The Christmas Café Read online

  She sighed. It was a glorious day full of summer promise, and despite the loneliness that threatened there was something rather lovely about this early hour, the stillness of the place before the ensuing madness of the day. She had always been an early riser and this had proved most beneficial to the success of the Reservoir Street Kitchen. Up with the lark, she would have the lights on, ovens hungry and toasty, kettles filled, bread prepped and deliveries sorted and stowed before Kim and Tait made an appearance.

  Bea took one last fond look at the slight dent on Peter’s side of the bed, which would never, she hoped, regain its original shape, allowing her to imagine him only temporarily absent, sipping coffee down at The Rocks or fetching the morning paper. That made it easier somehow, kidding herself that he would be back sometime soon.

  Radio 2GB babbled away in the background and Alan Jones’ unmistakeable cadences filled the room, updating her on the state of the world. It was all she needed to lift her spirits. She still hadn’t heard from Wyatt or Sarah with regard to Christmas and at that precise moment she hated her need of them. She tried to remain stoical, tried not to dwell on the fact that she only saw or heard from them once a month, but the truth was, she did mind, especially because this sparse, inadequate contact meant she was kept away from her granddaughter, Flora, a bubbly thirteen-year-old whom Bea adored. In recent years, on Flora’s birthday she had made a point of going to the house in Manly twenty minutes early so as to catch a little time with Flora before she went out to play with her buddies. And each year, after Sarah’s Christmas barbecue, they would sit together on the sand and chat. Bea would ask Flora what bands were ‘in’, and Flora would tease her for being an old granny, even though she’d only turned fifty-three this year. It wasn’t much of an interaction, but as Bea reminded herself, they had busy, full lives and that little bit of contact was better than nothing.

  She made herself a mug of Earl Grey with a large slice of lemon and stood in front of the open windows by the Juliet balcony as she looked out over the warm Sydney morning. The big sky was clear in its azure brilliance, and she allowed her mind to wander back to the same time last year, to a similarly perfect summer’s day, which had seemed to spite her sadness. It was seven days after Peter had passed away and she’d sat on the sofa, resplendent in understated aubergine, remote and aloof, like a queen bee attended by a swarm of fluttering guests. Just like at weddings, everyone had wanted a small amount of time with her, the main attraction. The trick was not to monopolise or talk too much; funerals were all about short, meaningful sentences. ‘So sorry for your loss...’ ‘It’s a blessing...’ ‘A happy release...’ ‘He was a great bloke.’ The offerings had all been pretty much identical in both content and the manner in which they were delivered, heads cocked to one side, doleful expressions, and the volume barely above a whisper.

  The only original sentiment had come from Flora, who had seen it as more of a party and had been refreshingly oblivious as to why it might not be appropriate to laugh loudly, sing or throw snacks down to the disinterested little wattlebird resting in the tree below the balcony. Bea had watched Wyatt glare at his daughter from the other side of the room – probably more effective than actually engaging with her. She realised that Flora had always been that way, slightly out of kilter with what was expected by the rest of the pack. And, truthfully, she approved of Flora’s attitude: funerals should be about celebrating a person’s life. Peter’s wake had been far too sedate; the delicate chink of glass against glass and the barely audible hum of conversation had been oppressive. She had watched Peter’s sister and brother conversing in whispers behind cupped palms, covertly raising their eyebrows and shaking their heads between sips of wine, in a way that made everyone in the room feel really awkward, excluded.

  It was no secret that they didn’t like her and, truth be told, she wasn’t overly fond of them; she still remembered the way they had cold-shouldered her when they’d first met, all those years ago. The conversation as to why they held Bea in such low regard had never been had, but she suspected it was because she fell way below the standard they would have expected for someone like Peter. She was his first bride and a lot younger than him – a mere twenty-five years old to his mature forty-seven, which they probably didn’t approve of either. Arriving out of nowhere with a young son in tow and no respectable backstory – she had not been tragically widowed in her youth, nor forced to care for an abandoned child that was not her own – she was considered damaged goods. Now, having laid Peter to rest in a quiet grave in a sunny spot at South Head General Cemetery, overlooking the Tasman Sea, their dislike of her had morphed into resentment; this Bea knew was because the bulk of Peter’s estate was going to her, the imposter! Not that it was a vast fortune, but it was certainly enough to keep the wolf from the door and to give her choices. This was yet another reason for her to be eternally grateful to her lovely husband.

