At Home with the Templetons

by Monica McInerney

  Her mother at least noticed she was unhappy. ‘Gracie, don’t be hurt. Let Tom settle in. This has all been a bit sudden for him, and he might not be used to sitting down to eat dinner like we do.’

  ‘Of course he is. Nina’s taught him lovely manners. It’s Spencer leading him astray.’

  It was true. On his own, Tom was so lovely. Hadn’t he spent that whole afternoon at Nina’s playing cricket with her, and hadn’t he even said that she was nearly as much fun as Spencer? Now, here she was, on her own, while the two of them were having all sorts of adventures without her.

  Cross at the injustice of it, she contemplated for the moment the possibility of getting her own back on Spencer. She had the information to do it, after all, enough to get him into heaps of trouble, not just with their dad but with their mum too. He’d get punished for it, for sure. Sent to his room, definitely. And then Tom would have to play with her.

  It had happened earlier that week. Gracie had heard her father give Spencer a big talking-to, making him promise not to deliver any more bottles to Hope, no matter how much money she offered. Spencer nodded and looked serious and said, of course he wouldn’t, but Gracie didn’t believe him. She knew he and Tom were planning something big, a motor-powered raft they would float on the dam as soon as it had enough water. Spencer would definitely need more than his pocket money to pay his share of it. So she hadn’t been surprised to catch him in their father’s study looking for the keys to the wine cellar.

  ‘Spencer! What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Why are you in here, then?’

  ‘Tidying up.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re looking for the keys.’

  ‘Stop being such a goodie-goodie, Gracie.’

  That hurt. She didn’t try to be a goodie-goodie. She just thought it was better for everyone if they told the truth, if they were all nice to each other and everyone tried to be happy. The problem was she seemed to be the only happy one in the house these days.

  She gave it some more thought now before deciding she couldn’t tell on Spencer. He’d only get even more furious with her, and probably get Tom to call her a goodie-goodie too. Instead, she took up position on one of her favourite spots of the staircase, five stairs from the bottom, ten from the top, rested her chin on her hands and sighed.

  Her quiet time didn’t last very long. Within minutes she was conscious of voices coming from the kitchen. Raised voices. It sounded like her parents were fighting. Again. She carefully shifted down four stairs, pressing herself up against the wall, to the spot that she knew provided the best hiding and listening position.

  They’d been cross with each other all morning. She’d noticed it when their father came in during their lessons and spoke to their mother in a strange polite voice, and they’d both used each other’s names too much.

  ‘I’m just going into town for an hour or so, Eleanor. Is there anything you need?’

  ‘Thank you for letting me know, Henry. No, I’m fine, thank you.’

  Gracie usually only heard her mother use that voice when she was asking someone on their tours to please put the front door key back where they’d found it. People were always trying to steal that key, because it was so big and magical-looking, Gracie supposed. Her father had had several copies made, just in case.

  She leaned forward as far as she could now, as a door opened and their voices suddenly became audible.

  ‘You’re pandering to their dramas,’ her father was saying. ‘Charlotte’s right. Audrey’s seen all the attention Hope gets when she locks herself away and she’s trying to copy her.’

  There was the clatter of another dish being put down roughly. ‘What do you care, anyway? It’s not as if you’re the one who’s doing any of the work around here. What is it you’re actually doing around here lately, Henry? Because it seems to involve nothing but reading your magazines and drinking as much whisky as you can, night after night, as far as I can see.’

  ‘I do apologise. I’d be happy to help out if I could fight my way through the Martyrs Anonymous camp that has taken root in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Henry.’

  On the stairs, Gracie gasped. She’d never heard her mother use that word before.

  ‘That’s helpful, Eleanor. Here I am trying to have some semblance of a discussion with you, and that’s your contribution.’

  ‘ “Some semblance of a discussion”? I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, before everything crumbles to dust around us, but you’ve done everything you can to avoid talking to me, to avoid facing up to what’s happening here, what’s happened again and again, what somehow keeps happening no matter what bloody brainwave or new idea you come up with.’

