Lighthouse Bay (3 page)

When Mark bought the cottage, she had wondered why he would pressure her into going back to a place she’d sworn she’d never return to. But all he’d wanted was for her to give up the job with Pierre-Louis and take life easier, relax and paint, her dream since she was a child. And here it all was: a little cottage, a view of the sea, a way to get started. And Mark wasn’t here to see how
grateful she was, how much she appreciated this gesture of love.

Libby cried for what seemed like an age, then pulled herself to her feet and palmed tears off her face. She flicked the light switch: nothing. No electricity. She returned to the kitchen. The fridge was standing open, empty. Nothing in the pantry. No cleaning products or dishcloths under the sink. She needed the basics. That meant a trip to the general store. The longer she was in town, the greater the risk she’d run into her sister accidentally. But she couldn’t bring herself to go to the B&B just yet. One more good night’s sleep and then she’d do it. Definitely.

T
he sticky heat made her tired. Libby just wanted to curl up and sleep. But she had to spend the afternoon getting the cottage in order. She dressed in a sleeveless cotton top and shorts, tied back her long, dark hair and summoned as much energy as she could. By sunset, she had a light scum of perspiration and cobwebs all over her. She considered a shower, but then remembered she was on the sea. So, instead, she found her bathing costume and headed to the beach.

Years of city living a long way from the sea had made her wary. What if there were jellyfish? Sharks? But the water was blue-green and clear and warm, rolling all around her. She waded in to her waist, then dived into a wave. The constant pull of the waves was replaced by the sound of water bubbling against her ears, then she was up again, gulping air and laughing. The idea that she could be out this late in nothing but a bathing costume, swimming in the sea, was ridiculous. In Paris at this time, she’d be layering on gloves and a scarf for the walk back to the Metro, grinding for space with other commuters. Here on the beach, the only other person was a fisherman up to his ankles in the tide, half a kilometer away.

She floated on her back for a while, letting the waves carry
her. Salt water on her lips, hair streaming behind her. Then she waded back out onto the beach and sat on the sand to dry by air. The sweet bruise of dusk in the sky; brazen pinks and golds gave way to subtle purple and pewter. She was wrapped in velvet: the soft sand, the sea mist over the headland, the temperate breeze, and her own human softness, her flesh and muscle and aching heart. Libby closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the fisherman was gone and dusk was falling away to night. She rose and dusted off the sand, and trudged back up towards the cottage. The beach was separated from civilization by a strip of vegetation: banksias, pandanuses, mangroves. Ghost crabs scuttled away from her as she made her way up the sandy path to the street. She let herself into the cottage and was pleased that the musty smell was gone. The sea breeze was rushing in at the windows, making the light lacy curtains flutter. She made a peanut-butter sandwich, showered off the salt quickly under unheated water, and thought about making a start on setting up a canvas and opening some of the boxes of paints. But weariness had other ideas for her, and she climbed into bed instead.

Around 11 pm, she woke wondering what had prickled her from sleep. A car engine. She lay in the dark awhile, listening. The car wasn’t moving away or moving closer, just sitting in the same place.

She rose and pulled back the corner of the curtain. Yes, a car sat on the road right outside her house. Headlights on. Motor running. Not moving. Libby watched it, curious. Then, with a slight thrill of apprehension. It was too dark to see what kind of car it was, let alone the number plate. Five minutes passed. Ten. Finally, it pulled into the street, did a U-turn, its tires crunching on the gravel shoulder, and roared off.

I
t wasn’t a good day for an entire mothers’ group to come in. Cheryl had called in sick at seven, and Juliet hadn’t been able to track down Melody to start early. Juliet reasoned that if she left the dirty linen in room number two, she could manage the tea room by herself until lunchtime when Melody was due. Then after lunch she could slip upstairs and strip the linen, make beds, give the only occupied room a quick vacuum, and be down in time for the after-school trade. But this plan relied on a normal morning.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said the round-faced young woman with the equally round-faced baby on her hip, “but we had intended to meet at my place and I forgot the renovators were coming to build my new linen cupboard. Just too much noise.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Juliet said, smiling, frantically doing calculations in her head. There were twelve of them. Even if every single one of them ordered scones with jam and cream, there would still be fourteen scones left over for her regular customers. Should she get started on a scone mix now just in case? Before they all started asking for bottles to be heated and coffees made a dozen different ways?

