CHAPTER TWO
That night Gracie could barely sleep with the excitement. It was possibly turning out to be the best weekend of her life. Not only had she been the centre of attention for the whole day, not only had she survived a car crash (it was getting more spectacular every time she thought about it), and not only had her father agreed that she could be head guide again on Sunday – ‘As long as you’re okay, Gracie. Any dizziness or headache at all and you’ll have to stay in bed’ – but best of all, she’d just had a whole hour of her mother to herself. All to herself, no sign of Charlotte or Audrey or Spencer or, especially, Aunt Hope, who seemed to take up more and more of their mother’s time these days. Just Gracie, in her bed, the room made cosy by the lamplight, the rose-patterned curtains drawn against the cool night air, and her mother lying beside her, stroking her hair and talking in that low voice she only used when she was especially worried.
‘Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again, Gracie, please. It was so dangerous. Anything could have happened.’
‘But the flowers —’
‘You’re a good girl to be so meticulous – that means concerned with details,’ Eleanor added without a pause. She was always very good at explaining the meaning of any long words she used, whether they were in the middle of home lessons or not. ‘But sometimes you have to be a little more relaxed about things. Think of the consequences. Be careful not to put either yourself or others in danger.’
‘But I wasn’t hurt when I hit the other car.’ Eleanor winced at her words and Gracie immediately felt guilty.
‘No, you weren’t, but you could have been. And other people might have been hurt as well.’
‘Sorry, Mummy.’ Now she was eleven she tried to call her mother Mum like Audrey and Charlotte did, but sometimes it felt so comforting to call her Mummy.
Eleanor pulled her in close and kissed the top of her head. They lay there in silence for a few moments. Gracie relived the accident in her mind again, in slow motion this time, relishing and exaggerating the sound of the impact, the blare of the horn, the rushing feet as crowds gathered, all the comments. The comments! She sat upright and told her mother all she’d heard people say about the ‘mad bloody Templetons’ and ‘another publicity stunt’. She paused. ‘What’s a publicity stunt?’
‘It’s a way of getting people to notice you and talk about you.’
‘People thought I did that crash to make people notice me? I didn’t!’
‘I know, Gracie. It was just an accident.’
‘So what other publici— …What other stunts did they mean?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ Eleanor said, but in the voice Gracie knew she used when she was pretending she didn’t know something.
‘And why would they call us the “mad bloody Templetons”,’ she asked. ‘Don’t people in town like us?’
‘Gracie, please don’t swear. It’s not nice, even if you’re just repeating what other people have said. Don’t worry about what you heard.’
‘But that wasn’t all. Another man kept saying that we carry on as if we own the whole bloody place. We do own it, don’t we? The Hall and the gardens and everything? Or whose is it if we don’t own it?’ Gracie turned as her mother made a sudden odd noise. ‘Are you laughing at me? Is what I said funny?’
‘Not in the least bit funny, darling. And you’re to ignore that as well. Some people just don’t like other people and it sounds like unfortunately you met a few of them today.’
‘Maybe I should have run those people over?’
Eleanor laughed out loud. ‘You could have, but all round I think it’s best you didn’t.’
‘So we’re not the mad bloody Templetons?’
‘No, Gracie, we’re not. We’re not mad or bloody. We’re just the very ordinary Templetons.’
Ordinary? Gracie wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, either.
Across the hall, Charlotte lay in bed, disgruntled and not just because of the damage to her car. Usually she liked action-packed dramatic days, but she’d had other plans today involving a leisurely bath and a new paperback, all cancelled when it became clear it was going to be one of those all-hands-on-deck Saturdays at Templeton Hall. She’d put up a feeble kind of resistance when her father insisted she do the guiding upstairs instead of Spencer.
‘That’s not fair! I’d swapped with him. Why do I get stuck with it again?’
‘Because you’re my daughter, because I’m asking you, because today is an unusual day, and because if you don’t, I’m pulling you out of boarding school and you can start going to the local high school again.’
