Read Online The Break by Deb Fitzpatrick - Free Book Online Page B

swapping weekend stories. Liza could hear the couple talking about opening a new account. ‘Curran,’ the girl was saying. ‘Like the raisin but without the “t”.’
    Must be newcomers, she thought, wondering how long they’d stick it out. Why was it always here, Margaret River, that people ran away to? Couldn’t they find somewhere else to go? Margies was already too busy.
    â€˜Liza, could you enter your PIN, please.’
    Liza snapped her thoughts back to the bank teller. ‘Sorry, sorry, Sarah. I’m in a bit of a daze today.’
    â€˜Aren’t we all on a Monday.’ Sarah’s fingers flew over the keyboard, entering account numbers, transaction amounts, her eyes steady on the screen. ‘How’s Sam?’
    â€˜Really well, thanks. Doing well at school. He’s clever on the computer,’ she said, nodding at Sarah’s. ‘How are things with you?’
    â€˜Oh, you know. Steve’s giving me the shits.’ She sighed. ‘He’s decided he wants to move up to Perth.’
    â€˜And you’d rather jump under a passing bus.’
    Sarah managed a laugh. ‘Yeah, well, I love it here. My family’s here. Everyone knows us, there’s always someone to talk to. But Steve reckons we’ll get stuck here forever, me at the bank, him at school. I said maybe, but look at the pros of staying …’
    She opened her hand, ready to count them on her fingers, and then shook her head and said, ‘There are so many.’
    People walked across the office behind her, folders, pens in hand. A potted palm stood dead in the corner.
    Sarah looked like she was trying to stop herself from welling up, and Liza began to feel uncomfortable, and sad. She glanced again at the couple standing next to her. The arriving and leaving. This town. She looked at Sarah, and at Mrs Donnelly waiting patiently at the
Please wait here until you are called
sign, and said, ‘If he wants to go, he has to go, Sarah. You never know how you feel about this place until you see it from a distance.’
    Sarah nodded weakly and straightened up a little. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right,’ she said.
    As Liza walked towards the glare of the main street she heard Sarah say, ‘Yes, please, Mrs Donnelly. Sorry to keep you waiting.’

7
    â€˜Kapok-filled piece of crap!’ Cray kicked the bed they’d bought second-hand from a guy leaving town. ‘The next thing we’re buying is a new mattress. A new one, not some hippie snoozer’s cast-off. This belongs at the tip!’ He punched the sides of the futon to try to spread some of the compressed filling towards the bum-shaped dip in the centre, but only managed to create a cloud of dust.
    Rosie was shifting the bits of lounge suite around — armchairs side by side, opposite the sofa; either side of the sofa; diagonally opposite one another — but nothing helped the brown and orange seventies relics they’d found at the salvage yard for fifty bucks. She sighed. Piece of crap.
Piece of crap.
She started singing.
    â€˜Cray,’ she called, laughing, ‘remember that Neil Young song — the one where he just shouts out “piece of crap”, over and over?’
    Cray was deadpan. ‘Never heard of it, Rosie,’ he said.
    â€˜Yes you have!’ She looked up at him. He was red in the face from his struggle with the bed.
    He started to laugh. ‘Personally, Rosie, I think you’re a fruitcake, and I hate this fucking bed.’
    Rosie stopped herself from insisting
But you must remember!
and instead went into the kitchen, grabbing a bizarre combination of jars from the fridge and concocting a much-needed sugar hit.
    In the afternoon, when she had done all the arranging and rearranging she could manage for the day, Rosie walkedtowards the open sliding doors, out onto the warm wooden balcony that looked over the town, the ocean, the world. The