What would he look like after all these years? When she was married to him, he’d been a handsome man, dark hair, brown eyes, dark lashes. The hair would be grey now, but that would make him look distinguished. She could remember his voice – smooth and soothing, like a TV newsreader. He had a university degree; she had struggled to finish year twelve. Even so, she was better versed in worldly ways. Richard used to talk about books and people she’d never heard of, and she would nod as if she understood. But it really didn’t matter. Men didn’t want a smart woman. They wanted someone who was good in bed. And that was where she intended to snare Richard Scott – in the big four-poster she’d seen in her recently purchased copy of Millerbrooke in Pictures.
On Friday morning Angie opened the front door of the Manse to a good-looking young man with sandy hair.
‘Mrs Wallace? Hi, I’m Troy. Mr Scott sent me to shear your alpacas.’
In spite of Monday’s side of lamb episode, Richard had kept his promise. It didn’t take Troy long to give the trio a haircut. Afterwards they looked thin and ungainly.
‘Don’t worry, Snow White,’ Angie said as she patted her neck. ‘It will grow back.’
‘What are you going to do with the fleeces, Mrs Wallace?’
Angie hadn’t even thought about it. Maybe she’d have the wool spun and then make something with it.
When Angie asked Troy about payment, he said, ‘Mr Scott told me to invoice Millerbrooke.’
‘No, I’d like to pay for it myself, Troy.’ She didn’t want to be in Richard’s debt. Especially not now.
‘I’ll drop a bill in your letterbox then,’ he said.
What a strange world where shearers gave out invoices. After Troy left, Angie went down to the creek and sat on one of the boulders that looked as if they had been there since Gondwanaland days. She searched the surface for the platypus, but he seemed to have deserted her. Although she tried not to think about Richard, she feared he had given up on her too. How could she have said something so insensitive? If only he’d given her a chance to explain. Maybe they were both at fault with their sidestepping and wariness, each of them so busy protecting their hearts that they’d behaved like children. These last few days she’d missed him – the way he crinkled his eyes when he smiled and the melodic voice which didn’t match the dishevelled exterior.
Suddenly she knew what Blake meant by ‘relocation’. Nobody expected you to banish your partner of thirty years to a dark drawer deep within your psyche. That would be impossible anyway. Phil would always be there, right beside her. And although he was no longer a physical presence, he would remain central to her life. She would see aspects of him in her sons. And she would embrace the memories, rather than shedding tears whenever she recalled something funny he’d once said or the way he used to wish her ‘Bonjour’ every morning in his awful French accent. She would be able to look at the photo albums and the old videos without feeling the chronic ache that had been resident in her chest ever since the night he died. And one day, she would be able to give away those boxes of clothes that were neatly stacked on pallets at a Sydney storage depot.
Phil would have liked Richard. And vice versa. Although they were different in so many ways, they were both true gentlemen. Perhaps that was why Richard had said the next step was up to her. And instead of reaching across and kissing him, her confused response had made him feel rejected and undesirable.
‘What a bloody idiot you are, Angie Wallace,’ she said aloud. But there was nobody around to hear, not even the platypus.
4 THE ARCHITECT AND THE VIOLET-EYED GIRL
Richard Scott was mopping his hardwood floors, in preparation for the monthly Millerbrooke open day. The cleaner had been in earlier. She came for two hours every Friday but only did the bathrooms, the kitchen and the dusting. She hated the floors. She always left them for Richard, which he didn’t mind. Floor-cleaning was his thinking time, much like mowing the grass on the ride-on mower or trimming the box hedges that lined the verandahs. Today there was only one thing on his mind – Ange.
Only a few days ago things had seemed so positive. When he’d kissed her in the alpaca paddock, she had responded in equal measure. Had he misread her reaction? Or was she dreaming of Mr Songbird and wondering if Richard might be adequate as some kind of replacement? The next day, when he arrived with the side of lamb, she’d obviously had time to reflect and the verdict was clear: Angie Wallace didn’t want a physical relationship with Richard Scott.
He had replayed the episode in his mind until he knew the dialogue as intimately as an actor, who had learnt everyone’s role by heart. The turning point had been the words, ‘It’s up to you, Ange.’ Was there any possibility he had misinterpreted her reply? He checked the sentences for ambiguity, parsed every phrase for ambivalence. He found two ‘ifs’ – did they imply a degree of doubt? No, because she had reinforced her intended meaning in the second sentence: ‘I wouldn’t want to jeopardise what we have.’ It was a polite way of telling him she wasn’t interested. Even a bloke who had been out of the dating game for more than two decades knew that when a woman said she just wanted to be friends, she was really telling him to piss off.
On Saturday morning Bert held a meeting of interested parties to discuss the preservation of the Chen emporium. It had been arranged at short notice, thanks to Angie Wallace’s mobile phone, which she used to text and ‘tweet’ members of the Millbrooke community. Bert had no idea what a ‘tweet’ was, but it had produced a gathering of over twenty people. Because of the numbers, they were forced to stand in the large display area of the museum among a row of glass cases housing such oddities as a wizened platypus and a mangy wombat, the sad products of nineteenth century taxidermy.
