Tumbledown Manor

by Helen Brown

  ‘Didn’t he live here as a young man?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘That doesn’t mean he liked it.’

  Lisa was getting nowhere. She’d have to tackle her aunt head-on. ‘What do you know about the ghost story, Aunt Caroline?’

  The old woman turned her walking stick in her hand. ‘Where’s the lavatory?’ she snapped.

  Lisa pointed at the door to the servants’ quarters.

  ‘Oh, still there, is it?’ Aunt Caroline said before toddling out of the kitchen.

  Lisa set up a tray with Aunt Caroline’s teacups. She shook her head. The old woman was incorrigible.

  ‘I think we can safely say that subject’s closed,’ Maxine said, casting an appraising eye over her surroundings. ‘Why did you paint everything else brown?’

  ‘Bisque,’ Lisa said, drawing a breath.

  ‘Oh, those silly people in the paint factory dreaming up names. I’d call it Cow Poo,’ Maxine said under her breath so Aunt Caroline wouldn’t hear her saying a naughty word.

  It went without saying that Aunt Caroline would die of horror if afternoon tea was served at the kitchen table. So Lisa escorted the old lady to Alexander’s room and settled her in a maroon chair, while Zack filmed. Hoping to dislodge an avalanche of memories, Lisa pointed out the photo of Alexander on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Aunt Caroline asked, squeezing her eyes to the size of raisins.

  ‘Your father.’

  ‘Is it?’ she said, waving a dismissive hand. ‘I suppose he was young once.’

  Encouraged by the presence of Zack’s camera, Maxine recited a list of her offspring’s latest accomplishments. Andrew was on the brink of selling some kind of app to a company in Silicon Valley; she’d just found out her grandchildren were in the genius percentile; and Dan was likely to win a Nobel Prize for his services to colons.

  An alarming spiral of smoke meandered through the hallway. Lisa leapt to her feet and bustled back to the kitchen. Black clouds billowed from the wood stove.

  Lisa fought her way through until she reached the oven door. Pulling the cake pan out, she dumped it on the bench before filling a pot with water and dousing the flames in the firebox.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Maxine asked from the doorway.

  Lisa opened the windows and examined the cake. The top was blackened. ‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘You take the tray through. I’ll sort this out.’

  Lisa emptied the cake on a wire tray, let it cool for a bit, then sawed the top off with a bread knife. She smothered what was left with icing, which immediately dribbled down the sides.

  Back in Alexander’s room, Aunt Caroline was delivering a monologue at Zack’s camera about the time she danced with Charles de Gaulle in the glory days after World War II. She really was away with the pixies.

  ‘Tea?’ Lisa said, kneeling at her aunt’s elbow.

  ‘No need to shout.’ Aunt Caroline watched warily as Lisa remembered to pour tea first and then the milk. The old woman peered at the slice of cake on her plate. ‘Is that a scone or a biscuit?’

  ‘Carrot cake.’

  ‘It remains a mystery to me how anyone can make cake from anything as humble as a carrot,’ Aunt Caroline said, prodding the cake with a fork. The delicacy snapped under pressure and lumps of charred carrot flew across the room.

  ‘Don’t you remember you gave us this lovely dinner service for a wedding present?’ Diversion tactics were all Lisa had left.

  Aunt Caroline snorted. ‘Fat lot of good it did you.’ The old girl was sane enough when it suited her.

  Maxine announced she and Zack were keen to do the grand tour. Lisa assured her the house wasn’t as big as it looked from the outside.

  ‘Hardly a budgie cage, though, is it?’ Maxine said as she sailed up the stairs. ‘Remember that townhouse you nearly bought? Eugene Drummond, the magistrate, and his wife, Madeline, snapped it up. She says it’s perfect for two people to downsize into.’

  Zack zoomed in on each of their faces. Lisa wished he wasn’t so keen on close-ups.

  Though Maxine approved of the new bathroom, she appeared underwhelmed by everything else. Lisa tried not to react when Maxine said it was pretentious to sleep in a ballroom, no matter how shabby. The inspection was interrupted by the thud of the doorknocker echoing up the stairs.

  Lisa hurried downstairs, but Aunt Caroline’s arthritic hips had miraculously flown her across the hall to open the door. ‘You have a visitor,’ she decreed.

  Standing in a halo of sunlight was the unmistakable silhouette of Scott Green. Tanned and as well-defined as a Rodin sculpture, he nodded at Lisa before beaming at Maxine and Aunt Caroline, who responded by blushing and fawning like a pair of Geishas.

  ‘Just thought I’d drop by to see how things are going,’ he said, sliding his boots off as if the invitation to come inside had already been issued. He introduced himself to Maxine and Aunt Caroline, who then bustled him into Alexander’s Room.

  Sighing, Lisa collected another cup from the kitchen. She returned to find Aunt Caroline insisting Maxine cut a large slice of cake for Scott to ‘fill up those legs’. Maxine asked if anyone had a chainsaw.

  ‘Things have certainly picked up round here,’ Scott said.

  Zack adjusted a standard lamp to throw light on Scott’s face.

  ‘So you’re the gardener?’ Maxine asked, pouring lukewarm liquid into his cup.

