‘You’re nuts,’ Maxine said.
Hogan & Hogan’s window was a patchwork of yellowing photos. Most of the properties seemed to have been on the market since the year David Bowie discovered hair gel. Trumperton Manor was at the centre of the bottom row with ‘NEW!’ scrawled in bright-red letters across one corner. Underneath, a large fly lay on its back on the window ledge. It wriggled its legs as if receiving intermittent electrical shocks. A small white dog, its feathery tail tied up in a red ribbon, placed its front paws on the ledge. The dog put its head to one side, rolled out its tongue and with a flash of its diamante collar devoured the fly.
‘That place was built for an army of servants,’ Maxine added. ‘You need a low-maintenance property, especially after your health scare.’
That was a low blow. ‘You mean I should buy a hospital?’
Ted and James excused themselves to explore Castlemaine’s café scene.
‘You don’t want this old dump,’ Maxine grumbled. There’s nothing wrong with that townhouse. Remember Lucy Jordan?’
‘Who?’
‘You know. The Marianne Faithfull song. She reaches thirty-seven and realises she’ll never ride through Paris in a sports car?’
‘Castlemaine’s hardly Paris.’
‘All I’m saying is, every woman gets to a point where she’s done everything she’s going to do. You can’t take risks anymore.’
‘Didn’t she commit suicide?’
‘Who, Marianne Faithfull?’
‘No, Lucy Jordan. Doesn’t she throw herself off a building at the end of the song?’
‘God, I don’t know! My point is . . . ’
‘My point is, I don’t have the luxury of not taking risks,’ Lisa shot back. ‘My kids took off to different corners of the world and my husband walked out on me.’
A vision of pink and rhinestone appeared in the property agent’s doorway. ‘Can I help you two ladies?’
The agent—if that was what she was—wore a Barbie-pink jacket squeezed over a sequined top. It was difficult to tell if the strip of fabric over her thighs was a skirt or a belt. Her cleavage was deep enough to be seen from Google Earth. The heels of her matching pink boots were so high she was practically standing on tiptoe.
The sisters regained composure.
‘We’re just wondering about this property,’ Lisa said.
‘Trumpington Manor?’
‘Trumperton,’ Lisa corrected.
The agent sighed, running a hand through her mane of blonde hair extensions. ‘Yes, well, it’s as pooped as my uncle’s prostate. The owners have already accepted an offer from a developer. He’s going to knock it down and put in a subdivision of new houses.’
Lisa flushed with rage. How could anyone get away with such vandalism?
‘But the contract’s not signed yet,’ the agent said, clearly tuning into Lisa’s reaction. ‘You could always put in a better offer.’
Offering a hand of glittering rings and beaming from under a canopy of false eyelashes, the agent introduced herself as Beverley Hogan. ‘Want to take a look, anyway?’ she asked. ‘It’s nothing a demolition ball won’t cure. You could put in one of those lovely kit homes.’
‘I’d never knock it down,’ Lisa replied. ‘It’s a magnificent building.’
‘Oh, you could fix the outside up all right,’ Beverly said, changing course. ‘My ex could help with that. But, really, the place is a knock-down.’
‘So you set up this business with your second husband?’ Maxine asked.
‘Hell no! I married Bob, the younger Hogan, a couple of months ago.’
The sisters offered restrained congratulations.
‘Anyway, Scottie could fix the outside in a lizard’s blink,’ Beverley said, fumbling in a tiny silver shoulder bag before pressing a card into Lisa’s hand. ‘I’ll get the keys and meet you there.’
Lisa glanced at the card in her hand. ‘Scott Green Landscaping, Project Management and Garden Maintenance—Special Rates for Pensioners!’ it read.
When they pulled up outside the manor’s front gates, Maxine consented to venture onto the property—providing everyone understood she was driven by curiosity, not approval.
Beverley cursed when she saw the doorknocker lying on the step. ‘Hooligans,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll send Bob to Bunnings to get a new one.’
Ted grimaced at the prospect of exchanging a historical relic for a cheap imitation.
Beverley produced an ancient metal rod almost as long as her hand. ‘Guess they never lost their keys in those days,’ she said, rattling it in the reluctant lock.
Lisa held her breath as the door creaked open on a large entrance hall. Though panelled in dark wood, the space was bathed in shafts of colour. She glanced up to see the source of the light—a huge leadlight window above a central stairway glowing with images of roses gleaming against writhing green foliage.
