And De Fun Don't Done (48 page)

Les pulled up for a moment and had a look; it definitely wasn't quite what he expected. But there was no mistaking it. A sign nailed high up on the wall facing him said Norton House Restoration Project, with some smaller lettering painted underneath. The scrubby, barren block of land had a few splintery poles on it for a fence. Les parked the car next to it and got out. There was no wind now, the sun wasn't casting any shadows and it was quite still and silent, making it all seem a little eerie as well as totally unexpected. With his hands on his hips, Les stared at the old building and slowly shook his head.

The manse was no cottage. It was a towering, two- storey building, at least fifty metres square, and took up the whole corner. A yard with a crumbling orange brick wall round it ran to some houses at the rear that had to be over a hundred metres long also. The bottom storey was built from thick sandstone slabs, and the top storey was all solid wooden panelling that jutted out a good five metres over the footpath and was propped up by six massive white wooden columns about five metres high. The roof was built in two sections, in what looked like either orange tiles or slate. Four double windows faced up Holding Street and five huge doors above the columns looked out over the harbour. There were no windows in the sandstone wall alongside the vacant block, but six more double windows were set in the sandstone wall facing the harbour downstairs with a massive wooden door in the middle. The footpath out the front was five metres wide and was all cobblestones, right up to the kerb. Norton stood next to the car, still shaking his head. What did that Nigel bloke say a manse was? A modest house provided by the parishioners. Modest fuckin' house? This place is built like St George bloody Leagues Club. It's a mansion. That, however, was the good news. Unfortunately the place also looked like it had been through every one of the Darwin air raids.

Most of the roof was missing, exposing the greying beams and rods underneath and what tiles remained were in clusters, sitting alongside where someone had tried to patch up the roof with sheets of galvanised iron, now twisted and rusting away. All the upstairs windows at the side were gone, leaving only the white frames sitting in the faded brown panelling, and the upstairs doors were gone also, leaving just the frames and empty spaces staring out over the harbour. The windows downstairs were all gone and the spaces boarded up; the massive front door remained, but it was cracked or splintered in parts with most of the white paint faded away. At one time the sandstone looked to have been stuccoed with white lime, now it was all crumbling away as well and the towering columns out the front were chipped and faded and had weeds growing up round the bases. For such an impressive structure it was quite a poignant sight really. As well as suffering from obvious neglect, the old building looked all sad and forlorn standing on its own at the end of the street with nothing to keep it company but the surrounding walls opposite and the overcast sky above. Les shook his head again and had another look at the sign nailed to the wooden panelling upstairs. ‘Restoration Project'. Christ, he thought. How would they bloody restore that? From what I've seen it'd take the country's entire budget. He got back in the car, drove it down a bit further and parked right out the front.

Up close, the manse looked even bigger again. Les got out and stood next to one of the wooden columns; it was closer to seven metres high and when he put his arms around it his fingers barely met. He looked up to where the columns supported the equally massive beams that held the front of the manse above the footpath and noticed that, although the beams looked solid and secure enough, parts of the flooring were gone or splintering away. Everything seemed as if it was built by, or to accommodate, giants. More huge beams ran over his head, the sandstone blocks were a metre square, the double front doors were both close to twelve feet high;
even the cobblestones beneath his feet were as big as coconuts. The front doors had been boarded up in parts with a heavy chain and padlock securing them; Les walked over for a closer look and to see how solid they were. There was a sandstone arch built into the wall above them with a bigger, fan-shaped keystone in the middle. Chiselled into the keystone was a date: Les stepped back to see what it was and his jaw dropped. 1761.

‘Holy bloody shit!' he said out loud.

He had another look then stepped back out onto the road and stared up at the old building in astonishment. 1761. This bloody joint was built before Australia was even discovered. It's hundreds of years old. Well, what must it have been like in its day? And in a spot like this right across from the water. Norton's eyes narrowed slightly. Modest bloody residence, eh? Yeah, pig's fuckin' arse. Something Les had been thinking about earlier began to tick over in his mind, but for the moment he couldn't figure what it was. He stood in the deserted street, staring at the manse for a while, shaking his head very slowly and unconsciously picking at his chin. Well, I wonder what it's like inside? he finally thought. Only one way to find out. He got his backpack off the front seat and locked the car.