  ‘Eleanor, you’re sounding frighteningly close to fishwife-ish. You’re overreacting. I told you. It’s just a rough patch, businesses ebb and flow.’

  A shout from Eleanor. ‘Henry, stay here.’

  Gracie held her breath as she heard her mother go into her father’s study, heard the rattle of the filing cabinet before she returned to the kitchen. There was the slam of something onto the table, a folder or a book, Gracie thought.

  ‘What are these, Henry?’ Her mother’s voice was ice cold again. ‘These are what you call a “rough patch”?’

  Gracie held her breath, wishing she could see what her mother had just given her father, at the same time wishing she wasn’t hearing this at all.

  Her father didn’t answer. It was her mother who broke the silence again. ‘Will I give you a hint, Henry? They are bills. Dozens of bills. Dating back from the renovations. Not just bills, but also solicitors’ letters about the bills. And where did I find them? Down the back of your filing cabinet. Hidden —’ she shouted the word, ‘hidden down the back of your filing cabinet. After you promised me you’d dealt with them. After you promised me we had paid them.’

  ‘Would you calm down, Eleanor, for heaven’s sake. They must have slipped. Fallen somehow. I told you I thought I felt an earth tremor here the other night.’

  ‘No!’ Another shout. ‘No, you won’t do that to me this time, lie and joke your way out of this. Henry, even if these bills are just the half of it, and God knows what else you’ve hidden away somewhere, we owe nearly two hundred thousand dollars. On top of everything we still owe back home.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not that much. Anyway, it doesn’t look like Audrey’s in any hurry to go back to school, so we’ll save on her fees at least.’

  ‘It’s not funny, Henry. It’s not funny. Why can’t I get through to you?’

  ‘Eleanor —’

  ‘I mean it, Henry. I’ve had enough. If you don’t sort this out, and I don’t care what you have to do to fix it, go back to full-time work, sell everything we own, sell the Hall, to hell with the rules of the inheritance, but if you don’t do something, I’m leaving you. And I mean it this time.’

  ‘Eleanor —’

  ‘I mean it, Henry. I mean it.’

  As silently as she could, Gracie tiptoed up the stairs and into her room. She was finding it hard to breathe. Her chest felt all funny and tight and when she held out her hands she saw that they were trembling. For five minutes, she did nothing but sit on her bed, trying to forget everything she’d just heard, wishing she hadn’t heard it, wishing she could tell someone but knowing there was no one to tell – not Charlotte, not Audrey, not Nina. She couldn’t even tell her parents. They’d told her off often enough for listening when she shouldn’t.

  Hearing a car, she ran to the window in time to see her father drive away. Where was he going? Was he leaving them? She couldn’t stay in her room any longer.

  She ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. Her mother was there, calmly preparing two trays. ‘Hello, Gracie,’ she said.

  Gracie blurted it out. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything really couldn’t get any better, Gracie. Thank you for asking.’ She was speaking in that strange overly polite voice again
.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m not good enough at the cooking yet or I’d do all this for you. It’s not fair that you do all the work around here.’

  Her mother’s tight expression softened. ‘I know you would, Gracie. And I’m sorry if I snapped at you then and I’m sorry in advance if I snap at you tomorrow. Things around here are all a bit —’

  ‘Atmospheric?’ Gracie suggested.

  To her relief, her mother briefly smiled. ‘Yes, Gracie. That’s it exactly. It’s a bit too atmospheric around here. Help me with one of these trays, would you, before I throw them both on the ground in a temper?’

  Upstairs, Gracie carefully laid Audrey’s tray at her door, then watched in amazement as her mother left a similar one outside Hope’s room, stood midway between their two doors and shouted.

  ‘Audrey? Hope? Are you listening to me?’

  Gracie had a strong feeling that both Audrey and Hope were up and listening at their doors. Her mother lowered her voice but not by much.

  ‘Afternoon tea is served, but not for long. I’ll do this for you both until the weekend and that’s all. After that, you come down if you’re hungry or you starve. It’s your choice.’

  Another long pause, and then one voice.

  ‘Fine,’ from Hope’s room. Nothing from Audrey’s.

