Fava Beans For Breakfast Read online

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Never again. Starting from right now, he swore he’d never smoke another cigar. With his face pressed down into the sofa cushion he could smell his own rank breath. What a stupid moron. There was enough fermentation in his mouth to brew beer. Idiot wanker. Cripes almighty. Tom rolled onto his back and felt the warm morning rays shoving through the semi-closed venetian blind slats and onto his face.

  A door banged shut. Startled him. He heard the toilet flush. Cherie Blossom. What a bloody name. Hippy hocuspocus of a name. She was finally up. He hated this part of the circus. Wished she’d just shower and get on with her day.

  He stared at the ceiling of the sunroom and shook his head. With his gaze fixed on the steady beams of light he felt a rapid gagging sensation. Like a roach flipped on its back, he was disabled. The moment came over him quickly and as his stomach convulsed he knew that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He tasted the sick as it filled his mouth and he swallowed back the bitter, acidic fluid in disgust. It wasn’t just the whisky and cigar from last night making him feel like ratshit. His little entanglement … what was he thinking?

  Maybe he was getting too old for this caper. Easy said right now. He knew well enough about a different type of ache—the long stretches of night, the long weeks without any human touch.

  Cherie Blossom sauntered into the sunroom. ‘Was wondering where you’d got to, baby.’

  He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. She was dressed already, in last night’s clothes. He could detect the faintly metallic smell of her armpits.

  ‘Help yourself to some toast. The kitchen’s on your right.’

  ‘Thanks, baby. I’ll read your palm before I leave.’

  ‘You read my palm last night. Very imaginative … you have great promise as a lawyer.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She pulled a face and sauntered cheekily towards the kitchen. Hocus-bloody-pocus hippy student. A law student, who would’ve thought?

  Still, he had to admit he didn’t mind that these hippies railed against everything that was considered proper and decent. They gave their parents the shits and the newspapers great stories. Proper and decent held a dull cultural monopoly. He figured he was born a decade too early.

  He rose slowly from the sofa and shuffled to the round coffee table. He poured water from a jug into a tall glass and drank. Felt the liquid slide cold over his ragged throat like a river breaking its banks for the first time, coursing over parched terrain. The sensation lasted a few seconds only, before his throat felt ravaged again. He flicked on the radio and turned the volume up slowly, uncertain of the level his ears could bear. Roberta Flack. ‘Killing Me Softly.’ Radio stations had been playing this song to death for months. He smirked. He was more of a rock ’n’ roll kind of a guy but he secretly liked Roberta Flack.

  He slunk back to the sofa. The smell of charred toast and butter reached him from the kitchen. Honey, too. It smelled good. Maybe he was hungry after all. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Great place, baby. How many of you live here?’ said Cherie, her beads and bangles announcing her return to the sunroom.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘The house is like, enormous. I’ve counted three bathrooms on my way down from the bedroom. Is there another level?’

  ‘Three floors all up.’

  She whistled. ‘How old is this joint?’

  ‘1908. My granddad built it.’

  ‘Have you always lived in Burraboo?’

  ‘Feels that way.’

  ‘You must know everything about this place.’

  ‘That would be a fair estimation.’

  ‘There’s an old dairy farm here. Know anything about it?’

  ‘There’s more than one retired dairy farm around these parts, sweetheart.’

  ‘There’s one that’s just off the inland track.’

  ‘I know it well.’

  ‘It’s very pretty.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I’ve heard it’s up for sale.’

  ‘That dairy farm has been up for sale for years.’ Yeah, like most of Burraboo.

  ‘We’re thinking of buying it.’

  ‘Buying it?’ scoffed Tom. ‘It’s a large parcel of land, you know.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Twenty acres. I’ve done my research. The land size is perfect for us.’

  ‘Who’s “us”?’

  ‘The collective.’

  ‘Your hippy mob?’

  ‘That’s disappointingly reductive of you to refer to us in those terms, but if it helps you to distil information into overly simplified concepts, then yes,’ she gently cooed, giving Tom the confused pleasure of being slapped and soothed at the same time. She reached for his hand and traced out a deep groove on his palm: his lifeline or heart line or whatnot.