There was no chance of getting in the front way. Les walked round the columns and turned left where the side of the manse ran along a quiet, wide street with not much in it except several trees, some old houses and shabby stone walls, several cracks in the uneven road, and a couple of women walking away in the distance. A high sandstone wall opposite the manse angled into the street and through a couple of gaps Les could see about 200 metres of more sandy scrub and palm trees before the harbour. It had to be a harbour, because a battered metal sign bolted to the sandstone wall said West Harbour Street. This side of the manse was much the same as the other; empty window frames in the panelling above and the lime stucco crumbling away from the sandstone
blocks below. Les strolled past for about fifty metres to a high gateway and the start of a brick wall that ran part of the way round the yard before the wall became sandstone like the one across the road. Parts of the brick wall were falling away; Les was about to step through the empty gateway when he stopped and pulled a brick from one of the gaps. It was about half the size of a normal house- brick, softer and the most beautiful pinky-orange. Les juggled it in his hand. Look at this, he thought. These bricks are as old as the house. Handmade and hand baked. Imagine having a ton of these old colonials back in Australia. They'd be worth anything. Instead they're sitting here crumbling into the ground. He placed the old brick back with the others that the now powdery white mortar was still managing to hold together and stepped into the backyard.

It was overgrown with waist-high weeds and shrubs. One solitary tree, thick with branches and some kind of yellow fruit, jutted up in the middle and at the back were the remains of a dozen or so cubicles and a couple of horse troughs that suggested they were once stables. The back wall of the manse had four empty window frames in the panelling above but only two small ones in the sandstone below. Both were boarded up, but a big green wooden door between them, splintered and hanging off its hinges, was open; Les had a quick look around and stepped inside.

It was one long wide room, full of nothing but rubbish, broken furniture and hundreds of old books covered with dirty water and mud. Les picked one up:
Welsh Farming Procedures 1903
. He threw it back with the others then squinted momentarily and sniffed at the unmistakable odour of crap and stale piss. About four metres in front was a sandstone wall and two doorways that led to another room. Several chipped white gables, which were probably from the window frames round the side of the house, were stacked between the doors. A dilapidated staircase with half the steps missing and rusty nails sticking out everywhere went along one wall, then
doglegged upstairs. Norton left it, walked across to the left doorway in the sandstone wall and stepped into the other room.

It was huge, at least thirty metres by ten, completely empty and reminded Les more of a ballroom than anything else. Apart from a few more soggy books scattered round the corners there was hardly any rubbish; just dirt and a few pieces of wood lying around the floor. There was enough light entering from the gaps in the roof and the flooring above to see, although at one end of the room where the ceiling was still intact it was somewhat darker. Les noticed the massive double doors with the chain plus the boarded-up windows and figured this must be some sort of main room that ran along the street outside. The sandstone walls in here were thickly stuccoed a lovely pale aquamarine; there was no graffiti, very little damage and they'd managed to retain their beauty over the years. Shit, thought Les. I wonder if the walls outside were once like that? If they were, this place would have looked sensational. Beneath the dirt the floor was solid marble tiles, now filthy after years of neglect. There was a small patch of water near his foot; Les rubbed it with the toe of his trainer and it didn't take long to come up white. But the most imposing and striking thing of all was four absolutely magnificent mahogany pillars running lengthways down the centre of the room about five metres apart. They were a deep, lustrous brown, at least fifteen feet tall and propped up a monster beam that supported the floor above. They were narrower at the top, where they'd been turned and carved, and the bottoms were bolstered up from the marble floor by about a metre of smaller sandstone blocks. Les walked over and rubbed one of the pillars with the sweaty tail of his T-shirt; almost immediately it began to shine an intense, reddish black, something like those plump Yass cherries you get at Christmas. Les wrapped his arm around the pillar. It wasn't quite as thick as the ones outside, but just by the feel of it Les could tell it would be twice as heavy. He stepped back from the columns and looked up to where
they met the crossbeam, then back to the sandstone blocks below. Bloody hell! Wouldn't you have some fun bevelling those bastards in? Especially in this heat. Les strolled along the columns to the far wall, where it was darker and noticeably cooler. The wall at this end was in the best shape of all of them. Les looked up at it and wasn't quite sure in the gloom if he could make out something painted neatly on the wall directly behind the last column. Was it an X? Yes it was, about a metre across. And there were two names painted alongside it in letters the same size. They weren't painted, they were neatly formed in the stucco and painted over and you could just make them out in the semi-darkness. Les stared for a moment then his eyes lit up.

