Three Sisters: Emily was still way behind schedule. Unfortunately, the more Lisa thought about Emily Brontë the more she fretted. The poor child had a raft of emotional problems, including what could only have been a tendency to self-harm.
Out on the moors one day, Emily was bitten by a wild dog. She strode back to the parsonage, took a red-hot iron from the fire and cauterised the wound herself. Emily would’ve carried that scar for the rest of her life.
More worrying was Emily’s attitude to food. When things weren’t going her way, she punished those around her by refusing to eat. Portia and Emily had more in common than Lisa could bear to think about. Young people think they’re immortal, but Emily died at the age of thirty, just a year after Wuthering Heights was published. The coffin maker said it was the narrowest box he’d ever made for an adult.
At night, Lisa lay in bed almost willing a ghost to show up just to take her mind off things. It’d be great material for a new book, she decided. Writing about a haunted house would be a walk in the park compared to exhuming Emily Brontë. Sooner or later, she’d have to take a look inside the stables. In fact, next time she saw Scott, she’d ask him if the person who committed suicide in there was a Trumperton. Except she refused to bother with him anymore.
Late one afternoon she found a dead rat on the back doorstep. It was large and plumpish. The mouth was frozen in a grin, as if someone had just told a wicked joke. If this was death, she wondered why people made such a fuss.
She squinted into the sharp night air—surely the rodent hadn’t got there under its own steam. A single eye beamed back. He—or she—had deposited the thing as an offering, possibly even an apology for stealing her food and scratching her.
‘Tastes better than my chicken masala, does it?’ she called.
The eye blinked.
‘Want to come inside? Here, puss!’
The bushes rustled and enveloped the tip of a tail. The cat had more important things to do.
Lisa closed the door and went to bed, hoping her feline friend would get hungry enough overnight to take the rat away. But when she opened the door next morning, the rodent was still there. It looked slightly rounder and happier, as if it was sunbathing at some tropical resort. She would need to dispose of the thing before she created a personality for it.
‘Puss!?’
Nothing. The corpse would have to be buried. She strode into the servants’ quarters and grabbed a shovel.
She raised the implement over her shoulder and thrust it at the ground. The effect on the drought-hardened soil was minimal. She tried again, emitting a grunt. But the earth barely moved.
She was interrupted by the sound of tyres crunching cautiously over the driveway. A silver sedan slid into the shade of the portico. She wondered what sort of people arrived unannounced at a house in the middle of nowhere. Did Mormons hire rental cars?
A combination of nausea, hatred and longing washed over her when she saw who was struggling out of the driver’s seat. What was he doing here?
Jake stared up at the house as if he’d left something inside but couldn’t remember what it was.
Lisa strode towards him, giving the shovel a menacing swing with each step. ‘Another conference in Singapore?’
‘Consulting,’ Jake said, clearing his throat in a way he always did when nervous. ‘Sydney.’
His blue shirt and Clintonesque tie looked wildly out of place. ‘Wow!’ he said, attempting charm. ‘Downton Down Under.’
‘Have you seen Portia?’
‘Yeah, I dropped by Venice Beach on the way here.’
‘How is she?’
‘Her feet starred in a shoe advertisement. And she said to tell you she ate a plate of ice cream in front of me.’
‘And did she?’
‘What are you, the diet police?’
He was clearly aching to be asked inside so he could snoop around. She offered him the veranda sofa instead.
‘Mind the springs,’ she said.
‘That was quite a drive,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have a glass of water, would you?’
He wanted hospitality as well?
‘Where’s Belle?’ she asked, leaning the shovel against the balustrade. She wouldn’t hit him with it—just yet.
‘Meditation retreat in Thailand. Cleaning her chakras or something.’ He rearranged his weight on the sofa. ‘What is this? Some kind of acupuncture machine?’
She stifled amusement.
‘Look, Ted phoned the other night,’ he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his brow. ‘I had no idea.’
‘About what?’
‘Why are you always so flippant?’
‘Why do you always say I always do things?’
‘Stop.’ He sounded weary. He rested his head in his hands. ‘Where did we go wrong?’ he said, his voice cracked with emotion.
‘Nowhere. He’s still Ted.’
‘Did I spend too much time at work?’
‘Did Elvis eat too many hamburgers?’
Jake’s eyes became moist. He hardly ever cried. Surely he wasn’t expecting her to hug him? ‘I should’ve taken him fishing.’
‘Fishing?!’
‘Or football. Male bonding, that sort of thing.’ Jake must’ve picked up a self-help book in some airport.
‘It wouldn’t have changed anything. Have you met James? He’s lovely. A Kiwi boy.’
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘You should be happy for him.’
‘My son the poofter.’
Lisa was losing patience. Why couldn’t Jake sift through his turmoil in the privacy of his own head? ‘What does Belle say?’
‘It’s a silent retreat. I can’t call till Thursday.’
The skin around his eyes seemed taut. He had a vaguely Japanese air.
‘You look so young, Jake. Is that the kiss of the plastic surgeon’s blade?’
‘No! Oh god no! I wouldn’t do that in a million years . . .’ He cast a longing gaze at the front door. ‘Do you have a tap inside or do I go find a well?’
Much as he’d hurt her, he was the father of her children, so she allowed him to trail after her through the sun-dappled hallway.
‘Quite a place,’ he said.
She led him to the kitchen and shook a couple of biscuits onto a plate.
‘When we were over the Pacific Ocean this time, a guy had a heart attack in the row in front of me.’
‘Was he okay?’
‘No, they put this oxygen mask on him . . .’
‘Poor guy.’
The fridge hummed in sympathy. Jake shook his head. ‘I don’t want to die on a plane,’ he said quietly.
‘At least it would be in Business Class.’
He shot her a rueful look. ‘What’s that thing?’ he said, changing the subject. He pointed.
‘Wood-burning stove.’
‘You cook on that? Isn’t that taking your punishment in the desert a bit far? Jesus, Lisa, where’s your bed of nails?’
He asked if she needed help with anything. He was obviously feeling sorry for her now. She took him outside and handed him the shovel.
Then, standing in the shade of the veranda, Lisa folded her arms and watched with satisfaction as one rat buried another.