The developer was unwilling to lose the battle for Trumperton Manor. Every time Beverley phoned, the price went up another five thousand dollars. Just when Lisa couldn’t go any higher and prepared herself for the worst, her opposition slunk away. Apparently his backer had suddenly become a ‘person of interest’ to the federal police and he’d taken himself and his bank account off to Asia.
Lisa couldn’t wait to visit Aunt Caroline in the nursing home to share the wonderful news. But the old woman spent most of the time wittering about cruising the Med on the royal yacht Britannia with Queen Elizabeth and that handsome Prince Philip. When Lisa interrupted Aunt Caroline to shout for the third time that she’d bought Trumperton Manor, the old girl finally fixed her with a vivid blue eye. ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’ she said, before changing the subject.
The day after the Wrights finally accepted her offer, Lisa bought a battered green Camry station wagon. It had belonged to a friend of Ted’s who was moving to Berlin to do a PhD in immunology. The brakes were soft, but Ted assured her it was in good nick.
The Camry smelt of dog and old socks. The back third of the vehicle looked particularly worn. Maybe it had doubled as a meth lab. But with the back seats down, there was heaps of space for whatever country people stowed in their vehicles. Pitchforks?
Once Lisa got the hang of the hand-shift gears, she rattled through the streets of Camberwell with an irrational sense of freedom. She’d always pitied people who gave their cars names, but the rust bucket was screaming to be christened, so secretly she named it Dino, after the Flintstone’s pet dinosaur.
Maxine was far from overjoyed to have ‘that thing’ parked outside her house. She was in an almost permanent grump these days, though she was kind enough to offer up an assortment of cobwebby kitchen chairs, an old wardrobe and a twenty-year old fridge. She also threw in the old oak table that’d languished in the shed for decades.
Lisa melted at the sight of the furniture she’d grown up with. Its borer-ridden surface had witnessed countless family rows. She found the extension boards nestled in the shadows behind Gordon’s workbench. With the boards in place, the table could seat ten or twelve.
For the remaining month, Lisa did her best to make herself invisible. She shut herself away with the sea captain for hours on end, hunched over her computer, tapping away. Even though she was behind schedule with the book, sentences were starting to trickle. Buying the manor had somehow knocked the edges off her writer’s block.
Much as Lisa worshipped the Brontë sisters, one aspect of their work wore her down—the men. From Heathcliff to Mr Rochester, the men were mostly brutes who were kinder to their dogs than to women. They bathed in the power that went with their wealth and could brood and take off with floozies as they pleased. Meanwhile, the female characters’ piercing intelligence did little to rescue the women from their horrific lives.
Lisa wanted to make the male characters in Three Sisters more appealing to the twenty-first century reader. Emily’s earl was turning out to be more of a metrosexual. Frederick the stablehand had the sort of well-sculpted body she’d seen in gyms.
‘Someone’s here to see you,’ Maxine announced, sweeping into the room and pulling back the Jolly Roger curtains. Lisa checked the calendar on her phone. Twenty-three days to go.
‘Who?’
‘That bastard.’
‘Jake?’ Lisa said, incredulous. Wasn’t Australia far enough away to avoid seeing him?
Maxine crossed her arms, as though confirming the death of a family pet. ‘Thinks he can turn up out of nowhere. I’m not having him on the property.’
Lisa peered through the netting. Her heart melted momentarily at the sight of Jake standing in the driveway. Rugged up in a black parka, he was barking into his phone. Same old Jake. Physically in one place, mentally somewhere else.
‘He refuses to leave,’ Maxine says.
Lisa glanced in the mirror and scrunched her hair. Her eyes were amphibious from hours of computer time. In the hallway were Maxine’s ugg boots, lying like a pair of discarded pups. Lisa dived into them before walking down the frost-lined path.
Jake slid his phone into his pocket and flashed a smile designed to turn babies and little old ladies to mush. ‘You’ve gone native,’ he said. ‘Never thought I’d see you in those things.’
‘Not mine,’ she said, glancing down at the ugg boots. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was in the neighbourhood. Singapore, to be exact. Thought I might as well drop by.’ Jake treated aeroplanes like country busses. He was immune to jet lag.
‘Have you seen Portia?’
‘Last week. She’s getting heaps of work in animal costumes.’
‘Like the Lion King?’
‘No. Kids’ parties.’
‘Is she eating?’
‘Dunno. She ate something when I saw her last week . . . It was green, I think.’
Clearly Jake was too focused on his own life to worry about his daughter’s health. He’d certainly been looking after himself. His teeth had an unnatural glow and his hair seemed darker. The distinguished grey around his temples had vanished.
‘How’s . . . Belle?’
‘Amazing!’ He hugged his chest and scuffed his feet in imaginary snow. ‘Everything’s great. I feel so . . . energised. We’ve started jogging.’
Jake hated running.
‘We’re thinking of doing a half-marathon.’
‘Good on you.’
‘She took me to hot yoga. It’s spiritual, all that sweating, you know. They wouldn’t let me out till I fainted.’
Jake was talking to her as if she was his mother. She played along and gave him the approval he hungered for. ‘Looks like you’ve lost weight, too,’ she said.
‘High-protein diet.’
He used to make fun of her protein bars.
‘Works wonders,’ he added. ‘Apart from the constipation.’
‘That’s what the kids would call TMI,’ Lisa said.
‘What?’
‘Too much information to share with an ex-wife.’
‘Oh. I guess you are now. What’s this I hear about you buying a dump in the country?’
He’d been talking to Ted.
‘You should’ve rented first. I mean, how long is Ted going to stay in Australia, really? I know he says now that he wants to stay, but it won’t last.’
Lisa looked up at a bird shivering on a wire. She’d had enough of other people’s advice. Besides, Jake had relinquished his right to offer any. ‘How’s work?’
‘Oh, the usual,’ he sighed. ‘No fun being an old bull in a paddock of ambitious calves.’
‘Maybe it’s time to leave the farm.’
‘Seems I’ve been banned from the dragon’s lair,’ he said. Jake gazed up at the curtains twitching in Maxine’s window. ‘There’s a good looking café on the corner. Don’t suppose you’re free for lunch?’
To drink coffee with Jake, to laugh with him and talk about the kids . . . Her brain kicked in just in time. ‘No thanks. I’m working.’ She turned and scurried up the path.
Maxine greeted her at the door.
‘What did he want?’
‘Nothing.’
‘How long’s he here for?’
‘Forgot to ask.’
Settled back at the computer, a fresh plotline flashed into Lisa’s brain. An older man, a parson from a nearby parish, would take a shine to Emily. She would quickly see him for what he was—vain and insecure, his hair oily with black boot polish in a futile attempt to camouflage the grey.