus of frustration.

  “There is no room for my berry jellies!” the chef yells in distress, a few silver hairs escaping from the clutch of his quivering hat. “The fridge is full of beer!”

  Ettie, Judy, Jane and Jenny, who are sharing a Thermos of icy margaritas, roll their eyes and emerge from the crowd like sisters-in-arms. They politely offer assistance in a way that’s meant to make the chef feel like he’s back in his state-of-the-art, three-star kitchen with a bevy of anxious acolytes to boss around.

  He responds immediately. “Remove the beer,” he orders. “Bring me platters. Set the tables. Unwrap the ocean trout from the foil, with care, with care! Don’t rip the flesh. We must hurry before the fish is cold and the jellies warm!”

  When he shows no sign of calming down, they insist he takes a large gulp of Ettie’s cocktail, purely as a restorative tonic. Ettie is then quietly assigned the task of whisking him out of the kitchen – no mean feat – and taking him on a leisurely walk. The women plan to have the dinner served well before his return for they instinctively know that the first person to ask the chef for a double helping, or sauce on instead of beside, will get his head bitten off.

  Ettie obligingly takes the chef’s surprisingly soft hand in hers and leads him to the water’s edge. She instructs him to take off his rubber-soled shoes so they can go for a quiet paddle in the cool water of the bay. She removes his toque herself, with great tenderness and care. The jellies will be kept cool in an icebox, she assures him with such calm sincerity that he falls under her spell and trusts her completely. She stands his toque carefully on the seawall, like a marker to show the way back.

  By the time they reach the far side of the bay, eighty people are seated at ten trestle tables covered in red gingham cloths. Candlelight dances over their faces. They murmur appreciatively about the moist fish, the heavenly balance of the herbs in the salsa verde and the aioli, so superbly light everyone knows the chef must have whipped it by hand.

  When they return – the chef so tall he’s forced to duck under the coloured carnival lights strung between casuarinas – the diners rise to their feet in thunderous applause.

  “My name,” bellows the chef, “is Marcus Allender. Once I had a restaurant called Stretton’s. Now I am retired but I love to cook. Thank you for allowing me tonight.” He beams at the diners, his eyes glistening. Then, to everyone’s delight, he bends his long, solid but not overweight body in a formal bow. He straightens and applauds the diners with a slow clap that echoes in the still night. That’s how it’s done at the end of a gala dinner in Paris, someone whispers.

  When the moment is over and conversations fire up once more, Marcus whips off his jacket, whisks out a chair for Ettie, and tells her to sit while he personally serves her dinner. She is a saint, he tells her passionately. She saved his life, his reputation, tonight
. He had forgotten the pressure, the stress of cooking large quantities. And he wanted so much to show his appreciation for the people of Cook’s Basin. How they preserve a way of life that is unique, hold strong to values and principles under the pressures of modern life. He firewalks across the stony ground towards the kitchen until someone is quickly dispatched to fetch his shoes from the seawall. And his toque.

  Ettie’s dinner – fleshy pink trout, new baby potatoes swizzled in a lemon, butter and parsley sauce, three spears of luminous asparagus, four thumb-sized, deep red, halved tomatoes, green sauce and creamy aioli – is a still life.

  “The colours,” she whispers in awe, “the arrangement, the balance. I would rather paint this than eat it.”

  The chef nods warmly and takes her hand. He smells, she thinks, of limes. Underneath that heady scent, she catches a whiff of strawberries that she supposes he’s poached in sugar syrup and then drained through muslin to make the jelly. He watches as she chews and swallows every mouthful with appreciation. Then he wipes the dregs off her plate with his finger and licks it clean, his eyes locked on hers. She visibly swoons.

  On the morning following the fireshed dinner, Ettie arrives at the café a little later than 6 a.m. for the first time since the day she became the proprietor. Nursing a slight headache, a rosy flush and a faraway look in her eyes, she potters around her workspace, enjoying the peace and pleasure of ownership. Once or twice she finds herself staring dreamily up at the cross-beamed timber ceiling as though she still can’t believe how this shabby but amazing jewel has been delivered into her hands.

  After a while, she checks the time and gets to work, hoping everyone’s having a good sleep-in after a late night. She reaches for a mixing bowl from a high shelf, weighs and measures ingredients she knows by heart, tosses in two punnets of syrupy raspberries and folds the batter for her trademark muffins. At the last minute – and inspired, she admits, by the great chef – she grates a little lemon rind into the mixture before ladling it into four, six-hole trays. She opens the oven and stops, puzzled. She is certain she turned it on. It is the mandatory first step in her daily routine. How her working day begins. She panics, thinking the oven is broken and will have to be replaced at great expense. But she flicks the switch, a red light glows, the fan whirrs and heat rises. You’re off in la-la land, Ettie, she says to herself. He is probably married. They always are.

  There’d been a man who broke through all her defences. Not quite a drifter but near enough to one. He had golden skin, golden hair and lion eyes. He cooked splendid breakfasts on Sunday mornings and brought them to her while she lay in bed. They’d read the weekend papers side by side, swapping sections. She’d let him hang his polo shirts in her wardrobe and store his tennis racquets in the broom cupboard. One humid summer night, he threw back the sheet, pulled on his clothes, grabbed his racquets and without a word walked out the door.

  After him, she’d let one or two into her bed when an occasional bout of skin hunger overrode her commonsense. A fool’s game. By and large, she didn’t much care for the way men shifted the goalposts every time the going got rough or tedious. It meant you never quite knew where you stood from one day to the next – and if there was one thing she valued, it was constancy. Sam, who is like a brother, she thinks, has been the most constant person in her life. If she’d been born twenty years earlier … She scraps the thought. Only fools indulge in what if games.