The hallway might’ve been welcoming once, but now the air smelt mouldy and it was festooned with spiderwebs. Though Australia’s arachnids had a fearsome reputation, they barely registered with Lisa. Anything that could be sucked up by a vacuum cleaner didn’t warrant attention, as far as she was concerned. And anyway, she figured people weren’t entitled to more than one phobia each, and her personal nemesis was snakes.
‘How come it’s on the market?’ she asked.
‘The current owners lived here since Moses was in nappies.’ Beverley’s voice bounced off walls fissured with age. ‘The old woman inherited the old dump from her mum. The maintenance got too much for them. They moved to the cottage across the road.’
Lisa hadn’t noticed any other houses in the neighbourhood.
She turned left into a room that overlooked the driveway. There, the floor was a patchwork of shabby linoleum, and a sheet of stained plywood covered what was probably a fireplace. Curtains hung like dishcloths, and the walls were cracked and painted snot-green.
‘The old couple were sleeping in here,’ Beverley explained. ‘It used to be the library.’ She led them back to the hallway and into the room with the sofa. The settee was an old rollback, and resembled an abandoned animal with its seat sagging to the floor and stuffing vomiting out of its arms.
‘Bet they had a few booze-ups in here,’ Beverley winked.
Ted crouched beside the fireplace and rubbed his hands in front of an imaginary blaze. For a moment, Lisa saw Alexander again.
Beverley escorted them past the stairs to a large kitchen at the back of the house. ‘Reckon they had to squeeze a few servants in here,’ Beverley said.
Taps leaned at drunken angles, and the walk-in pantry smelt of vinegar and damp.
An ancient wood-burning stove sulked in an alcove. ‘We used to have one of these on the farm,’ James said, smiling. He bent to turn the handle of the heavy metal door. An avalanche of black grit spilled onto the floor. ‘Looks like there’s been a cremation. I reckon I could get it going.’
Lisa rattled the lock of a back door that must have opened onto the yard between the kitchen and stables, but Beverley said the key was back at the office.
A narrow passageway led from the kitchen to a set of small rooms, including a utilitarian lavatory with a wooden seat and chain flush. ‘Scullery and servants’ quarters,’ Beverley said.
Lisa wondered what life had been like for servants at Trumperton Manor. She hoped her ancestors had treated them fairly.
‘That was put up after the original servants’ quarters burned down in the early 1900s,’ Beverley explained. ‘Those weatherboards have got white ants, I reckon.’
Either country land agents were more honest than their urban colleagues, or Beverley was still in training.
‘What about the stables?’
‘Nothing much there,’ Beverley said quickly.
‘Is there room to park a car under cover?’
‘Let’s concentrate on the house.’
Lisa wondered why Beverley was unwilling to open the stables. Maybe it housed a dynasty of rats or worse. She’d never recovered from the time her cousin Trevor from Bendigo chased her with a snake. It was probably harmless, but she was only six or seven at the time.
‘I’ve saved the best for last,’ Beverley said, clattering up the staircase.
Lisa ran her hand over the smooth balustrade and tingled at the thought of Alexander doing exactly the same thing.
‘Great for sliding down,’ James said.
Honestly. How old was this kid, twenty-six? No generation had been better educated or taken so long to grow up.
They paused at a small landing under the leadlight window. ‘Four bedrooms and a bathroom up there,’ Beverley said. The stairs twisted in a dogleg to reach a space on the upper floor.
Beverley led them up the stairs to a set of double doors that opened onto a long room. The tall windows were draped with curtains so ragged they were practically translucent. The fireplace was handsomely carved with a built-in mirror that was speckled with age. Lisa tried to imagine the scenes that mirror had reflected.
‘The old ballroom,’ Beverley said, opening French doors onto a generous balcony formed by the portico beneath. ‘I reckon you could make it the master bedroom.’
Stepping outside and gazing across the valley, the group inhaled a single breath. The mist had lifted and the hills were drenched in amber. A tinge of lemon outlined the hills before dissolving into limitless blue sky.
‘Spectacular,’ breathed Ted.
The air exploded with husky screeches. A flock of cockatoos spiralled off a gum tree to regroup on the paddock below.
‘Greedy buggers,’ Beverley said. ‘They scoff all the crops.’
