‘Now you tell me.’

  But she was smiling as she said it. Not everyone would be as calm when told they were sharing shed space with a huge, lurking snake. He wondered what would happen if he suggested they get together later. Like, not at the pub. Would she smile then, too?

  ‘Um, Will.’

  ‘Yep?’ Maybe she’d read his mind. Maybe she was about to say, Hey, forget the leg, I really came over today to see if you fancied a walk later. A milkshake. A coffee that you haven’t had to make yourself. ‘When you say Carol is the best one to talk to the tennis ladies …’

  Or not. He told his brain to stop with the foolish ideas and just answer the question. ‘Everyone loves Carol. She’s been in Clarence longer than pretty much anyone, she’s on every committee and she has a heart of gold. Why? You’re not still worried she can’t look after herself, are you?’

  She hesitated. ‘Something … well … I am worried about her. And I don’t know who else to talk to about it, on account of the fact that you are the only other person in Clarence that I know.’

  ‘Is this about the spat at Clarence Gardens?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Honey, this is a small town, and I’m the publican. I know everything to some degree.’

  ‘I see. Do you know what the spat was about?’

  He tried to recall. Gossip flowed as freely as lager in the front bar of the pub, and he tended to let it flow in one ear and out the other. ‘Was there a broken plate involved?’

  ‘I’ll fill you in. Where to start? Okay, Carol agreed to come with me out to Clarence Gardens, where my mum thinks Carol ought to move, and Joan Sloane, who the spat was with, is some sort of bigwig there on the residents’ association.’

  That was the second time he’d heard that name. The first time had been from Carol herself, and now he thought about it, her tone had not been warm.

  ‘Anyway, things got a little ugly.’

  ‘But not over a broken plate I take it.’

  ‘The plate was just an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire. You’ll think this is crazy. I can’t believe I’m even saying it. But the whole commotion erupted over fruit cake. Carol accused Joan of stealing her recipe.’

  He smiled. Then he laughed.

  ‘What is so funny? You didn’t see the sugar bowl go flying.’

  ‘Carol has won the annual Christmas Cake competition at the Twilight Markets every year since 1960-something, according to local legend. Except—’ he let an imaginary drumroll underscore his pause, ‘—for last year.’

  Jodie appeared to digest this. ‘Who won last year?’

  He shrugged. ‘Look, I was there, so you’d think I’d remember, but I was probably unplugging a drain or spearing a keg or slicing pickled cucumbers at the barbecue station when the results were announced, but you know what I’m thinking?’

  ‘That this Joan Sloane woman won?’ Jodie pursed her lips.

  He nodded.

  ‘How will we find out? Is there a local newspaper that would have published the results? Or a committee member you can ask who won’t dob on us to Carol?’

  ‘I’ve got a quicker way. My mother has her fingers in as many pies as Carol does—I can ask her who won last year.’

  ‘While you’re at it, perhaps you could ask her if she knows why Carol went off her rocker. She’s refusing to tell me anything, but she is rattled, Will. Rattled. I don’t like seeing her this way. But that’s not all. Later that day she went off to some building in town where historical records are kept, and she took something that Joan had donated. She’s been very secretive and very unhappy ever since.’

  Will rested a hand on Jodie’s arm just for a moment. Not a professional hand—more of an it’s-going-to-be-okay hand. ‘I’ll call Mum and ask her what she’s heard, and let you know.’

  Robbo and Patty Miles lived in one of the multiple occupancy communes that dotted the hillsides around Clarence, and while they were still keenly into self-sufficiency and homegrown produce, their stance on such things as mobile phones and internet connections had softened over the years.

  Will’s dad answered the phone, and immediately put the call on speaker. That’s how his parents rolled: always together, all the time.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ his mum said. ‘Why haven’t we seen you lately? I have moussaka in the oven, with eggplant and tomatoes from the garden. You could come out and have dinner with us.’

  ‘I’d love to, Mum, but I’m flat strap here at the moment. You know how the pub gets on holidays.’

  ‘I’ll pop some in a container and freeze it for you. Next time we’re in town I’ll bring you some.’

