The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

13

Seven hours later, Vera was knee-deep in fabric scraps and empty teacups and had a headache playing rap music in her skull. Sixteen residents of Hanrahan were gathered around the big table in the back room of the café, but from the noise you would have supposed there were six hundred of them.

The table bristled with jugs of knitting needles, pots of glue, little yellow wheels which looked like pizza cutters but seemed to be designed to cut fabric into weirdly thin strips. Ribbon making? Hair ties?

Whatever. She’d given up trying to make sense of any of the activity going on. The food she’d prepared had been inhaled within minutes, and she’d be needing to restock her tea caddies first thing in the morning.

Kev caught her eye as she bent down to wipe up some glue that had dripped from a hot glue gun, down her second-hand sideboard, onto the wide floor planks.

‘It’s going well, isn’t it, Vera?’

‘Absolutely,’ she lied, wondering if she should go get her icing spreader to lever the glue off before it became a permanent fixture.

‘Even George turned up. Marigold’s set him to work on detangling Mrs J’s basket of embroidery threads.’

‘Excellent.’

The last of the glue flicked up under her fingernail, and she stood up. Perhaps it was time for that sneaky gin and tonic.

Kev leaned a hip against the sideboard. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me what’s got you in a bother?’

‘I’m not in a bother at all, Kev. You need something? More hot water?’

‘I need you to take a breath, love. If this is too busy, we can think about a new venue. Just because Marigold loves a bit of crazy craft chaos, doesn’t mean you have to love it. Let’s go find a table in a quiet corner and have ourselves a minute.’

Vera sighed. She would love to sit a minute. And the rush for sandwiches and cake had slowed. She followed Kev to a table tucked between the antique bookcase she’d restored and the fireplace and fell into a timber chair.

‘It’s not the craft,’ she said.

‘You want to tell an old man what’s got you so quiet?’

She did want to unburden herself. The weight of doubt had been eating at her since leaving Jill so non-responsive in her wicker chair. The truth was, Jill was dying. Soon, too soon, Vera would be on her own, and that future frightened her. Even in a whole room full of chattering, cheery people, she felt apart, like a biscuit that had been discarded on the baking tray because its edges were a little too burned.

‘I’m no good with people.’

‘People. Well, that’s a big word, my love. Reckon if I had to be good with every darn person out and about, I’d be quaking at the knees.’

She smiled. ‘I do not believe your knees have ever quaked, Kev.’

‘Shoulda seen me the day I married my Marigold. Wobbly as one of your toffee custards I was. Point I’m making, Vera, is you don’t have to be good with people all at once. That’s the great thing about us. We come in ones and twos as well as in great noisy bunches.’

She blew out a breath. ‘My track record with dealing with them in ones and twos isn’t so crash hot.’

‘You let someone down? Someone let you down?’

‘All of the above.’

‘You’re hurting, Vera. I’m sorry about that. But there’s good people here in Hanrahan, ones who won’t let you down.’

Kev reached a hand across the table, palm up, like he was waiting for her to place her hand in his.

She twisted the cleaning cloth she still held into a knot. ‘I wish I could believe that.’

‘Sure you can believe it. You’ve got me in your corner, haven’t you?’

She smiled, and gestured to the nook they were sitting in. ‘Literally.’

‘You know what I mean. Your café manager, Graeme? He in your corner?’

‘I guess he is.’

‘Little Poppy Cody’s been here working every day since she rocked up to town; she must think you’re okay.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘And my little Marigold’s taken a shine to you. She’s hoping you’ll join her yoga classes down at the park. She salutes the sun every dawn, and it’s a treat to see that pink sunrise reflecting off the lake.’

‘Okay, Kev, don’t take this the wrong way, but most dawns I’m here already with my whisk whipping up eggs in a mixing bowl, and your little Marigold is a six-foot-high tower of intimidation.’

Kev cracked a smile so wide she could see a gold filling glint in one of his teeth. ‘That’s my woman, all right.’

Vera looked over at the table where Marigold was slicing cardboard into strips: people were laughing and comparing projects, and old George was stirring a heaped teaspoon of sugar into yet another cup of tea.

‘One person at a time, Vera, that’s all it takes.’

One person at a time. Maybe she could do that. Maybe then she’d work out sooner rather than later if a person she was befriending was as big a rat as her ex-boss Aaron Finch.

‘Those people over there, some of them have reasons, like you do, to be shy of people. But they come out anyway, and have themselves a little chitchat and community time, and it puts a spring in their step. You just watch.’

Kev was right. George was clearly happy to be surrounded by chattering women. Everyone looked … content. She should unbend a little, socialise, stop suspecting everyone she met of being the next candidate to betray her friendship. The empty glasses could sit for a second longer while she chatted to Kev—he was as perfect a candidate as she could think of to practise socialising.

