An Endless Summer(25)

Melba sat across from me, motionless, still like a statue, and studied me intently. I was about to ask if she had heard anything I had just said when she breathed in deeply.

“And what makes any of these things your problem?”

I paused.

“Because it’s my home. And I can’t for the life of me believe that it has just been let go.”

“Well, ya father doesn’t seem to care all that much.” Melba pronounced ‘ya father’ with such venom I knew I had hit a nerve in coming here.

It had been late last year when I’d overheard Dad say that Melba had left the Onslow. I had been in such shock I had wanted to go straight back to Onslow and beg her to come back. Melba was such an integral part of the Onslow. Sure, she was mean and bitter and pedantic, but she ran the restaurant and the kitchen like a well-oiled machine. Dad basically had nothing to worry about when it came to that part of the business because Melba ran the show, and ran it well. But now, without her …

The fact that she had left made no sense at all, and any time I asked about it Dad always brushed it off or shut down. But as I sat across from Melba now, I knew she still cared about the Onslow; I read it in her deep, troubled sigh as I told her how bad things really were. If Melba had been around, there was no way the Onslow would be in this state. Any time Dad had left whatever bartender in charge in the past, Melba was always the go-to person. She secretly ran the show.

“Yeah, well, Dad’s on a bit of a ‘journey of self-discovery’ at the moment.” I tried not to cringe.

“Ha! Just like a man, they can never multi-task.”

“Yeah, well, he’s lost all this weight, and just upped and came to woo Mum back. And it worked. It’s embarrassing. They’re like a couple of teenagers.” I shook my head, half expecting Melba to mirror my horror. So the fact that she was smiling made no sense at all.

“What?”

“So he does listen after all, the old fool.”

Melba must have read my confused frown and silence.

“Oh, I suppose he wouldn’t have told you, would he?”

“Told me what?”

“Twelve months ago, your father was a different man. I’m not talking about the man you see today or the man you knew before. He was someone else, unhealthy, and miserable, in an absolute rut of self-pity, and I was sick to death of watching him slowly kill himself. He would stay in bed for days at a time; he stopped sponsoring the cricket club and hosting functions. He wasn’t doing anything except dwelling in his own misery. He hired that Matt, thinking he would be the saviour, but all he did was add to his troubles.”

It was hard to hear what Melba was saying, to envision Dad living that way. Mum and I had been living it up in the city. I hadn’t given too much thought to what Dad was up to. I had just naturally assumed he was living the dream; I mean, what grown man wouldn’t want to own a pub, and drink, smoke and socialise all day long? But in reality, it seemed, it hadn’t been working at all. It had all been a lie. How had I not seen it?

“So what changed?” I asked.

“I left. I wasn’t there to see how it changed. After your mother gave him an ultimatum, something I’m sure he was just going to let go, I gave him my own ultimatum.”

My eyes widened. “And that’s why you left?”

“Ha! Not before having a humdinger of a fight with that stubborn mule.”

I winced.

“I called him every name under the sun, and you know how I feel about such language, but I was furious.”

“And then you left.”

“No, Chook, that’s when he asked me to leave … and never come back.”





Chapter Twelve



That was not exactly how I expected the story to go.

“Well, regardless of what was said, he obviously listened to you, Melba. By the sounds of it, your tough love saved Dad’s life.”

Melba didn’t seem appeased by this; she just sat back in her La-Z-Boy and rocked gently.

“He saved one area of his life but let another go,” said Melba.

“But that’s it, he can’t let it go, and he can’t do it all by himself. Melba, there are NO staff. No one. Just me and Matt the Rat and that’s not enough. I need help. I need you.”

Melba’s shoulders sagged sadly; her icy exterior was thawing.

My heart clenched in hope.

“I’m sorry, Chook. But when your father told me to leave and never come back, I said on my oath that I would never come back. And unless Eric invites me himself, I cannot in good faith walk back in that door.”

Melba and her bloody moral high ground. I wanted to scream, to kick, to cry, but my heart sank far too low to fight for it.