Love: Classified (20 page)

     I thought quickly. The fact that I’d not baked Magnus a cake had been preying on my mind and I realised there was a way to make one after all.

     “I’ll help in the kitchen,” I told an astonished Beryl and a relieved cook. “But on one condition.”

     “You’re a cook, darl?” the man asked.

     I nodded. “But I have a problem. I need to make someone a very special birthday cake. Today. So if I help you with the tourists, can I use your ingredients and the oven when the rush is over?”

     The chef whistled loudly. “That’s the oddest proposition I’ve ever had, but I’ll shake you on it,” he said, grasping my hand. “Come on, let’s get you into an apron and a hat. But first of all, tell us what we should call you.”

    My job was mercifully simple. I didn’t want to tell the chef – Colin – that I hadn’t worked in a commercial kitchen since I was a kid and Dad let me dry dishes and fold napkins. Dad had made a living the same way Colin
did. Colin gave me a list of the kinds of rolls, sandwiches and Lebanese rolls I was to assemble and left me to get on with it. All the fillings had been prepared and were in plastic containers so it was just a matter of putting them into the bread as decoratively as possible and arranging the finished products on a big platter.

     I dashed outside and found some bright vine leaves and geranium flowers to scatter over the top.

     “You’ve done a beaut job, and fast,” Colin enthused when he looked over from his huge cauldron of mashed potato. “Want to be part of the permanent staff? We could do with someone like you with your flair.”

     “I’d really enjoy working with you, Colin,” I answered truthfully. “But right now I have absolutely no idea what the future holds for me.”

     “Well, keep us in mind.”

     We heard a blaring klaxon that shook the roadhouse and, peering through the door behind the till I saw the big bus pull into the parking area and the hungry, travel-weary tourists disembark. The driver guided them to the tables by the river and they sat down, enjoying the fresh air. I followed Colin outside, greeted them and took their orders for tea, coffee or soft-drinks. I handed the list to Beryl and went on to collect the platter and hand the sandwiches round while Colin served steak and kidney and potato to those who wanted a hot meal.

     Finally I grabbed a few minutes to eat my own lunch and sank into a chair at one of the indoor café tables near Beryl’s desk.

     When the bus had rumbled off, Beryl sighed with relief. “Thank goodness for you,
Virginia. “We couldn’t have done it without you. If those tour bus operators have the slightest complaint they drop roadhouses without any thought of loyalty. Those lunches are literally our bread and butter.”

     “Now you’ll be wanting to make your cake,” Colin said. “Let me show you where everything’s kept.”

Chapter Nine

By the end of the day I’d baked the most beautiful cake anyone in Arthur River had ever seen. Or at least that’s what Colin said. When the basic sponge was cooking in the superb commercial grade oven I walked to the grocery store and bought a selection of food colouring for the icing. Once the sponge was cool I cut it into the shape of a record-player and iced it to look as if it were made of shiny red plastic. Using a bread and butter plate, I cut a flat, round piece of sponge to resemble a forty-five record, icing it black with a circular yellow label. On the label I wrote in black icing the name of a single I loved: “Hello”. I hoped he’d remember the words.

     I felt Beryl peeping over my shoulder as I carefully formed the final letter. “Hello,” she sang, in a brilliant voice, “is it me you’re looking for?”

     “That’s one lucky guy,” she added.

     “He’s turning forty-five, in case you hadn’t realised,” I said.

     Colin whistled appreciatively then added lugubriously, “I wish someone would make me a cake like that.”

     “Get away! You’re too old!” Beryl laughed.

    
“Virginia, you still have about four hours’ driving ahead of you,” Beryl said. “Why don’t you stay here tonight and leave first thing in the morning. You said his birthday’s tomorrow, didn’t you? You’ll get there in perfect time.”

     I thought about it. I didn’t relish trying to find Matilda in the dark. The coastline, I knew from my colleagues’ tales, was rugged and dangerous. It would be impossible to spot a van in the unpeopled darkness. “I will, if you don’t mind,” I said. “And I can make Colin a treat in the meantime.”

     I baked Colin a cake that Bree used to love. This time I iced a sponge to look like a plump, pink pig with a curly licorice tail.

     “Are you going to give your man a present, apart from the cake?” Colin asked. The three of us were enjoying the “pig” under one of the umbrellas.

     “I would, if I knew what to buy him,” I said. “But he’s not the sort of guy who cares much about possessions.”

     “I was hoping you’d say that,” Co
lin smiled. 

     “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Col?” Beryl asked conspiratorially.

     The chef nodded.

     “What are you two up to?” I asked, helping myself to another mug of tea.

     “We’ve got a litter of pups in need of a good home,” he admitted. “Not that I’m expecting you to take them all, mind, but one would help.”

     “They’re nice pups, Virginia,” Beryl said.

     “You’d better show them to me then,” I said resignedly. But, I thought, Magnus liked animals.
Perhaps this would be the way to his heart once and for all.

     Before I’d even formulated this thought, Colin was off, running behind the roadhouse. In seconds I heard his whistle and saw a kelpie bitch come from around the corner of the kitchen, a dozen round, red puppies bouncing after her, Colin bringing up the rear.

       I squealed delightedly as the pups wriggled and tumbled towards me and Beryl. I squatted down to see them better and one leapt into my lap and began to wash my face enthusiastically with his warm pink tongue, all the while making happy snuffly noises and wagging its stumpy little tail.

     “I’ll have this one!” I laughed, trying to stand up with the puppy in my arms.

