Free The Bay by Di Morrissey Page A

It’s hard enough coping on my own. There’s that underlying accusing look in her eyes when I say, no, she can’t have a two hundred dollar bikini like . . . well, Dad would say yes.’
    â€˜Would he?’
    â€˜If he had the money, probably yes. Too easygoing, that’s his trouble. A gentle soul. Not the ideal partner to forge ahead with in the real world.’
    Kimberley looked into the foamy dregs in her cup. Matty so adored her absent father, that was the trouble. If he was around more than once a year she might see him for the waste of space he was. Mac referred to him as ‘the guru’ and kept advising Kim to ‘move on’.
    â€˜We were really happy with our little daughter in those early years,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘I had to make him see you can’t raise a child on lentils and dreams. So off he went to India on his own. He comes and goes, says he’s researching some sort of book. He lives on the smell of an oily rag over there and I’m on a deserted wife’s pension here in bloody paradise.’
    â€˜If he comes and goes you’re not deserted, are you?’
    â€˜I am as far as the government is concerned, thank you very much.’
    â€˜What happens when he comes back?’
    Kimberley pushed her cup away. ‘Ah, we play happy families for a couple of weeks and then he’s off.’ She stood up. ‘Let’s do my hair, Matty will be back soon. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting, you know.’
    â€˜I’ll keep my eyes open for a real bloke for you,’ said Billy, dropping a ten-dollar note onto the table.
    â€˜You do that,’ said Kimberley, smiling.
    Holly had no idea what time it was. There was no comforting green glow from a bedside clock. She was sleeping in the annexe attached to the main house while it was being renovated. It still felt strange – being in a narrow bed, alone, with different smells and sounds. The first few nights she’d been nervous, knowing she was in a big empty house on an isolated headland. Curly slept in her basket by the door but the old dog’s deep snuffling snore didn’t give Holly a huge sense of security. Andrew had told her to book into a motel, he couldn’t believe she’d stayed alone in the old house. But Holly wanted to bond with this place that had so much history, that was now such a big chunk of her life.
    She was glad she was alone. If her family was there they might think she was slightly mad because of the way she walked through the near empty rooms, running her hands over the old ledges, windowpanes and balustrades. She’d even sat on the floor rubbing her hands over the worn floorboards, exposed beneath frayed modern carpet. They would come up beautifully with a little sanding and polishing. Everywhere she went in the house she wondered about the family that had lived there. She was beginning to feel a responsibility for Richmond House – to restore it, to maintain it, to stay faithful to those who had built it, lived, loved, cried and laughed within it. This place was a tangible link with the history of The Bay. Gradually her fears had subsided and she imagined the house wrapping itself around her, protecting her. She felt she was one of the family who’d always be a part of this home.
    Holly pulled the cotton duvet up to her chin. The wind must have woken her; it was howling and thrashing at the windows and in the garden. She saw, as they were lit by a flash of the beam from the lighthouse, the tops of the palm trees whipping and bending. Then came the rain, a solid downpour of wind-driven water. She decided to get up and check that no rain was coming in – a chance to look for leaks. The electric lights were few, high and dim, little changed since the 1950s. The last people here had favoured lamps. Holly made a mental note to talk to an electrician about recessed spot lighting.
    One part of the wall of the