  ‘Good,’ Eleanor said.

  After that, Gracie decided she didn’t want to be inside any more. She’d go and find Spencer and Tom instead, even if they did tell her to go away again. She made her way to the dam. Only Tom was there, sitting on the bank, baiting up string. He looked up and smiled at her. ‘Hi, Gracie.’

  She settled herself beside him on the dirt bank. ‘Have you caught anything?’

  ‘Not yet. Spencer thinks it’s the bait we’re using. He’s gone to get something different.’

  She wasn’t surprised they hadn’t crossed paths. Spencer knew all the short cuts between the dam and the Hall but refused to pass them on to her. ‘Can I watch?’

  ‘Of course. Do you want to have a go?’

  She shook her head. She still didn’t understand the attraction of yabbies. They looked disgusting and apparently tasted like mud.

  ‘It’s good having you here with us, Tom.’

  ‘It’s good being here, Gracie.’

  ‘Are you homesick yet? Do you need to ring Nina?’

  He smiled. ‘I’m fine, but thank you.’ He held out the string. ‘You sure you don’t want to have a go?’

  ‘No, thanks. I might get pulled in and I’m not a good swimmer.’

  ‘They’re about as strong as an ant, Gracie. I think you’ll be fine. And I promise I’ll grab hold of you if I see you heading for the water.’

  She was secretly enjoying the thought of Tom rescuing her when she heard a shout behind them.

  ‘Tom, don’t let her hold it!’ It was Spencer, back again. ‘She’ll let go if we get one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Gracie said, indignant.

  ‘Did you get the new bait?’ Tom asked as Spencer reached them.

  He shook his head. ‘Mum chased me out of the kitchen.’ He sat down with a thump beside Tom and started skimming stones across the surface of the dam. After a minute, Tom put down the string and started throwing stones too. He offered Gracie a stone, and even showed her the best way to throw it to make it leap across the water. On her first try it skimmed the water three times.

  Gracie couldn’t believe it. She was here, playing with Spencer and Tom, and they hadn’t told her to go away!

  After a few minutes, though, she got a bit bored of skimming stones. ‘Does anyone want to play a word game?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Gracie. Word games are stupid,’ Spencer said, tossing his last stone away. ‘So is skimming stones. What about hide-and-seek, Gracie? Want to play that?’

  ‘Out here? The three of us?’ She was thrilled.

  ‘Sure. You hide first, okay? We’ll count to two hundred to give you time to find a really good spot and then we’ll come looking for you.’

  She frowned, suspicious suddenly. ‘Isn’t it one person seeks and the others hide?’

  ‘Usually, but we’ve made up our own rules. It’s more exciting this way.’

  Tom spoke then. ‘Spencer —’

  Spencer ignored him. ‘Okay, Gracie? Off you go.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘Now!’

  As Gracie took off at a high speed towards the neighbouring paddock and its clump of trees, Spencer made a show of loudly counting to a hundred before he turned to Tom and grinned. ‘That worked better than I thought. Come on. Let’s go watch TV.’

  ‘What about Gracie?’

  Spencer shrugged. ‘She’ll give up after an hour or so. I’ll tell her we couldn’t find her.’

  ‘That’s cruel.’

  ‘What’s the alternative? She hangs around us for the rest of the day?’

  Tom stood up. ‘You go and watch TV. I’ll find her.’

  ‘You’ll regret it. We’ll never get rid of her now.’

  Tom just walked away.

  In her hiding place three paddocks away, Gracie’s heart was racing. She’d tried two other spots before this one, convinced each time she could hear Spencer or Tom coming towards her. She’d crouched low, darting from tree to tree, not daring to look back in case they caught sight of her. Finally, she’d found this spot, a large clump of rocks next to a small group of trees. She’d had to push past a spider’s web to tuck herself into a crevice and been alarmed to see a row of ants crawling over the nearest rock too, but it was too late to move. Spencer and Tom would be seeking her any minute now.

  Five minutes later, she was still there. Her heart rate had settled a little, but she was now transfixed by the ants. They were definitely getting closer. She also had a horrible feeling that the spider’s web wasn’t empty.