That clinched it, really. She’d suffered through one term at the local school before announcing to her parents that if they made her go back there again she would set her bedroom on fire. It was a bad threat to choose. Her aunt Hope had recently tried to do something similar, stopped only by Spencer coming into the bedroom to investigate the smell of kerosene as Hope was trying to get her lighter to work. Charlotte had swiftly apologised for her lack of tact, while just as swiftly insisting that she was serious, that after years of being home-schooled by Eleanor, having her intelligence taken for granted, her brain nurtured and encouraged – she’d laid it on thick, if she did say so herself – it felt like a personal insult to be lumped with the local kids who treated her like she’d arrived from another planet, and taught by teachers who didn’t know even half as much as she did …
She was prepared to argue her point for days if necessary, but to her amazement her parents gave in that night. She’d started researching the best boarding schools herself and quickly decided on one in Melbourne, far enough away from Castlemaine for independence yet not too far to prevent her coming home on the train at weekends. It was only later she discovered that while she’d been complaining about the local school, the local school had been complaining about her. She was ‘a disruptive influence’, according to the letter from the principal she happened to find in the desk in her father’s study. ‘Her arrogance prevents her from easily making friends, and the teachers find her lack of regard for their methods off-putting and unacceptable.’
Charlotte took great pleasure in tearing the letter up into pieces and mixing them in with the kitchen scraps. Her father wouldn’t miss it, she knew. His filing system was a mess.
At least she’d spared Audrey the horrors of that principal and her half-witted cronies. When the time came for Audrey to move from home-schooling to secondary classes, there was no question of the local school. She was enrolled in the same boarding school as Charlotte, and the two of them had been students there since. Charlotte preferred not to let Audrey forget it, either. ‘If it wasn’t for me …’ she liked to say, until Audrey turned on her one day.
‘If it wasn’t for you, I’d be happily living at home with friends from my own area rather than exiled with girls from miles away. But if banging on about it makes you feel less guilty about your own bad behaviour, you go right ahead.’
Charlotte just laughed. She knew they both liked being away from the family for weeks of the year, far from the Hall, far from being tarred with the ‘one of the Templetons’ brush and, best of all, far from the tedium of trying to maintain a property as large as theirs without the help of an army of servants or a tribe of gardeners.
Charlotte argued with her father about that too. ‘It’s ridiculous. Here we are recreating the authentic colonial experience, giving visitors a glimpse into yesteryear, yet we’re doing it without the most basic element of life in that era: maids. How can I act the part of an aristocratic miss if twenty minutes earlier I was cleaning the toilet?’
‘We call it a lavatory, Charlotte. And you know why we don’t have servants. Because unlike your esteemed ancestors, we don’t have a gold fortune to pay them.’
That was the most annoying thing of all, really. There she was, not just snatched from her happy life in London and forced to leave all her friends behind, but locked in this strange historical bubble that was Templeton Hall, gaily spouting detail after detail about life in the goldrush days, wearing the clothes, pretending – pretending, for God’s sake, the humiliation of it – that they were living in that era, and yet it all seemed to be built on such flimsy financial foundations.
Oh, she knew her father was still dealing in antiques, heading away from the Hall now and again on buying and selling trips. Selling with some success too, from what she’d occasionally overheard him say to her mother. Not that Charlotte cared much for old glassware or furniture, but she’d always known her father had a very good eye for spotting valuable pieces and selling them on just as quickly. But was the antique trade as lucrative a business in Australia as it had been back home in England?
One day she’d had a poke around her dad’s study in search of some answers. She was the oldest of his four children, after all. Someday, all this would be partly hers. It was only right she should have some knowledge of the family’s financial picture beforehand.
Unfortunately the snooping session was interrupted before Charlotte had time to even work out which was the best drawer to start looking through. Aunt Hope came in, silent as ever, giving her a fright, though Charlotte did her best not to show any alarm, not until she could work out what her aunt’s mood was that day.
Fiery, it turned out. Aunt Hope was melodramatic at the best of times. At the worst of times too. Catching her niece in her brother-in-law’s out-of-bounds office was a heaven-sent situation. She slammed the door, gave a great intake of breath and said in her mannered, husky voice, ‘And what do you think you’re doing, young lady?’
Charlotte knew it annoyed Hope to hear the relaxed hybrid English-Australian accent in her nieces and nephew, after the elocution lessons she and Eleanor had suffered back in England. ‘They just sound so common,’ Hope liked to say, with a theatrical shudder. But that Australian accent could come in very handy, Charlotte had discovered. She used it now, dragging out her vowels, leaving out letters, enjoying the sight of Hope’s disgust.
‘Just havin’ a look around, Hope.’ She pronounced ‘around’ as ‘arind’. ‘I’m doin’ a school project on the psychological impact of clutter’ – she pronounced it ‘cludda’ – ‘and Dad’s office seemed a perfect place to start.’
‘He wouldn’t be happy to find you here.’ Hope’s vowels were as sharp as diamonds.
