by Anne Ashby
“There’s bush back there toward the hills.” She heard Robby’s words, but shock had robbed her of comprehension. “And some grazing pastures.” Fingers clutched at her arm. “Do you think this is it?”
Leath’s heart sank all the way to the bottom of her stomach. All that anticipation had been wasted along with her expectations their new property would allow them some financial security. Unlikely if this was their windfall.
She closed her eyes, hoping the picture would change when she reopened them. Grabbing Kirk Buchanan’s money and running seemed the sensible option at this moment.
Prying her lids open a millimetre at a time the ghastly sight remained. She sent up an impassioned prayer this wasn’t what she’d been weaving her dreams around all week. Her gut told her differently.
Maybe it had been nice...once...decades ago. Seeing her white knuckles clutched around the steering wheel, she tried to allow some blood flow but her fingers wouldn’t budge. Shock and disappointment kept them glued. Meanwhile the rest of her body seemed impervious to everything but the scene in front.
“What a mess.” The words croaked out of Robby’s mouth as if he’d finally convinced his vocal chords to work.
A mess? Robby tended to err on the side of exaggeration normally, but this time he’d understated the obvious. Spilling milk was a mess. Stomping dirt into the house caused a mess. A mess could be cleaned up. Fixed.
Her gaze swept from the beach across the unkempt jungle of vegetation that had engulfed all in its path to the hills beyond.
“Please don’t let this be our new property,” she whispered. With a shaky hand, Leath rasped the car into gear. “Maybe this isn’t it.”
The yeah-right look Robby flashed caused her spirits to sink even lower.
With a heavy sigh, she said, “We’re not going to find out sitting here, are we?”
Moments later, turning off the road past a very lopsided mailbox with a faint Maguire painted on it, Leath tried to bolster her dismal thoughts. “Do you think we’ll have enough money for a bulldozer?” She blinked away bitter tears of disappointment.
“We’re going to need one to even get onto the bloody place.” Robby scowled as she edged the car forward under massive trees. “I think I’d better get out.”
Robby exited the crawling vehicle and was stomping through waist-high grass—and who knew what else?—checking the safety of her route. After upending a large fallen branch which would have ripped the underbelly of her car for sure, and tossing smaller obstacles from her path, Robby led the car down what she assumed had once been the driveway. They reached the front of a worn-out weatherboard house.
As Leath joined him and looked about, Robby muttered, “It sure needs some TLC, if we don’t bulldoze it to the ground. What do you reckon these are?”
Leath’s gaze followed his sweeping gesture. She shook her head. They were not the “outbuildings” one would expect to find on a farmlet. From what little was visible through the trees they seemed identical in shape.
Clutching keys given her by the solicitor, Leath tried looking everywhere at once.
Now they were amongst it, the jungle wasn’t as onerous as she’d assumed. It was tall and spindly, copious and out-of-control, but there seemed a pattern to its growth.
Huge trees appeared side-by-side in symmetrical order. Other trees Leath suspected had once been shrubs were now woody ghosts of disorder. Tripping against something hard, Leath toed the grass away to find a painted stone. Kicking further she unearthed another, and another.
“Look, Rob.” She pointed. “These must have been bordering a flower garden or something.”
“This looks like overgrown lawn around here.” Robby’s waving arm encompassed the area in front of the house. Maybe a lawn in the house’s other life?
Robby disappeared, but soon popped his head above the long grass. “Here’s some more of those stones.”
Her breath came in short puffs. “Let’s look around. You choose where we start.”
Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it first appeared. Perhaps it could be cleared, without the suggested use of a bulldozer to plough it all under.
Grabbing her hand, Robby pulled her toward the house, muttering over his shoulder, “We’re not stopping to search through her papers or anything. We can do that later. Right now I want to see what this place is supposed to be. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Her hand was shaking so much that Robby, with an exasperated smile, snatched the key-ring from her fingers. He soon threw open the door and led them into their very own house.
Leath’s heart stopped. Pungent mouldiness assaulted her nostrils. Ghastly yellow wallpaper offended her eyes. A strange and eerie feeling grabbed at her, whispering, telling her secrets.
She clutched at Robby’s arm as she looked around. “I’ve been here before.” Her mouth dried and she began to shake.
“Steady on, Leath.” Robby wrapped an awkward arm around her shoulders.
“Why do I know I’ve been in this house?” she beseeched.
“You could be dreaming.”
“No, I’m not, Robby.” She was one hundred percent certain. She pulled away and crept further into the house, looking for something familiar. With confidence she pointed down the hallway to a closed door. “The toilet.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Robby argued. “There are only two doors on the south side of the house, one of them had to be the toilet.” He stepped forward. “You’ve just guessed.”
Before he could open the door to check her premonition, Leath blurted, “The wallpaper was pink, with little figures, like angels or pixies or something...” Her voice faded away at the shocked expression on Robby’s face. She buried her face in her hands, whispering through her fingers. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Holy hell.” Robby slumped against the hallway wall. “They’re ballerinas.”
They goggled each other, their silence echoing around the unfashionable walls and bouncing back at them.