  ‘I’d love that. Listen—I wanted to ask you both something.’

  ‘Anything. What is it, son?’ said his dad.

  ‘Do you remember who won best fruit cake at the Twilight Markets last year?’

  ‘Oh …’ said his mum. ‘Yes. A shock win. Poor Carol.’

  ‘It was a retired nurse who won,’ said his dad. ‘From Lismore. Her hair reminded me of Margaret Thatcher’s.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Joan Sloane. She put an entry into the Bush Poetry Muster, remember, Robbo? Last year. Frank Featherstone gave it a Highly Commended.’

  ‘Why do you want to know about Joan?’ said Robbo.

  ‘It seems she and Carol had a barney recently. Over fruit cake.’

  ‘Goodness me. Come on, Will, don’t just drop a bomb on us like that and then withhold the details. Tell us everything.’

  ‘I don’t know more than that. I heard this second hand from Carol’s great niece.’

  ‘I didn’t know she had family here.’

  ‘Jodie.’ The ideal time to ask for more info, perhaps. ‘She’s in town because Carol’s family think living alone in her house is getting too much for Carol. Apparently, Jodie and her brother used to come and stay here with Carol when they were kids in the school holidays.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’ said his mum.

  ‘Now, Patty, don’t put Will on the spot,’ said his dad.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ But his mother was as inquisitive as his dad was easygoing, and wasn’t at all easy to fob off, so he summarised the situation for her so she didn’t drive him and his dad mad with questions. ‘Yes, she’s pretty. No, I’m not having some romance you don’t know about. Yes, I’ve thought about asking her out. No, I don’t know anything about her other than she’s related to Carol, she’s a physiotherapist and she doesn’t smile as often as she should.’

  ‘Huh,’ said his mum. ‘You could do with a little romance in your life, Will. Just saying.’

  ‘Mum, boundaries. Remember them?’

  ‘All right, keep your hair on. We’ll see you soon.’

  Chapter 9

  The tin Carol had brought home from the Historical Society had been sitting smack bang in the middle of the kitchen table for two weeks now, on a teapot trivet, and it was not, apparently, to be touched. Even with gloves on.

  ‘You keep staring at that thing like it’s about to burst into flame,’ said Jodie, on one of the many occasions when she tried to pry some information out of her great aunt. ‘It’s an old tin. What’s so special about it?’

  But Carol wouldn’t say.

  Jodie stopped asking the day Carol pulled out a handkerchief, mopped her eyes, and said, ‘I’m feeling very old today, pet.’

  She’d said, gently, ‘Would you rather I left you in peace, Carol? Go back to Katoomba.’

  ‘Promise me you won’t leave until after the Christmas Twilight Markets,’ her great aunt had said.

  She’d promised, of course she’d promised, but she was still tempted to wait until Carol had gone to bed one night then open the tin. The contents rattled alluringly (she knew, because she picked the tin up from time to time to inspect it). She and Will (who she’d taken to having coffee with most mornings at the pub) had run out of ideas, both sensible and ludicrous: pastry beads, crochet hooks, hair curlers, stolen pink diamonds from the Argyle mine heist in the 1980s, silver sixpences bearing teeth marks used for generations of Christmas puddings …

  Nothing about it seemed special. Dull metal, dints and scratches, and that embossed word, Willow. Not much to be upset by, she would have thought. She even did an internet search on Willow. They’d manufactured biscuit and tea cannisters in Melbourne from 1897, made everything from armaments in World War One to baking trays and cake tins, and were still in business today, albeit using plastic rather than metal.

  Where the scrapbook had gone was a mystery. Carol’s bedroom, she presumed, tucked out of sight in that cedar dresser of hers, perhaps, beneath a modest pile of beautifully ironed handkerchiefs.

  Of the Clarence Gardens plan, not much was said. Jodie tried a bit of reverse psychology one evening over sausages with mash and peas, when it occurred to her how much Carol seemed to enjoy having company at home. She liked setting the table for two, she wanted to linger over a cup of tea and a biscuit at eleven o’clock each morning and talk about everything from what groceries they’d need in the next few days, to frog conservation amid the cane toad invasion, to the level of student debt young people were burdened with.

