Unconsciously, her right hand came up to tidy her already tidy head of pure white hair. Recently, she had surprised her daughter, Michaela, by having it restyled. It was now boyishly short, but feathered flatteringly around her face which, for all that life had dealt her, remained remarkably serene. She pulled a couple of strands of her fringe further down onto her forehead, as her fingers fiddled impatiently with the buttons on her one-off French tailored suit.
Laura Ashworth-Beaumont didn’t like waiting or being kept waiting. Rupert should know that. She was a busy woman with a national company to run. Her head tilted at an angle as she studied Rupert’s neat desk. It was not like her own, which was habitually scattered with bits of papers, files, reports, memos and never looked neat. What was she doing here, anyway? She asked herself that question for perhaps the twentieth time. Because of Joel. She was fine, really, for a woman her age, but she had allowed her son to gently bully her into this: having a thorough check-up.
There had been a barrage of tests and more tests, she’d been prodded and poked, asked a million questions about her health — or so it seemed. She gave a discernible disdainful sniff. A waste of everyone’s time!
The door opened and Dr MacIntosh came into the room, a manila folder in his hand.
‘Laura! Hello.’
‘Rupert. Good morning.’ She watched him sit opposite her, and determinedly ignored the butterflies in her stomach. His expression gave nothing away, she noted. Jack would say that he’d make a damned fine poker player. She waited for him to speak.
Rupert put on his glasses, opened the folder and sifted through the various reports. Eventually he looked up at his patient. ‘Well, what do you want first, Laura, the good or the bad news?’ His mouth thinned into a smile as he tried to be light-hearted.
‘Bad news! I was hoping there would be no bad news, but if there is, perhaps I should hear that first.’ She took a moment for reflection as he prepared to deliver it. Bad news. There’d been plenty of that over the years, but the worst had been Jack. Taken away too soon. Too much pain and bad news.
‘I’d prefer to start with the good news, which is, there’s no need for any type of surgery in the foreseeable future. Many of the tests done have come back with positive results, Laura, and really,’ he paused to look at her over the rim of his bifocals, ‘there is only one problem.’
Her smile was forced. ‘Just one?’
‘Yes. Fortunately, it’s not an insurmountable one. Mostly it means a change of lifestyle, your lifestyle, Laura.’ He didn’t wait to let that sink in, but went on. ‘You’ve had various warnings. Pain in the upper part of your sternum, like indigestion and, occasionally, a tingling sensation in the fingers of your left hand. All classic symptoms of the beginning of angina.’
He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t suspected, but had tried not to dwell on. Still, having ‘a heart problem’ confirmed sent her into a mild spin. How could she afford the time to be sick? Ashworths couldn’t afford for her to be sick! She’d built her company to national level, with stores in each capital city and several smaller ones throughout Australia, and it was at a critical stage in its development. There was more competition than ever before and customers’ buying habits were changing and … Rupert’s voice interrupted her train of thought and brought her back to the discussion.
‘Without being too medically technical, most of the arteries are fine, the heart’s pumping okay, but angina is a warning — it’s a symptom that denotes other potentially more serious cardiac problems. In your case, angina pectoris denotes the possibility of coronary arteriosclerosis. One of your main arteries has a slight narrowing — but not bad enough to warrant surgery at this point in time. With good medical care and restyling of your life, surgery may never be necessary.’ He looked at her over the rim of his glasses. ‘You have to start taking things easy.’
‘Take things easy!’ she repeated in a wondering tone, as if he’d spoken in a foreign language. ‘That’s not possible.’
Rupert MacIntosh’s look was stern, uncompromising. ‘I’ll be frank because that’s what you’re paying me to be. Rather than me tell you what you want to hear, Laura, I’m telling you what you need to know. You’re sixty-four, and if you want to make seventy or even seventy-five, then my professional advice is … retire and re-organise your life. Get rid of the stress. If you do, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t live another twenty years. If you don’t …’ He left the sentence unfinished.