“I have to find out who she was, why she gave us this.” Leath stalked into the lounge, her fists clenched so tight she doubted she’d ever be able to undo them. “It makes no sense. Why have we never heard of Penelope Maguire?”
Robby followed her. “Can’t we just have a look around first? We weren’t going to worry about all that now. We had a deal,” he reminded her sharply.
Leath bit her lip. Robby was only nineteen. Really still a kid. Watching him prowl around the basic, practical three bedroom house, Leath knew his view on their windfall differed from hers. He didn’t have the burning need to know who this woman was.
Even more desperate now, she needed to understand why she could remember this house, but had no memory of the woman who’d lived here.
They wandered from room to room. The furniture was sparse and old, but Leath suspected it had once been of good quality. But there were no clues about the woman herself. Nothing personal. No pictures adorned the walls, although some faded areas suggested something had once hung in various places. There were no little knick-knacks on the shelves or lining the mantelpiece above the fireplace.
Leath felt a chill travel down her body. The house seemed dead. A thick layer of dust covered everything. The musty odour clawed at Leath, churning her stomach.
“Open every door and window you can find, Robby,” she ordered. “Let’s see if the breeze will clear this disgusting smell.” Within minutes, its depressing hold over the house seemed to have lessened.
Leath continued searching. The kitchen cupboards were full of things one would expect to find in a kitchen. She threw open each cupboard door, dreading what she might find. Thankfully no foodstuffs lay shrivelled or mouldy. A cupboard in the hallway had linen lying on its shelves. Mops and brooms stood beside the antiquated washing machine in the laundry.
Holding her breath as she opened the wardrobe in what appeared to have been their benefactor’s bedroom, she found it empty except for some cartons on the floor.
&n
bsp; Resisting the urge to fall to her knees and examine them closer, she reluctantly closed the door. The chest of drawers was also empty. She sped from bedroom to bedroom, re-checking. All clothing had been removed.
In the bathroom, the cabinets were empty and all the toiletries were gone.
Someone had come into the house and taken everything personal away. But who?
Were there other people somewhere who’d helped this woman during her last days? Or was it months? Leath took in the unkempt aura of the house. More like years, she decided. If so, why hadn’t they been acknowledged in the will?
Sinking onto one of the beds, Leath felt a wave of disappointment. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much she’d been relying on finding immediate answers.
Was there nothing left to tell them who this woman was? There must have been someone.
Leath stiffened her back; very soon she’d find out who that person was and talk to them. Even if they weren’t Penelope Maguire’s relations, her friends and neighbours would know things about her.
Leath’s gaze fell on the huge desk under the window. It mocked her puny efforts to reveal its secrets. Jiggling the old-fashioned roller at the top, Leath yelled out, “Have you seen any other keys anywhere?”
Robby’s head appeared at the doorway. “There’s a key rack in the kitchen. Why?” When he noticed her fiddling with the desk, he frowned. “I thought we weren’t worrying about searching through her stuff yet?”
“I know, but I can’t wait. I want to see what’s in this desk.”
Robby stomped away to re-appear moments later with a handful of keys.
Studying the lock and then the variety of keys in his hands, Leath tried a couple before sinking onto the bed. None of the keys fitted. She swore, thumping her fist against the ugly orange candlewick bedspread.
“It’s in there, I can feel it!” She kicked the side of the desk for good measure. “The answers to who she was.”
“I didn’t want to look at that stuff now, anyway.” The truculence in Robby’s voice alerted Leath, and she jumped to her feet as he stalked out of the room.
If she’d been alone, she wouldn’t have stopped until she had those locks open and she’d devoured every piece of paper in that desk, but they had made a deal.
Wistfully glancing back over her shoulder, she joined Robby in the kitchen. Putting her personal needs aside was hard, but Robby was right.
There were decisions they needed to make today. Their biggest decision—did they keep this place, or contact Mr. Kirk Buchanan and accept his offer? “So what do you think? Is the place in reasonable nick?”
She liked she could ask her brother this. Liked he was learning the skills to give an expert opinion.
“It’s been empty for a long time. I’d guess for all the time she was in that home.” His gaze flicked around. “I can’t see anything of obvious concern.” He jumped up and down, gauging any give in the flooring. “I’ll have to have a decent look outside, check the piles and things, but so far it looks okay.” His nose screwed up. “It would help if we can just get rid of the smell, and this horrible wallpaper.”
Leath laughed. He was right. The place looked hideous; the colour scheme was so old it was almost modern...but not quite.
“Let’s look outside.”
With difficulty, and more than a few scratches from unyielding bushes, they managed to shove their way around the house.
“Well? Is it okay?” Leath was becoming impatient with Robby’s concentrated poking and tapping.
“These few rotting weatherboards could be replaced.” He sounded surprised at the house’s condition.
“If we keep it, I bags painting the place.” They reached the back after forcing their way through the undergrowth. “You can sort this mess out.”
Leath poked out her tongue. She’d never liked gardening but figured she might be doing quite a bit of it if they wanted to tidy this place up.
“Hey, look at this,” Robby called from further around the house.
“What?” Leath thrust greenery out of her face to join him. He was pointing at a pathway through the vegetation. Leath frowned. “Do you think some animals have been getting in? Cattle or something?”