‘Nor you, I’d wager,’ Charlotte answered, switching to a well-bred English accent to deliberately annoy Hope further. ‘What were you doing here? Dad’s office is out of bounds to all of us, isn’t it?’
Charlotte watched with interest as Hope, flustered by the direct question, changed the subject and started to talk in great detail about the hot weather instead. Quickly bored, Charlotte decided to get out before Henry came in and started interrogating the pair of them.
For as long as she could remember, Charlotte had disliked Hope. She felt plenty of other emotions towards her as well. Anger, mostly, when Hope drank too much and threw the tantrums that upset not just Eleanor, but the whole family and any poor visitors who happened to be in earshot. Hope in full flight could be a terrifying spectacle, with tears and shouts and objects being hurled around the place.
‘She can’t help it. She’s unwell.’ They’d heard the excuses from their parents for years.
‘So send her to a hospital,’ Charlotte snapped back one night. She’d been angry and hurt on that occasion, just a few months after they arrived in Australia. It was her birthday, the only day in the Templetons’ newly established family schedule when the birthday girl, or boy, was truly able to be the centre of attention, get out of tour-guiding, cleaning and gardening and instead spend the day doing just as they pleased, finishing with a dinner made up of all their favourite dishes.
That day, though – Charlotte’s fifteenth birthday – Hope had one of her ‘episodes’. Not a standard plate-throwing or screaming one, but a get-completely-drunk-and-slash-at-herself-with-a-broken-glass one. They were all in the kitchen, about to start serving dinner, the usual teasing and joking flying around, Charlotte the centre of attention. One moment Hope was standing at the sink, obviously drunk, yes, but apparently happy, the next she was weeping loudly, a broken wine glass in one hand and a gash down her other arm. Pandemonium followed, Charlotte remembered; attempts to stop the blood with a tea towel, then a bath towel, before a rushed trip to the Castlemaine hospital, Henry driving and Eleanor in the back cradling her sister. There was no time for apologies to Charlotte about her ruined birthday dinner. By the time they’d arrived back, after midnight, her birthday was over in any case.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Eleanor had said, coming into her room. ‘What did you do, darling? Did you manage to have any fun at all?’
Charlotte took perverse pleasure in telling her the truth. ‘How did I spend my birthday? As a matter of fact, I spent it cleaning your drunken sister’s blood off the kitchen floor.’
She’d regretted it afterwards, seeing the hurt expression on her mother’s face, but anger had eventually won over regret. Her mother needed to know the impact Hope had on the family. Secretly, when they were sure their mother wasn’t listening, it amused Charlotte and Audrey to call their aunt Hope-less, to imagine the joys of a life without Hope, to bemoan the fact that Hope springs eternal. But no matter how they joked, before long the same drama would play out, the whole family held hostage to Hope’s drinking, her mood swings and temper. The only saving grace was that Templeton Hall was so big they could at least try to avoid Hope as much as possible, except on days like today when there was a fuss about something and she would place herself in the centre of it.
Sighing, Charlotte turned her pillow over, thumped it twice, then lay down again. The sooner she finished school, turned eighteen and could get away from this madhouse, the better. On the bright side, her father owed her now, for having given up her day off. It had to be worth double pocket money. As she lay there waiting unsuccessfully for sleep to come, she took great pleasure in concocting a long shopping list.
In her bedroom, Audrey couldn’t sleep either. She pulled out the sheet of paper from under her pillow and read it one more time. She’d intended to show it to her family today, but changed her mind after the drama with Gracie. She wanted everyone’s full attention when she made her announcement. Charlotte already knew, of course, but she’d been sworn to secrecy until Audrey decided the time was right to tell the others. For once, Charlotte had seemed to understand how important it was, and also what a recognition of her talent it was. The drama teacher had said it too, in front of the whole class, after he announced the cast. ‘I think we have the makings of a fine production of Hamlet, girls, with a very special Ophelia in Audrey Templeton. Here’s to a marvellous end-of-year production.’
It was like a wonderful dream, except it was actually real, Audrey thought, gazing down happily at the play’s rehearsal schedule. There it was, in black and white, a list of cast members, with her name beside one of the lead roles!
This wasn’t just some ordinary school production, either. Word had it that drama scouts for film production companies, acting schools and advertising agencies came to all the Galviston Girls’ School productions. Whether it was because their daughters attended the school, Audrey didn’t know and preferred not to think about. This was her chance, her moment and, more importantly, the only way to show her parents she was serious about a career as an actress.