  She had looked around the room and knew that the Bea of her youth would have shouted to the assembled, ‘Do you know what? I’d really rather be alone, and Peter didn’t like half of you anyway. Please, make your way home via the nearest exit and when you have gone, I shall drink wine and dance in my bare feet until I fall asleep!’ But this wasn’t the Bea of her youth; she was in her fifties and had learnt that sometimes it was best to observe the ‘least said, soonest mended’ rule. That was precisely how she got through the following hour of further platitudes about how time would heal all of her wounds. She knew from bitter experience that this was a lie. Thirty-five years on and her pulse still quickened as she remembered clinging to her beloved with her bare hands, begging, pleading not to be left alone. Time had not healed her wounds; it had merely placed a thin veneer of anaesthesia over them that dulled the pain, making them easier to live with.

  Bea shook her head to clear the memory and lifted the cup of lemony tea to her lips as she wandered over to the sofa. Her wrist gave a familiar jangle. Twelve slim silver bracelets sat haphazardly on her left arm, each one bought by Peter for a particular birthday or anniversary; each one engraved on the inside with a declaration of love or a funny insight. The one he’d given her on her fiftieth birthday read: ‘You are now officially old! Welcome to the club!’

  She smiled at the memory of his wonderful humour and wished once again that she could have returned to him the same love that he’d given her. She had been happy with him, he had been a good father to Wyatt, and of course he’d helped her set up the Reservoir Street Kitchen, the café that was her pride and joy. But no matter how much she wished otherwise, her feelings for him were measured, a pale simulacrum of the way she had felt about her first love, her hand inside his as they glided over the wooden deck, the full moon providing the most perfect backdrop as her heart jumped and her foot tapped in time to the music, that night she’d wished would never end. Bea lightly stroked the dark green silk cushion, letting the fingers of her free hand linger on the fabric.

  After showering and blow-drying her thick grey hair into its voluminous waves and fastening it into a haphazard knot with a barrette, she applied her scarlet lip stain and brushed a couple of coats of mascara onto her long lashes. As she accessorised her olive pedal pushers with a sleeveless tunic and chunky bone-coloured beads that hung around her neck in three strands, she reminded herself how very lucky she had been. If it hadn’t been for Peter, life could have turned out very differently indeed. She then slipped her feet into her trademark petrol-blue Converse and pushed the memory of her dream to the very back of her mind.

  Before going downstairs to open up the café, she glanced at the photo on the wall and spoke the same words out into the bright blue morning that she had for the past 364 days.

  ‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’m sorry.’

  Two

  ‘Ah, Mr Giraldi. How are you today?’ She waved from in front of the grand reclaimed bookshelf, where she was adjusting a miniature wooden rocking horse to sit just so, framed by battered copies of Little Women and Moby Dick, among others. She groomed t
he little horse with her fingertips, trying to make the most of his sparse mane and worn paintwork.

  ‘Good, thank you, Bea, apart from the fact there is someone sitting at my table!’ He removed the straw trilby that offered shade from the hot Sydney sun and lifted his walking cane, aiming it at the two tourists sitting beneath the bi-fold window. On sunny days the window was opened so that you were effectively dining al fresco, free to watch the goings-on of Surry Hills, one of the most vibrant of Sydney’s inner-city suburbs. The couple, oblivious to their blunder, chattered and sipped at iced spiced chai latte. ‘How long will they be? Have they asked for the bill yet?’ he shouted in their direction.

  ‘Not sure, but why don’t you come take a seat over here? We can catch up and then you can always move later,’ Bea suggested.

