by Cate Kendall
Nick slammed shut the rear door of the ute’s tray and walked around to the driver’s door. Sure, parking became nightmarish in the small main street on the weekends and nigh impossible during school holidays. And the visitors’ voices did grate as they complained loudly to each other about the substandard cheese platter at the local winery, or the poor weather that had ‘ruined’ their mini-break.
Oh well, Nick thought as he started up the engine, tourist season would soon be here in full force, so they’d just have to make the best of it. The summer school holidays were only a few weeks away, bringing with them a stampede of Toorak Tractors and Balwyn Buses. The bottle shop owner would shortly order Stoli and Veuve to replace the Bundaberg Rum and ten-dollar plonk on his shelves, and the little town’s economy would start to whir into life, to the sound of the grumbles and mumbles of the checkout chicks, waitresses and footy-club lads who could no longer get a table at the pub.
As Nick drove down the shady drive and out to the main road, he chuckled again as he thought of the dozens of eggplant and zucchini plants already growing in Cat’s vegie patch.
Thank goodness they were gone. Caro Wainwright’s luxuriously appointed and generously proportioned Malvern house was her own for six glorious hours.
Wednesdays were bliss. It was Angus’s bonding morning with the children. He started work late so that he could drive them to their exclusive inner-city school and catch up with them during the ten-minute commute.
She leaned against the front door for a few moments, listening for a last-minute return for forgotten books or homework. No, they’d gone. She smoothed down her long brunette bob and scurried to the kitchen as fast as her Bally mules would allow.
Had she locked the front door? She nearly turned back. Yes, she had, no chance of being caught. She opened the gift cupboard and removed the box of wrapping paper.
Her teak stash box was at the back, under a scarf. She pulled it out and opened the lid. Her blue-and-gold pack of mother’s-little-helpers lurked in all their carcinogenic glory. It was wicked, stupid and frightfully politically incorrect, and her husband would absolutely kill her if he found out, but God she loved her morning ciggie.
She didn’t even have any smoking friends anymore. Or if she did, they’d never admit it. We’re a dying breed, she thought, and laughed at her cynical joke. She wandered out into the morning sun that bathed the generous courtyard, clicked her gold lighter into life and drew in her first satisfying puff.
The patio and surrounding gardens appeared immaculate, but she knew she would find something out of place. Sure enough, an ugly little weed was threatening to upset the uniformity of the recently spread black mulch. Holding the cigarette aloft, she leaned down and tore the offender from her garden bed, tossing it into the weed bucket hidden behind the Japanese screen.
The topiaries rustled in a slight breeze and she glared at them, daring a leaf to drop onto the sandstone pavers. The leaves thought better of their intention and held fast.
An English box hedge neatly bordered the courtyard’s edge and the espaliered fruit trees clinging to the back fence were her clever answer to Angus’s desire for a country touch in their urban home. Angus adored his father’s large country estate; he’d grown up there and still enjoyed taking the family down for weekends. Caro enjoyed going too, of course, but the country was ever so dusty and played havoc with her blow-wave.
Caro smiled at the lushness of the camellia plants: they were sure to flower well this season, she thought with satisfaction. Now that they’d been pruned back into square blocks they were quite architectural and would render a welcome fragrance. It had been worth the effort of having that mulch brought in and applied last month (she didn’t enjoy touching soil, it reminded her too much of dirt). The entire look was going to be perfect for the patio party she was planning to farewell summer. Although summer hadn’t yet arrived, Caro liked to be organised.
She pursed her lips as she stared at the large maple stretching tall from its pride of place front and centre. It had better jolly well turn bright red next autumn. Its recent installation had required a crane and several thousand dollars. Though of course it would be worth it, because her horticulturist had assured her it would complement her drapes perfectly.
She carefully butted out the cigarette and hid it inside a can at the bottom of the recycling bin. No one would find it there.