When she’d tentatively raised the subject a year before, armed with brochures from her school career guidance counsellor, she hadn’t got very far. Her parents hadn’t even looked at the information on drama studies. They both concentrated on the weighty documents explaining the courses on offer at Melbourne University, the best tertiary institution in the state, in their opinion. A chemistry degree for Audrey, they’d decided.
That day, and many days since, Audrey had cursed her own easy ability with scientific formulations and chemical compounds. So what if she could sort out formulae in her head? She could run fast too, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be an Olympic athlete. But any hints from her about chasing her dream met with blank stares from her parents.
‘Acting’s not really a career, darling. It’s a hobby.’
‘We didn’t even know you liked acting. You never show much interest in it here.’
This isn’t acting, she’d wanted to shout. This is some weird family business involving ill-fitting costumes and dull facts, spouting information to motley groups of tired and sweaty people in shorts and T-shirts who think it is somehow funny to follow a costumed teenager around an old building for a family outing. Acting was different. Acting on a stage, in a darkened theatre, was a suspension of disbelief, a way of blocking out the real world, of seeing other people’s lives and stories brought to life – she had listened attentively through every one of her drama theory classes and had her arguments ready. Except her parents didn’t ask for her arguments. Before she’d a chance to object, Henry had filled out the form requesting she be coached towards a chemistry degree.
‘And don’t worry, of course you can keep acting,’ Henry had said. ‘Melbourne University has a terrific drama society. It’ll be a great outlet for you – give that right brain of yours a workout after all the left-brain study.’
But this piece of paper in her hand could change everything. Her parents’ minds, her future, everything. Once they saw her as Ophelia, they would realise just how talented she was and how serious she was about acting. After the play was staged, she’d ask her drama teacher to write a letter, begging for their understanding, urging them not to make the mistake of denying the world a great dramatic actress.
Audrey climbed out of bed, too excited to sleep now. Silently crossing the room, she took a seat on the elegant antique stool in front of her dressing table, lit two of the candles that formed a waxen guard around her extensive collection of make-up brushes and hair ornaments, and stared at her reflection in the bevelled mirror. She’d decided recently that the best way to describe her looks to any possible casting agent was ‘classic English beauty’. Pale skin, high cheekbones (not high enough, in her opinion, but her experiments with various shades of blusher were helping towards her ideal look) and shoulder-length dark-red hair that she liked to wear in, yes, ‘classic’ styles. Her role models, she’d decided, were the silent screen goddesses of the 1920s, with their immaculate grooming and strong femininity. Elegance never went out of fashion.
Not that she’d shared her thoughts with anyone in her family. Her mother had started to grow very impatient with the time Audrey spent sitting in front of the mirror. Audrey suspected it was jealousy. Her class had studied female psychology at school recently and it was apparently a common phenomenon that ageing mothers became envious of their daughters’ blossoming beauty. Not that that was a problem in Charlotte’s case. In Audrey’s opinion, Charlotte might look reasonably attractive if she took a bit more care and particularly if she went on a diet, but Charlotte just didn’t seem to bother, pulling that thick mop of hair of hers back into a ponytail and wearing any old baggy clothes around the place. As for Gracie, while it was too early to tell for sure, Audrey thought her little sister might turn out quite striking when she was older, with her dark eyes and eyebrows, and that unusual white-blonde hair. If it stayed blonde and didn’t go mousy, of course. Most annoyingly, it was Spencer who’d got the best looks in the family – a mass of blond curls that Audrey would have killed for, dark-blue eyes like their father and lashes so long they could have been false. Still, Audrey thought again now, leaning in towards the mirror and practising arching her left eyebrow, the mark of true talent was making the best of your attributes, wasn’t it? Growing into oneself. Having faith in oneself and one’s place in the universe, staying grounded and yet confident at the one time.
‘Breathe, Audrey, breathe,’ she said to her reflection in the low voice she was trying to cultivate. ‘Centre yourself. Trust in yourself. Believe in yourself.’
A noise outside made her jump. She swiftly blew out the candles and hurried back to bed. Charlotte had walked in on one of these private moments once, and after howling with laughter, ‘Who do you think you are, Audrey, Sophia Loren?’, had spent the next week mimicking her: ‘Breathe, Audrey, breathe, or else you will die, Audrey, die.’ Audrey knew it was counter-productive to waste valuable emotional energy on negative feelings, but sometimes she really did hate Charlotte. What would she know about the trials of having an artistic spirit? All Charlotte cared about was annoying teachers and spouting her ill-informed opinions. What would any of her family know about her hopes and dreams, if it came to that? Her parents barely gave her any attention when she was home on the weekends any more. It was always all about the stupid Hall. Even Hope got more attention than she did these days. It wasn’t fair, it really wasn’t. She was truly starting to believe she was the cuckoo in the Templeton family nest.