     “Yes, she’s the pick of the bunch. Certainly the liveliest,” Colin said proudly. “They’re not pure kelpie, mind, or I wouldn’t be giving them away. The corgi from the grocery store paid my bitch a visit and this lot is the result.”

     “See? She has a white diamond on her chest,” Beryl pointed out, while the mother dog and puppies played at my feet.

     “She’s a pretty little thing all right,” I agreed.

     “You’ll have to put the cake in the boot of your car and keep the pup in a box on the back seat,” Colin said. “You don’t want the surprise eaten before you get there.”

I w
as up extra early next morning, having spent another sleepless night. This time, though, I’d not been desperately sad. I was nervous and very excited about finding Magnus and had been wondering, too, about how Peta’s evening with Josh and their daughter had worked out.

     At six o’clock I couldn’t bear the suspense and I rang her on her mobile.

     “Mmm?” came Peta’s sleepy voice.

     “It’s Ginny. Thinking about you almost non-stop…”

     “You should be thinking about Magnus, not me, you goose,” Peta protested, wide-awake now.

    “I said almost,” I said, smiling. “I want to know how it went. Your big
date. I had all my fingers and toes crossed for you.”

    “Well it worked, Ginny. It was fabulous.”

     “Oh that’s great. I’m happy for you. Where did you go?”

     “This lovely seafood restaurant on the seafront at Fremantle. Afterwards we came back to my place and Josh…”

     “Stayed?”

     “Mmm.”

     “And?”

    “A-Maz-Ing. Better than it was even when we were teenagers.”

     “Where is he now?”

    “Right here in bed beside me. He’s been awake all this time, listening to our conversation with a big cheesey grin all over his face. Oh Ginny I hope you’ll be as happy as me very soon.”

     “I hope so too,” said Josh, obviously taking the phone from Peta. “You deserve it, kid.”

     “I’d better let you go,” I said, a tinge of sadness welling up. Anything could happen in the next few hours and it could be disastrous or fabulous. “Love to you both, and give Bree a big kiss from me,” I said.

     “You bet,” Peta said.

     I slid the phone into my bag. I was glad for them. I was terrified for myself. I needed a massive meal to boost my confidence. Beryl was only too happy to serve me bacon and eggs and when we’d said our goodbyes I felt I was as well prepared for whatever might happen as I could be.

     I reached Albany by noon, grateful that the puppy had slept almost the whole way, having enjoyed an extra long last romp with her siblings before we left Arthur River. I stopped for more petrol, a sandwich and to let the puppy stretch her legs before taking one of the roads along the coast. I headed for the Blow Holes, a particularly scenic but hazardous place where sheer cliffs overlooked wildly thrashing seas.

     No scruffy van perched over the ocean here. Patiently, I skirted the beachside tracks in my car, my eyes aching as they ranged the vast empty spaces. Seabirds swooped in the grey sky
or dived into the turbulent foam, so at home in this inhospitable environment that they made me feel completely out of place.

     When I’d been driving slowly for about half an hour I came to a gently sloping valley amidst green farmlands where a white deserted beach curled like a child’s palm around a sunlit cupful of water. Bush clung to the sand and the hillside and there, in a clearing, I saw Matty.

     My heart leapt and then I suddenly felt sick. What if he didn’t want to see me?

     I heard the puppy whining in her box on the back seat and made up my mind to swallow my fears and, for the puppy’s sake, to stop the car, get out and let her have some fresh air. If Magnus was dismissive of us, then so be it.

     I slowed the Micra and inched along the boggy track that led to the van’s parking-place, half dreading, half longing for Magnus to emerge. I stopped beside the van and lifted the puppy out. There was no sign of Magnus. I peered through the open door but nobody was there and it looked pretty much as it had when I’d left five weeks before, the two mattresses side by side with their tangle of mismatching sheets and doonas, the pile of books. Putting the puppy down to let her run off some of her pent-up energy, I walked to the shell-strew sand. She trotted after me, wagging her tail. Shading my eyes from the glare, I looked up and down the arc of the beach. My heart ricocheted in my rib-cage when I recognised a tall, lean, dark-haired man fishing on the rocks at the southern end of the bay’s curve. Shaking from head to foot, I kicked off my shoes and walked tremulously towards him, not daring to call his name.

     Something must have caught his attention. The puppy’s excited yapping, perhaps, and he turned towards the noise. I stopped in my tracks as he saw me and the little dog and
even from a distance I could see his heart-stoppingly fabulous grin. He leapt off his perch, threw down the rod and ran towards the puppy and me.

     “Virginia!” he laughed,
panting. His arms had been flung wide enough to hug me but he must have suddenly become self-conscious because he dropped them to his sides.

     Memories of our intimacy flooded my brain and my body, making me unable to speak and aware that I’d blushed scarlet.

     “Happy birthday,” I managed to say, aware that my voice had suddenly gone husky. “I’ve brought you a present.”

     “I can see that!” he laughed as the puppy bounced at his knees, desperate for him to pick her up. He scooped her up and let her snuggle against his bare, tanned chest. “She’s adorable, thank you!” he said, his smile ecstatic.

     I was so wobbly I sank into the sand before I fell. Desire for him churned through me like rolling breakers in the surf. He sat beside me and I saw that his eyes were sparkling with unshed tears that he wiped impatiently away with the back of his hand.

     “I hope you don’t mind me coming,” I said, sure that he’d tell me he had another girlfriend now and that it would be best if I just slunk away.
“Tell me if I’m barging in on your privacy. I just wanted to say hello.”