Juliet didn’t have time to resolve this question. The orders started
coming and she started running—carefully and gracefully—between tables and kitchen, ruefully eyeing the four unopened loaves of bread set out to prepare ready-made sandwiches for lunch. Today would be a nightmare and that was that. She simply had to put her head down and work hard. Luckily, working hard was something Juliet was well used to. She tied back her long, brown hair and got on with it.

Juliet’s B&B and Tea Room, or as her business was popularly known, Juliet’s, owed a little of its success to location: it was right on the beach, with a wide wooden deck undercover for toddlers to feed seagulls and harried mothers to soothe their sleep-deprived eyes on the sea. But the business owed most of its success to Juliet. “She’s a marvel, that Juliet,” she heard people say frequently. Once or twice she’d heard, “Married to her job too,” but only after she’d turned away the affections of Sergeant Scott Lacey, former career ratbag at Bay High who now enforced the law at the local police station. But Juliet was neither a marvel nor married to her job. When her father had died fifteen years ago, he left the business behind and somebody had to pick up the reins. She’d only been twenty-three, but she knew she couldn’t let all her father’s work go to waste. She’d added the tea room, renamed it Juliet’s, and hadn’t had a day off since. Even away for three weeks on a meditation retreat in New Zealand, she had phoned Cheryl every day to check in, solve problems, and add to the enormous to-do list for her return.

At eleven-thirty, while Melody cleared the tables on the deck, and Juliet frantically made sandwiches, and the phone rang unanswered in the background, the bell over the door went and Juliet thought,
Please, no more customers. Just give me ten minutes to make these sandwiches.

But then Melody came to the kitchen door and said, “Juliet, somebody here to see you.”

Juliet looked up, wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand and blowing a strand of loose hair out of her eyes. “Who?”

“She says her name is Libby.”

Despite the sticky warmth in the kitchen, Juliet’s entire body went cold. “No. Are you sure?”

Melody spoke warily. “That’s what she said. Is everything okay?”

Juliet never swore. It wasn’t that she was prudish, it was simply that the words were often spoken with such anger or coarseness that they made her flinch. But on this occasion, as she put down the butter knife and pressed her palms into the stainless-steel work bench, she shouted, “Fuuuuuck.”

Melody, only nineteen and now more frightened than puzzled, backed away. “It’s okay, I’ll tell her you’re too busy to see her now.”

Juliet untied her apron. “No, no. I’ll see her. She’s my sister. The one I haven’t seen in twenty years.” Her heart looped a fast rhythm. Twenty years. Not since . . . Juliet shook her head. “Here,” she said, handing Melody the apron. “Make four ham and salad, four turkey Swiss and cranberry and four . . . oh, use your imagination. Where is she?”

“Out on the deck. I haven’t finished cleaning up after the mothers’ group yet.”

Juliet swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry. She went out through the swinging doors, across the carpeted tea-room floor and out to the deck. Libby sat with her back to Juliet, wearing a crisp cotton shirt and expensive-looking jeans, her black hair gleaming in the sun. Juliet’s hand went self-consciously to her own sweaty hair, knotted at her nape. All around were tables full of empty cups and plates and spoons. Seagulls were feasting on the half-chewed remnants that toddlers had dropped. Juliet flapped them away.

Libby turned. “Juliet,” she said, jumping to her feet.

“I hadn’t expected to see you.” Did that sound too cold? Should she have said, “I’m glad to see you”?
Was
she glad to see her sister after twenty years and approximately eight Christmas cards that always arrived in February? No, what she wanted to say was, “Why are you here?” because she was afraid—suddenly, seriously afraid—that Libby was here to claim her half of the business that their father had left to both of them.

“I’m sorry,” Libby said with that winning smile that had turned every boy’s heart at Bay High. Every boy except Andy. She spread her hands. “Jet lag. I’m not thinking straight. I should have called.”

