At Home with the Templetons

by Monica McInerney

  ‘It’s my own favourite wine. Of course I do.’

  Ten minutes later she and Henry were sitting at the small table she’d set up underneath an apple tree on the edge of the apartment’s garden. The harsh afternoon sun had given way to a balmy soft evening. The birds filled the trees with their calls.

  Henry raised his glass. ‘Cheers, Nina. To you, to Templeton Hall, to weather like this for the rest of my life.’

  ‘How are you? How are things?’ She laughed self-consciously as they clinked their glasses. ‘I’m sorry. I still can’t quite believe you’re here.’

  ‘You thought you’d really never see us again? Nina, so little faith. It’s only been five years, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Closer to eight,’ she said.

  ‘Good heavens.’ He laughed. ‘We didn’t leave you too much in the lurch, though? Please tell me that and assuage my guilt.’

  ‘If anything, I got the better end of the deal. To have lived rent-free all these years. It doesn’t seem quite right.’

  ‘Nina, it’s not rent-free. You’re our caretaker. Eleanor and I are the ones in your debt.’

  ‘Does Eleanor know you’re here?’

  ‘She doesn’t, no.’ His expression was neutral. ‘I’m afraid Eleanor and I haven’t spoken in nearly four years.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It’s been a difficult time, for us all.’ He suddenly changed the subject. ‘And how is your wonderful son, Nina? Is he still playing cricket?’

  She told him about Tom, living in Adelaide now, attending the national cricket academy, planning an overseas backpacking trip.

  ‘I won’t meet him this time, then?’ Henry said. ‘Shame. I’d like to have taken the opportunity to nobble him somehow, for the sake of England’s future Ashes campaigns.’

  ‘You might be sorry you didn’t. His coach thinks he’ll definitely make the national team one day.’ It sounded like she was boasting. She was boasting.

  ‘Well, I’ll be,’ Henry said. ‘I still think of him as that small boy.’

  ‘Not so small. He’s six foot three now.’

  ‘Skill and height. We don’t stand a chance.’

  As they both took a sip of their wine, there was a moment’s silence.

  Nina hurried to fill it. ‘And you, Henry? What brought you to Australia?’

  ‘The sunshine? The fresh fruit?’ He smiled. ‘Work, I’m afraid. All I do now is travel for work.’

  ‘Antiques, still?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes, but I’ve branched out in recent years.’

  ‘Vintage cars?’

  ‘You know?’

  ‘I think it was Charlotte who mentioned it. Or maybe Gracie.’

  ‘You’ve quite a Templeton information network going? Yes, it started with buying and selling vintage cars, and has moved on since then, into luxury cars, chauffeur-hire businesses, that type of thing. Nina, I don’t think we were ever completely candid with you when we left, but there were financial reasons. You’re nodding. You knew?’

  ‘I didn’t know for sure. I guessed, I suppose.’

  ‘We were in a huge mess, to put it bluntly. My fault. My guilt. And therefore, it was up to me to fix it. I hoped it would be something we would face together, as a family. Unfortunately, Eleanor felt differently. She saw it as my mess entirely and my responsibility entirely to turn the situation around.’

  ‘Money matters are always difficult,’ she said, feeling uncomfortable, remembering faxes from Eleanor. She hadn’t gone into detail, but Nina had been under the impression that Eleanor had been very involved in everything. His next question surprised her.

  ‘Nina, do you ever wonder what your marriage would have been like, what your life would have been like, if your husband hadn’t died so young?’

  Nina didn’t have to think about it. ‘Everything would have been different. The person I am. Where I lived. My work.’

  He poured more wine into her glass, then into his. ‘Tell me what you’d have loved to have been doing. If life could have worked out perfectly to plan.’

  Nina smiled. She’d played this imaginary-life game on her own many times over the years, sometimes to console herself on lonely nights, other times to prove to herself that she’d still managed to make a good life for herself and Tom. She felt flattered, charmed even, to be asked the question now. Everything about this whole situation felt charmed, she realised. As if she’d found herself playing a role in a film, the Hall the perfect backdrop. She took a sip from her wine and started to talk.