Eugene, the alpaca, stared down his nose at Rainbow. His eyes were half closed in a haughty glare and his nostrils flared. Rainbow put her hands on her hips and stared back. There was no way Eugene would let her pass. This was his turf. He’d staked it out. There was a nice water supply nearby and a pile of fruit. He was very happy where he was and he wasn’t planning on letting some upstart hippie unsettle his little piece of paradise. A sprinkling of alpaca pellets pattered onto the floorboards behind him.
Experience told Rainbow there was no point trying to negotiate with Eugene in this mood, so she stretched over his warm, solid back to open the fridge and squeeze a bottle of iced dandelion tea from the door.
She now needed glasses, but the beast’s firm buttocks were leaning on the door to the cupboard. ‘Come on, Eugene, get out of the way.’ She flung her long, dirty blonde dreadlocks to one side and nudged his bottom with her bare toes.
Eugene gave a long-lashed look of superiority, then, without shifting position, leaned over to the fruit bowl where he selected the choicest organic apple from the pile and munched it noisily.
Rainbow sighed and grabbed two disposable cups from above the fridge instead.
‘What the hell are ya doin’?!’ Songbird’s rough baritone broke through the screen door a second before she did. She clutched her short, cropped auburn hair in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I know, I know,’ Rainbow hurried to excuse herself, ‘it’s just that–’
‘I can’t believe my eyes. Rainbow, darlin’ heart, what are you thinking? Disposable cups? As I live and breathe, disposable cups in my own house!’ Songbird rubbed the dirt off her hands onto her folded-down dungarees. She lived in dungarees and workboots and would rather eat at McDonald’s than be caught dead in any clothing that even hinted at femininity. Especially make-up, which to Songbird’s reckoning was about as sensible as organised religion or day-spa treatments.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. ‘Eugene is blocking the glassware cupboard and anyway, I’m going to plant herbs in them after our morning tea.’ She pulled her long tie-dyed skirt out from under Eugene’s foot. Rainbow’s look was more feminine, a blend of hippie chic meets tooth fairy.
Songbird’s hands dropped in relief.
‘Oh, that’s all right then. Are they the cups we got from the tip last week?’
‘Yes, sweetie, don’t panic.’ As Rainbow patted the air to calm Songbird down, her mass of skinny silver bangles jingled, competing with the wind chimes blowing outside the kitchen window.
‘That’s my girl! For a terrible minute there I thought you’d bought new ones.’
‘Yeah, and then I carried them home in a plastic shopping bag while spraying my dreads with hairspray.’
‘Ya dag!’ Songbird grinned and took the iced tea from her partner with a smile. ‘Thanks, darl, you’re grouse.’ She downed the tea in one, carefully rinsed the plastic cup and put it on the draining board.
‘Now, back to the terra preta,’ Songbird said.
‘Yeah, now tell me the plan again?’ Rainbow asked, finally convincing Eugene to go outside.
The women stepped over the two preschoolers who were marking out a racetrack in the dirt by the back door, and surveyed the back paddock.
‘We’re enriching the soil and sucking carbon back,’ Songbird explained with a sweeping arc of her arm.
‘Oh, goody. How?’ Rainbow asked.
‘It’s very simple. We’re making an underground oven, if you like. I’ve borrowed an old plough and Eugene and Ralphie are going to pull it–’
‘Eugene?’ Rainbow looked at her partner s
keptically.
‘Okay, we’ll get Digger. Digger and Ralphie are going to plough up the paddock. Then, essentially, we’re going to plant compost, grass cuttings, garden rubbish and food scraps, then backfill the lot.’
‘We’re going to need a lot of rubbish,’ Rainbow said, frowning as she looked at the acre of grassy field.
‘Yep, we can ask around the area.’
‘Yeah! We can get all the rubbish from the neighbours,’ Rainbow said excitedly. ‘We can become the town’s compost dump! What a great saving for everyone, they won’t have to use the tip.’
‘Yeah, it’s good already and we haven’t even started.’ Songbird put her hands on her hips and stood staring out at the potential landfill site.
‘So that’s stage one,’ Rainbow said, eyeing off their own compost heap.
