Rebecca awoke to a cacophony of magpies and kookaburras in the blue gums outside her French doors.
Despite the heavy curtains being drawn, she could see daylight teasing through their folds. She leaned over to the bedside table to look at her watch. It was nearly seven in the morning. The limo was due at ten twenty. She calculated she could take a nice long walk to check out the surrounding gardens, vineyards, bush, and orchards and still have time for a hot shower before breakfast.
She wondered what Gary was doing now. Had he been able to make his roof watertight? She pulled open the curtains to reveal a foggy morning, more of the same. She could make out a sweeping lawn with a hedge of hydrangeas with hundreds of blue flowers edging the verandah.
Across the other side of the lawn, she could see wattle trees, which presumably gave Wattle House its name. The wattles were in bloom with their bright-yellow pom-pom flowers glowing through the mist. Rhododendrons were interspersed between the wattle trees, and Rebecca wondered what colour their blooms would be in spring, imaging that the display would be spectacular.
She pulled on her jeans, a T-shirt, an overly large red wool jumper, and a pair of socks. Rebecca always carried casual clothes when staying anywhere overnight, as she liked to go on early-morning walks to check out her surroundings and get a hint of exercise. She called them her long, muddy walks.
Rebecca had noticed a line of Wellington boots on the far edge of the front verandah when she arrived last night, and she thought one pair was bound to fit her. She had also noticed some well-oiled RM Williams Driza-Bone coats hanging in the front hallway. They were probably meant for guests, so surely it would be okay to borrow one.
As Rebecca stepped out onto the front verandah, having slipped on the longest Driza-Bone, the cold air hit. She guessed it was only a couple of degrees. Rebecca adored a winter’s day in the Adelaide Hills. Everything was a little bit magical. The heavy fog was not likely to burn off until at least ten o’clock.
She slipped on a pair of wellies that looked about right and made her way across the lawn and through the wattles and rhododendrons to the bush. A stand of ghost gums loomed out of the fog. The trunks of the gums were translucent, with large, vein-like branches. There were also stands of ribbon gums.
As Rebecca approached the ribbon gums, she could make out sections of bark hanging like spaghetti. They were planted closely together along the fence line and looked spindly in comparison to the ghost gums. She walked alongside them for a while, then turned to look back at the outline of Wattle House through the fog. It was an imposing building. She guessed the house was built in the style of the Regency Period. It definitely resembled Ayers House on North Terrace. She wondered if it, like Ayers House, had been designed by George Strickland Kingston.
The building had a deep verandah that wrapped itself around two sides of the building, finishing at one end with a curved wall that housed the bay window to the dining room, where they had enjoyed such a decadent dinner the night before.
On the verandah was a series of sea-grass chairs she imagined would be particularly inviting on a warm summer’s evening with a cold glass of Adelaide Hills pinot grigio, looking over the lawns to the bush beyond.
Rebecca continued on her walk, crossed over a dirt road, and came to an enormous cypress hedge that ran for about 600 metres, with a stand of pencil pines poking their way skyward from behind the hedge.
The smell of eucalyptus gave way to the smell of pine as Rebecca reached the end of the hedge and turned the corner.
The valley dipped down, and the fog now fell away and lay as a cloud below her. On the far side, undulating hills penetrated the fog. The hills were covered with an orderly patchwork of barren vines. Above, the sky was deep blue.
After a few minutes of taking the scene in, Rebecca brought herself back to the reality of the day. She needed to get on if she was going to complete her walk, shower, and breakfast before the car left.
Rebecca hurried on, crunching through the bracken of the bush, and walked down into the valley, following a little-used track. She estimated she’d been descending for about thirty minutes before she came to a fork in the track. As she contemplated whether to continue or simply go back the way she’d come, something caught her eye.
It was yellow, a colour that cut through the fog better than any other. Whatever it was appeared to be flapping. Rebecca walked toward it and eventually made out a large plastic tarpaulin stretched over the roof of a small cottage.
Her heart missed a beat. This must be Gary’s cottage.
She walked down the gravel pathway and stepped up onto the small wooden verandah. The verandah was only about two metres deep and about ten metres wide across the length of the building. Two threadbare, khaki-coloured canvas chairs sat on the verandah. A chipped and dirty mug was placed next to one of the chairs. The view from the verandah took in the surrounding bush. The area immediately adjacent to the cottage was cleared of trees and laid with rubble, except for a few clumps of ground where Gary had planted old man saltbush and myrtle wattle. There were native grasses scattered around the base of large boulders.