  By seven o’clock that night, they were still outside, still deep in conversation, still slowly drinking the wine, savouring each mouthful. By nine o’clock, they were in her kitchen, eating a pasta dish she’d prepared. They’d opened a second bottle of wine to drink with it. That bottle was nearly empty.

  Standing up to clear the table, Nina realised she was light-headed, not just from the wine but something else too. She was having fun. She was happy. She also didn’t want it to end. ‘You’ll stay the night, won’t you? You can’t drive back now. Wine or no wine, it’s far too late. There’s plenty of room here. Eighteen of them, in fact.’ She laughed then. ‘I can’t believe it. I haven’t even shown you the Hall yet.’

  ‘Good God, the Hall. I’d forgotten about it too.’ He smiled back. ‘I expected to call in, say hello, have a quick look around and be back in Melbourne by dinner time. What a surprising change of plan.’ He moved forward then, and touched her cheek. ‘What a surprising, interesting woman you are.’

  ‘Oh, Nina, no!’ Hilary’s disgust showed on her face. ‘You fell for a line like that?’

  ‘Please, just listen.’

  Something happened to Nina when Henry touched her. She found a relaxed smile, though, kept her voice light, even as she tried to ignore the sudden intense feeling of attraction rushing through her body. It was the wine, she told herself. The fact she’d spent so much time alone recently. The fact that it was five years – five – since she’d been alone with a man like this. The last time had been a short-lived relationship with Jenny’s newly divorced cousin. She’d gone out to dinner with him four times, slept with him once awkwardly, the second time a little less awkwardly. Two days later he’d called her and said he felt it was too soon, that he was still in love with his wife. ‘If I wasn’t, I’d give it a go with you, though,’ he’d said as some kind of consolation.

  Tonight’s experience couldn’t have been more different. She’d never talked to a man the way she felt able to talk to Henry. Not just about the Hall, or their families. They’d covered politics, theatre, books. He made her laugh at stories about different clients in the antique business, and surprisingly, about the month he’d spent working as a chauffeur in Los Angeles. She’d been astonished to hear that. ‘It was necessary,’ he explained. ‘How best to learn a business than from the bottom up? I did it for a month and I was very, very bad at it. The ideal chauffeur is the quiet type. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.’

  Now, as she went through to her bedroom to get the key to the Hall, she found herself checking her appearance in the large mirror that hung opposite the front door. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright.

  ‘You look lovely.’

  She spun around.

  ‘You do.’ He smiled. ‘Now, will you give me the formal tour, or will I do it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I remember it.’

  ‘Oh, Nina. How could you forget? Come, let me show you.’ She let him take her by the hand around to the front of the Hall. As they reached the three steps leading up to the front door, he released her hand and threw out an arm as if addressing a waiting crowd on the empty forecourt. ‘Welcome! Welcome, all of you, to Templeton Hall, one of the country’s finest examples of colonial architecture. Step inside and step back in time, as you spend a day at home with the Templetons. Well, one Templeton and one —’ He stopped. ‘Nina, I’m so sorry. Remind me of your surname?’

  ‘Donovan.’

  ‘Of cours
e it is. As you spend a day, no, an evening, at home with a Templeton and a Donovan. This way, please.’

  Once they were inside the darkened Hall, Nina made her way to the fuse box. She kept the power turned off as a precaution against shortages rather than cost-saving. He was waiting by the front door when she switched on the main hall light. The small chandelier above their heads slowly began to glow, its brightness increasing until a warm golden light filled the entrance hall.

  Henry gazed around, smiling. ‘I’d forgotten quite how glorious it is.’

  She let him lead the way as he moved from room to room, watching as he occasionally pulled back the dustsheets to touch the pieces of furniture that remained. All the smaller items had been shipped back to the UK years before. He stopped when they reached the drawing room. ‘What a beautiful place. What a shame we had to leave. It’s as though we simply fled in the middle of the night, isn’t it? As if we were abducted by aliens. Here one day, gone the next.’

  ‘The aliens theory did come up locally a few times.’

