Fava Beans For Breakfast Read online

  Nayeema nodded and padded nervously next to her as they walked towards the umbrella. She hadn’t a thing to say to this pale, exotic bird.

  ‘Think you are up for a swim?’

  ‘Yes, for certain.’ Nayeema blushed as she remembered Goldie’s uncle’s private parts pressed against her face. ‘Your uncle, he is better now?’

  ‘Seems to be. He’s got a nurse at home looking after him for a while. She’s a pretty thing. She seems to give him an extra lift.’ She raised her eyebrow again, making an elegant arch.

  When they reached the end of the pier, Nayeema kicked off her sandals. She lowered her bag beneath the umbrella and looked expectantly at Goldie, like a stupid donkey waiting to receive her next instruction, still in awe and unable to utter a single interesting word. All her words were now jumbled in her molten head.

  Nayeema surveyed the bay. A few hundred metres separated one side from the other. Amid the dazzle of flamboyant blues, the sky pressed down low on the horizon. A panorama like this couldn’t be rushed. It was a marvel.

  ‘Hell, honey, it’s stinking hot. I’m busting to jump in. You coming?’ Goldie pulled her tiny white cheesecloth dress above her head to reveal a crocheted, tan-coloured string bikini and a taut stomach. A printed panel of frangipani covered the top of each breast. The hairs below her belly button were white against her slightly sunburned stomach. ‘C’mon, Nayeema.’

  Nayeema berated herself for wearing the most matronly of swimsuits: a sensible one-piece in navy blue with a seashell printed across the front. The moment she wrestled off her dress, Goldie gave her a wicked smile and yelled, ‘Let’s go,’ before taking three graceful leaps to the end of the pier and jumping into the bay. The splash sounded delicious. Nayeema jogged over—the water was blue but murky. She hesitated.

  ‘It’s beautiful. Come on in.’

  Nayeema spotted a rickety metal ladder attached to one of the timber uprights. She eased herself down the ladder slowly, feeling the water rise from her ankles to her knees and up her legs. She pushed off the ladder and swam towards Goldie. The water really was beautiful.

  For the next hour they swam and floated on their backs. Goldie did most of the talking. She’d recently arrived in Burraboo to help her Uncle Frank, who was having a run of bad health. She loved to dance. She smoked cigarettes. She approved of Whitlam.

  Nayeema told Goldie about the Paprika Triangle in Petersham—how she missed her friends in Sydney, especially Jehan, and how Fawzy spent all his time working at the pharmacy, how Alexandria felt so far away. Soon Nayeema’s nerves dissolved in the cool, deep blue and she was quite certain that for the first time since arriving in Burraboo, she was happy.

  When they dragged themselves out of the water it was not yet midday but the wooden palings of the pier were warm. Nayeema shook her head gently from side to side, her wet hair spraying juicy drops down her back. Goldie had settled on her back, her legs spread apart and her palms above her head. She lifted a leg and pointed with her big toe. The downy hairs above Goldie’s knee shocked Nayeema with their absence of colour, their persistent whiteness against the bronze of her skin.

  ‘See that?’ said Goldie, pointing again with her big toe to the other side of the bay. ‘That’s the Horizon development. A big bloody eyesore.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nayeema looked up. So this was Tom’s big project.

  ‘Yeah, there’s going to be a theme park, like Disneyland, except it’ll be a water park with big open pipes to slide down. Can you believe that? Why build a water park when you can swim here in the bay or the beach?’ Disgust smeared her voice.

  The construction site was dotted with men moving around the footings of the building. The structure stood prominent amid the surrounding woodland. Two cranes were in action. Nayeema could now see that the Horizon would be visible from any part of the bay given its elevated position. Clever Tom. Two concrete lorries were driving on the Artie Bridge towards Serpentine Heights. ‘You think this development is a bad idea?’

  ‘I think it stinks. I guess Tom Grieves thinks differently.’

  Nayeema thought about Tom’s movie star lips and his sad eyes. He was creating jobs for people, he was a pioneer, Fawzy had told her. She sensed Goldie didn’t want to hear any praise for Tom Grieves.

  ‘I’ve heard that there might be union action on that site soon. D-rama-a-a-a.’