  ‘This is your lucky day, sweetheart.’ Tom laughed. How on earth could this hippy mob afford to buy one of the old dairy farms? It was unfathomable, but he’d play along with this silliness. Cherie-bloody-Blossom was extremely amusing and not much seemed to amuse him these days.

  Her eyes widened. ‘Are you telling me …?’

  Tom raised his eyebrows twice.

  Cherie pulled her hand away from his and straightened her spine like a giraffe reaching for food up high on a tree. ‘Well, we’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘We’re talking now.’

  ‘You’re not taking me very seriously.’

  ‘Seriously. Sweetheart, twenty acres is seriously a lot of land, which implies, seriously, a lot of money must change hands.’ Tom leaned back into the sofa, locking his fingers behind his head.

  ‘I represent the interests of the Rainbow Lily commune in this matter and I would like to negotiate the purchase of this property.’

  ‘Listen, Cherie Blossom—’

  ‘We understand this farm has been vacant for the past eight years.’

  ‘You have done your research.’

  ‘Always.’

  Tom started to doubt that his saucy encounter with Cherie Blossom had been by chance at all. He saw her face go taut, her jawline harden.

  ‘There’s a lovely farmhouse on the property with electric power, a few dams, water bores … we like that,’ said Cherie.

  ‘Great. If you’re serious about buying you’ll factor those conveniences into your offer.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘So let’s hear it. What’s your offer?’

  ‘We’re prepared to offer you a short settlement period. That would suit you, surely, with your Horizon juggernaut sucking your finances dry.’

  ‘It would. What’s the offer?’ Tom smiled smugly. Claptrap bloody hippies … what a joke.

  ‘I should get my people ready. You should do the same.’

  ‘I’m not prepared to do a thing until you start talking dollars, sweetheart.’

  ‘Twenty.’

  He stared at her and blinked.

  ‘Thousand,’ she clarified. ‘Twenty thousand.’

  The dull beating in his temples suddenly stopped. His head was clear and focused. It had been years since he had received an offer for any of the dairy farms and quite frankly, they had all been laughable. This was a reasonable offer. Hippy or not. And twenty thousand was precisely one third of his funding gap for the Horizon development.

  ‘Twenty and a short settlement,’ said Cherie, as though reading his mind.

  ‘How the hell do you hippies have that sort of money? You’re a litter of puppies. For cripes’ sake, you haven’t even finished uni yet.’

  ‘You know nothing of us. If you did, you would realise that we are every people. We are a microcosm of this town, the world. We are parents and children and nurturers … don’t hem us in with your limiting constructs. Our cooperative is inclusive. The old, the young, the strong, the weak. Everyone is included. What defines us is our nimbleness of mind. We think with lightness, and therefore we are.’

  Cripes almighty!


  ‘To answer your question, a number of us have recently sold properties in Sydney. We have the money. We want to build a community that we believe in. The Rainbow Lily commune will bring new perspectives to Burraboo, that I can guarantee.’

  ‘I’m not sure that Burraboo is ready for the Rainbow Lilies.’

  ‘Do you want to sell or not?’

  ‘Twenty three and it’s yours.’

  ‘Twenty one-and-a-half.’

  ‘Done,’ said Tom.

  They shook hands, solemnly.

  ‘Call your man … Grimshaw,’ she instructed, her lips pursed.

  He’d underestimated Cherie Blossom, or whatever her name was. She really did mean business. ‘Where’s your backup?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t need backup. I am the backup. I’m authorised to act on behalf of the Rainbow Lilies, and I am responsible for every aspect of this transaction, including the conveyance of the property. Now, if we’ll just agree to the deposit amount, I can get a cheque drawn up in Gosford. I’ll need to use your phone, if you don’t mind, to organise a lift to Gosford.’

  ‘Perfect. My lawyer’s office is in Gosford, though I’m pretty sure you already know that. We can meet there. The phone is in the kitchen.’

  She nodded curtly.

