by Gina Amos
CHAPTER NINE
Ashleigh discovered an envelope addressed ‘to our new neighbour’ on her front verandah. Inside was an invitation carefully written on cream coloured note paper from Edi and Rhoda Blake, inviting her to sherry and scones on Sunday afternoon, at three pm sharp.
A cool breeze slapped at Ashleigh’s legs as she stood waiting on the marble doorstep. Three green tomatoes were neatly placed on the window sill, waiting for time or the sun’s rays to ripen them. As a grandfather clock chimed the hour inside the house, Ashleigh caught sight of a grey, wrinkled face peering out from behind a lace curtain. A moment later the same face reappeared at the front door.
‘Can I help you?’ the woman asked politely in a quiet and gentle voice through a crack in the door. Her smell was faint and old-lady sweet.
‘Hello, I’m Ashleigh Taylor. I’m your new neighbour from across the street. You invited me in for a drink.’
‘Who is it, Edith?’ came a shrill voice from the back of the house.
‘It’s the neighbour, she wants us to go out for a drink.’
Ashleigh smiled and wondered if she had made a mistake by coming.
‘It’s all right, Edi dear, it’s our new neighbour. We invited her over, you remember don’t you?’ Rhoda moved her sister gently away from the door. ‘Come in dear, I’m Rhoda and this is Edith. But you can call her Edi if you like. You must excuse her, she gets a little confused at times.’
Rhoda was a fine looking woman who looked as if she was approaching her eighties but could easily have passed for a woman ten years younger. Her hair was thick and grey; china blue eyes looked out from behind expensive glasses and around her neck she wore a pearl necklace. A set of matching earrings hung from her baggy lobes. She was dressed smartly in a mauve jumper and a check skirt and a pair of thick stockings covered her sturdy legs.
Edi on the other hand, looked frail and confused. A cardigan covered a crisp, white blouse and a pair of moccasins poked out from under her slacks. Her smart appearance did little to disguise her fish-like eyes which gave her a look that said to the world that she was unaware of who she was. Ashleigh wondered how long Edi would be able to live in the house before her sister could no longer take care of her.
Ashleigh attempted to make herself comfortable on the lumpy, red lounge. The gas heater was set on high, the room was stuffy and a little too warm for the time of day. The sun was beating through the front windows, which Ashleigh noticed were nailed shut. At her feet, a stain the size of a fifty-cent piece stared back at her from behind the faded pink swirls of carpet.
‘Now, dear, I’ll get you a sherry and we’ll have a nice, long chat.’ Rhoda moved towards the timber sideboard and poured the syrupy liquid from a crystal decanter into three glasses and placed them carefully on a tray. She offered Ashleigh a glass.
‘Cheers,’ Ashleigh said and smiled across at the two women.
‘I suppose you have heard about our neighbour?’ Rhoda asked as she put down her glass on the coffee table. ‘Extremely tragic, such a pleasant woman you know.’ Rhoda looked down at her lap and fiddled with her handkerchief, twisting the corners into little balls. ‘Rose Phillips was a very private person. We invited her in for a sherry when she first arrived in Eden Street, didn’t we Edi dear? That would have been a few years ago. I can’t quite recall but it would have to be at least ten, don’t you think Edi?’ Edi was staring at the gas heater and made no attempt to reply. Rhoda paused and tried to remember. A look of irritation crossed her face as she attempted to recall the year but decided it wasn't an important fact in the telling of the story and continued. She looked at Ashleigh. ‘I’ve lost track now. Of course, one does you know, when you get to our age.’ Edi nodded in agreement.
The Blake sisters raised their glasses to their lips in unison and sipped. Rhoda placed her glass down on the coffee table and paused for a moment. Ashleigh imagined she did this in order to gain her attention or it may have been that she was trying to recall a vital piece of information she felt she should share with her.
‘Poor Rose, something awful must have happened between the two of them. I blame it all on the son. Rose became distant almost overnight. She just didn’t want to know us and wasn’t the same woman at all. Before all the business with her son, she would often drop in for a chat and a cup of tea on her way home from the shops and every Sunday morning she would walk with us to St Michael’s to celebrate Mass. She was very involved in the Church activities, arranging the flowers, helping with the morning tea. But after the falling out, all that changed. I know she didn’t like her daughter-in-law, she told us that much, but she was very proud of him you know. William was his name, but she always liked to call him Billy. She told us that he was a very important barrister and worked in a bank in the city.’
Rhoda gathered her thoughts and wiped her lips with a white linen serviette and continued. ‘She died alone, right under our very noses. We were home last Friday; we could have helped had we known. You know dear - she was in her kitchen, drinking tea. Thank heavens for that real estate agent. It must have been quite a shock for such a young girl. Kevin told us all about it. He is very upset, the whole street is.’ Rhoda wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘We’ll be going to the funeral of course. I suppose it will be sometime next week.’
Edi sat quietly, gazing out through the front window nursing her glass of sherry in her lap, watching for any movement in the street. A dog barked a lonely bark in the distance.
‘Kevin said she died from pneumonia. Have you met Kevin?’ Rhoda asked but didn’t wait for Ashleigh’s reply. ‘Charming man, Kevin, and helpful too, always popping in to check on us, doing little odd jobs for no reward. He nailed our window shut last winter when we complained of a draught. He doesn’t seem to have many visitors though, does he Edi?’
Rhoda offered another sherry and a jam covered scone which Edi had brought in on a plate from the kitchen. She wouldn’t take no for an answer and as Rhoda refilled her glass, Ashleigh swallowed a mouthful of doughy scone and caught a whiff of her scent, a combination of sickly perfume and beeswax polish. The room was musty and damp. A nest of stackable timber tables, once popular in the sixties was pushed into a corner of the room. Crocheted doilies littered every flat surface like discarded sheets of notepaper. They looked as if they had been caught up by a sudden gust of wind and had landed there by luck, rather than by design. Landscapes by unknown artists hung from the picture rails together with prints of subdued English hunting scenes of muscled horses and their handsome red suited riders. A sequence of scenes at various stages of the hunt was strung out along the picture rails along the back wall of the room. Ashleigh moved into a more comfortable position on the lounge and shifted a cushion to one side.
Perhaps it was because Rhoda had finished talking that Edi’s face suddenly brightened. She appeared to emerge from a fog, smiled and asked politely, ‘Now Ann, it’s your turn. Tell us something about yourself.’
Rhoda winked at Ashleigh.
Ashleigh realised she had their full attention and as the sisters sat perched like cockatoos on their straight-backed chairs, they stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak. Ashleigh looked into their eager faces and wondered where she should begin.