  She hoped the enthusiastic couple, she English and he American, who had oohed and aahed as they walked into the Reservoir Street Kitchen for the first time, hadn’t heard. ‘We love delis and cafés,’ the charming red-headed man had explained. ‘We have history – it’s where I met Megan, my wife.’ He’d smiled. ‘Shut up, Edd! No one cares how we met!’ The woman had blushed and beamed. They were clearly very much in love.

  ‘What’s that you’ve found, more junk?’ Mr Giraldi enquired, nodding at the rocking horse as he placed his hat on one of the other bleached and scrubbed wooden tables and took a seat.

  The horse was the latest addition to the quirky decor, with Bea’s objets d’art sitting in stark contrast to the polished cement floors, exposed steel joists and tempered glass of the premises. In its previous life the building on Reservoir Street had been a textile factory and Bea and Peter had been way ahead of their time in using the harsh industrial materials of the place to their advantage. Rather than dispose of the rusted pulleys that were strung like mini cable-cars across the high ceiling, or try to disguise the weathered brick and replace the chipped green enamelled lights that hung in low clusters, they had simply incorporated them into the design. One critic had described their new venture as ‘wonderfully bohemian, daring and eclectic’, which had made them chuckle over a bottle of red – they’d thought they were merely being thrifty! That had been twenty years ago.

  Bea laughed. ‘I keep telling you, Mr Giraldi: firstly, these things are not junk, they are pre-loved. And secondly, I don’t find them, they find me. I’m like a magnet for these objects, and I think they make the place more beautiful, don’t you?’

  He simply tutted noncommittally as she ran her eyes over the unusual mix of items that sat on the industrial shelving units. The old European bakers’ racks had been shipped over years ago – some still had blobs of flour encrusted on them, as hard as rock; the rusty wheels on each corner must have propelled them across tiled bakery floors, transporting rustic breads and baked goods of the sort that she would almost certainly be happy to serve today. There was an antique sewing machine on an ornate scrolled-iron trestle, nestled in a corner. Defunct brass fire extinguishers were used as doorstops and the vast, high walls were graced with everything from a stuffed kudu head to a child’s chair covered in cartoon decoupage.

  She smiled; each and every one of those things held a special memory or put her in mind of a happy time. ‘Take these photos, for example.’ She pointed at a wall, bare brick like two of the others, that held clusters of black and white vintage photographs in mismatched frames. They included a Victorian gentleman in a rather dandy hat, and a blurred shot of shoeless children gathered on the step of a building not five minutes from where she now stood; ironically, the price tag for that step and the house behind it was now in the millions. ‘All of these pictures I have found on my wanderings, either in junk shops or on antiques stalls.’

  ‘Same thing,’ Mr Giraldi interjected.

  Bea gave her little sideways nod. ‘That’s as maybe, but they amount to so many happy days spent wandering streets, strolling in the sunshine or sheltering from the rain. And the point is I salvage them, the photographs that nobody wants. These people who were someone’s father, someone’s daughter. I can’t bear to think of them discarded, lost, these people who had lives, who mattered.’

  ‘Don’t think those scrawny, grubby kids mattered much!’ Tait joined the conversation, indicating the picture with his eyebrows, his hands being preoccupied with a large round tray.

  Bea watched as he dipped down to the table to deliver the goodies to a group of four girls. A sleek white teapot, white mugs, a 1950s-style glass sugar sifter with a natty chrome dispensing spout, and a shiny metal three-tiered cake stand filled with crayfish and lemon mayonnaise open sandwiches and four chunks of freshly frosted carrot cake. She observed the girls staring at Tait’s tanned arms and broad chest. Peter had called her cynical for employing a very handsome young surfer to serve her clientele, who were almost all female; she, however, had thought it might be pure genius, and she was right. I do miss you, Peter. There were these moments, during each day, when she would look for him, think of him, want to share something with him, and at every realisation that he was gone her chest caved with a combination of guilt and grief that left her feeling hollow.