‘Look at bloody that!' he called out, loud enough for his words to echo round the large room.

Les could make out NORTON. The X was clearer now and on the left side of it was EDUARDO. Les banged his fist into his hand. EDUARDO X NORTON. Father Eduardo Xavier. The priest who owned this place. Elizabeth Norton Blackmore's brother. He's put his name up on the wall. Well good on you, Ed old mate, smiled Les. If I owned a joint as grouse as this I'd probably do the same thing. Les looked at the letters for a few more moments then decided to check it out upstairs.

If Les had been a filmstar he would have hired a good stuntman to go up the stairs for him. They were fucked. What wasn't rotting away was full of rusty nails with a few pieces of loose bannister left where it angled off the wall. Shit! Doesn't that look lovely? Oh well, I hope I don't ruin my handbag. Les put his backpack over his shoulders and carefully climbed up on to the first loose piece of staircase. It wasn't all that bad and by going slow, watching what he was doing and keeping to the sides, Les made it safely to the top floor.

Up closer the roof was certainly stuffed alright and half the floor was missing with at least a seven-metre drop to the floor below. The wall frames were mostly intact. There were four huge rooms at the top of the stairs, the
remains of some hallways, and the front of the house was two monstrous rooms that looked out over the harbour. Les began moving carefully around the floors and beams. All the rooms were around fifteen feet high with arched doorways over six feet across and the remains of Adam fireplaces set in the walls. Round the arched doorways were dainty angels and chains of flowers carved as delicately as lace, the white paint still intact. God. What sort of a place must this have been? mused Les. Unbelievable. He had another look up at the gaping roof and around him and noticed the floors were a little wet. Good thing it didn't rain too bad over this way last night. Then again, I reckon if a good blow ever hit here it'd be the finish of the top half of this joint. What a shame. Les shook his head and walked across to the front room on the right, watching out for some massive iron bolts, almost countersunk into the giant beam supporting the floor.

The room had an absolutely magnificent view across the calm, safe waters of the harbour. The ocean was a little murky in close before it turned blue, there were houses for a while then nothing but coastline and palm trees with two or three small beaches in the distance. From above, the walls across the street began to take shape now. They'd been some kind of buildings in the past and the roofs were missing; the remains of a few blackened beams suggested there might have been a fire at one time. The walls were quite thick and Les could see they'd been strengthened with lumps of quartz and granite cemented among the sandstone. There were square holes in the walls, with thick iron bars set into them, some even had rusting metal shutters still hanging from the sides. Near the rocks down at the water's edge Les could see the remains of an old wooden jetty now rotting away and sinking into the water. Jesus, what a spot for a house. Imagine if this was Watsons Bay or Vaucluse. The place'd be worth millions. Les looked at the harbour for another minute or two then went into the other room and looked out from the doorway in there for a slightly different perspective.

Norton was leaning against the door frame, staring vacantly out at the ocean. The manse had taken him completely by surprise and he didn't quite know what to make of it; it was all too weird. But there was something else bugging him too, something he'd read somewhere and it wasn't in that book about Jamaica. Then the thought he'd had earlier kicked in. Next thing he flashed onto something he'd been thinking about in the plane when they'd just left Australia. Les looked around him at the huge old house with its massive rooms, marble floors, mahogany pillars and aquamarine walls. Cobblestones out the front, Adam fireplaces, the workmanship on the doors and just the stuff that was left. The labour that would have gone into building this place. The money it would have cost to build it. The money. Norton's jaw dropped slightly and he slapped his hand against the door frame.