Laura shook her head, almost in admiration of his straight talking. ‘Celeste was right. You don’t pull your punches, do you?’ Retirement was something she had never considered, a possibility she hadn’t given a moment’s thought. The muscles between her breasts tightened and the familiar tingle began in her fingers. She flexed her left hand, trying to get rid of the feeling. It wouldn’t go away.
‘Not where a patient’s health is concerned.’ He noticed what she was doing and said, ‘I can give you medication to relieve the symptoms of angina but, really, most of it is up to you. You simply have to learn to relax, to take things easy.
I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to run your business other than to suggest that you delegate responsibility for the day-to-day running of Ashworths to someone else.’
Her baby. Ashworths — she had built it from scratch. Rupert was telling her to let it all go? How could she? Who could take over and run the company as well as she? The ramifications of what Rupert was saying began to sink in. She had to think about something she didn’t want to think about at all. Retire. Retire!
‘I know I’ve thrown a bombshell at you, Laura, but you do understand the importance of what I’m saying, don’t you?’
She sighed and looked at him with her brown eyes, eyes that most men found fascinating even at her age. Not that she looked sixty-four anyway. She could have passed for ten years younger. ‘I’m starting to … It’s just that I didn’t expect …’ She stopped. What had she expected? To be given a perfect bill of health when instinctively she’d known otherwise? No, but not — retirement.
‘I’ll write a script for tablets to control the chest discomfort, and for some sleeping pills. You’re not sleeping well, are you?’
‘No, but I don’t like the idea of taking sleeping pills.’ She hadn’t slept well for years, not since Jack had gone. Their bed was so big, and it was lonely in it, alone. Oh God, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Rupert’s given it to you straight, as you wanted him to. Now it’s up to you. She sighed quietly, almost imperceptibly. It’s always been up to you, hasn’t it?
‘They’re Mogadon. It’s a mild sedative with few side effects, and you only take them when you think you need to. I’d like you to see a relaxation therapist, too. I’ll have my receptionist organise an appointment for you.’
Laura was very much aware of Rupert studying her reaction to what he said, trying to gauge how she was taking the news. She sensed, too, that over the course of several visits to his rooms, he’d come to admire her as an Australian business icon. No doubt he had also had additional information passed on to him by Celeste which had given him a good overall biography of her, allowing him to anticipate her response. Well, no doubt about it, now she had to think seriously about what he’d said.
‘I’d like to see you in two weeks. By then I hope you will agree to make some serious changes in your life.’
‘Two weeks!’ He must be joking! Suddenly Laura laughed, though at that moment there wasn’t a lot to laugh about. ‘I’ll try.’
Once she was out of Rupert’s surgery, Laura decided not to go into the office as planned. She couldn’t face Michaela’s or Daniel’s concerned glances, their diplomatically phrased questions. She needed to be alone … needed time to think.
After Porter, her chauffeur, had found a phone and delivered the message that she wouldn’t be in, she said to him, ‘Take me home, Porter.’
Home. 52 Waratah Avenue. Where she had done her most innovative thinking, come up with her best business ideas.
And had her happiest moments with Jack and the family. Fifty-two was her haven, her escape from the pressure of business, from hassles with her sometimes-hard-to-understand children, especially the strong-willed Michaela.
She smiled as she remembered the first time Jack had taken her to see the house. It had been late spring. She even remembered the date: 22 November 1963. It was memorable for more than one reason …
Jack’s Daimler, an old but much cherished model, took the curves of the streets of the leafy suburbs of Vaucluse with ease, each turn bringing them closer to glimpses of Sydney Harbour.
Six months pregnant with Joel and with Michaela a lively fourteen-month-old toddler, Laura proclaimed her disbelief as she glanced at the expensive homes. ‘We can’t afford anything around here, Jack. You’re crazy if you think we can.’
He laughed, and drawled back, ‘Wait till you see the place. I warn you, it’s not as grand as WC Wentworth’s Vaucluse House, but there’s so much potential. Close your eyes and don’t open them till I tell you to.’
Oddly, she obeyed, encouraged by the suppressed excitement in his voice. When, at his command, she opened her eyes, they widened first in amazement, then consternation at what she saw. Jack was driving down a shrub-littered drive. He stopped outside the front door of a house, a huge, rambling, two-storeyed house that had seen better days.