  Excitement rumbled right through him and ended with a blade in his chest. He needed to eat. He rose to his feet and joined her in the kitchen. She made her phone call as he made honey on toast.

  She looked Tom brazenly up and down. Her smile was coy. ‘I’ll wait for my ride outside. See you in three hours … baby.’

  From the kitchen, Tom heard her jangles fade to silence as the front door clicked closed. On any other day he wouldn’t have let her wait outside. The whole street would be peering through their curtains at the hippy on his doorstep. But he had too much to organise. He reached for the phone. It was still early; he would have to call Rob Grimshaw at home.

  Grimshaw answered the phone with his clipped English accent. ‘Ah, Tom. A splendid town hall meeting last night, you did well.’

  ‘Thanks. Yes, it went pretty well. But if you think that was a good result, wait till I tell you what’s just happened. I can barely believe my luck … I’ll need you to draw up sale papers for one of the dairy farms.’ Rob Grimshaw listened quietly as Tom explained the details of the transaction.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Grimshaw said, finally.

  ‘This is like divine intervention for me … it couldn’t have come at a better time,’ said Tom, incredulous at his chief legal counsel’s caution. How could it be anything but good?

  ‘I’m concerned that the sale of your dairy farm might muddy the town’s enthusiasm for the Horizon. There’s a risk, a big risk here.’

  ‘What risk?’

  ‘That people will be annoyed, resentful that you sold to a collective of hippies. There are all sorts of stories about these collectives and what they get up to on their compounds. We simply can’t afford any resistance or backlash.’

  ‘The hippies are harmless. Besides, it’s been years since I’ve received an offer on any of those dairy farms, you know that. How can I possibly knock it back? Especially now, with the funding shortfall—’

  ‘Look at what’s at stake! There’s the money you’ve already invested into the Horizon, reputation risk … it can’t be underestimated. I want you to give due consideration to these factors.’

  Tom paused before speaking. He’d already considered all that. There was no doubt in his mind that some people in Burraboo wouldn’t be happy with his decision. But there was a bigger picture to consider. Rob Grimshaw was simply wrong. ‘Your caution is noted. I appreciate that I pay you to be conservative. But this … this is the easiest decision I’ve had to make in months. You know that reducing the funding gap is critical! It’s our number-one priority. The hippies are an odd mob, they’re full of hocus-pocus, I’ll grant you that, but they’re harmless. Now, I’ll be at your office in three hours. Please have the papers ready for me.’

  Grimshaw sighed. ‘Okay.’

  Tom put down the phone and looked around the large, empty kitchen. This was going to be a day worth remembering.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sway and hump of the land took her to the protected part of the peninsula, where everything seemed cooler and wetter. The dense woodland was home to a dissonance of unseen whistles, whoops and chirps. ‘Bishops Bay is worth a bit of sweat to get there, pet,’ Wendy from the Super-S had told her. She followed the curve of the bay to a wide cluster of rocks that projected into the bay.

  Nayeema dropped her bag and sat gingerly on a rock, amazed at what had opened up in front of her. Past the rocks, small, pale pebbles covered the ground and the vegetation thinned out to make way for a tiny inlet that gently curled into the shape of a smile. Inside the smile’s arc was a long pier. Beyond the pier there were dozens of dinghies moored in the bay. The low woodlands she had walked through to get here seemed to disappear with the curve of the inlet.

  She drew a breath when she saw the stone slab. Perched on the coarse sand of the inlet, it angled oddly into the earth like it had fallen from some great height. One side of the stone was flat and smooth and offered itself as a weathered seat. A motley collection of coloured veins crossed its surface and the opaque cream colour of the stone looked just like the good luck pebble of her childhood. Instantly, she was back in Alexandria. She ran to the stone slab, pressed her hands against it, felt the morning’s heat pulsing from within it and stared in wonder.

  The feel of the stone as she ran her finger down the slab made her aware of her own body’s heat. Here was the earth’s blood and bone. She crawled up to the seat of the slab and slumped backwards. Breathless and woozy, she closed her eyes and let the sun press down on her lashes until they felt fused together.