To hell with them all, she decided now. Liking the sound of that sentence, she said it out loud, in a melodic deep voice. She tried it again, in an American accent. She was good at accents, her drama teacher had told her as much. Perhaps she could even try doing Ophelia in a foreign accent? What a great idea! Checking the schedule again, she was happy to see the next rehearsal was three days away. Plenty of time to prepare a convincing case about the accent. Already imagining the applause on opening night, she slipped the schedule under her pillow and fell asleep with a smile on her face.
Spencer was too busy to sleep. What a great day that had been. He liked to think of a day’s events as being divided into Good Things and Bad Things. Today had definitely been more Good Things. He made a list of them in his head as he rummaged around in the cupboard in search of ingredients for his current project.
The Good Things were:
The Bad Things were:
That was exactly how his mother had put it. ‘There’s going to be a crackdown on the children driving from now on.’ Spencer was hiding behind the curtains in the dining room after the police arrived back with Gracie and he’d heard a big fight between his parents. Lots of soft shouting about whose fault it was, about the children running wild ever since Hope had started drinking again. That wasn’t true, in Spencer’s opinion. He’d been running pretty wild before Hope had started drinking again, it was just his parents didn’t know about it. But it was a shame about Gracie’s accident. Charlotte had promised to start teaching Spencer to drive now he’d turned ten, but it looked like there wouldn’t be much chance of that for a while, at least until all the fuss had died down about Gracie’s crash.
In the meantime, there was still plenty of other stuff for him to do around the place. His new friend, Tom, who lived in a farmhouse a few paddocks away, thought Spencer had it made. No school. A huge house to roam around. Spencer had put him right on a few things. He did have school, it was just that he did it at home and his mother was his teacher. Tom had asked loads of questions about it, as if he’d never heard of home-schooling. What happened if Spencer misbehaved? Did his mother get him to stand outside the classroom? Did he still have to sit exams? Wasn’t it lonely sometimes? What if he woke up one morning and felt sick? Did he still have to go to school if his home was also his school? Spencer hadn’t even thought about all that stuff before. He’d just always been taught at home and that was that.
‘Is it because you’re so rich?’ Tom had asked.
‘We’re not rich.’
‘Everyone in town says you are. Look at the size of your house.’
‘Dad inherited it. We didn’t buy it. His grandfather gave it to him. Or his uncle. Someone, anyway.’
Spencer wasn’t completely sure of the facts. He’d sort of listened when his father gave him the lessons about what to say when he was showing visitors around, but they couldn’t expect him to remember everything. He’d never told his dad or his mum or Gracie – especially not Gracie, who would go crazy if she knew – but sometimes he just made up any old thing about where a painting or a piece of furniture had come from.
It didn’t help that Spencer’s dad was always arriving home with new clocks or paintings or small tables, all excited, saying they were ‘great finds’. Spencer thought at first he was saying ‘grapevines’ but Audrey put him right. A week or two later, some of those new ‘great finds’ would turn up on top of the long cupboard in the big dining room, or in one of the glass cabinets in the morning room, or in one of the bedrooms they showed their visitors. Their father would give them a little speech about what to tell visitors: how valuable it was, how it had found its way into the Templeton family and been a treasure for generations now, blah blah blah. Spencer had found it all a bit strange at first. How could it have been in the family for generations if his father had just bought it in a shop?
He’d mentioned it to Gracie once, who got a bit funny, the way she did whenever any of them said anything about the Hall not being the most perfect place in the entire universe. ‘Dad knows what he’s talking about,’ she’d said. Fine, Spencer thought. If Dad wants to tell visitors that the blue jug he’d bought the week before in some junk shop was six hundred years old and had arrived in Australia on a ship with Captain Hook or Cook or whatever, then that was his business.
It had been funny one day recently when Spencer was showing a group around. His dad appeared in the dining room, all dressed up and with that cloth thing around his neck as if he was going to a wedding, putting on the really posh voice he used in front of visitors, calling Spencer ‘son’. ‘That’s right, son. I couldn’t put it better myself.’ Spencer found it a bit weird. Of course he was his son. He was hardly the family dog.