A creeper was taking over the sandstock brickwork at the front, travelling in random fashion across windows, timber frames and bricks, as well as up and around drain pipes to the eaves, seemingly in an effort to enshroud the entire house. The timber verandah on the first level, with its iron lace, sagged in the middle and above it several slate tiles were missing, as if a missile had pierced the roof. Laura winced at the state of what had obviously once been a stately home and now stood in great disrepair. Glancing away from the house, she saw that the surrounding gardens and lawn were almost non existent, with one exception.
Planted in the centre of the circular drive were half a dozen flowering waratahs. The blooms were magnificent and towered majestically to maybe seven feet; a small forest of weeds grew in between the plants. The effect, and the bright red of the waratahs, was spectacular, because it was unexpected.
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ Laura said slowly as she laboriously exited the car and took Michaela’s hand. She looked down the drive, which was substantial, to the property’s entry. Twin sandstone pillars encrusted with moss stood on either side of the drive, black wrought-iron gates hanging limply at an angle and attached to the sandstone by a single hinge. A hawthorn hedge, about six feet high, was in grave need of TLC, as was every inch of the garden and what she could see of the house.
‘Don’t see it as it is now,’ Jack said in his confident way. He put an arm around her shoulders to move her towards the front door with its layer of blistered, peeling paint. ‘Visualise it as we can make it look. Come inside. The potential of the place is amazing.’
It had been. As they explored each room, upstairs and downstairs, and an antiquated kitchen that hadn’t been altered since the house was built, Jack told her what history he knew about number fifty-two.
‘The house was built some time before the turn of the century by a pastoralist named Henry D Warrington of Forbes, for his brood of nine children — a good Catholic family were the Warringtons. The property’s since been bought and sold twice, but the present owners haven’t lived here for years. They want to get rid of the place once and for all. The local real estate agent told me that Sam Natoli, the present owner, is a big time gambler in need of quick funds.’ He didn’t elaborate that a rather well-known, unsavoury SP bookie was on Sam’s heels and had threatened physical injury if Sam didn’t cough up what he owed.
As they climbed the curved blackwood staircase to the first level, he went on. ‘There’s seven bedrooms upstairs and two bathrooms. Downstairs there’s a bedroom-cum-study and a huge banquet room. There’s even servants’ quarters off the kitchen, too.’
Later they went out the back. Michaela raced off to a rusted swing set.
As Jack and Laura picked their way over the weedy flagstoned patio with its rusting wrought-iron railings, Jack pointed to the view.
‘It’s a huge block of land, Laura, approximately an acre. See,’ he pointed, ‘a tennis court which needs some work to bring it up to scratch. And when the kids are older, we can put in a pool. That building on the right was once a stable — it’s full of old furniture that might be worth something. More recently the owner built a four-car garage to the left there, behind the camphor laurel tree.’
Laura was only half listening to Jack’s words. Mesmerised, she walked towards the back of the block, which dipped away sharply. A boundary fence which should have bordered the property was non-existent, and as she looked across the roof of the house in the street below she could see the harbour. She recognised Shark Island and beyond it Bradley’s Head. A large freighter was being towed by two tugboats, and a ferry made a white wake as it wended its way across the harbour to Manly.
But … how could they afford it? Ashworths was expanding and Jack’s company, Beaumont Appliances, was experiencing a growth spurt, too. Where would the money come from?
‘Well, hon, what do you think?’ His voice broke through her reverie.
‘I see the potential of the place, Jack, but it would cost a fortune to make it look the way we’d want it to. I don’t see how we can afford it. Ashworths is solvent, but we’re expanding interstate and committed heavily financially, as is your company. We don’t have much spare cash that isn’t committed.’
‘The timing couldn’t be better, love. I’ve had an offer for the company. It’s a good one and I’m thinking of taking it. Lou Sardi and I intend to join forces in the construction game. In the future that’s where we see big money being made. Lou’s business, Safe and Sound Constructions, is going to go commercial. We’ve talked about merging. We’ll re-name ourselves B & S Construction Corp. and tender for larger construction deals as well as housing estates. Home units, office buildings, shopping malls, too.’
