Days melted into one another, and Lisa grew accustomed to the house’s eccentricities. The third tread on the stairs always squeaked. Her study windows rattled. The toilet in the servants’ quarters had to be flushed twice. She grew fond of these peculiarities the way a person warms to the mole on a child’s nose. At night, the walls closed in and wrapped themselves around her like the paws of a friendly bear.
Lisa was beginning to understand that Trumperton was a house to live with rather than in. She seldom felt alone or frightened, though since her conversation with Scott, she’d avoided the stables. The big old doors were too heavy, and it was dark and smelly in there. Besides, Dino was perfectly happy parked outside, and she found it far more convenient to store gardening equipment in the servants’ quarters.
Though she loved the house, part of her knew it wouldn’t be truly hers until she’d brought the grounds back to life. Magnificent water features and gazebos swirled through her head. They were all too ambitious. Much as she ached to get started, her pocket and energy levels insisted on patience.
There was plenty going on inside the house, anyway. The Grey Army transformed the kitchen to the colour of sunshine with surprising speed, though Ron grumbled about her taste. He was an off-white man, himself.
The old boys were an easy-going presence about the place. Unable to work the wood burner to bake for them, she fussed over egg sandwiches. In return, they told stories of Castlemaine in the old days. Whenever she asked about the Trumpertons, however, the Grey Army became vague and said it was before their time. Their offhandedness was strange. She needed to find out more about her family’s connection to the house.
Ron claimed to have an expert nose. According to him, every house had a particular odour. He could tell everything about the people who lived in it by the smell. Babies saturated a place with a sour milkiness. He could tell cat lovers from the dog owners, smokers from the drinkers. Houses owned by couples smelt different from those lived in by single men.
When Lisa asked what Trumperton Manor’s signature perfume was, he sank his teeth into his sandwich and chewed slowly. ‘It smells like it belongs to someone who’s obsessed with the past,’ he said after a long pause.
She didn’t know how to respond.
With the Grey Army on the job, Lisa had no reason to call Scott. She thought she saw his ute in town a couple of times, and when an unidentified number flashed on her phone one morning she assumed it was him, but it turned out to be Maxine using her landline. Her sister rang to say that Aunt Caroline had finally deigned to visit the manor, though only for afternoon tea. Lisa was pleased—at last she’d get a chance to interrogate the old girl about the house. She just hoped her aunt would be willing to tell her something—no one else seemed to want to.
In the meantime, up in her study, Three Sisters: Emily limped along. Trumperton Manor was great for her creative energy, and each morning she woke with a fresh flood of ideas. But the minute she settled at her computer, a Grey Army foot soldier would tap at her study door to ask if she wanted matt or semi-gloss paint on the shutters, or plain or non-reflective glass in the windows. With rising panic, she realised she had no hope of handing the manuscript in on time. Yet if she didn’t meet the deadline she’d be eating grass.
Eventually, Ted and his friends reappeared one Saturday morning. Lisa was disappointed the boys had left their girlfriends back in the city.
‘Hey! What happened?’ Ted said, peering up at the gleaming windows and straightened shutters. ‘Did you find a man?’
‘Several.’
‘Heathcliffs to your Cathy?’
‘Where’s Stella?’
‘Visiting her sister in hospital.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah, her sister had a baby.’
She knew that girl came from good breeding stock. When the time was right she’d ask him to bring her out next weekend. ‘Come inside. I’ll put the kettle on.’
It was good to see the boys again. James declined the offer of day-old egg sandwiches and presented her with a tin of melting moments he’d baked that morning. She hardly noticed Zack’s movie camera any more. He’d become an amiable sci-fi figure with a face that was half machinery.
Ted and James collected a couple of ride-on mowers from the hire centre and assailed the front ‘garden’ and orchard. The grounds looked half-civilised by the time they’d finished.
As shadows lengthened, Lisa opened a bottle of ginger ale and beckoned the boys onto the veranda. James asked what was on the menu for dinner. Steak and salad, she said.
‘Simple’s good,’ he assured her. ‘Can I help out?’
Did Jane Eyre wear grey?
James lifted a portable barbecue from the back of the Kombi and set it up on the driveway.
‘He thinks of everything,’ Lisa said as musky smoke coiled into the sky.
‘He does,’ Ted said. ‘Who’s that?’ He nodded at a shabby figure shuffling around the bend in the driveway. The old man’s white hair stood out in Einstein spikes.
‘Looks like Mr Wright, the previous owner,’ Lisa whispered to Zack and his camera. ‘They moved to the cottage across the road.’
The old man paused and leaned on his stick. He swayed as if on high seas.
‘Hello!’ Lisa called.
‘Mr Wright’s mouth set in a downturned line.
‘Would you like to come and have a drink with us?’
He fixed her with a bloodshot glare. Anyone would have thought she was hurling insults, not an invitation.
Mr Wright drew a handkerchief from his pocket and snorted into it. He then turned and hobbled back down the drive.
‘What was that about?’ Zack said.