Lisa craned her neck to identify the parrot from the other day. Maybe he’d learnt to fly again. But the larrikin skydivers looked all the same.
‘Doesn’t it have a heritage order?’ Lisa asked.
‘Not that anyone talks about. If I were you I’d flatten it and subdivide. People are flooding into Castlemaine these days. All the city slickers are wanting a tree change. Pick the best bit of land and put up a nice place for yourself, throw in six or seven houses around it and you’ll be set for life. I’ll sell them off the plan for you.’
Lisa glanced towards the gum trees opposite the driveway entrance. A spiral of smoke rose from a chimney in the depths of the silvery forest. So that’s where the manor’s current owners lived. She wondered if they might be open to some creative negotiation.
A hunched figure hobbled towards the roadside letterbox. Lisa raised a hand. The old woman looked up, but didn’t respond.
‘They’re keen to sell,’ Beverley added. ‘If you can top the other offer, it’s yours.’
Lisa sensed it was time to play her trump card.
‘We have family connections to this place, you know.’
‘Really?’ Beverley’s interest was piqued.
‘Yes, my grandfather, I mean our grandfather,’ she nodded towards Maxine, who’d wandered off to the other end of the balcony. ‘Was a Trumperton.’
Lisa waited for Beverley’s reaction. It wasn’t the warm recognition she’d expected. ‘I thought they died out,’ Beverley said, inspecting the heel of her boot.
‘Who, the Trumpertons? Well I suppose technically the name died with Dad. But we’re still here.’
‘Oh.’
‘I thought it’d be great to bring the house back into the family . . .’
The agent eased the ridiculous piece of footwear off her leg. She turned it upside down and shook it. A pebble flew out and rolled across the mosaic tiles. ‘You were thinking of living here alone?’ she asked.
‘I write for a living and . . .’
‘Wouldn’t you rattle around in it? I mean, for one person . . . I sure as hell wouldn’t do it. They reckon the place is haunted. And in any case, the other offer’s a very good one. It’s already underway, so technically the house isn’t really for sale at all . . .’
What was wrong with the woman? ‘But you said the deal’s not signed,’ Lisa said. ‘Isn’t it your job to get the best price?’
‘Your ideas just seem a little fanciful, that’s all,’ Beverley replied.
‘Thank God someone’s talking sense!’ Maxine flounced past and strode inside. ‘It’s freezing out here.’
‘I can’t believe you think it’s okay to pull this magnificent place down,’ Lisa said, aware her tone was becoming strident.
Beverley’s lip curled with amusement. ‘I don’t know if you realise it, coming from—where did you say?’
‘New York . . . but I’m from here, really. Well not here. I was born in Melbourne.’
Beverley gazed glumly down at her clipboard. She drew a line of frowning faces on her clipboard with her diamante-encrusted pen. ‘We’ve been in drought for years. The land’s drier than a lizard’s dick.’
‘But you said your ex could help?’
‘Actually he’s flat out landscaping the new medical centre.’
The change in Beverley’s mood was extraordinary.
‘Is it true there was a scandal here?’ Lisa asked quietly.
Beverley turned pinker than her jacket. ‘Every house has stories,’ she said, clicking her pen.
‘What happened?’
Across the valley a kookaburra cackled like a lunatic.
‘I don’t know the details.’
The woman was frustrating beyond words. Lisa walked over to Ted and James, who were locked in conversation.
‘A developer’s going to tear it down and cover the land in McMansions,’ she said, her heart thudding.
Ted’s mouth dropped open.
‘We can’t let it happen,’ she said. ‘This house is our heritage.’
Ted and James looked at each other. ‘If you buy it, we’ll help fix it up,’ Ted said.
‘Really?’
‘Weekends, holidays that sort of thing . . .’
‘You mean it?’
‘Yeah, we’ll fling a few paintbrushes around.’ James nodded in agreement.
Lisa felt a frisson of excitement.
‘We’ll help you move in. Your stuff will fit in the Kombi.’
Lisa willed her thoughts into slow motion. Her mathematical calculations always erred on the optimistic. The asking price for Trumperton Manor couldn’t be much more than the townhouse. The renovations would cost a bomb, but she could just about live in the old house as it stood. Maybe she could enrol in DIY night classes. The mortgage would be a stretch. On the other hand, Three Sisters: Charlotte had been sold to Germany.
Setting her jaw, she strode back to Beverley. ‘What’s the offer you have on the table?’