  Then she firmly puts the chef out of her mind.

  While she waits for the oven to heat she steps out on the deck to clear her head, woolly from too many cocktails and the almost forgotten thrill of flirting. She breathes in the cool morning air, ripe with the smell of oysters, brine and wet sand. In the distance, Kate’s boat slices through the water in a way that looks almost competent. Ettie smiles. She knew she’d be a quick learner.

  She goes back inside to make two coffees, one so strong it restores her commonsense. She slides the muffins into the hot oven with unnecessary force and cranks up the morning pace. By the time Kate walks in, looking as fresh as you’d expect from a woman who drank water instead of wine last night, she’s washed up and made them both a bowl of fresh peaches and muesli. She dollops on a large spoonful of plain yoghurt spiked with honey perfumed by the masses of glorious white blossoms that cover Tasmanian leatherwoods in late spring.

  “Yum,” says Kate. “If I’d known breakfast could be this good, I would’ve started eating it years ago.”

  They dine on the sunny deck in the peace and quiet of the early morning, then Kate retreats to the attic to make it fit for Ettie’s new home. She is methodical, logical, and carefully puts aside old pieces she thinks can be restored.

  Quite quickly a huge pile of junk builds up outside the café door. Ettie tells Kate not to worry about disposal. It will be enthusiastically scrounged by offshore artists who are able to turn the most miserable rubbish into art. Chipped china, busted chairs, dead toasters and old signage. When Kate holds up a stinking piece of felt carpet she’s ripped off the floor, with a question in her eyes, Ettie indicates it should also join the heap. “Fantastic for covering worm farms and compost bins,” she explains.

  Soon the attic is an empty, wide-open space. Kate scrubs the yellow bathroom tiles back to their original whiteness, takes the loo seat apart, plunging every screw, nut and bolt in a bucket of bleach. She scours a rust stain from a leaking cistern until it gleams. And then fixes the leak. She washes windows, wipes walls and skirting boards so forcefully paint flakes off like dandruff. Finally, she sweeps, mops and polishes. There are a few gaps in the walls between the planks, only one big enough to call a hole. Nothing that can’t be fixed.

  It is taking shape. It will be beautiful.

  Ettie’s penthouse.

  Downstairs Ettie, who has been baking fiercely, carefully removes a tray of coin-sized golden biscuits from the oven, slides them onto a wire rack and leaves them to cool. She returns to the table under the stairs, now covered in recipe books, and goes back to her lists. To be absolutely accurate, she uses a calculator to increase portions to suit café requirements. By the end of the day, she will have sorted out the basic menu, the daily specials, the rotation of different cakes and the takeaway choices for anyone getting home too tired or too late to cook.

  At the last minute, she decides to add a chicken bolognaise sauce, simmered with the rinds of parmesan to give it richness. Perfect for harried mums to throw over pasta when they’re caught short by sick kids or a plain old dose of exhaustion.

  Late in the afternoon, the two women sit, drinking their tea, the last niggling uncertainties vanishing with the completion of each new task. Every fresh idea.

  The old café signs, liberated from where they’d been tossed in the attic, are wiped clean of cobwebs and grime and tell a story of the old days. General Store, Takeaway Food, Souvenirs, Hireboats, Dockside Dining, Post Office. Est. January 1st. 1899, Coffee Lounge.

  The small grocery area, where the local cooks will sell their preserves, is taking shape. A jar will be placed on the counter for contributions to community projects. A blackboard will announce upcoming events.

  Ettie believes there is a market for takeaway curries and celebration cakes made to order. Kate is certain weekenders could be encouraged to order pre-prepared party food: light lunches, picnics and three-course dinners. She will do the costing, set the prices and print menus on flyers they will display on the counter. Perhaps Jimmy might like to take on a job doing deliveries, if required. As long as he knows he’s not allowed to speed. Or go naked.

  “We’re just about ready, although the place doesn’t exactly sparkle,” Ettie says.

  “Old buildings like this are rare and full of character. They don’t have to sparkle,” Kate reassures her firmly. “You know what’s really weird?” she says, leaning against the staircase, mug cupped in her hands, and not a speck of dirt on her anywhere.

  “Mmm?” The throbbing pain in Ettie’s feet is reducing to a dull ache. In half an hour
she’ll get a second wind but right now she could close her eyes and fall straight to sleep.

  “My father was born and raised in a country town. His parents owned the corner store. Remove the sea and coast, and this could almost be a copy. He would have loved The Briny.”

  “When he died, is that when your mum got so … angry?”

  “She’s a disaster of her own making, Emily. Never been any different and nothing short of a hurricane could topple her. She’s going to faint when she finds out about the café. It’s everything she loathes. As a kid, I remember her standing behind the counter, not a hair out of place. With such a temporary, one-foot-out-the-door look about her, she set the locals on edge whenever they came in for a loaf of bread. Eventually, she talked Dad into moving to the city.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Neither. But nothing was ever the same. The awful irony is that if they’d kept the place, it would probably have morphed into one of those character country cafés you now find everywhere. Emily’s not known for her patience, though. Nearly seventy and she still hurtles like she’s constantly late for an appointment.”

  “Bring her in one day, and we’ll see if we can soften a few edges,” Ettie says, getting to her feet, ready to plod on. “Just give me a day’s warning, okay? So I can brace myself.”