  She instinctively laid a hand over her birthmark, which was not really a birthmark at all, as she remembered her little good luck pebble and the wild Khamaseen winds. There was a day when the Khamaseen winds seemed to blow with more ferocity than usual. She had just turned nine and still shared a bed with her grandmother. It was afternoon. Nayeema had been trying to keep her nena awake a little longer before siesta claimed her. They were singing songs by Abdel Halim Hafez. Her nena’s hair was wrapped in a white scarf and even while she sang, she sucked on the single yellow tooth that stood tall above her bottom lip like an ancient column. Their performance was interrupted by a single dull knock against the window pane, which sent Nayeema racing to the window.

  There on the ledge was a large pebble. It was the colour of whipped cream, freckled delicately with the blue-grey of a winter’s sky. Nayeema snatched the pebble from the ledge and clenched it tight, feeling its coolness in her hand. Had it been belched up from the sea then tossed by the winds? Perhaps it belonged to some far away land? ‘A gift from the desert,’ said her nena.

  For almost a year Nayeema carried the pebble with her everywhere. She wrapped it inside a scrap of velvet and tied it with string. She was convinced that it had come to her from a place that was immeasurable and timeless like the ocean. When she wiped a little saliva on it, the faint blue vein in the stone became vivid in colour. The day the pebble slipped out of her school bag she had cried for hours. She searched her school, her house, and walked every possible route she had taken that day in the hope that she would recover her beloved pebble. By the time she returned home, miserable and in tears, she had surrendered all hope of ever seeing her pebble again. She couldn’t eat dinner. She was hot, sweaty. The skin on her chest had blistered and darkened in colour. To reduce the stinging and swelling, her mother Soraya laid a compress of oil and aniseed on the troubled skin. But when she lifted the cloth after an hour, the strange mark on Nayeema’s chest had grown from the size of a guinea to the size of a grapefruit.

  Soraya was not a hysterical woman. She was not prone to wailing when things went wrong. But when she saw the freshly mottled mark on Nayeema’s chest looking like the lumps in rice p
udding, she slumped onto the bed and wept.

  A feverish sleep gripped Nayeema through the night. When she woke it was morning. Her mother and grandmother were huddled by her bed.

  ‘My chest hurts,’ Nayeema had cried to her mother.

  Her mother’s eyes were wild and dilated. She guided Nayeema’s hand to the newly formed stain on her chest and traced out the shape with her index finger. Her birthmark was born. Her grandmother chanted an unfamiliar tune and with her bony hand she rubbed Nayeema’s forehead, over and over and over again.

  For weeks afterwards, Nayeema was taken to doctors and skin specialists. No one they consulted in the medical profession was able to explain the sudden and dramatic mark on her skin. Her mother told her that there were stories about people who became disfigured without an apparent cause, but refused to tell Nayeema any more. ‘We will tell people that you have had this mark since birth,’ Soraya had said stiffly to Nayeema. ‘It will be easier that way.’

  The matter was never spoken of again. She often heard her mother and grandmother whispering in the hallway. Whatever had caused her chest to stain was too terrible to be spoken of aloud.

  Nayeema shuddered with the memory. She lightly patted her peculiar birthmark and felt her body merge and collapse into the rock slab beneath her like a pippi sinking into wet sand.

  There was a shout, a long piercing whistle. ‘Na-yee-ma, honey. I’m over here.’

  Nayeema turned, startled. There was a person on the pier, shouting. Goldie! Her arms were waving above her head. Her hair was a shimmering mane of lustrous pale blonde with warm highlights that flashed bronze in the sun. Very wow.

  Goldie ran barefoot to greet her at the start of the pier, where the wooden platform eased into stairs on the beach. She kissed Nayeema on the cheek, her lips lightly touching Nayeema’s ear. She smelled like vanilla and musk and coconut oil. ‘I love this spot, honey, I am so glad I can show it to you,’ Goldie said. She pointed to the end of the pier where a beach umbrella stood upright. ‘It’s just us,’ Goldie whispered, and raised a single eyebrow. ‘We can do whatever we like.’