‘Yep, then in a couple of months it’ll be ready for the next bit; that’s where we suck up the carbon and start making a difference.
The women ensured their children were all working together happily in the vegetable garden, then picked up their tools and started turning their compost mountain, discussing, in detail, their plans for saving the planet.
Tori lugged a washing basket full of new linen through the front door. She felt like she was wagging school, coming down to the holiday house on a weekday, but there was so much to do to prepare for the season.
The beds had to be made up, so she left the new Sheridan linens on the end of each bed for Joy the cleaner. The pantry had to be cleared and restocked. She wrote Joy a detailed note explaining her alphabetical storage system. The outdoor furniture had to be sanded back and oiled; she sent the handyman a text. What next, she wondered, rubbing her hands with satisfaction at how well she was powering through her duties.
Right, windows. Trickier chore, that. She didn’t have the window cleaner on speed dial. She shuffled through the kitchen drawer until she found the business card holder. First one. She called and booked him in for the following weekend. Job done.
She popped out to the car to scoop up the box of summer tableware she’d picked up at Country Road and the fluffy new towels in aquamarine and teal, which were her colours this summer.
As she lugged the homewares inside, she bubbled with excitement at the summer ahead. She couldn’t wait for the kids to break up from school so they could load up the four-wheel drive and spend two glorious months in the country. Besides, she needed a break from her husband, Owen. It was a real struggle living under the one roof at the moment so a summer break would do them all good.
She dropped her load at the front entrance and stood admiring her beautiful garden. White sand spilled from the drive through the meandering paths that had been painstakingly styled by the landscaper to look natural and beachy. Wide driftwood bench seats dotted along the pathways overlooked feature acacias, she-oaks and flowering gums.
Her favourite trees, her magnolias, flanked the front door. She’d argued with the landscape designer over those. He’d suggested they weren’t native, would probably struggle to live without regular water and, more importantly, wouldn’t suit the overall design, but she absolutely loved them and insisted. He was probably right in the end. They did look a bit dead.
She stepped over the knobby club-rush that was overgrowing onto her jetty-style front walkway. Her next priority was to get stuck into the garden. She pulled out her phone and booked the landscape gardener. Excellent.
Tori looked out at the exterior of the house. The place really could do with a good clean. Algae grew up the sides of the bollards she’d bought from the Flinders Pier renovation. Country dust coated the weatherboards. And the big artistic granite rocks lining the garden’s entrance could use a thorough scrub – they were filthy. She phoned Nick to organise an external mini-facelift before next weekend.
He protested that he was too busy working full-time next door, but she sulked loudly until he gave in.
‘Why can’t your handyman do it for you, Tori? Dave’s a good man,’ Nick said.
‘Oh no, I only use him for the basic jobs. We really need you for the more high-level work,’ Tori insisted before bidding him farewell and tossing her phone on the kitchen bench.
She was exhausted. Time for a cuppa. Maybe Jessica was at home. She went out onto her back deck and looked over the post-and-wire fence to the neighbouring property. Although Jessica’s land was several hundred acres, the homestead was just a few hundred metres from the boundary. No, Jess’s old Patrol wasn’t in the drive. She must be at the General Store. Well, that was as good a place as any for a break.
Tori unloaded the rest of her summertime essentials from the car: Saeco espresso machine, new beach towels, boogie boards, wetsuits, pantry items from The Essential Ingredient that couldn’t be sourced at the local IGA, new cushions in teal and aqua and, finally, ramekins. She certainly couldn’t do an entire summer without ramekins, now, could she?
At last it was time for a well-earned break. She hopped into the BMW, retracted the convertible’s roof to enjoy spring’s nervous sunshine and headed down to the General Store.
***
Richard would never tire of this view. There it was, his precious MCG right in his backyard. He may have been a country boy at heart, growing up on the Springforth Estate, then raising his two children, Jessica and Angus, down there with his now late wife Eva, but Richard Wainwright embraced every aspect of his city lifestyle.