‘Thanks, Kev. They do look happy, don’t they?’

‘Happy as galahs in a wattle tree.’

She smiled. ‘A success, then. How was the food? Enough? And what about the tea? The orders seem to have slowed down a bit.’

He gave her a wink. ‘First night fever, my love. They’ll be regretting how much they’ve consumed when they spend all night shuffling to the bathroom.’

She giggled. Where was Kev when she was busy making bad decisions about guys?

‘Marigold’s put the word out. Everyone’s to leave ten dollars in the kitty for a biscuit and a cup of tea and a contribution to wages. They order anything off the menu, they’ll pay their own. If you find yourself short, you come and find me.’

That would cover it; more than. ‘Thanks, Kev. I appreciate it.’

Poppy swung her way through the kitchen doors carrying a tray of the fruitcake she’d sliced earlier into finger-thin soldiers, and began passing them around. The girl had taken to café work like … words failed her. Like a goth to eyeliner? Like a teenage girl to mood swings? She watched on as old George accepted a slice of cake and promptly dropped it in his basket of thread.

‘I’ll help you, Mr Juggins,’ she heard Poppy say.

‘Cake disaster,’ Vera murmured to Kev and rose from her chair to rescue the rest of the fruitcake so Poppy could help the old man.

‘Call me George,’ she heard him say.

‘Call me Poppy,’ said Poppy.

‘Poppy! That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl. Look out, don’t mess up my work, young lady. I’ve spent an hour sorting out this tangle.’

‘Yes, George.’

Vera could hear the girl giggling as she passed around the rest of the cake, filled water glasses, plucked cotton snarls from her black apron.

She smiled. So okay, maybe this community craft caper wasn’t all bad. And she’d taken three bookings for lunch next week from tonight’s guests.

Her thoughts drifted back to the half-made quilt she’d pulled out of one of Jill’s boxes. Maybe she should bring it along to the craft group and try to finish it; gussy it up a little. Take a seat at the table, push through her reluctance to get involved, and do something good for her aunt, at long last. Her aunt should have a little colour draped over her knees, not a bland beige hospital blanket.

Her eyes fell on Marigold. The woman was a dynamo, darting about the table, voicing her opinions as though they were commandments. She and her aunt would have bonded like fondant onto cake. Bringing Jill’s quilt along, and setting a few stitches in if the café was quiet, was doable. Winter would be a shock to both her and her aunt, this far up in the Snowy Mountains. She’d love to be able to tuck Jill’s quilt over her knees … all she had to do was get the thing finished.

Fabric, cotton, wadding, scissors. If she could make a lemon soufflé, surely she could bang together the other half of a quilt?

The guilt of all the things she hadn’t done for Jill—like ensure she was in a safe home—came crashing into her mood and she reached out a hand to steady herself.

‘Vera, we’re out of cake, and that’s the last of the sandwiches, too. Do we have any more?’

She stared blindly at the girl for a moment.

‘Vera?’ said Poppy. ‘You okay? You look a bit funny.’

Pretending she was okay wasn’t easy, but she’d had plenty of practice. ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about the food, perhaps just take the teapot around again.’

‘Sure thing.’

‘And, um, Poppy? Are you right to hold the fort for five minutes? I just want to duck out back for a second.’

‘Wow. I’ll be the boss? You know I’m fifteen, right?’

Vera forced a smile, pulled off her apron and set off through the kitchen and out the back, but the second the door closed behind her, she sank onto the back step and felt her dam wall of pretence break.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Why couldn’t this grief for her old life be done already? This guilt over stuffing her aunt into a crappy care home and making a total balls-up of everything? She was tired of crying, and having to make excuses, and run from rooms so she could hide what a total mess she was.

A bump at her elbow made her look down; the cat was there, its round furry face looking up at her expectantly.

‘I don’t have milk if that’s what you’re after,’ she sniffed. ‘And if it’s answers you’re after, I sure as hell don’t have any of those.’

The cat butted her elbow again as though to make doubly sure she knew it was there, then it curled itself onto the step beside her and commenced making a noise like it had a lawnmower tucked away under all that fur.

Was that … purring? Her life was swirling down the plughole into a sewer-stink of regret, and her new bestie thought this was something to purr about?

‘You suck at empathy,’ she muttered.

But the longer she sat on the step, the warmer her right hip began to feel under the cat’s weight, and the more that loud rumble of a purr began to sink into her soul. The tears had stopped. Her breathing had sorted itself out. She felt … a little wrung out, like she always did when her emotions found themselves exposed … but better.

‘I suppose I’d better go and rescue my fifteen-year-old employee from those tea guzzlers,’ she said to the cat.

It ignored her, but in a very empathetic way.