When Bert explained what was proposed for the emporium, there were gasps of disbelief.
‘Don’t rely on the heritage listing to protect it,’ said Alice Norwood, president of Millbrooke Against Mines, known as MAM. She had been instrumental in organising successful protests against the Songbird gold mine. ‘In reality, all it means is the building can’t be touched without council consent.’
‘You can’t trust the council,’ said Jonathan Taylor, the editor of the Millbrooke Gazette. Although journalists were supposed to be unaligned and objective, in a country town like Millbrooke, an editor, who also doubled as the paper’s principal journalist, could be as partisan as he wished. ‘A few years ago a builder demolished an old woolshed in Goldfields Road. It dated back to the 1840s. The council did nothing. Neither did the heritage people in Sydney. No fines, not even a rap over the knuckles.’
‘We need to get the councillors on side before Andrew Wright does,’ said Alice Norwood. ‘We should start a letter-writing campaign.’
‘Would a petition help?’ asked Angie.
‘It’s a good way to involve the wider community, but it doesn’t hold much weight,’ replied Alice. ‘Individual letters are better.’
‘I could do a story on the history of the building,’ said Jonathan. ‘Angie, you have a lot of research material, don’t you?’
‘I certainly do. There’s a photo of Charles, his brother and Amy outside the emporium in early 1873. It looked exactly as it does now. We could use it to show the sense of continuity that would be lost if Andrew Wright messes with the façade.’
After he finished the floors, Richard went outside to sweep the verandahs. He knew he had to stop pining for Angie or he would find himself back in the dark period which had descended after Diana left. The only two women he had ever loved had rejected him, twenty years apart. As a husband he’d been a failure. As a suitor he was inadequate.
Both romances had started in the same way – instant attraction, at least on his part. The first time he saw Diana was the day he began his job at the government architect’s office. He’d bought a new suit for the occasion – a navy blue three-piece, which was the height of fashion at the time. She was sitting
in the end compartment of the train carriage, engrossed in a magazine, wearing a black dress with a split at the side revealing a hint of alabaster thigh. There were no seats left so he held onto a metal pole and gazed at her, ready to avert his eyes if she happened to look up. When he alighted at Central to make his way to Rawson Place, she remained seated.
The following day she was in the same compartment with the same magazine. This time he was able to stand right next to her, gazing down at her long dark hair, resisting the urge to lean forward and touch it. The ritual continued all week.
On Monday morning she was missing. Had she changed jobs? Was she ill? When he looked inside the main part of the carriage, she was occupying a window seat with an empty space beside her. Before anyone else could lay claim to it, he raced down the aisle and settled into the spot as if it had been waiting for him. As he laid his briefcase on his lap, it touched her arm, causing her to glance up from her magazine.
‘Excuse me,’ he said.
She looked directly at him and smiled, revealing violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor’s and perfect teeth. Then she returned to her magazine.
When the train stopped at Central, he remained in his seat. He wasn’t sure why, except that he wanted to be close to her for as long as possible. It crossed his mind that he would be late for work, which wasn’t going to impress his boss, considering he had only held the job for a week. But he didn’t care. As the train approached St James, she rolled up the magazine and picked up her handbag. This was her stop. Being on the aisle, he went ahead of her. But there was such a crowd alighting that he lost her on the platform. Just as he was about to give up and catch the next train back to Central, he saw a slim figure in a black dress at the top of the steps. Bounding after her, he reached the barrier just as she was pausing on the other side to replace her ticket in her handbag. For a few seconds he fumbled in his wallet, trying to find his own weekly. Then he flashed it at the ticket collector and rushed through, only to see her waiting a few metres beyond the barrier.
‘Isn’t Central your stop?’ she asked.
At first he thought she must be addressing somebody else. But all he could see was a trail of commuters, their heads down, moving like worker ants towards the exit. Meanwhile, her violet eyes awaited an answer.
‘Not today,’ he replied. In his week of observing her, it had never crossed his mind that she had been reciprocating.
As they walked through the dank, tiled tunnel leading to Elizabeth Street, a busker huddled next to the wall, strumming his guitar. At the top of a flight of stairs, a woman was selling flowers arranged in buckets, while an old man waved the morning paper in front of them.
‘Do you work nearby?’ Richard asked.
‘Over there,’ she said, pointing to the big Art Deco department store on the corner. ‘I’m a make-up consultant.’
Her ivory skin was lit by the morning sun.
‘You don’t need any make-up,’ he said.
She laughed, fixing her eyes on his. ‘I’m wearing it. The trick is that you can’t tell.’
‘Oh,’ he responded, not knowing how to continue a conversation about cosmetics.
When the lights changed to green, they crossed the road and joined the crowd surging down Market Street.
‘Nice talking to you,’ she said when they reached the corner of Castlereagh Street. She gave him another perfect smile before disappearing into the staff entrance.
While the activists of Millbrooke were holding their meeting at the museum, Diana Goodmann was in her bedroom at the Manse, dithering about what to wear to meet the man she hadn’t seen in over two decades. She had decided to attend the two o’clock tour. Then she could linger afterwards. It could easily turn into a romantic dinner and who knew what else?