  ‘You’re probably right to pass on the old fogeys’ home,’ Jodie said. ‘Living at Clarence Gardens, having people around all day, endless cups of tea, forced to abide by the dictates of President Sloane of the residents’ association? You’d hate that, Carol. Staying here—by yourself—is a much better idea.’

  ‘I would crush that woman’s aspirations to longevity as president like a beetle,’ Carol said. ‘If I had to move there. Which I don’t.’

  Her great aunt then rebutted Jodie’s cunning reverse psychology with a salvo of her own: ‘Company is lovely, though, pet. Which is why you should be thinking of making your stay here with me a permanent one.’

  Permanent? Jodie nearly choked on her forkful of peas.

  ‘You already have a friend here—I’ve seen the way you and Will hobnob when you’re supposed to be setting up the market’s decorations.’

  Jodie could feel a blush rising. To think their hobnobbing—as silly a word as she had ever heard used—was anything other than—

  ‘I think you should hang a business sign up in the front yard.’

  ‘A physio business sign?’

  Carol ignored Jodie’s incredulity. ‘We could turn the good room into a bedroom for you; it’s not as though that old sofa is comfortable. And while the sleep-out is an odd shape for an ordinary room, it’d make a lovely treatment room.’

  Jodie frowned. Carol sounded serious. She’d assumed this whole ‘be the Clarence physio’ idea was just a distraction tool from her mother’s dastardly plan and one-upmanship (one-upwomanship?) against Joan Sloane. ‘But …’ she said, flailing about to try to see a downside. ‘What about council by-laws prohibiting running businesses from home?’

  ‘What by-laws? There’s hairdressers and seamstresses in this town running businesses from their homes. Why would physiotherapy be any different? Besides, the mayor owes me more favours than you’ve had hot dinners. By-laws can be updated.’

  Carol hadn’t thought this through. ‘But what about my life in Katoomba? I have friends there.’

  ‘Are you sure? You’ve been here weeks now and I’ve not heard you talk to anyone on that phone of yours besides Will.’

  Jodie frowned. Was it true? Had she distanced herself from her past so thoroughly that she no longer had friends? Other than Will, of course. She’d very much like to count Will as a friend. His hamstring injury and his ridiculous fear of medical intervention had grown on her. He was sweet, and funny, and stubborn, he always looked so happy to see her each day when she walked to the beer garden for coffee, and he had biceps.

  But this was all beside the point. Of course she would be leaving. Once the markets were over, it would be time to return to her actual home and pick up whatever pieces of her life could still be found.

  ‘But if you did have friends in Katoomba,’ Carol was saying, unaware that Jodie had moved on in her head to visions of handsome men in tight grey T-shirts who smelled of coffee and bacon, and from there to a grey life in a cold southern town where her only friend was her sofa, ‘they’d be welcome.’

  ‘I have commitments. A landlord.’ Even she could hear how lame and lonely this sounded.

  ‘Doing nothing but moping on a sofa is not a “commitment”, pet.’

  Ouch. Also true.

  But Carol mentioning her sofa-moping habit made her realise that she’d barely sat on Carol’s sofa, let alone moped. Life in Clarence, being at her great aunt’s beck and call, was busy. She’d typed up minutes, poured precisely measured quantities of whisky over cake (supervised), ordered pie warmers and bainmaries from a party hire place in Lismore, walked the pub’s beer garden with Will by her side and a measuring tape and spray paint to demarcate stall holders areas, topped and tailed green beans (again, under supervision)—she’d even been permitted to white glove a display of antique dairy farm memorabilia in the front window of the Clarence River Historical Society building. She’d felt happy and fulfilled and she’d even laughed again.

  ‘Can I think about it, Carol?’

  Her great aunt’s answer was to reach a hand out to hers and grasp it.

  Jodie had to hide her tears.

  A clue to the archival material Carol had brought home but refused to speak about didn’t present itself until the day Jodie was walking home from helping Will touch up the paint on half a dozen Twilight Markets Parking signs that were destined for the riverbank behind the pub where the markets spilled into, when she found a newsletter from Clarence Gardens in the letterbox. It was addressed to Jodie, as it happened, because Carol had refused to take the handout the manager had tried so earnestly to give them, but Jodie hadn’t. Nor had she forgotten to sign up.