  There was something in Goldie’s tone that made Nayeema thankful she hadn’t defended Tom. Today was too perfect. She reached for her bag under the umbrella and pulled out some containers of food. ‘Let’s eat, I’m hungry.’

  ‘Open up the esky, honey. I packed heaps.’ Goldie rose and sat up cross-legged to join Nayeema beneath the shade of the umbrella. Seagulls squawked in noisy anticipation, the boldest jostled for position near their feet as Nayeema opened the containers.

  ‘You try my food?’

  ‘Of course, honey.’ Goldie’s face gleamed with sweat and coconut oil, which she’d haplessly transferred from her hands after lavishly oiling her arms, legs, and stomach. Her large sunglasses were round and kept sliding down her nose.

  Nayeema reached for a plate and spooned a generous serve of tabouli onto it. The smell of raw onion smacked the back of her throat and made her mouth water. Next to the tabouli she placed two pieces of stuffed kousa: zucchinis filled with rice, minced lamb, finely diced tomatoes, onions, more parsley and garlic. In a nod to her nena, she had added cinnamon, a controversial inclusion that Soraya might have disapproved of, but always warmed Nayeema through. The zucchinis were plump with stuffing and their skins glistened.

  ‘This bay is very beautiful, very wow. I love this big rock on the beach. Who owns this land?’ asked Nayeema.

  ‘As a matter of fact, my Uncle Frank owns it. I love it too, honey, it’s killer cool. But you know what? He doesn’t ever come here.’

  ‘It is incredible. All this land … why you think he doesn’t use this land? He could build a beautiful house here. Brand new.’ Nayeema threw up a hand towards the partially cleared land on the fringe of the bay.

  ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘You think he forgets he has this land?’

  ‘Uncle Frank forgets nothing. Believe me, honey. That’s something I do know.’

  ‘Your uncle, he must be a mystery man?’

  ‘Oh, Uncle Frank is all that and a bag of chips,’ said Goldie flatly.

  Nayeema patted down the top of her head and used her fingernails to rake her hair backwards, towards the rough coil she’d assembled after their swim. Wiry spirals were forming above her forehead. She dropped her hands in frustration and turned her gaze to the right of the pier, where the pale boulder was wedged on the inlet. ‘If I owned this land, I would not want to live anywhere else. Except, we are in Burraboo.’

  ‘What about Alexandria, this isn’t better than Alexandria, surely?’ asked Goldie, her nose scrunched in disbelief. A dozen or so flies twitched on the top of her head, as though caught in syrup, Nayeema thought.

  ‘Tchhh. This is much better,’ said Nayeema, her voice leaping with unexpected emotion. A feeling came over her, her pulse quickened, and she imagined that this was what falling in love felt like. She didn’t understand why she was so moved by this patch of land, why the sight of the scraggy trees and silty sand made her chest pound. The sedimentation in the sandstone bluffs lay crisply defined; the glorious quartz veins shimmered like glitter.

  Her eyes skimmed over the rocks to the inlet. She was dreamy with this place; had an inexplicable memory of the inlet, which she recollected not just from sight but also from smell and from the pulse of her heart through her palms. She had been here before, many times, in dreams and in song.

  Goldie snapped open a container with a red lid. ‘I made this for tea last night. Uncle Frank ate most of it,’ she said apologetically. ‘It’s a chicken and mushroom pie,’ she added when she saw the blank look on Nayeema’s face. They both leaned forward and inhaled deeply. Bronzed sesame seeds spotted the top of the golden pas
try, which was delicate and substantial all at once, while the edges of the pie were darker and crunchier. Some of the creamy filling had oozed out to reveal sliced mushrooms and leeks. The smell of thyme and the buttery pastry made Nayeema’s toes wiggle and she had to stop herself from dipping a finger into the puddle of filling before Goldie cut her a piece.

  She leaned back on her elbows. Through a large gap between two uneven palings, she could see the dark water beneath the pier lapping gently against the moss on the timber uprights. The pier itself was quite long, about two hundred metres. Goldie explained it needed to be long because the bay was tidal.

  ‘Where did you grow up?’ asked Nayeema.

  ‘A town on the Griffin River … up north from here. A crappy little town too, believe me. I hated it. No one had any concept of drama, not of real drama. I was glad when we had to go to Sydney, after everything went to shit with my mum and dad. Big cities, that’s what I love, but here I am back in a small town. Copping stares from strangers who don’t even know me. I hate Main Street the most, it’s a buzzkill.’