His dad had taken over, telling all sorts of stories and making a fuss about the big glass vase on the table between the two windows. It was from the nineteenth century, he told everyone. It had been lying covered in dust in the Hall’s pantry for years, until he, Henry Templeton, at the time living in England and working in antiques, had learnt of his inheritance of the Hall and arrived in Australia with his wife and four children.
The Hall had been full of hidden treasures like that, he told them. A treasure trove of wonders. People nodded a lot, Spencer remembered, although a boy his own age just stood there pulling faces at him and picking his nose. Then a man who’d been having a close look at the vase put up his hand and started talking really loudly. He was an expert in that sort of glass, he told Spencer’s dad, and that vase wasn’t even fifty years old, let alone one hundred.
‘But this is terrible!’ Spencer’s dad had said. ‘Someone must have substituted a fake. The one that was there was certified by experts. I have the certificate somewhere. It’s registered with Sotheby’s. You’re telling me it’s a fake?’
‘It’s worthless,’ the man said. Spencer remembered him having quite red cheeks, as if he had run a race. ‘You’ve had a thief in the house. And if you don’t mind me saying, your whole approach here is very risky and opens you up to exactly this kind of crime.’
‘But if we can’t trust people in our home, where can we trust them?’ his dad had said.
Since that day, any time any visitor announced they were an expert on something, or questioned an item’s authenticity, there was a ‘new rule of behaviour’ to observe. They were to thank and congratulate the person, ‘quietly and firmly’, their father said, for noticing, and also ask them to keep the news to themselves. They were right, it was a copy. They had been advised by their insurers and the local police that they’d been too relaxed about displaying treasured family heirlooms. So ‘regrettably’ (it had taken Spencer a few attempts to pronounce that word) the family was forced to lock away the most valuable items, and put nearly identical but less valuable copies in their place.
‘You shouldn’t say it’s original, then,’ a man said to Charlotte one afternoon, when Spencer was under the piano, listening. The man was cross about Charlotte telling his group that a painting over the fireplace in the drawing room was an original Gainsborough from the 1780s, commissioned by a member of the Templeton family. Charlotte had followed her father’s directions to the letter, gently drawing the man aside and explaining that there was an original in a bank safe in Castlemaine but in the interests of protecting the family’s assets, this copy had been hung in its place.
‘That’s false advertising, then. We paid good money for this tour and your brochure says all the interior decorations are authentic to the period.’
‘And so they are,’ Charlotte said. ‘This copy is from the 1860s. Thieves didn’t just appear this century, you know. Our great-great-grandfather in Yorkshire had this copy made after coming home from a shooting party and disturbing a thief about to cut the original from its frame. In many ways, it’s almost as valuable, don’t you think?’
Spencer asked her about it afterwards. He didn’t remember his father telling him that story. Charlotte just laughed. ‘Of course it’s not true, Spencer. What do I know about nineteenth-century forgery practices? Remember Dad’s second golden rule? If in doubt, make it up. Do it quickly and then move on.’
It was a lesson Spencer had taken to heart. He’d got away with it too, so far. His Aunt Hope had listened in one afternoon, standing in a corner of the room in that creepy way she did sometimes, hardly moving or even blinking. Her zombie mood, Spencer called it. He toned down his stories that day, but he probably needn’t have bothered. Hope just stood there for a while, doing that thing where she scratched her arm over and over before wandering out again. He’d thought about saying something funny about her being the house’s resident ghost but then his mother had come in and he was glad he hadn’t. His mum got very fierce very quickly if any of them said anything about Hope.
Still, he didn’t have to worry about doing the tours now for another week. He had his own projects to work on instead. The stink bomb had just been a practice run, but amazingly easy. Coming up next, just as soon as he’d saved up enough to buy all the ingredients he needed, would be the very best project of all.
He created a new list in his head. Future Good Things.
The fire-spewing volcano was top of the list.
In her room, Hope was trying to make the inch of wine in her glass last as long as possible. The bottle on the floor beside her was empty. How could that be, she wondered, staring at it. It must have been half empty when she got it out of her wardrobe. She couldn’t have drunk it all already, surely?
