New Australian Stories 2 by Aviva Tuffield Read Free Book Online

work.’
    â€˜At the car park?’
    â€˜Yep. At the car park. It’s always busy. Cars coming and going.’
    I waited until they’d driven out of the street before closing the front door. I unscrewed the lid on the fresh jar of olives and scooped a few into a teacup with a large spoon. I sat down in front of the record player and moved the needle to my favourite track. I tapped my foot to the beat and waited for the chorus. When it came I joined in, singing as loudly as I could.

Indigestion
    PETA MURRAY
    She was the childless aunt, and at the children’s parties she was never quite sure where to stand, so, over the years, she had settled for a place in the kitchen. It was so much quieter there, away from the inevitable tears and collisions, and more tears, and the shock of the balloons bursting like random gunfire. They made her jump. In the kitchen she could hide from the small talk and the inane games, from the terrible moment when her own inappropriate gift was opened in front of the entire family. As a reward for her initiative, she became known as the catering aunt . She would arrive just a little bit early, pop her apron on and power up the urn — her sister had one, naturally, for large gatherings — then get the oven warming, and find a large enough pot to heat the pink saveloys through, starting them off in cold water, and easing the flame up under them, so they didn’t burst their skins. There was nothing more unappetising than an exploded saveloy. But when heated correctly, and with toothpicks offered beside them in a small pottery dish, and the brilliant red sauce, they could be quite appealing. There was an art to it.
    There were perks, of course, to her title. A hot cup of tea with her sister before the trays were passed round, and if her brother-in-law remembered her, a glass of champagne. And even if they all forgot about her, as they had, it seemed, today, there were other compensations. The hundreds-and-thousands that stuck to her buttery fingers as she plated up biliously cheerful little triangles of bread. The honey joys that she stuffed into each cheek, as she doled out the licorice allsorts. If she kept her head down, she could eat one after another till they melted away. Still more could be slipped into apron pockets, or into her handbag while no one was looking. They would do for later, and they always kept well.
    But best of all, as the catering aunt, she was in charge of sausage rolls.
    They had always been a weakness. It had started in childhood, with tuckshop lunches on Mondays. A sausage roll and a cream bum. How they’d trembled with laughter, she and her sister, as they scribbled their orders on their brown paper bags in 2B pencil. They never wrote the rude word, but they always had to say it out loud. The cream bum was over-rated, really, just a vehicle for a groove full of whipped cream and jam to probe out and lick from a finger. But a sausage roll? Warm, plump and greasy, the pastry flaked in your mouth, and the meat left a peppery smear on your lips and a coating of fat on your tongue to comfort for hours after.
    She could smell them now, which meant they were almost ready. She took up her tongs and her oven mitt, lowered herself gingerly, opened the oven and slid out the rack. There they sat, party-sized, row after row of proud little pillows, irresistible. She popped one into her mouth, for a test, and then another, and then, because there was still room, three more.
    Party’s started, has it?
    She looked up. Her sister was standing at the door, champagne flute in one hand, pinwheel sandwich in the other, watching. She stood, as elegantly as she could, picked up a single pastry, extended her tongs.
    Sausage roll?
    Small flakes of spit and dough bounced from her mouth.
    Cream bum?
    Her mouth was too full of sausage mince to let any sound through, but she laughed, a silent, quivering laugh. Cream bum. Cream bum? Tears brimmed, and her whole body