Gum trees rustled. A chorus of frogs cleared their throats down by the creek.
‘Maybe he’s confused,’ she said. ‘Never mind. Let’s eat.’
After dinner, the boys shooed Lisa out of the kitchen. She grabbed a woollen shawl from the coat hook in the hall and nestled on the veranda. Ted brought out a freshly opened bottle of sparkling white from the Yarra Valley.
‘What did Alexander do, anyway?’ he asked, sitting beside her.
Lisa watched the bubbles spiral inside her glass. ‘Your great-grandfather? I don’t know much, apart from what Dad told me. Alexander was an only child. His parents moved here during the gold rush. They were in the jewellery business. Apparently they moved in high society—well, what there was of it in Castlemaine. They had fabulous parties here.’
‘What went wrong?’
‘They got caught up in the financial crash of the 1890s and moved to New Zealand. That’s where Alexander met Gran.’
Ted rested his hands behind his head and smiled. ‘They had a Global Financial Crisis back then?’
‘Something like that. There was a lot of hardship, starvation, even.’
Ted studied the horizon. ‘Why didn’t Alexander hang around Castlemaine? Was he gay or something?’
Down by the river, frogs croaked companionably.
‘Why would he be gay?’ Lisa asked after a long silence.
A broken biscuit moon hung in the sky.
‘It could run in the family,’ Ted said, gazing into the distance.
Lisa suddenly felt dizzy. A kaleidoscope of images circled through her head: Stella tickling Ted at the kitchen table. Ted looping his arm across Stella’s shoulder, laughing and kissing her cheek. A chaste kiss, admittedly. But that peck on the cheek was surely hors d’oeuvre before a banquet of passion later on.
The attraction between Ted and Stella was visceral. Wasn’t it? The images started spinning faster. Ted and Stella walking down the aisle of a quaint wooden chapel. Ted’s beard would be trimmed and for once he’d be wearing a pair of trousers Lisa didn’t feel the urge to grab and hitch up to his waist. Ted standing at the altar, before turning to sneak a peek at Stella in meringues of tulle. At the reception afterwards, Ted giving a witty retort to his best man’s speech (James would make the perfect best man). Ted and Stella buying a house, and holding their first baby.
Wasn’t that a window to the future? Or just wishful thinking on her part?
‘I thought you had girlfriends . . . ?’
‘I tried. Believe me.’
‘What about Stella?’
Ted smiled into his lap and made circles with his thumbs. ‘She’s a friend who’s a girl, Mom.’
Lisa had plenty of gay friends. She always claimed she didn’t care what people got up to in the privacy of their own bedrooms. In fact some of her best friends were . . . She’d been having lunch with Kerry for decades. He would have said something if he thought Ted had similar tendencies. God, she was already thinking of it as a disease.
‘When did you first realise?’ she asked quietly.
‘It’s taken years to work out.’
Lisa tried to summon up clues from Ted’s boyhood. He’d certainly hated sports, but that was a reaction to pressure from Jake. And heaps of straight men played the piano. ‘You were just a normal little . . .’
‘Come on, Mom! An obsession with Sondheim, for God’s sake?’
‘You had a good ear.’
‘And the Easter Bonnet Parade?’
She’d always assumed his competitive approach to making Easter bonnets was driven by a passion for design. As a preschooler, he used to sneak into her jewellery box and try on her earrings. It didn’t seem odd at the time, but maybe she should’ve discouraged it. She wondered if it was environmental or genetic. Maybe his suspicion was correct and he came from a long line of . . . It would go a long way towards explaining why the Trumpertons died out.
Faggot, pillow biter, queer, butt boy. Harsh words she couldn’t associate with her darling Ted. She wanted to cry out for her shattered dreams. But they were nothing compared to what Ted must’ve gone through to reach this point.
Strange expression, coming out.
A tiny part of her was relieved her parents weren’t alive to be exposed to the shocking news. She wasn’t looking forward to telling Maxine. As for Jake, he’d have to find out for himself. How bad was it, anyway, if Ted was doomed to dress well and live in stylish surroundings for the rest of his life? Freed from broken nights and school fees, he could devote himself to pleasure.
Ted gripped his wine glass and stared at the outline of the darkening hills.
She saw a flash of white in the trees. ‘Oh look,’ she said. ‘The cockatoo.’
A tiny smile rippled across his lips. ‘I didn’t want to let you down,’ his voice cracked with emotion.
Her chest ached for both of them. She flung her arms around him and planted kisses over his stubble. ‘You haven’t. Honestly.’
For once he didn’t recoil. She could feel the tension in his body tremble and melt. ‘Love’s hard enough to find in this world,’ she whispered as their tears mingled. ‘It doesn’t matter what wrapping people are in.’
Ted sniffed and rubbed his eyes. He smiled down at her. Not for the first time, she was dazzled by the natural perfection of his teeth. No wonder young people kept falling in love with each other.
Lisa dabbed her eyes then Ted’s with the corner of her pashmina. ‘And James?’ she asked carefully.