  He laughed. He had an attractive laugh. She was noticing many attractive things about him.

  They moved upstairs to the bedrooms, bare of all ornaments now, furnished only with unmade beds and empty wardrobes, also covered with dustsheets. She pointed out the window shutter she’d had replaced, a floorboard that had needed repairing, the antique dressing table and wardrobe in the master bedroom that she’d recently had polished.

  Henry shook his head. ‘The more I see, the more I realise how much you’ve done for us over the years. I’m ashamed, to be honest.’ He came across to her and once again touched her cheek, gently. ‘Thank you again, Nina. For everything.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Hilary said. ‘Couldn’t he keep his hands to himself?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt.’

  Nina knew then what was going to happen between them. All she wanted to do was reach up and touch her lips to his cheek. To touch his skin the way he’d touched hers.

  For the rest of the tour she was conscious of everything about him – his voice, his body, the way he moved. It was as if her ordinary, black-and-white life had suddenly turned technicolour. As if the arrival of Henry that afternoon, out of the blue, being so interested, so charming, so attentive, had changed her and her life in some way. As if she could do anything, anything she liked today.

  When they found themselves at the doorway of the final bedroom, when she saw him looking at her, his expression one of interest, of admiration, when he said, ‘Nina, am I imagining it, or are we —’, she was the one who interrupted, who said no, he wasn’t imagining it. She was the one who reached up and kissed him first.

  It didn’t matter that he’d arrived only hours earlier, that he was virtually a stranger, that he was Eleanor’s estranged husband, Gracie’s father. None of that mattered. All she wanted to do was kiss him. Slip off his jacket. Touch his skin. Feel, in turn, the delight of his lips on hers, his fingers on her skin, on her back, slipping her shirt open, gently pushing her lace bra off her shoulder, kissing her neck, lower …

  She was the one who said don’t stop, please, when he hesitated. She silenced him with her lips. She wanted this to happen. It was going to happen. The bed creaked when they first lay on it, the noise soon covered with the sound of her gentle moans as his hands removed her clothing, his own soft sighs as she in turn took off his clothes, until they were both naked.

  His voice soft against her skin, his lips warm. ‘It should be silk sheets, Nina, not dustsheets.’

  She kissed him into silence again.

  ‘Then what?’ Hilary said. ‘You can’t stop there.’

  ‘Use your imagination.’

  ‘I don’t want to. Was it good, bad, indifferent?’

  Nina hesitated for just a moment. ‘It was wonderful.’

  She was lying. It hadn’t been wonderful. Not the first time. It had been exciting, though. Sexy and fast and urgent and clumsy and over too quickly. Afterwards they had talked, kissed, talked more. Then they had made love again, more slowly, more in tune with one another. He was a good lover. Very good. Gentle, skilled, experienced. She was self-conscious the second time, fighting against the feelings rising inside her, until she just gave into it, to his touch, his fingers, his lips, his body. She cried afterwards.

  ‘Nina, what is it?’ he said. ‘Is something wrong?’

  She smiled, laughed even. It wasn’t pain. It was relief. It felt so good to do this again.

  They slept after that second time. She woke up first, the room dark, the dustsheet scratchy beneath her. For a moment, she had no idea where she was. She was naked, there was a man beside her, she wasn’t in her bedroom, her mouth was dry, she’d been drinking. Where was she? She sat up as it all became clear. She was in bed with Henry Templeton. She had just had sex with Henry Templeton. Lots of very good sex. Oh, God. She carefully, quietly put a leg out, onto the floor, moving slowly, wondering where her clothes were, wondering —

  His voice made her jump. ‘You’re not running away, are you? Haven’t we just got started?’

  The warmth in his voice stilled her. ‘Have we just made a terrible mistake?’ It felt easier to say it in the darkness.

  She felt his fingers on her bare back, felt them stroke her spine, slowly downwards, felt the stirrings of desire again. ‘I thought we made quite a wonderful job of it myself. But if there were areas you felt we could improve, then I’m certainly happy to try again. And again.’ His voice slowed in time to his caressing fingers, which were now tracing patterns on her waist, moving higher, as she felt him sit up, come closer, felt his hands cup her breasts, his lips touch her shoulder, her neck.

