The Perils of Cappuccino

"All right, Pam, I'll come and stay with you until I get myself settled," Mum agreed in answer to our pleading after my father was killed.

Dad had been manager of a large cattle station in northern Australia and was badly trampled when he was thrown from his motorcycle while trying to stop a stampeding mob of cattle. He died shortly before the Flying Doctor arrived. Mum loved the place, but she wouldn't be able to stay on as the new manager would need the house.

The great urban sprawl of Sydney came as a shock, but she liked our large, airy apartment, high on a hill with a view over the city to the distant harbour. On the station she had always worn jeans and a bush shirt with only a couple of dresses for special occasions like the picnic races. The nearest hairdresser was more than sixty miles away over rough bush roads. Several days concentrated shopping for clothes and a visit to my own hairdresser soon had her fully kitted out for city living. I was delighted to see how attractive she looked.

Both Ken and I work, so we readily agreed when she offered to take over the cooking and housekeeping.

"It's what I know best," she said, "I'll have plenty of time. This is only a small flat, and I don't have to milk the cow and look after the chickens and the vegetable garden as well."

"And the rest," I thought. I had always secretly believed that it had been Mum who really managed the property while Dad just did as he was told.

She quickly mastered the modern appliances in our kitchen except for the microwave oven, flatly refusing to believe that anything that came out of it could be properly cooked in such a short time. It took her some time to come to terms with the cappuccino machine. Ken and I enjoy frothy white coffee for breakfast, and we had bought our own machine. However, she soon came to enjoy the coffee it made so much that she quickly got the hang of it. Her old call of "I'm making a pot of tea," became "Anyone else for coffee?"

I had always thought of her as a good but unimaginative cook. Her visits to our large, local supermarket with its vast array of groceries and fresh produce soon showed that it was not lack of imagination but a shortage of proper ingredients which had held her back.

She pored over my collection of cookbooks and watched every cooking program on television, pen and notebook at the ready. It was not long before the simple meals she used to prepare were replaced by an ever-increasing variety of exotic dishes, mostly French, Italian, or Thai. Before Mum took over the kitchen, I would rush home from the office, trying to remember if there was anything in the fridge which I could quickly turn into something edible or whether we would be forced to eat yet another take-away. Now, it was like having a first class restaurant in our own home, and I could look forward to a relaxing drink with Ken before a superb meal.

She had been with us for almost a year when she made the big announcement. That night she had surpassed herself with an all Italian menu. We were sitting back, comfortable and contented, finishing a bottle of Hunter Valley chardonnay, when she suddenly blurted, "I'm getting married again and it's all your fault!"

"What! Who to?"

"You met him on Saturday. Mario. From the coffee shop."

Now I understood. I was puzzled when she had insisted on us going to that particular coffee lounge and intrigued when the suave, elderly, Italian gentleman emerged from behind his coffee machine to personally serve us and chat. I was also surprised by the very formal way in which she had introduced us as "Pamela, my daughter, and her husband, Kenneth." Pam and Ken were usually good enough for us.

Hesitantly, she told us how it had happened. She had become a regular customer at the coffee lounge during her frequent visits to the shopping centre in search of ingredients for new recipes. Mario, a widower for five years, had become very friendly and began asking her to marry him. After his fifth proposal in as many weeks, she had agreed.

"But I don't see how we are to blame," Ken said.

She laughed. "If you two hadn't got me so addicted to cappuccinos, I would have never ever gone back to his place. That man makes a wonderful cup of coffee, but he has no idea how to make a proper cup of tea. He uses those dreadful tea bags and just squirts hot water into the cup from the coffee machine. "But," she added, "I'll soon fix that. I've already picked out the teapots and milk jugs I want and told him to order them."

"Poor Mario!" I thought as I gave her a big hug. "I'm sure he doesn't realise what he's letting himself in for."