Page 90 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
He looks slightly annoyed. He never looks annoyed with her and she feels contrite, like she’s done something wrong. Except all she’s done is state the truth.
‘If we don’t expand, we’ll never make much more money than we make now,’ he says steadily.
‘We might! More people may come.’
‘There are more people in Port.’
‘But there’s only one of you. How are you going to run another business? When it’s an hour away?’
The baby kicks her and she gasps. This always happens when she’s agitated, which makes her worry that the baby can tell when she’s upset and becomes upset too. Or maybe babies can’t get upset when they’re not yet born. But something goes on, that’s for sure.
‘Are you all right?’ Frederick says, his hand on her arm.
‘Yes.’ She puts a hand on her belly. ‘The baby wanted to take part in the conversation.’
They stare at each other, and she marvels – as she does, occasionally – that she can know Frederick so well yet sometimes not at all. They have so much in common, so many shared values, but he can still surprise her by saying something like this. Perhaps it’s a good thing: it stops her becoming complacent about him. Right now, though, it feels like the ground beneath her feet is turning to sand.
‘Another café would be such a risk,’ she says.
‘If we don’t take risks there won’t be rewards,’ he replies, and she feels irritated because the phrase doesn’t sound like him. It sounds like it’s come from the café owner from Port Douglas, trying to offload his problems onto someone else.
‘What about the café here?’
She hopes that reason will persuade him to drop the idea, because she knows they don’t have the money to buy a second business and she doesn’t want to have a quarrel about money.
‘You can run it,’ he says proudly, as if it’s a perfect idea.
‘Frederick, I’m about to have a baby. When am I running it?’
‘Your mother is going to help with the baby, isn’t she?’
‘Not every day!’
Another kick from inside her, and this time she doubles over. ‘Ouch.’
‘Darling?’ His hand is on her back, warm and comforting.
‘That one was under my rib,’ she explains.
‘I think you should sit down inside,’ he says softly, taking both of her hands and lifting her from the seat. ‘We’ll talk about this another time.’
She knows that means he’s not going to let the idea go. She’s voiced her objections but they haven’t made him rethink anything. Still, she knows he’s tenacious. That’s how they got the café in the first place: he worked to save up the money, never losing sight of his goal. She admired it then. As far as he’s concerned, it’s no different now that he has a new goal.
‘We’ll need to,’ she says, drawing on her own form of tenacity: the one that brought her to this pregnancy.
‘Put your feet up,’ he almost croons as he leads her inside. ‘I’ll get our dinner.’
‘We can talk later tonight,’ she calls after him as he goes back to the kitchen.
‘Or tomorrow,’ he calls back. ‘It’s worth considering, I promise.’
She’s sure it is. But it also makes her feel exhausted.
To the sound of Frederick removing plates from the cupboard and opening the cutlery drawer repeatedly, Dorothy falls asleep.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Patricia isn’t one of those teachers who prefers the school when the students aren’t there. As much as some of them can be challenging, on the whole she loves her job and the teenagers who come with it. For the five per cent who are difficult, there are five per cent who are focused and brilliant; and the ninety per cent in between are a changeable mixture of attention and disinterest. She knows that a lot of what she teaches them actually does penetrate their skulls because she can see the results in their exams and essays – and nothing, absolutely nothing, gives her more pleasure than seeing a student who wasn’t doing very well turn into one who does. That change may be nothing to do with her, or maybe it is, but nontheless it’s a thrill every time. She knows that success at school isn’t the sole determinant of a successful life, but when you’re fifteen it’s usually the only benchmark you have, so improvement in marks, in attitude, tends to have a generally beneficial effect. If Patricia can play any part in that, she believes she’s done her job well.
