PARAGON
January 1957
Paragon Cafe, enjoying its lunch-hour rush, was thrumming with teens savouring the last of the summer holidays. The milkshake frother bubbled on a continuous loop; ceiling fans whirred at full speed; arcade games competed with the jukebox.
Sonnet rearranged her egg-salad sandwich, and sighed. She regretted not taking her lunch to the shade of Raintree Park, but she hadn’t been able to face either the sight of Alfred’s store, or the legion of black cockatoos that had taken up a haunting residence along Main Street, two or three birds to each light pole, puffing their dark crests. All birds, but especially black ones, piqued an unearthly terror in Sonnet.
She was venturing forth for the first time in a fortnight, and only because she owed Olive a day in the shop. Sonnet certainly wasn’t going to have Olive picking up the slack for her self-indulgence. Life went on, and she had no right to mourn Alfred like a father or grandfather, when he was neither.
Another wave of kids shoved through the art-deco doors, and Sonnet hunkered further in her booth, wishing she was safely shielded behind a shuttered shopfront. One of those Lagorio twins thumping at an arcade game hollered at the tall, young man entering, and Sonnet peeped up shrewdly as she recognised Rafferty Hull’s name.
She’d seen Rafferty only from a distance, crossing Main Street or the canefields on his way to visit other farms. This was her first chance to evaluate, close up, both his alleged good looks and, from the way Gav spoke of him, the shining halo that must encircle his damned head!
He was indeed handsome – in an obvious way, and obviously knew it; carrying himself with Delia’s tall, haughty posture.
Not my type, though!
Immediately, Sonnet upbraided herself for having stooped to evaluate him against her standards. But it was the way Rafferty bore himself which so instantly irked her – a strong, quiet confidence bespeaking an idyllic childhood and a boy beloved of all who knew him.
How must it have felt for you to have grown up the darling of an entire community, with never a moment to doubt your own God-given magnificence?
His life was the antonym of the one she had known. She disliked him instantly, and entirely. A Hull was a Hull.
Kids all over the shop were clamouring for his attention. Who did he think he was, king of Noah Vale? As his eyes swept curiously over her lonely booth, Sonnet dived into her sandwich. She had a sudden fear Mister Popularity would come and introduce himself. Never had a sandwich been swallowed with such focus, and distaste.
When a male shadow fell over her minutes later, Sonnet looked up, already crabby, expecting a politician’s smarmy smile and winning handshake. But it was a portly and much older man who stood grinning at her table.
‘Sonnet Hamilton!’ he cried. ‘You’re a hard woman to track down.’ He slid into the booth opposite, pushing his meal and milkshake onto the table. ‘Harry Payne!’ he pronounced, biting heartily into his asparagus-laden toast. ‘Solicitor.’
Sonnet braced herself behind a quickly raised teacup. ‘I imagine you must be the Harry who’s been calling my aunt and uncle constantly?’
‘That’s me, all right. You girls still don’t have a telephone in the old Hamilton cottage?’
‘We don’t have a need for one. I haven’t returned your calls, Harry, because I’ve had other concerns.’
‘Well, I’m glad we bumped into each other like this. I was going to drive out to the farm this week and hunt you down, so you’ve saved me a trip.’
Sonnet frowned. ‘How can I help you, Harry?’
‘No, actually, I’m about to help you, Miss Hamilton!’ he declared, slurping with great satisfaction. ‘Let’s lunch; then I’m going to need you to come back to my office with me. We have a will to read, young lady . . .’
*
‘Alfred left you everything?!’ Olive cried in the afternoon heat of her orchard. ‘The whole shop and his unit above?’ Garden secateurs waved wildly in the air as she spoke. Sonnet followed their movement, unable to meet Olive’s eyes.
‘Everything.’ It was more an expulsion of air than affirmation. She sank to the earth before Olive’s half-pruned star fruit tree.
Olive knelt to the ground beside her, tossing her garden gloves aside. ‘My word, Sonnet. My word!’
Both women turned to follow Plum’s squeals as she navigated the exotic fruit trees with Mama’s cane perambulator, filled with porcelain dolls.
After a time, Sonnet said, sotto voce: ‘So now I own a bookstore.’
‘Yes, you certainly do.’
‘But he never said anything about leaving it to me. The whole town’s going to think I insinuated myself into his life for this windfall.’ Sonnet gave a sour laugh. ‘Worse: they’ll probably say I poisoned him for it!’
‘Nonsense!’ Olive clucked. ‘Well, maybe some of them will think that. But you know how minds work in this town.’
‘Why would he leave it to me, though? He must have family who will come contesting this kind of lavish generosity.’
Olive considered this. ‘Nope, I don’t think Alfred has anyone left at all now. You’re going to be home and hosed. I think he must have been mighty relieved to finally have someone to leave his beloved store to, actually.’
‘I didn’t spend all that time helping him out for anything like this.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’
‘I just wanted to be near her memory, and his admiration for her. I didn’t earn this.’
‘Now, don’t get caught up thinking you’re undeserving. I’d wager he had your mother’s name on his will for the past twenty years, hoping she’d come home.’
Sonnet imagined Mama flitting around a busy bookstore; saw herself banging through the front door in school uniform, with a sweetly smiling Fable trailing after.
Tears pricked. She coughed forcefully, pushing off the ground.
Olive stood alongside her, brushing off her knees. ‘I was going to offer you some of my carambolas, Sonnet, but I think life has handed you a gold star far sweeter today.’
Sonnet shook her head. ‘Bookstore and a cottage both thrust upon me in the space of two years!’
‘Got to say, someone up there’s looking out for you Hamilton girls!’
‘Actually, all my windfalls have come from six feet under . . .’