Lisa was hoping to sneak back to Castlemaine with just the boys, but Maxine had a sixth sense whenever people tried to arrange things behind her back. She insisted they wouldn’t want to be going out there in that old Kombi van. So early next morning, the boys—Ted’s flatmate was such a regular feature Lisa was starting to think of them that way—squeezed into the Golf’s back seat.
Winter had dusted the landscape with frost. Trees stood bare, their branches spreading latticework patterns against a defiant blue sky. Livestock were scattered sparsely over the land.
‘Does it ever rain out here?’ Lisa asked.
‘Not enough,’ Maxine sighed.
Lisa warned the boys the house was a dump. Nevertheless, her heart pulsed in her ears as they pulled up outside the gates.
A ‘For Sale’ sign had been hammered to the post that still had its sphere. ‘Renovate or Detonate!’ it read. ‘Tired old lady on 5 acres. Five bedrooms plus stables. Call Beverley Green at Hogan & Hogan.’
‘Whoever wrote that flunked Marketing 101,’ the Kiwi flatmate mumbled.
Lisa was beginning to like him. ‘What is his name again?’ Lisa whispered, drawing Ted aside.
‘M-um!’ Ted groaned, rolling his eyes. ‘It’s James.’
Lisa scanned the area for the cockatoo, hoping he was still alive. The boys were already halfway down the driveway. She grabbed her handbag and followed.
‘We should call the agent first!’ Maxine barked after them.
Lisa caught up with the boys, panting, as they plunged into the shadows of the pines and rounded the bend.
‘I’m not going down there until we have permission!’ Maxine’s voice echoed off the tree trunks.
Whoever had designed the manor had arranged it to be seen from this spot just past the curve in the driveway. At a slight angle, it was more welcoming than imposing. The portico reached over the entrance, offering shelter to visiting carriages. Engraved on a central panel above the front door was ‘Trumperton Manor 1860’.
No effort had gone into dollying up the house for sale. In fact, it seemed to have deteriorated since the last time Lisa saw it. Dust caked the windows. Cobwebs shimmered in the eaves. An old gas lamp lay in a clump of grass like a fallen soldier.
‘My god!’ whispered Ted.
‘You’re right,’ Lisa said. ‘It’s a disaster.’
‘It’s fantastic!’
She felt a rush of delight. Ted had enough Trumperton blood in his veins to connect with the place. She snapped a photo with her phone and sent it to Portia with the message ‘Yr g/gfather’s house. Like 2 spend Xmas here?’ She was joking, . . . sort of.
‘Defs!!!’ Portia replied immediately.
‘Do you think anyone’s home?’ Ted asked.
They scanned windows that were blank as the eyes of the dead. The stables were silent. There was no sign of life in the garden, either. They crept through patches of wild grass and up the front steps. Lisa hesitated at the front door. They were being cheeky. Maybe Maxine was right and they should call the agent.
She turned and gasped at the view from the veranda. Eucalyptus trees rustled on either side of the front paddock, silvery threads of vapour rose from the creek as it snaked across the valley, and folds of golden grass rolled towards blue hills in the distance. ‘Imagine waking up to that every morning!’ she sighed.
‘The soil’s not bad, either,’ James said. ‘Volcanic, by the look of it. Good enough for an organic vegetable garden. Looks like there’s an orchard out the back. With this amount of land, you could grow enough to sell at market.’
‘I thought you’d gone off farming?’ Lisa teased.
James blushed. ‘Just sheep shit I’ve had a gutful of,’ he muttered.
‘I reckon you could get irrigation from that creek,’ Ted added.
‘The house needs a lot of work,’ Lisa said, glancing up at the sagging roof.
‘It’s doable,’ Ted said.
Doable was one of Ted’s architect words. It sounded so capable.
‘You wouldn’t have to do it all at once,’ James chimed in.
‘It could happen in stages,’ Ted added.
‘Wouldn’t it be expensive to heat?’ Lisa asked, trying to sound practical.
‘Dunno,’ Ted said. ‘With insulation and a few discreet solar panels about the place it could end up contributing energy to the grid. You could reach the point of getting money from the power company instead of the other way around.’
So Ted could imagine her living here, too.
Lisa glanced up at the front door. Two panels of stained glass refused to offer a glimpse of what lay behind. Bubbles of grey paint revealed handsome old-fashioned wood underneath—oak, mahogany or some other timber sent from the old country by sailing ship. A large circular doorknocker, rusted with age, dared them to reach up and touch it.
‘C’mon, you townies,’ James said, stretching a freckled hand over Lisa’s head and seizing the hoop. ‘They’re not going to bite our heads off.’
To everyone’s horror, the metal ring dislodged from the door and came off in the young man’s hand.
‘Crikey!’
James tried to shove it back in position, but the metal pins were exhausted with age. He laid the doorknocker reverently beside the front step.
Lisa wanted to flee, but Ted was emboldened by the mini disaster. He strode across the veranda to a nearby window. Shading his eyes, he peered through the murk and beckoned her over.
Though much of the room was concealed in shadow it appeared quite spacious. Apart from a lavishly tiled fireplace, it was boarding-house plain, with tired beige walls and bare floorboards. The room was empty except for a single piece of furniture—a decrepit sofa.
Lisa thrilled at the thought of Alexander, dressed in evening attire, strolling across that floor before pausing to warm his hands at a crackling fire. Who knows? Perhaps he even sat on that sofa? She could almost see him raising a crystal glass to his lips and looking at her with those sad, pale eyes, confusion flickering across his face as if he’d seen a ghost from the future gazing through the window at him. She smiled. Perhaps the real Alexander had experienced an eerie moment countless years ago. Or was it him doing the haunting? She raised her hand and the vision evaporated.
‘There’s something I’d like to show you,’ James said, jolting her into the present.
She followed him around the side of the house to the orchard. Rows of fruit trees radiated from an old apple tree in the centre, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.
‘Must be a hundred years old,’ James said, patting the old tree’s twisted trunk. ‘It’ll produce great apples. You know, the old-fashioned sort that’s bittersweet.’
It was good of him to drag her out but it was just a tree. She turned to go back to the house.
‘Hang on!’ he called. James wedged his boot in a cleft between the trunk and a lower branch and, with the ease of a jungle primate, swung himself upwards. She averted her gaze from the flash of underpants only just covering his buttocks.
‘Look here,’ he said, pointing out a shape in the silvery bark.
Someone had carved a heart in the trunk a long time ago. A couple had stood under these branches and been very much in love. Though the air was cold, a wave of warmth washed through her.