One more sleep.
So what had changed? What had mellowed me into the point of not obsessing about the inevitable? What had made me accept that it wasn’t the end of the world, that in time I would get over it, made me realise that maybe I had been a bit of a diva about the whole thing, that maybe there was more to life than the Onslow Hotel?
My eyes flicked past Dad, locking briefly with beautiful, blue eyes and then and there I knew what had changed.
It was as if all else failed to be important. Maybe it was how Dad felt when he looked at Mum, the way I had seen him looking at her last night. I thought back to six weeks ago, how even sitting up in his hospital bed on oxygen he had looked so happy because he’d had Mum and me by his side. It wasn’t just about gaining a new lease on life; it was about having a life.
‘You take your memories with you.’
Sean had taught me that.
I smiled at my dad with a casual shrug. “I don’t mind.”
Dad’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank God, Chook, she is driving me to drink.”
“It’s true,” added Toby. “I saw him reach for the full cream milk for his cup of tea before.”
I looked incredulously at Dad. “Don’t you bloody dare!”
***
Monday morning – the day had come. The morning of the auction was so tense you could cut the air with a knife. It seemed the entire town had shown up on the steps of the Onslow to watch how things unfolded. Apparently there were half a dozen serious bidders in contention. I didn’t care what the others planned for the place; my heart was solely set on the McGees.
We’d eaten dinner with them the night before, and I could tell Mum and Dad didn’t want to put too much pressure on them so they kept things pretty light, but Chris, Adam and me knew they would be the perfect new owners. The time they had put into the restaurant these past few months had been such a big help and a massive success. People flocked back to have meals now and the Onslow had gained quite the reputation as the place to go if you wanted a hot meal and a cold beer.
Like the days of old.
The McGees’ biggest opponents were the retired toffs from the city who wanted to turn the Onslow into a B & B. They had come out and inspected several times. I had loitered on the staircase, eavesdropping on their plans of knocking down walls and laying carpet over the hundred-year-old floorboards. It was horrifying. Another potential buyer was Gary Brewster, the insipid local pharmacist. What he wanted with the Onslow was anyone’s guess – rumour had it that he wanted to convert it into a home for himself and his high-maintenance wife. It would make for a rather grand mansion on the hillside, I guessed.
But it wasn’t meant to be anything like that – the Onslow had served the community for over four generations. It was a place to gather after a hard week’s work, to catch up with mates, or to secretly pash your crush in a shadowy alcove. It was supposed to be filled with music and laughter, a meeting point for functions and discos, for lonely widowers to sit at the bar on a graveyard shift and be kept company by the barman. It was a rite of passage for every local eighteen-year-old to come in and have their first drink. It was where the Onslow Boys would meet up and play pool and fill the jukebox with shrapnel.
Gary Brewster couldn’t win today, he just couldn’t. The thought of the Onslow shutting its doors to the public broke my heart. It hurt more than worrying about moving back to the city to live; it was the end of an era and I could tell my dad knew it, too.
Dad sat in the beer garden with his paper and a green tea. He was turning the pages but I knew his mind was elsewhere. Mum was busy roaming through the hotel, waving freshly baked bread around and setting out flowers for last-minute inspections. I had argued with her that she didn’t want it to seem too appealing, that after all we didn’t want the McGees to have too much competition. But as with all things, Mum’s motto was, “There are no friends in business.”
I had discovered Dad in the garden as a result of escaping her flurry of activity.
I pulled out a seat, scraping the legs along the concrete.
My dad’s weary eyes snapped up from his paper. “Hey, Chook.”
I sighed, rubbing my hands nervously on my thighs. “Not long now.”
He smiled a small smile. “No.”
I had thought I was in a pretty good place, that I had finally accepted and would be all right, but sitting opposite my dad’s sorrowful eyes I felt a lump rise in my throat. Keeping the hotel just for me wasn’t enough; they’d had to want it, too. I could see in my dad’s grey complexion, the lines etched around his eyes, that he was stressed, anxious and tired.