She took a small sip. Then another. Another. All tiny ones but as quickly as possible, trying to relax, trying to calm herself, trying to stop checking the door every two minutes to make sure no one was about to come bursting in. She hadn’t meant to cause a fuss today, she truly hadn’t, but when the police car turned up and she saw Gracie being carried in, she’d thought the worst, thought that Gracie had been killed. Even when she learnt the truth, that it was just a minor accident, it was too late, her nerves were jangling, the anxiety had set in, the tears too …
Not that anyone understood, Eleanor especially, trying to shush her, saying that Gracie’s accident had nothing to do with her. But of course it did. She knew what they were all saying. If Hope hadn’t been there, causing problems, the Hall would be running like clockwork, the vases would have been filled with flowers and Gracie wouldn’t have had to drive into town. Did they think she didn’t know what they were all thinking about her? Even as she’d tried to apologise for her tears, for getting so upset, even though she’d slipped away as quickly as she could back to her room, their voices had stayed with her. She’d sat on her bed for five minutes, telling herself that of course she could get through this without a drink, she just needed to calm down, to think of something else, all the things she’d been taught in different consulting rooms over the years. But her own voice wasn’t strong enough. That other louder, stronger, nicer voice inside her started talking. She liked what it had to say. One drink wouldn’t hurt, would it? It would take the edge off everything, make everything feel better, wouldn’t it?
And it did. It always did. It just didn’t last, that was the problem. It was a big, big problem, she thought, gazing again at the empty glass in her hand. Why did people make wine bottles so small? Why didn’t someone invent an alcohol patch like a nicotine patch? Some sort of hidden device, like a morphine drip, that would keep a nice steady supply of alcohol drip-dripping into her vein, keep her nice and steady all day long, without anyone needing to know? She glanced over at the wardrobe, knowing she had another full bottle hidden behind her winter coats. No, she wouldn’t get it. She’d be strong. She didn’t need it. It wasn’t good to mix her medication with alcohol. Besides, the way her luck was going lately, Eleanor would walk in just as she’d taken out the cork and there’d only be another lecture, another reminder of how awful it had been that time Eleanor had found her on the floor of her London flat.
‘I thought you were dead, Hope. I thought you’d killed yourself. Can you even try to imagine how I felt?’
‘How you felt? It wasn’t exactly fun having my stomach pumped out.’
She’d been trying to be funny, but of course Eleanor had got all high and mighty again. No sense of humour. She’d never had one. Anyway, for heaven’s sake, why did she have to keep going on about that day? So she’d happened to drop round just in time. What did she want, a medal? Where was her Good Samaritan spirit? They were sisters, weren’t they? Family? She would help Eleanor if she ever needed it, of course she would. If Eleanor ever stopped being so bloody perfect and showed some vulnerability or understanding once in a blue moon … Anyway, why was there such a fuss about her choosing to dull her pain with the occasional drink? Eleanor should be glad it was only alcohol and a few tablets. What if it had been heroin or another class-A drug?
‘It’s just wine, Eleanor,’ she’d said to her last time Eleanor had started on one of her tedious lectures. ‘It’s legal, isn’t it?’
Even now, Hope could hear Eleanor’s voice, at her, at her, all the time, like a bloody machine gun. I’m begging you, Hope, please don’t do this to yourself again. Please Hope, don’t drink any more. Please, Hope, don’t mix alcohol and tablets like that. Please Hope, don’t make a fuss. Please, Hope, change everything about yourself. Please, Hope, try to be as good and saintly and married and motherly as me …
Oh, please, Eleanor, shut up and mind your own fu—. Just in time, Hope realised she was talking out loud.
It was all right for Eleanor, of course. It had always been all right for Eleanor. Always gone so perfectly: marriage, babies, career satisfaction. But had she ever shown her own sister any sympathy? No, of course not. Had she cared when Hope’s heart had been broken, time and time again? Understood how she’d felt that time she thought she was pregnant, and the father had said he didn’t want to know? So what if she’d been mistaken, that her period had just been late? Eleanor had shown her true colours that day, going on and on about her own problems, the children being unwell or something boring like that, actually saying to Hope that she ‘didn’t have time for this right now’. No time for her own sister’s heartache and pain.