  ‘You too?’ said Nayeema in surprise. ‘I thought just me they stare at.’

  ‘Nah. Small town, Nayeema. Small ambition.’

  ‘Very terrible,’ agreed Nayeema, not too sure what ambition meant.

  She tore a small crusty edge of the pie with her fingers and popped it into her mouth. It crunched a little and was so light it seemed to dissolve on her tongue. ‘It’s very good that you come to Burraboo to look after your old uncle.’

  ‘So far, the best thing about coming to Burraboo has been meeting you, honey! The worst thing about Burraboo is Burraboo.’

  Nayeema laughed. She pressed her finger over the pastry and watched the top layer yield and break into feathery fragments. ‘You make beautiful pastry.’

  ‘I worked in a bakery in Sydney for a bit. The baker was French. He taught me a thing or two.’

  ‘You work for pâtissier in Sydney?’

  ‘He made me call him Monsieur Philippe. He bragged that he made the best bread in Sydney. He was right up himself, but damn, he made good loaves. He had good hands …’ She smiled languorously. ‘We did all sorts of pastries and tarts, flans, gateaux too … I make a pretty good choux pastry. Yeah. That job was killer cool. Sometimes I think, maybe, one day I’ll get to open my own bakery. That could be, you know, cool.’ Goldie shrugged. ‘But maybe something else crops up instead, something better, something that I never dreamed of. The thing is … you never know. You just never know how things will pan out. You just have to put yourself in the right place for them to happen.’

  ‘You think they happen here?’ Nayeema snorted derisively. ‘Even I know nothing happens here.’

  Goldie laughed. ‘You and me, I think we see things the same, in a freaky kind of way. But even this shithole has potential. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

  Potential. She liked the sound of this word. Maybe it was like ambition.

  ‘I like French. When I was at school, my best subject was French,’ Nayeema offered.

  ‘When I was at school, my French kiss was pretty good,’ Goldie said, allowing her sunglasses to crawl down to the tip of her nose, revealing her sharp blue eyes. She winked at Nayeema and slid the glasses back into place.

  Nayeema’s mouth swung open, slack like a loose gate. Delighted by her reaction, Goldie pinched Nayeema lightly on the arm and burst into laughter. ‘Oh Nayeema, you make me laugh,’ she said and continued to pinch her arm, stopping only when Nayeema offered a stiff smile.

  ‘You laugh at me?’

  ‘Hell no, honey, are you kidding!’ Goldie’s lips curled upwards gently. She lowered her voice. ‘I dig you, we get one another.’

  Nayeema raised her chin, doubtfully. She was twenty-one, married, and unable to settle on a single idea about herself.

  ‘Hey, what music do you dig?’

  Abdel Halim Hafez, thought Nayeema, and of course, Om Kalsoum. ‘I like The Carpenters,’ Nayeema said, at last. Karen Carpenter’s voice was as silky as her hair.

  ‘I used to love the older stuff, you know, like the Grateful Dead. They were my fix when I was in school but I’m over them now. I still listen to a bit of Hendrix and I’m completely into David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. Aladdin Sane is pretty cool, too. Come to think of it, Bowie would have to be my fave. He gets drama. He’s killer cool.’ Goldie pointed her nose thoughtfully towards the sky.

  Nayeema stared at her. Who were these people? She knew about Aladdin and the story of the lamp and the jinn. It was in One Thousand and One Nights. Everyone knew about that. Maybe there was some modern music made about Aladdin. Another time, maybe, she would ask Goldie about this cool Aladdin music.

  Nayeema patted her belly and slowly unfurled her legs. The sun bore through her skin and warmed her insides, unhurried her movements, slowed her speech down. Water gently lapped against the pier’s uprights. She watched a pelican skim over the calm waters of the bay. Its massive wings were extended to reveal a surprising smear of pink on the inner part of the wing. Nayeema’s body tensed as the pelican turned towards them. She didn’t trust this prehistoric-looking bird, the way it moved like a predator one minute and a swan the next.

  ‘How long have you been married, honey?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Was it a set-up? You know, like an arranged marriage? I’ve heard about that happening, sometimes.’