Ted took a gulp of wine then composed himself. James appeared on the doorstep. He seemed vulnerable as a freshly hatched chick. The tenderness between the young men was so strong she should’ve tapped into it ages ago. It occurred to her then that love, no matter what sort, is a wonderful thing to bask in, even from the outer edges of.
‘The love of my life,’ Ted said, raising his glass to James.
Lisa stood up and embraced James. ‘I always wanted a chef in the family,’ she said.
James rocked her gently in his solid arms.
‘I’m so happy for you both.’ She surprised herself by actually meaning it.
A flash of camera lens peered over the balustrade.
‘Oh Zack!’ she groaned. ‘Not now!’
Lisa placed her Skinnymeals frozen chicken masala on the kitchen bench top. Happiness was too big an ask in today’s world. The most she could hope for Ted was that he achieved a level of fulfilment. Maybe if he was lucky he’d have moments of contentment. If she was religious, she’d have prayed for Ted to choose a path in which happiness would be less elusive.
Except he hadn’t chosen. Gayness had chosen him.
Could she honestly say her straight friends were happier than someone like Kerry, anyway? He was the most sorted-out person she knew. Kerry had a wonderful circle of friends and was wise about almost everything, apart from the fact that at the age of fifty-five he was still looking for Mr Right.
She had no right to judge. Ted just preferred doing whatever gay men got up to. She wondered briefly if he went on top or underneath, and censored the thought. It wasn’t as if she wasted a moment wondering what straight people got up to.
Neon green peas glowed up at her from the masala. It seemed unlikely peas originated in India.
The old microwave refused to heat things up properly. It did a better job if she took the meal out of the freezer an hour or two early and defrosted it first. Not that she was looking forward to dinner. Whoever made Skinnymeals lacked a natural affinity for food. Either that or the ingredients lost their flavour in the freezing and transportation.
Evening shadows stretched across the lino. The kitchen was beginning to look as if someone cared about it—even if Ron was right and her choice of marigold was a little strident.
The smell of paint threatened to bring on a headache. She opened the back door to a welcome waft of night air, then trailed up the stairs to her study. How would Emily Brontë have handled a gay son? Homosexuality was illegal back then. He’d have been slammed in gaol and made to crush rocks like Oscar Wilde. But if Emily was half the woman Lisa knew she was, her love for her son would’ve won out.
Sitting at her computer, she opened her Three Sisters: Emily file and straightened her spine to start a new chapter. She reached for her phone instead and scrolled to Portia.
‘Do u know about Ted & James?’
‘Gr8!!! He finally told u!!! R u ok with it?’
Her finger hesitated over the screen. ‘Of course. V happy xxxxx’
Sighing, Lisa pressed Shut Down and tramped downstairs.
The moment she entered the kitchen she sensed the atmosphere had changed. Another presence was in the room. A shadow shifted under the table. It was the wrong time of year for snakes, and they hardly went out at night. Still . . .
‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded weak and girlish. She waited for the snake/rapist to return her greeting.
Fingers of orange goo stretched across the floor under the table. Blood? Chunks of flesh floated on its surface. And peas. Her chicken masala!
The upturned container lay under the chair nearby. Whatever was under the table made a shuffling sound. She was relieved to hear it had feet rather than scales. If it was a possum she could deal with it, possibly.
Cool air wafted through the open door. If only she’d closed it before she’d gone upstairs. She hadn’t adjusted to how quickly darkness fell in country Australia. Her instinct was to tiptoe across the room and close the door. But then whatever it was would be trapped inside with her.
She drew a breath and peered under the table. An amber orb glowered back at her. Except it wasn’t an orb. It was an eye hovering asymmetrically over a downturned mouth.
The Halloween mask emitted a discordant yowl. She ran a quick scan through her mental checklist of Wild Animals of Australia. With its tattered ears, it was too dishevelled to be a potoroo, and too small to be a wombat. The shaggy coat was too furry for a lizard or any other kind of reptile. Instead, it resembled a miniature one-eyed hyena, except she was pretty sure they didn’t exist in Australia. Or a Tasmanian Devil, though presumably the whole point of them was they stayed in Tasmania.
Lisa took a closer look. The creature crouched and exposed palisades of teeth. Its ginger and white fur hung in clumps. The tail was matted with twigs. It was a cat, feral most likely. Back at Bideawee, she and the other volunteers had dealt with similar feline fugitives who survived on their wits.
‘So you’re a Skinnymeals fan?’
The ugliest, most bad-tempered looking cat in the world glared back at her through his single eye.
‘Hardly gourmet, is it?’
The cat flattened its ears and hissed.
‘Don’t be scared,’ she said, offering a hand.
The creature lashed out. A sudden sting made her withdraw with a jerk.
The cat spun on its tail and hurtled out the door.
She looked down at her hand. Blood bubbled up from two parallel lines.
A non-communicative daughter, a gay son and a killer cat. Life wasn’t dull.