Hope stood up. Damn it. Damn her and damn all of them. She wanted a drink, so why couldn’t she just have a drink? Who were they, any of them, to tell her how to live her life? Her life. The life she had given up for them. Hadn’t she flown all the way across the world to give them a hand with this ridiculous Hall? Hadn’t she spent hundreds, maybe even thousands, of unpaid hours helping Henry to design and plant the garden? Had Eleanor or Henry ever thanked her? No. Never. Too busy, all the time. Too busy loving each other, being so happily married all the time. As for the children. No gratitude from them either, ever. That brat Charlotte was the worst of them, the arrogant little cow. What she needed was a good kick up the … As for Audrey – had there ever been a more self-obsessed child in the world? The way she wafted around the house as if she was the bloody Lady in the Lake, it would make you sick. And Gracie? Well, all right, Gracie could be sweet, but if she didn’t watch herself she’d end up too sweet. Thank God for Spencer. At least he had a bit of spirit. More to the point, thank God for that little arrangement she had with Spencer …
The empty wine glass was annoying her now. Really annoying her. So was the empty wine bottle. Swaying only slightly, she tiptoed across the room to her wardrobe. It was so childish. So embarrassing. At her age, still hiding bottles as if she was back in boarding school. While downstairs she could just picture them all, Henry especially, pontificating, helping himself to another whisky, then another. What was the difference? Seriously, what was the difference between him having too many drinks and her drinking, every night? ‘But, Hope, I don’t need to drink. I can stop any time I like.’ Oh, shut up, Henry, and you shut up too, Eleanor. She realised she’d shouted that and waited, poised at the wardrobe door, for movement in the hall. Nothing. Good.
Stuff it. She would have another drink. She’d never get to sleep now without it. Just a small one. Just to get her to sleep. As she opened the wardrobe door, she was smiling.
In their bedroom, Henry and Eleanor were fighting. Eleanor had come in from saying goodnight to Gracie to find Henry already in bed, reading a newly arrived copy of Antiques Australia.
‘I thought you were going to do the accounts tonight?’ Eleanor said.
‘Too tired, I decided. No point doing them when I’m not at my best.’
‘You haven’t been at your best for the past two months, then? Longer? Henry, this is getting serious.’
‘Eleanor,’ he said her name in a mocking tone, ‘your problem is you think everything is serious.’
‘No, my problem is I’m starting to think I am the only one in this house, in this family, who takes our problems seriously. You do nothing but stick your head in the sand.’
‘I’ll do them when I’m feeling up to it.’
She snatched the magazine away from him. ‘And when will that be, Henry? When the house falls down around our ears because we can’t afford the most basic of repairs? When the visitor numbers dwindle to zero because you haven’t felt like advertising or because you’re too busy doing your family tree or entertaining yourself rather than anyone who happens to stumble upon us? Have you checked the bank statements lately? The money from that silverware sale is practically gone and you know the electricity bill is due any day. You’re not even trying any more, are you? Do you think all the vases and those chairs you were so thrilled to find are going to sell themselves?’
‘I think I preferred it when you were in awe of me. The sweet little Eleanor I met twenty years ago would never have talked to me like this.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Henry.’
‘I’m not patronising you. I’m telling the truth. You were much easier to handle back then. Darling, you’re just tired. Upset about Gracie.’
‘Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I’m upset about Gracie. But I am also completely and utterly tired and upset with you. How many more excuses, Henry? Do you know what Gracie’s just asked me in there? Why people call us the mad bloody Templetons. Why we think we own the place.’
‘We do. Well, most of it. I think the bank might have an interest in the stable roof.’
‘It’s not a joke, Henry. I’m not joking.’
‘No, Eleanor, but you are shouting and I don’t want you to wake the children any more than you do. You’re tired, I’m tired, it’s been a busy day. Come here. Come here and let me give you a kiss.’
‘I don’t want a kiss. I want you to fix everything you promised you’d fix and haven’t. I want you to bring in more money. I want you to do all the accounts you said you’d do months ago. I want Charlotte to start behaving, I want Audrey to stop all this acting nonsense, I want Gracie to stop being so anxious and earnest about everything, I want Spencer to stop plotting to blow us all up.’ She was now somewhere between laughter and tears, even as Henry patted the bed beside him, reached for her and drew her closer. ‘I want a normal family life, Henry. Is that too much to ask?’
‘Yes, darling. I’m sorry, but it is.’ He held her closely as she gave in to the tears. ‘That’s not all, though, is it?’
She didn’t raise her head from his shoulder but she shook her head. He stroked her back, her hair, held her tighter. Her words were muffled and he had to ask her to repeat them. She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye.
‘I want Hope to go. I want her to leave me alone. Leave all of us alone. She’s ruining our lives. She tried to do it in England and nearly succeeded and she’s trying to do it again.’
‘She can’t help it, Eleanor. She’s not well.’
She shook his hands off her at the same time she shook her head against his words. ‘I don’t care, Henry. I don’t care any more. I just want her to go.’