  She tried to shift a little to make herself more comfortable and discovered she couldn’t move her left foot. It had got wedged between two rocks. She tried to pull it out and felt a sharp twist of pain. Oh, no! First ants, then spiders and now she was stuck here, so well hidden they’d never be able to find her. She’d be out here all day. All night. She started calling their names, wanting to cry. But if they found her crying, they’d never let her play with them again. She blinked the tears away. ‘I’m here!’ She tried again, more loudly. ‘I’m here. Spencer! Tom! I’m stuck!’

  Five minutes passed before she got an answer. It felt like an hour.

  ‘Gracie? Where are you?’ It was Tom, not Spencer.

  ‘I’m here!’ She couldn’t reach up enough to peer over the rock. ‘In the rocks!’

  Several minutes later she heard the crunch of dry leaves, then a moment later Tom appeared. She’d never been so happy to see anyone. ‘Oh, Tom, thank God. I’m completely stuck.’ She knew it was okay to tell him. He’d always been kind to her. She spoke in a rush, explaining how she couldn’t move. ‘I was getting a bit scared.’

  ‘That’ll teach you to hide so well.’ He got down on his knees beside her hiding place and reached in, grasping her ankle. ‘Can you move now?’

  She tried. It was still stuck. He pulled at the largest rock beside her and grasped her ankle again. ‘Now, Gracie?’

  This time her foot moved, a rattle of stones falling as she pulled it out of the gap and wriggled her body sideways out of the hiding place. ‘Freedom at last!’ she said, trying to joke, brushing away all the dust on the front of her dress.

  ‘Well done,’ Tom said, smiling. ‘And you definitely win the game. I’d never have found you if you hadn’t called out.’

  To her embarrassment, her eyes filled with tears. She quickly wiped them away. ‘I’m sorry to cry, but I’m just so relieved to see you. I kept imagining what it would be like if I wasn’t found, if I was stuck here all night, in the dark and the cold …’

  ‘Oh, poor Gracie.’ He reached across and ruffled her hair. ‘You wouldn’t have been here all night, I promise. I’d have found you eventually.’

  Gracie looked ar
ound. ‘What happened to Spencer?’

  ‘He had to go home to get something.’

  ‘You won’t tell him I cried, will you? It’s just I gave myself a fright.’

  ‘I won’t tell him, I promise,’ he said, as they started walking back to the Hall together.

  They’d gone just a short way when he stopped and reached into his rucksack for something. ‘Here, Gracie, have this. Just in case you get another fright some time.’

  It was an old-fashioned silver whistle. She took it from him, turning it over in her hand.

  ‘Mum gave it to me when I was a kid,’ Tom said. ‘In case I ever got lost or in trouble. I’m too old for it now but you can have it if you want.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. And if you ever get lost again, just blow it and I’ll come and find you, okay?’

  Gracie felt the colour rise in her cheeks. She held it in her hand for a few more seconds, feeling the smooth cool of the metal, before pushing it safely to the bottom of her pocket.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  She was still smiling when they reached the Hall.

  At boarding school in Melbourne, Charlotte had just broken part one of her big news to Celia. She was now being subjected to a furious barrage of questioning.

  ‘Ethan’s nanny?’ Celia said. ‘You? I don’t believe it, Charlotte. How dare you!’

  ‘What do you mean? I thought you’d be delighted for me.’

  ‘Delighted about what? That you’ve somehow pulled the wool over not just my cousin’s son’s eyes, but my elderly, rich, divorced cousin as well. Do you think it hasn’t been obvious what you’ve been doing every weekend? What you’ve actually been up to? Weaselling your way into my family like this for your own ulterior motives?’

  ‘Weaselling? Your very nice, not-so-elderly cousin kept inviting me to spend my weekends looking after his even nicer young son. I accepted his invitations. What’s weaselling about that?’

  ‘It was all because of this stupid family boycott of yours. How dare you use my family to get yourself out of your own mess. I won’t have it, Charlotte.’

  ‘That’s too bad, Celia. Because you have no say in it.’