‘Shopping malls?’ Laura queried. ‘What’s a shopping mall?’
Jack succinctly explained the concept to her. ‘They’re beginning to pop up all over California and other states in the USA. I believe Sydney will follow suit as the population grows and folk get better disposable incomes.’ He grinned as he drew her into his arms and kissed her. ‘Let me worry about the finances for the house, okay?’
So, despite any misgivings, Laura had. She and Jack, Michaela and, later, Joel, all lived at 52 Waratah Avenue, as well as, intermittently, Jack’s adult son, Nick, and Caroline, Laura’s daughter from her marriage to Eddie. The street was so named because waratahs featured in the gardens of most of the houses lining it.
After wandering around and checking the rooms more thoroughly, they had gone back to the car. Jack turned the ignition on, then the radio. They were halfway down the avenue, commenting sporadically on some of the large, well-cared-for homes, when the music was interrupted by a news flash.
‘The US President, John F Kennedy, was shot in the head and neck by a sniper at 12.30 pm, US time, in Dallas, Texas. The First Lady cradled the President’s head in her lap as the open limousine sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital. All efforts to revive the President failed. We will bring listeners further information as it comes to hand.’
Laura saw Jack’s grip on the steering wheel tighten. He swerved into the gutter and stopped.
‘Jesus bloody Christ. I don’t believe it,’ he said in a half-whisper. ‘Kennedy!’
That solemn historical reminder, as the years passed, was why neither forgot the first time they saw the house at 52 Waratah Avenue …
Porter drove the Ford LTD through the open wrought-iron gates with their sandstone pillars. They had never bothered to fix the gates so they’d close. Laura enjoyed listening to the crunching sound of the tyres as they ran over the crushed gravel drive. The drive itself was now bordered by orderly beds of ag
apanthus and three-metre-high pencil pines. The hawthorn hedge had been revitalised to adequately screen the property from curious passers-by. The house had been rendered and painted several years ago because Laura had wanted to modernise it, and the offending creeper that had once threatened to engulf it had long since been removed. Bruno, her two-days-a-week gardener, kept the grounds, pool and tennis court in tiptop condition, but the original bed of waratahs in the centre of the drive remained. Being early summer they weren’t in flower, but Laura always looked forward to late spring, when the waratahs blossomed.
The car stopped outside the entrance to the house. Five marble steps led to the slate-tiled verandah. Porter came around to hold the car door open as Laura got out. She was halfway up the steps when her footsteps stopped, arrested by a sound she recognised instantly: Joel’s throaty sports car roaring down the drive. It jerked to a stop, the brakes screeching a protest to anyone within range.
She watched her son come towards her. Joel was very much like her in colouring, but the composition of his features was a softer version of Jack’s. His blond hair, always untidy, was picked up by the breeze and blew about his forehead. His wide frame, as yet not filled out, in worn blue jeans and a zip-up jacket, made him look loose-limbed and slightly uncoordinated, which he was. His eyes, blue and incapable of subterfuge, mirrored concern as he regarded his mother solemnly.
‘You didn’t go into the office.’ There was a note of reproach in his voice as he reached her and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘I got worried when I couldn’t get you at Ashworths. Michaela’s concerned too. What did Rupert say?’
‘Come inside and I’ll tell you. Over a cup of tea.’
The water traffic along the Seine was constant and, as always, picturesque even on this grey day. From the living room window of her fourth-floor apartment situated in Quai d’Orleans on the Ile St-Louis, the most elite island suburb on the Seine, Caroline watched a tug pull a rubbish-laden barge towards the Pont de L’Archeveche. After a minute or two she moved to the southern end of the window to study the rear view of Notre Dame. She never tired of looking at the arches of its flying buttresses and the greenery at the back of the cathedral. Along the Quai de Tournelle she could see afternoon traffic banking up. She was used to the sound of horns tooting incessantly, and barely acknowledged the fact that Parisians enjoyed letting their irritation at even the most minute traffic delay be known.
52 Waratah Avenue Page 2