  She turned back into his arms.

  They stayed in Templeton Hall for the next two days. They made love, talked, laughed, made love again. Nina was aware her real life was only metres away. Henry had work waiting for him in Melbourne. He’d explained it to her. A contact in LA had told him about a chauffeur business up for a quiet sale there. He’d been planning a visit to Singapore for the antiques side of his work and decided to make a detour en route. The chauffeur business could wait for the time being, he’d decided. It would work in his favour if he didn’t appear too eager. He would also postpone his meeting in Singapore. She heard him make calls to both parties, heard him sound charming, persuasive.

  Henry brought his suitcase into the Hall. She went back to her apartment for as short a time as possible, for clothing, coffee, bread, cheese, wine. All they needed to live on.

  She decided it was like being marooned on a very luxurious sandstone island. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She felt like a different person. Not just physically, though her body felt changed into something sensual, something beautiful. She’d always watched her weight and stayed fit and now she revelled in the lines of her body, revelled in the feel of Henry’s fingers tracing her curves, kissing her skin, touching every inch of her. In turn, she gloried in the feel of a male body again. How had she lived this long without it, without this touch, this pleasure?

  On the third morning, she was in bed when she heard Henry’s mobile phone ringing downstairs. She heard him answer, heard low murmurs and she knew even before he came back into the bedroom, carrying tea on a tray, that things were about to change.

  ‘Nina, I’m so sorry. I’ve been called back to real life. It’s the deal in Singapore. I can’t put it off any longer.’

  She didn’t get upset. How could she? ‘Of course. When do you have to go?’

  He had to be on a flight that night, he said. ‘But we still have today.’

  He brought her breakfast in bed. He found a bottle of champagne long hidden in the cellar downstairs. They made love again. She watched, the sheets around her naked body, as he packed.

  Their farewell that afternoon was brief, but perfect. Standing on the front steps of the Hall, he held her close, smiling down at her. ‘Nina, this was wonderful. You are wonderful. I didn’t expect this to happen but I am very, very glad it
did.’

  ‘Will I see you again?’ She didn’t feel desperate or needy asking the question. She knew this wasn’t the end. She knew something special had happened between them.

  He touched her cheek. ‘Of course. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  There was one more kiss, one more ‘thank you, Nina, for everything’, before he drove away. She stood, waving, until his car was out of sight. Afterwards, she went back into the Hall, turning on the lights in each room, not because it was dark, but because she wanted to celebrate somehow, to be in bright light. She went to the room they’d made love in, tidied it, moved to the kitchen and washed the glasses they’d left, all in a kind of daze. When she went to bed that night, back in her own room again, she was still smiling.

  ‘And then?’ Hilary said.

  Nina just looked at her.

  ‘Nothing?’ Hilary said. ‘Not even a phone call? A note?

  ‘I never heard from him again.’

  ‘But all the things he said to you —’

  ‘Yes,’ Nina answered.

  She waited a week without worrying. Wishing, but not worrying. She replayed every conversation they’d had. They became more witty, more sparkling. She remembered each time they’d made love. Her skin felt more sensitive, her body more sensual. She had new and sudden energy. She painted more pieces in the week after he left than she’d painted in the month before. She used brighter colours, her work more confident.

  People in Castlemaine commented on how well she was looking. ‘I think I’m in love,’ she wanted to say. That was the surprising, the amazing, the wonderful truth. She had fallen in love. With Henry Templeton, of all people.

  As she painted, as she gardened, as she cleaned her house, did her washing, lived her ordinary life on the outside, inside everything felt different. She imagined whole scenes starring herself and Henry. Trips away. Dinners out. Theatre evenings. Long afternoons in bed together. Her conversation was always clever and witty, Henry’s replies full of charm and intelligence. She made him laugh. She proudly introduced him to her friends. To Hilary. ‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ Hilary would say. Afterwards, she’d confess to Nina, ‘He’s fantastic. And he’s mad about you, I could see it. It was obviously meant to be.’