  ‘Actually, Tait, I think every one of those little scraps mattered a lot. They were just little children, they didn’t choose where they were born or who they were born to, and if you look at their faces, sure they’re dirty, poor, a bit thin, but they actually look really happy.’ She strolled over to her gallery of pictures – people long dead whom she had never known – and pointed at one about halfway up. A boy of no more than six or seven leant against a doorframe; he was smoking a clay pipe, his eyes peeking out from beneath his cloth cap. ‘Look, look at the crinkles around the edge of his eyes. He looks older than his years, but he laughs a lot, I can tell.’ I hope he did. Poor little mite.

  ‘If you say so.’ Tait smiled, revealing his perfect large white teeth that practically shimmered against his golden tan. He tucked the stray wisps of his long tawny hair behind his ears, as was his habit. Bea watched the girls follow him with their eyes as he disappeared through the saloon doors and into the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t have pictures of my own family, let alone someone else’s!’ Mr Giraldi growled.

  ‘Are they all coming home for Christmas?’ Bea placed her hands on her waist and her bangles jangled along her wrist, her signature noise. There were only four weeks to go until Christmas Day and plans were being made.

  ‘Giovanni, his wife and their boys, yes, for a couple of hours. Claudia, Roberto and their kids are coming Christmas Eve, but Berta no. She’s working, staying in Melbourne. I only have a small apartment and I don’t want to travel. Besides, I like to stay where Angelica slept, and there’s no space for everyone. It’d be nice to have everyone in one spot, but that’s the way it is. I have nowhere to put them all. But we’ll hook up on the computer thing – Gio can fix it up for me. I don’t know how.’ He batted his large hand across his chest, as if to dismiss the problem and the technology.

  ‘I’m with you on that, can hardly switch my phone on and off, let alone work the computer. Peter used to do all that for me.’

  ‘People still telling you it gets easier?’ He leant on the top of his cane as he posed the question.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. She had marked the first anniversary of Peter’s death by walking to the hospital and rubbing the nose of Il Porcellino before dropping a coin into the fountain.

  ‘They’re liars, all of them. And I should know, it’s been seventeen years.’ He pulled a large white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his eyes.

  ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘I do.’ He took a stuttered breath as though even the recollection was painful. ‘She was our translator – do you know what I mean?’

  Bea wondered if he meant from Italian to English, but that seemed odd, his English was beautifully accented and faultless. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t,’ she confessed.

  Mr Giraldi looked skywards, as if that was from where the perfect explanation might be plucked. ‘Sh
e got me. She got all of us! Berta is remote, quiet. I remember once asking Angelica, why is Berta so cold? And she clicked her tongue as though I was stupid and said, she is not cold! She is a furnace of passion, warmth and love, but she is so shy, private, that it tortures her, she puts up barriers.’ He shook his head. ‘I would never have known how to read my kids or they me without her translation. Gio is not angry all the time, he’s afraid! Claudia’s not as tough as she makes out, but only cries in private, hides any sadness. And me? She told them that no matter how fierce I might sound or how often I might dismiss their crazy ideas, I would die for them in a single heartbeat. And she was right, I would.’ He nodded.

  Bea considered his words. Maybe that was what she and Wyatt were missing, a translator. ‘It sounds like you were a wonderful team.’ She smiled.

  ‘Oh, we were. She was our glue. I know if their mama were here, the kids wouldn’t find it so hard to get home for Christmas. Space or not.’ This he whispered. ‘It’s not only her wisdom I miss, but also the sight of her! Oh, Bea, she took my breath away. And to dance with her...’ He tailed off, collecting himself. ‘To hold her hand inside mine and sway with her to the music! I still dream of those moments.’

  Bea heard the sound of a drumbeat inside her head, remembered the way her heart had thumped in time to the music.

  ‘Life’s just not the same.’ He shrugged.

  Bea nodded. She knew that for him this was true. ‘What can I get for you today, Mr Giraldi?’ She rested her hands inside the navy and white butcher’s pinny that she’d wrapped around her tiny frame. Peter had once admired her in her skinny jeans and Converse high-tops, saying that, side-on, she looked like a golf club. She had taken it as the compliment it was intended to be. Even now, she occasionally got sized up from behind by a young man who then found himself disappointed at the sight of her fifty-three-year-old face.