Sporting events within a stroll; exhibitions, theatre and shows next door; bars, clubs and restaurants rendering his kitchen redundant. Even his daily espresso was taken care of by the barista in the five-star apartment building’s lobby.
He plucked a cherry tomato from the ornamental tree perched on the stone patio table and popped it into his mouth. Definitely lacking the country composted flavour, but never mind. At least it gave the stone and stainless steel balcony a touch of green. He poured a cup of water into the plant.
He gave one more look at his beloved sporting arena. Cricket season was around the corner and so was The Long Room; come on summer! He sniffed the smoggy spring morning and went back into the apartment.
The phone on the kitchen bench caught his eye and he frowned. His beloved daughter, Jessica, hadn’t called for two days. Perhaps he should ring and see how she was. But he already knew. She’d been miserable ever since that bastard–. No, he stopped himself. He wouldn’t allow negative thoughts to block his energy. His tai chi instructor advocated eliminating such bitter emotions.
He took a calming breath and opened his MacBook. It hummed to life with an aerial shot of Springforth Estate. God he loved that place. He could see the old lavender fields where Eva had run the Lavender Lunches cafe in the early eighties. Good lord, was it really almost thirty years ago? The beef cattle were grazing in stasis and Jess’s crazy garden looked like a lace doily resting under the house.
Richard checked his email. Board papers had been sent for his next directors’ meeting. He had been one of Australia’s largest beef cattle breeders but had long since sold off the business and was now semi-retired as a board member and shareholder of the company Beef Bargains of Queensland. He enjoyed the advisory role as it freed up his time for more pleasurable pursuits. His mind flickered over to the sultry Genevieve Walters and he smiled in memory of their last get-together.
Genevieve was a stunner; all voluptuous curves, flashing white teeth and big blue eyes that shone with life and fun.
They’d been seeing each other for a few months now and he loved her feisty nature and glamorous looks. He flicked through his emails quickly and was disappointed to see there was no news from Jess, just another message from his daughter-in-law complaining again about the long hours Angus worked and how annoying the children were being. Richard shook his head and wondered anew how his son coped with his high-maintenance wife.
He shut his laptop and put family out of his mind for a while; he’d ring Jess tonight, but right now he was late for Genevieve.
4
Nick was at t
he top of his ladder, his voice muffled as it drifted down from inside the ceiling cavity. ‘So, how’s Blondie MacBrilliant working out?’ he asked.
‘Look, she might struggle to tell her lattes from her laksa, but she’s really sweet, and besides, she needs the work,’ Jess said. She frowned crossly at the Excel spreadsheet on her computer.
‘You’re a real softy, Red.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she replied.
‘What? Softy?’ he teased.
‘No, you know what I mean.’
‘What, “Red”? Why not? It’s your name; you earned it!’
‘Just don’t do it in front of people.’
‘What people? Everyone in the village knows it’s your nickname. Are you worried the posh city girls might hear?’
‘No,’ she said defensively, stabbing the keyboard of her laptop. ‘It’s just got a bit old, that’s all.’
She’d acquired the nickname in her late teens. She, her boyfriend Mark and Nick had been building a chook house at Springforth and Jess had insisted on painting its exterior in lurid cherry to cheer up the chooks. As Nick brought the can of paint to her he had tripped on a rock and a sheet of bright red had sailed through the air and landed all over Jessica. It coated her hair and face, dripped from her chin, soaked her chest and ran down her legs.
Mark and Nick had stared aghast in silence for about two seconds, then laughed so hard neither could stand up. They’d rolled around on the gravel path almost in pain with mirth.
The oil-based paint took days to wash off completely, leaving Jess with a faint pink tinge to her skin and hair for several days. Every time Mark or Nick passed her in the school halls they’d burst out with fresh laughter and ask, ‘How’s it going, Red?’ Somehow it just didn’t seem as funny to her as it did to them.
‘Hellooo, are you here, Jessica?’ Tori popped her head through the servery window. ‘Any chance of a coffee around here? I haven’t seen a waitress since I arrived.’