  Jodie felt no qualms at all about opening up the newsletter. Her plan was to leave it on the kitchen table, so that it could be read over cups of tea, and hopefully some sort of osmosis would occur that would dial down Carol’s antipathy towards the place.

  As much as Jodie wanted Carol to be able to stay in her own home, she knew there would be difficulties ahead; living here had shown her just how many. The shower being over the bath was one. The laundry being under the house down a flight of back stairs was another. Carol’s reliance on the pension, too, meant maintenance of the many (many) ailments a house of this age suffered from would only fall behind.

  She pressed the creases open so the newsletter lay flat and gave it a glance. It seemed like your bog standard community newsletter to Jodie. Not that she could recall ever reading one before, but the articles were what she would have expected to see in a newsletter that catered to both current and prospective residents: news from the gardening club; a puzzle page; a flashy picture montage of the refurbished foyer with its improved wheelchair access; a directory of useful services like Centrelink and the Aged Care Assessment Team for the Northern NSW Local Health District.

  The blinding moment came when Jodie reached the middle of the newsletter and found a From the Residents page dedicated to stories, memoirs and poems written by the people who’d chosen to retire at Clarence Gardens. Jodie tucked her hair behind her ears, pulled her chair in a little closer, did a guilty look round to be sure Carol wasn’t about to swoop in from behind her and whisk the newsletter away, and started reading.

  A Soldier’s Cake Tin, by Joan Sloane

  When my father came home from the war in New Guinea in August 1945, he brought with him three mementoes of his time in service there. One was a shell necklace, which my father used to say meant we were wealthy beyond measure. The coastal villagers who gave this necklace to my father used the shell as traditional currency, I believe. The second was a Japanese sword, which our family returned to the Consulate-General of Japan in Brisbane when we learned of their program to restore World War Two artefacts to the families of the original owner. (Our family would like to restore the kula shell from New Guinea, also, if we knew to whom it should go.)

  The third item was the one most precious to my father and so, by extension, to all of us. It was a cake tin, known colloquially as the Soldier’s Cake Tin. Some amateur research on my part informs me that during the war, the Willow company manufactured these ‘in their thousands’. Women on the home front baked fruit cakes according to their family recipes or, when rationing kicked in, using recipes shared in the newspapers of the time, where such substitutions as lard for butter or glycerine for brandy were recommended. Housewives shared tips on how best to wrap and tape the tin to ensure it arrived in as best a condition as could be hoped, and handmade calico bags were used as postage parcels, the addresses (via Townsville, or later Port Moresby) written onto the calico in ink.

  My mother did not bake. At least, not beyond what was needed to feed us six kids. She did not bake my father a fruit cake and send it to the 2/9th Infantry Battalion, which begs the question: where did my father come by his cake tin?

  This is where our story takes a sad turn. War, after all, is mostly sadness.

  Dad had a mate that he wrote of in his letters home to Mum. Bluey. She didn’t recall Bluey’s proper name, but she did know that his family was from Clarence, NSW, which was not so very far from Kyogle, where we lived as children. We also knew that Bluey’s wife had sent him a soldier’s fruit cake, which he shared with his mates. Dad loved the cake so much, he asked Bluey to tell his wife to write down the recipe and send it to them up there in the jungle, so Dad could copy it out and send it to Mum. Possibly he was just being a cheeky bugger, because like I said: Mum didn’t bake. War’s sadness, after all, is often leavened by jokes.

  Bluey was killed in New Guinea. He was twenty-two. According to Mum, Dad kept the cake tin and some buttons from Bluey’s uniform. He also wrote out the recipe, which had arrived at the battalion in a letter call for Bluey just before he died.

  Dad talked to Mum about looking for Bluey’s family when he returned to Australia, but he struggled after the war. His head wasn’t right for a long time, and certainly by the time I was old enough for Mum to tell me this story, the cake tin had become less a part of his war story and more a part of our family story.