She hurried behind him along the trodden channel. It wound through the scrub for about a hundred metres before branching in two directions. They found one led to the beach. Retracing their steps they continued along the other track until they reached a fence at the edge of a paddock.
“The fence is intact.” Robby jerked on the wires. “I doubt any animal got through here.”
“What else could have flattened a track like this?” Leath looked around. “A dog maybe? A big enough dog could jump this fence.”
“Nah, I don’t think it’d be a dog. More likely kids. It’s been used pretty regularly. If you were a kid, this would be a great place to play, don’t you think?”
Robby shrugged. “We’ll probably never know.” He began to walk back.
“I suppose.” Leath tagged along. “Whoever it is, they haven’t done any obvious damage. Well, not that we’ve seen yet, anyway.”
From the house, they pushed their way toward the first of the square buildings dotted down the property toward the beach. After trying three different keys, they achieved entry into a concrete block studio unit.
“She must have run some sort of motel.”
“Maybe a hundred years ago.” Robby pinched his nose. “What the hell died in here?”
Leath tried to open a tightly-jammed window.
“Here, let me.”
She almost laughed aloud as Robby took a deep breath through his mouth before releasing the hold on his nose. With a couple of well-directed thumps he eased open the protesting window.
Fiddling with more keys on the huge ring while making a big show of choking, he unlocked the glass doors facing the sea and heaved them open. “If we jam open the back door with something, the breeze might get rid of the stench.”
“What do you think it is?” Leath couldn’t identify the smell. She didn’t remember smelling anything quite so foul before. Her stomach was sending urgent warnings of imminent eruption.
“It’s definitely something dead.”
“I bags you find out what.”
“You got to be joking!” Robby spun around, his eyes enormous.
“You’re the man here.” Leath grinned. “I reckon crawling around looking for smelly carcases falls more into your area of expertise than mine.”
“Bloody hell!” He scowled at her before turning to stomp out the door.
Taking a tentative sniff before following him, Leath discovered the draught blowing through had already freshened the air.
She found Robby on his haunches peering through the ventilation grids under the unit. “Let’s check out the others first,” she said.
With all the scrub obscuring their line of sight, it was hard to tell the distance between each unit. Leath followed as Robby forced his way past overgrown shrubs and small trees. Branches stretched out like tentacles to embrace her as she stumbled, nipping at exposed skin with razor sharp accuracy.
Leath ignored the painful scratches, determined to access every centimetre of this place. Their journey of discovery might be slow and awkward, but they needed to examine it all. They needed to be very, very sure of what, if anything, they wanted from this inheritance.
Standing on the pristine white, sandy beach, they could identify four units clustered along a small portion of its shore. Waist-high grass separated little balconies from the sand. Although now lacking structure, Leath could distinguish a row of trees growing beside each unit and guessed they’d once provided privacy. The numerous pohutukawa trees—none obscuring the sea view from each balcony—lining the front of the property would look magnificent later in the year. What a spectacle they’d make in summer covered with bright red flowers.
Electrifying anticipation grabbed at Leath as her gaze swept across the sheltered cove and back to the buildi
ngs. If they could clear this place up, redecorate the units, maybe make features of them...Her thoughts took off at the possibilities.
“Robby?” She clawed at his arm as he opened the last unit to the stiffening breeze. “Your apprenticeship teaches you about pricing building jobs and stuff, doesn’t it? How much would it cost to do each of these places up? Make them really nice?”
He looked at her strangely for a moment before studying the small studio with a thoughtful expression.
Holding her breath and trying to keep an iron control as outlandish ideas kept buzzing inside her head, Leath waited.
“We’d need to strip them. Replace the bathrooms and kitchenettes. Get all new furniture...” He sent a distasteful glance at the bed in the middle of the room. Finally, when Leath wondered if she could contain herself much longer, Robby shrugged and plucked a figure out of the air.
Multiplying the figure by four, Leath couldn’t stop herself from giving a little jump. “How much cash did Mr. Ellis say there was likely to be?”
She skipped across to check the size of the bathroom again. “And there’s her life insurance policy, maybe we could use that, too.”
Trying to keep calm, she sank down onto an old saggy divan. “Rob, if we did these up, we could rent them out. It’s close enough to Auckland to find people who want a weekend away, especially if we did something a bit unusual, a bit special. What do you think?”
She heard the squeak in her voice as the idea grew. “We could get Carrie to design a flash website for us. With a beach as beautiful as this...” Their flatmate was a computer whizz.
Robby looked at Leath for a moment, his head on one side, then scratched his chin, murmuring, “A couple of the guys might be willing to lend a hand one weekend if we turned on a decent barbeque and some beer.”
Leath’s voice hitched up an octave. “Do you really think some of them might? Would your boss allow his apprentices to help us out?” With professional help there was no telling what might be achieved.
“I guess. I could ask.” He scrubbed the back of his neck. “We’d have to dish up some really good grub though, not just cheap rubbish.” His eyes lit up. “We could make a weekend of it, lots of steak and beer. The boys would be sweet with that, I reckon.”