  ‘My brothers were angry I married Fawzy.’ Nayeema smiled as she remembered the look on her brother Ramy’s face when she told him she was leaving Egypt.

  ‘You must really dig your man, then.’

  Nayeema thought of Fawzy as he fussed and fidgeted with their fridge. His placement of food on the shelves followed a strict system of order. First came meat, then dairy, then vegetables, then salad; drinks were lined up by height. She smiled thinly at Goldie. Her feelings for him had failed to grow. Their marriage was caring, as their friendship had been before that, but whenever she thought of him adjusting the cushions on the sofa every morning, such that they were perfectly equidistant apart, she knew that she could never yearn for him. She was eighteen when she had decided she would marry him, move to Australia and leave behind her greedy, marauding brothers. There were so few choices available to her. In Egypt, young, respectable women lived with their families until they married. She had known Fawzy her entire life. He was a good person. That was enough.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m the marrying kind. Not sure what kind of woman you’d call me.’ Goldie gave a throaty laugh. ‘Depends on who you ask. Ha, ha!’ Goldie collected her hair from the back of her head and twisted it before letting it cascade over her right shoulder. ‘You want to try my banana bread?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Goldie placed a thick slice of the banana bread directly onto Nayeema’s open palm. It was sweet and nutty and tasted just like cake. Closing her eyes, she let her tongue flit over the texture of the banana bread. Funny how they call it bread.

  She rolled onto her back next to Goldie, their faces away from the sun, arms splayed out. Like bookends in photo negative. The bay was serene. Nayeema closed her eyes and smiled at the sky.

  * * *

  When she woke, there was a cool shadow over her head.

  ‘Sleeping beauty, how would you like to earn a bit of coin?’ Goldie gently pinched Nayeema’s arm. ‘See those fellas over there? They’re workers from the construction site. They’ve offered to buy any food we have left over … they reckon they’ll be starving hungry after their swim. They’re on their lunch break.’

  Nayeema sat up slowly, feeling the oppressive heat of the afternoon bear down on her. She watched four men swimming their way to the clearing on the opposite side of the bay. ‘You know these men?’ She was groggy, confused.

  ‘Nah. Just met them now … in the water … we got talking. They’re going to drive over with money. They’ll be over the Artie Bridge in five minutes.’ She opened up the esky. ‘I’ve told them we have banana bread and a couple of
bottles of cola.’ Goldie’s voice was excited. ‘Look, there’s some of this stuffed zucchini left. Let’s see if they want that too.’

  ‘Is this normal … to sell to strangers like this?’

  ‘Normal is overrated, honey. I say we run with it. This is where drama and opportunity meet.’ She looked up from the esky with an excited smile. ‘They said their cafeteria is on strike up at the site so they can’t buy food or drinks. They have to bring everything in from home or drive all the way down to Main Street. Look … they’re out of the water now so they’ll be here soon. I’m meeting them near the start of the pier. There’s a dirt road next to the inlet.’

  ‘Is this safe?’

  Goldie gave her throaty laugh. ‘Sure. It’s where I’ve parked my car.’

  ‘I am coming. Wait.’

  Goldie rose and adjusted the tiny triangles of her bikini top. Water snaked down her shoulders and arms from her hair. Before Nayeema could get to her feet, Goldie was halfway down the pier, jogging barefoot with the esky in her hand and the triangle of fabric on her bottom sagging slightly to one side.

  Nayeema’s hands went clammy as she put on her sandals. As she walked down the pier she noticed, for the first time, the road to the right of it. By the time she reached Goldie, the car with four bare-chested men was pulling away. Goldie’s cheeks were shiny.

  Goldie laughed into Nayeema’s ear and whispered, ‘Two dollars, honey. Can you imagine how much more we could have made if we were prepared? Makes me think, honey, we could do something with this. Pack all our drama and ambition in an esky.’

  Nayeema slung her arm into Goldie’s and they stood with their elbows linked and their heads slightly touching, watching the car retreat back up the hill. A rush of warm wind blew from behind and Nayeema tasted Goldie’s salty, straight hair as strands grazed her lips. She knew that she would come back to this inlet to meet Goldie again, for the drama and anything else that came. Goldie was killer cool.