Rebecca knocked on the cottage’s wooden door. She heard someone move in the cottage before the door opened. Gary stood in the doorway with wet hair, holding a towel around his waist. It was obvious he hadn’t expected to see Rebecca. He looked momentarily stunned before he managed to stammer, ‘Hello,’ and then, ‘Won’t you please come in?’
Rebecca smiled, more to herself than at Gary, rather pleased to see so much of him, and slid past into the small and very sparsely furnished lounge. The room took on the yellow glow from the tarpaulin that was stretched over this section of the house, making the room lighter than what it would normally be at this time of the day. Despite the extra light, the room felt cosy. A fire was burning in the open fireplace. Mallee roots were piled in a large basket next to the hearth, with kindling and newspaper in an old fruit box. There were only two chairs in the room, both chocolate-brown leather club chairs. One had a turquoise blanket scrunched up on it, and Rebecca was struck by how the bright blue of the blanket lifted the browns of the room. The only other pieces of furniture were two side tables strategically placed next to each chair, a bookcase filled to overflowing to the right of the fireplace, and a standard lamp next to the chair closest to the bookcase. A large red Turkish rug lay on the floor. Rebecca thought how comforting it would be to curl up on one of the chairs, wrap herself in the turquoise blanket, and read a book under the light of the lamp and the glow of the fire.
While she was taking in the room, Gary had excused himself to quickly dress and was now back wearing a conservative grey suit, white shirt, black tie, and black winged brogues. His hair had been combed but was still a little dishevelled. Rebecca, surprised to see him in a suit, said the obvious, ‘Off to work?’
‘Yes, I had planned to take the day off and make a long weekend of it, but I received a call from work about half an hour ago. They need me in on a job that has just come up. There’s a few guys away at the moment, so I will just have to get to the roof and other jobs later. Hopefully I will still get the weekend. In the meantime, this tarp should do the trick and at least keep the place dry until I can get to it.’
‘Oh,’ said Rebecca, not quite sure what to say next. ‘I was just having an early-morning walk, and I stumbled across your place. I think the yellow tarpaulin gave it away.’
After an awkward silence, Gary said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I’d offer you a coffee or tea, but I have to get going, or I’ll be late.’
‘Sure, sure,’ said Rebecca, making a bolt to the door. ‘We must catch up sometime. Enjoy your policing.’ Not waiting for a goodbye, she took off back up the gravel path and retraced her steps.
Gary yelled out, ‘Goodbye, Rebecca.’ Rebecca heard but didn’t acknowledge his goodbye.
Just over an hour later, Rebecca had showered and dressed and was walking down the long corridor of Wattle House, wondering whether breakfast would be served in the dining room or if the building had a sunroom. It would be too cold to sit out on the verandah, although she imagined it would be beautiful in spring and summer to breakfast there.
Rebecca entered the dining room and found Dorothy, Francois, Nick, and Jonathan already seated and enjoying a fully cooked breakfast.
‘Mmm, that looks yummy,’ she said, helping herself to an enormous portion of eggs, bacon, and toast from the sideboard.
‘Where’s Leong?’
Jonathan replied, ‘Leong had to leave early to supervise the food preparation for the program launch on Popeye. He told me before dinner last night that he hoped to be gone by six at the latest.’
With that, Jonathan rose from the table and wiped his mouth with his napkin and threw it on the plate. ‘Indeed, I’m off myself. This thing is going to start at eleven, and I want to get down and help Leong. Don’t want any stuff-ups like last night, do we? See you all there by eleven, and don’t be late!’
Jonathan headed out the door, and Nick yelled out after him, ‘Hey, wait up. I’ll come with you. I was going to wait and go in the limo, but I probably should check everything is going as per my instructions.’
‘Looks like all is forgiven, at least on Jonathan’s side,’ said Rebecca as she grabbed a piece of toast from one of the china toast racks on the table and poured herself a cup of tea from a pear-shaped Alessi teapot.
Rebecca began to daydream. She wondered when she would next see Gary. She knew she would see him again, but she would have to engineer a way that didn’t look too desperate. It was amazing what a turn-off desperation could be. Rebecca felt that this morning’s adventure had had an odour of desperation. She needed to be careful.