  ‘More of a consultant,’ Scott said with a grin as wide as the Nullarbor Plain.

  ‘Aren’t you the land agent’s husband?’ Maxine would qualify as a terrier if she had a tail.

  ‘Ex,’ Scott replied, crunching through the cake. The teacup resembled a toy in the paw of his hand. His huge grey socks were spread out in front of the fireplace in a way that was far too familiar.

  ‘Looks like the boys have done a passable job,’ he said. ‘Floors have come up good.’

  Lisa fought the urge to correct his grammar.

  ‘His tea’s gone cold!’ Aunt Caroline gushed. ‘Run along and put the kettle on.’

  Relieved to have an excuse, Lisa grabbed the teapot and scurried to the kitchen.

  Maxine suddenly appeared at her side. ‘A bit of rough trade?’

  Lisa’s cheeks sizzled. ‘No way. He’s only been here a couple of times.’

  ‘What did Shakespeare say about the lady protesting too much?’

  Water bubbled furiously into the teapot. Lisa pushed past Maxine and swept back into Alexander’s room to drown their cups.

  Silence settled over them.

  ‘How’s the family?’ Maxine asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Lisa replied. ‘Portia’s borderline anorexic, possibly bulimic, but you knew that.’

  Maxine’s mouth dropped.

  ‘Oh, and did I tell you Ted’s gay?’

  ‘What?’

  Suddenly aware Zack was doing another of his dreaded closeups, Lisa felt her face redden.

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with that,’ Aunt Caroline mused. ‘People are far too dismal these days. When I think of what our generation went through in the wars . . . Night raids, those poor boys who never came home . . .’

  Scott seemed to have discovered a thistle in his sock that required a great deal of attention.

  ‘Not that sort of gay!’ Maxine hissed. ‘She means homosexual.’

  Aunt Caroline’s mouth formed the shape of a gothic arch. ‘You don’t mean Artistic?’

  Maxine nodded.

  Aunt Caroline turned purple. She gasped for breath and her eyes bulged. Lisa tried to remember what she’d seen on posters about the choking hold.

  Aunt Caroline seized her walking stick and propelled herself to her feet. Scott towered over her and took her hand.

  ‘Thank you, young man,’ she snapped. I’m quite all right.’ Her skin reverted to its normal waxy colour. ‘Is that the time?’ Aunt Caroline pointed her stick at the broken clock. ‘Come along, Maxine. I’ll be late for bridge.’

  With uncharacteristic tact, Scott decided
to see if the apple tree needed pruning while Lisa packed Aunt Caroline, Zack and Maxine into the Golf.

  As Lisa waved them goodbye, she felt a watershed of relief. She turned to go back inside. At that moment, Scott appeared around the side of the house.

  ‘That wasn’t my fault, was it?’ he asked.

  He’d had no right to barge in on a family occasion. The man had the sensitivity of a termite mound. And to think the whole thing had been recorded for future generations to chortle over.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ he asked.

  ‘Just go.’

  Chapter 17

  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.

  Chapter 18

  The Grey Army did a stalwart job of tearing up the kitchen lino. It was tough physical work. Doug turned purple and
breathless a couple of times. He insisted he’d be right after a sit-down in the sun and an egg sandwich.

  The stone floor revealed itself in handsome slabs. Though it was grey, Ken insisted it was blue, mined from a local quarry. She shrugged his colour blindness off as an example of Lucky Country optimism.

  After it was scrubbed and sealed, Lisa and her trio of handymen stood in silence, admiring the work of the craftsmen who’d laid the stone more than a century earlier. They would have arrived on claustrophobic wooden boats propelled by canvas, possibly even in chains. Exiled by Queen Victoria, they’d brought little more with them than their skills.

  Lisa could hardly contain her excitement the day a new oven was installed alongside the old wood burner. A name she couldn’t pronounce was etched into its stainless-steel front. It would have to be her last big expenditure until the next royalty cheque. Pale-blue flames rose from the hob with breathtaking obedience while the oven fan whirred.

  The next day she baked a brilliant carrot cake and smothered it with cream-cheese icing. In an uncharacteristic act of frivolity, she dribbled a heart shape on top. Then she lowered it onto one of Aunt Caroline’s plates and ferried it across the road to the neighbours’ gate. She hesitated beside the Wright’s letterbox. NO JUNK MAIL was scrawled across it in red paint.

  Gathering her nerve she made her way down the dirt driveway. A weatherboard cottage crouched in a grotto of pines. The bones of an old Holden rusted under a makeshift carport.

  As she climbed the steps to the front veranda, Aunt Caroline’s voice boomed inside her head: Never appear unannounced at a front door. People will think you’re presumptuous. On a casual visit it’s more polite to announce your presence at the back.

  Lisa walked down the side of the house. A shadow moved inside a window. She sidestepped an empty birdbath, a cactus plant and a poinsettia shrivelling in a pot. A row of large women’s knickers drooped from the clothesline.

  She tapped on the frosted glass. Silence. The old couple’s hearing was probably off. She rapped more assertively. ‘Are you there, Mr and Mrs Wright?’

  There was a furtive thud on the other side of the door.

  ‘It’s Lisa Trumperton from across the road. I just thought I’d drop by.’