The Novel - The Ozone Café, Short-Lived

Short-Lived (contd)

Winifred held a deadly look on her face as if a large snake had hissed at her from one of the cubicles. As quickly as she ran out, she ran back in, facing Joe and almost spitting in his face. 'Well I never thought you'd change anything,' she said, pacing and raising her voice. 'I have never seen anything so bad in all my life!'

'And since you got it wrong, the name's Pendlebury!' he yelled after her, as she ran her bicycle through the front gate.

'There's no need for me to come back here anymore. This place is a dump!'

Joe's foot began to tingle, and his heart seemed to be screaming, tick, tick, tick. He thumped his forehead, flicking his hand out at the Princess of the Esplanade. Snotty-nosed brat, he thought. He rattled his hands hard at his side and moved slowly inside. At the bottom of the stairs, he called up to Shirley, but no answer came. The last forty eight hours had been a tiresome ordeal and now only two bookings for the evening. He had other problems that he wanted to fight off in his head, but they kept on returning. The borders. Bastards. First stealing food from his fridge, now a month behind in the rent. He stared long and hard at the Red Snapper on the sink, while the scimitar hit a deep nerve inside his chest.

* * *
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The Novel - The Ozone Café, Short-Lived

Short-Lived (contd)

The two men leaned on the fender of the ute, peering into the engine cavity. Bill Sanderson began quietly enough, but soon his expertise on cars quickly emerged with a shake of the head, pursed lips, and then an informed choice of words. 'Generator's buggered, me old son. Look there, water's your problem. Easy fixed. Old Grumble Guts up at the Mobil should have one.'

'Yeah, I knew she was ready to pack it in. What else could go wrong, hey?'

'Least this will only cost you a few quid. My boat, poor love, ripped apart and ignored by the gods as my pride and joy.'

'You got insurance?'

'On the store I have, but not with the boat. Well, I hardly ever take her out. She's just been sitting there gathering bird shit.'

'Still you could always do a patch job.'

'What about your outboard?'

'Don't wanna know...'

At this point the two men were approached by a young piercing voice that would pass through a pyramid.

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The Novel - The Ozone Café, Short-Lived

Short-Lived (contd)

It never ceased to amaze Joe, how one minute a wild storm could flood the streets for twenty-four hours and suddenly evaporate overnight. When he had finished patching the wall, he hung a tarpaulin over the wet cement. The once smooth wall now deepened into a recess of broken bricks slapped together with thick, grey cement. The café groaned in its mythic shape. How long his patchwork would last he didn't know. But the building was still standing, even if it had morphed into two jagged sections at the top of the slope. He'd have to go to the Shire office in Heytsbury, look at the original plans and find out about the foundations, whether they'd been done correctly. Problems. There was so much to do, and this played as a subject on his mind. He couldn't have the bloody thing disappear into the dunes from whence it came. He was supposed to go and get some blue metal at the hardware store, but the ute wouldn't start. The exterior wall would come later.

In a half-hearted debate with his frustration and car keys, Joe tried the ignition once again. Nothing!
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The Novel - The Ozone Café, Short-Lived

Short-Lived (contd)

For the next half-hour, he drank the remains of the bottle. Then he slowly rose to his knees into the pale blue morning. He peered into the damage, jiggling and removing the loose bricks as best he could. He ran his hands along the remaining wall, the mural intact - not one crack. How could that be? he thought. An extra addition, yet it was solid, not like the rest of the rendering towards the back steps.

Looking over the courtyard wall, he could see the storm's havoc along the beach and past the hotel. The Esplanade was a mass of litter, the sky clearing over Scarpe Bay and the thunder's guts just a rumbling now on the Heads. He waved to Bill who straddled a ladder, straightening his store signs. 'You okay? he yelled.

Bill pointed to the beach, 'Me boat's got a lovely how-you-do in the hull, she cracked on the rocks. What about you?'

'We're okay, lucky the pole missed us.'

'Building okay?'

'Yeah, yeah, fine, no worries.'
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The Novel - The Ozone Café, Short-Lived

Short-Lived

Dampness hung over the café. Thunder clouds in the morning had opened their little valleys and waterfalls, releasing torrents of rain. The new cane chairs out in the courtyard were soaked and the palms had leaked their wet fronds into Joe's shirt as he tried to bunch up the chairs and put them in the back laundry. It was a scramble, even into the long afternoon, his wife, and Alf, one of his customers, helping to take down the umbrellas, stack tables under tarpaulin, and straighten and re-dirt potted plants.

Lightning had never struck this little business, but during the shouting and each of them rattling timber to close windows and doors, a stereophonic bolt of lightning came within inches of the café, knocking down the telegraph pole on the corner of Bream Street. There seemed to be a pile of wooden furniture everywhere, curled metal and wires. It had heaved and swayed several times before crashing into their front gate. And there were tree limbs shunting themselves towards the same pile of junk. Joe watched from the café window, as several branches from each of the four Esplanade pines weaved and whorled about, travelling as far as he could see along Memorial Avenue. Joe had a vision that any moment now he'd be surrounded by a jungle of green, but it was a kaleidoscope of colour, lilac blossoms from the front Jacaranda shook and shivered past his eyes meeting yellow and white Frangipani petals. Boats also lost their moorings. One cruiser, he knew belonged to Bill Sanderson, beached itself on the grass bank within inches of the store. The hire boats also received a battering, some turning to planks before sinking.

In the evening, the storm turned to hail, not small mothball sizes, but large ones almost as big as tennis balls. They pounded and smacked into parked cars and when the light show seemed to be over, a thick fog of white had surrounded the Ozone Café.
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