“I have spare rooms, but they’re not ready yet. It’s been a really busy morning and–”

“I don’t need a room. It’s fine.”

“Then where are you staying?” Surely if her sister had booked an apartment with one of the holiday letting agencies, somebody would have told her.

“The lighthouse cottage on the hill. Hey, let’s sit down and talk.”

Libby’s failure to see that Juliet was busy rankled. “I can’t. It’s nearly lunch and I’ve loads to do. That cottage isn’t for rent. Some English businessman bought it.”

“He was a friend of mine.”

“Excuse me, Juliet?”

Juliet turned. Melody stood at the door.

“I’ve just taken a call from the Lighthouse Ladies Book Club. They want to come down for high tea at one-thirty. There are eighteen of them.”

Juliet’s shoulders sagged. She returned her attention to Libby. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stop and talk.”

Libby’s pupils contracted. She was offended. Juliet hardened against her. If she couldn’t see that turning up at rush hour after
twenty years was a bad idea, then that wasn’t Juliet’s problem. “How long are you staying? Can we talk some time when I’m not so busy?”

“Sure,” Libby said, shouldering her handbag.

Juliet watched her go. Years of bitterness and regret and sorrow and fear churned in her gut. But then she was far too busy to think about it.

T
he Breakers Room of the Lighthouse Bay Surf Club was where all the wedding receptions, Melbourne Cup lunches, and community meetings were held. Juliet’s first job in her teens had been waitressing in the Breakers Room: handing out canapés and glasses of the second-cheapest champagne. This afternoon, though, she was sitting on a hard plastic chair among two dozen other community-minded people, listening to a handsome, slippery eel named Tristan Catherwood talk. He represented a company called Ashley-Harris Holdings, who had been circling Lighthouse Bay like wolves for years. Every proposal the company had put forward had been knocked on the head by the shire council: the eight-story tourist resort, the five-story tourist resort and, lately, the three-story tourist resort. It seemed, though, that Catherwood and his mob just didn’t get the message: nobody wanted a tourist resort in Lighthouse Bay.

But that wasn’t strictly true. Some folk believed that a bona fide tourist resort—the kind with a gym and a fancy pool with thatched-roof pergolas and slot machines in the bar—would put Lighthouse Bay on the map. No more sleepy town with just enough holiday apartments and B&B rooms for the small family-orientated tourist trade. Big trade, big money.

But Juliet didn’t want big trade in the Bay. Big trade meant
chain stores, and she feared she was only one chain coffee shop away from losing her business. The thought made her feet tingle, as though she were falling. Everybody knew Juliet’s made the best coffee in town. Her breakfasts were famous. But in the dark part of her imagination she could see her customers deserting her to sit at veneer-and-chrome tables and sip lattes from logo-stamped cups, while she maintained four empty B&B rooms and baked scones for nobody.

She shivered. The air conditioning must be up too high.

Sustainable
. That was the word Tristan Catherwood kept using, as though he knew what it meant. As though he had a clue what a delicately balanced ecosystem a small seaside town was, and how easily it could be tilted into wreckage.

“At Ashley-Harris Holdings, we have
listened
to your concerns, and we are working
very hard
to come up with a
sustainable vision
for Lighthouse Bay’s future, while
maximizing
the benefits for your
community
and our investors.” The dramatic emphasis was insulting: as though he were talking to a roomful of deaf pensioners.

Juliet glanced around. Well, there were a few deaf pensioners, but still . . .

Ashley-Harris always served tea and biscuits after these community consultations, but Juliet could never bear to stay and chat afterwards. Tea bags and store-bought biscuits were an insult to her. Would it have killed them to buy some locally made produce? She passed through the bar, cautioned herself against stopping to down a swift Scotch, and headed across the park and onto the beach to clear her head before returning to work. Why did she torture herself by going to the community consultations? They always left her with a raw feeling in her gullet that wouldn’t fade for days. Eventually Ashley-Harris Holdings would find a way to build their tourist resort. They would find a piece of land and a
way to appease the council and the future would come rushing in to Lighthouse Bay, the way high tide rushes in to the beach at night: swirling and inescapable and pulling her in directions she didn’t want to go.