Her hostess was intent on saving that old building in the main street. She had talked about nothing else all through breakfast. This Angie Wallace was a bit of an oddball, with her paintings and books and llamas. While she was out at her meeting, Diana was of a mind to have a look around the house. You never knew what you might find. Then she remembered the other guests were upstairs. The Americans. They had flown into Kingsford Smith yesterday, hired a car and headed straight for the countryside. First stop – Millbrooke. Although they were still sleeping off their jet lag, they might wake up at any time. And it wouldn’t do to be caught riffling through Angie’s things.
On their first date Richard took Diana to the revolving restaurant on top of Sydney’s tallest building – the swishest place in town. They danced to a string quartet and he bought her a red rose from a woman carrying a basket of cellophane-clad specimens. Two months later they were living together in his semi-detached house in Ashfield.
Not long afterwards they became engaged, followed six months later by a modest wedding with a reception in an Italian restaurant in Leichhardt. The preparations had been accompanied by some unpleasantness concerning her father – he was estranged from the family, having run off with another woman when Diana was a child. Despite her mother’s objections, Diana wanted him at the wedding and sent an invitation to his last known address, but there was no reply.
The next year Richard took a gamble and bought a second property – a Victorian terrace house in Burwood. Diana hated it – rotten floorboards, fibro outbuildings, leaky roof. Yet it wasn’t as though they intended to live there, only to do it up and sell it on. Richard managed the renovation, coordinating tradesmen and briefing them each morning before catching the 8.07 train to Central. It was Diana’s job to choose the tiles, the kitchen cabinets, the floor coverings and the paint colours – she described her role as pulling everything together, which she did with great success. When they put the place on the market, it sold within a month for twice what they had paid for it. Richard used the money to buy two semis in Croydon, which he offloaded for a big profit during the property boom.
By the time they had celebrated their third wedding anniversary, they’d renovated and sold five properties. They owned a rental unit in Ashfield, as well as the original semi, and there was a stack of money in the bank. Then Richard saw the classified ad which changed everything – in the real estate section of Saturday’s newspaper. It was a down-at-heel rural mansion on the market for the first time since its construction in the nineteenth century. A deceased estate going cheaply.
‘It has our name on it, Di,’ Richard enthused. ‘Let’s drive out there this weekend and have a look.’
‘It’s a cruddy old house in the middle of nowhere, Richie.’
Richard made an offer that weekend. Back in Ashfield, they received a call from Doug Morrison. Their offer had been accepted. A ten per cent deposit was required. Exchange would be in six weeks and settlement in ten.
On her way back from the meeting, Angie ran into Narelle on Miller Street.
‘Have you done anything about organising a model for our life drawing classes, Angie?’
‘I’ve phoned the TAFE in Granthurst but no luck.’
Reluctantly Angie had made enquiries on behalf of her students. Although the art department had their own model, he was a sparkie in real life and only did the sittings for a bit of pocket money. Briefly Angie had considered contacting Troy. Once the shearing season was over, he might be available. And he was a personable young man. What’s more, being a shearer, he would have a muscular body. Then she admonished herself for even considering Troy in that context. He was around the same age as her sons. Twenty-four at most. The ladies would make mincemeat of him, eat him up and spit him out. Especially Narelle.
‘I’ll keep working on it,’ said Angie. But she hoped they would drop the idea.
Anyway, she had other things on her mind. Specifically Richard, and whether she could ever win him back. Then there was the potential desecration of Charles and Amy’s emporium. And the dilemma of approaching Richard about selling the mill to Andrew Wright. The meeting at the museum had offic
ially designated her as the best person to sound out the owner. Maybe they remembered her comment about him being her ‘rock’ at the launch and thought she would have some special influence over him. Little did they know about the recent misunderstanding.
Angie was desperate to retract her thoughtless words and clear the air. Not just because of the mill, but because Richard was important to her and he needed to know that. If there were any excuses for her behaviour, it was her anxiety about relocating the love she felt for her husband to accommodate someone else. And if Richard cited the affair with Jack Parker, she could tell him in all truth that the relationship had never impinged on her love for Phil. Her summer with Jack Parker hadn’t been a commitment, just a widow seeking comfort.
Angie resolved to visit Millerbrooke tomorrow morning. She would knock at the door and tell Richard how she felt about him. He couldn’t possibly turn her away then, could he?
Richard had worked out early on in his marriage that Diana was the sort of person who responded exponentially to the affection a man showed her. And although he might think he loved her with all his heart, she would always love him more. From the outset she had appointed him her champion, her knight in shining armour, her protector. His job was to provide the safe haven, to shield her from the dark unknown where dragons roamed and demons lurked. He played the prince to her princess. What man wouldn’t want to be assigned that role? Yet it also brought guilt. Because no matter how hard he tried, he could never love her enough or give her everything she wanted.
In the purchase of Millerbrooke, he had failed her, dismissing her misgivings about leaving her job and moving to the country.
A Place of Her Own Page 5
