At Home With The Templetons (14 page)

Gracie had just started on her geography homework when there was a knock at the door.

It was Spencer. ‘Quick, Gracie. Come with me. I need to show you something.’

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘I’ll show you when we get there. Come on, quick.’

Fifteen minutes later Gracie was standing beside the dam several paddocks away from Templeton Hall. She wasn’t happy about it. ‘That was a mean trick, Spencer. I don’t want to go fishing for yabbies. Do it yourself. I’ve got homework to do.’

‘It’s easy. Look. You just tie a bit of meat to the end of the string and wait.’

‘It’s disgusting. The meat and the yabbies. What’s the point of catching them, anyway? They sound horrible. You may as well eat cockroaches.’

‘There’s no meat on cockroaches. Come on, Gracie. It’s fun.’ ‘It’s not. I’m going home. Why don’t you ask Hope to come and play with you?’

‘She’s still locked in her room, that’s why.’ He threw a rock into the water, deliberately splashing her. ‘Why did I have to be the only boy in this family?’

‘Because two of you would have been even worse. Why don’t you get that boy Tom to come over again? He was nice.’

‘He’s banned. We’re a bad influence on him, apparently.’ ‘We’re not!’ Gracie said, indignant. ‘His mother was just upset that he went missing.’ Gracie had heard the fuss with the policeman. ‘She didn’t even meet us.’

‘She didn’t need to. She rang after she got Tom back. Dad told me. She wasn’t happy.’

‘So get Dad to go and talk to her again. Go with him. Try and pretend you’re normal for a few minutes.’

Spencer pulled a face. ‘Adults don’t usually like me.’

‘She might be the exception.’ Gracie stood up. ‘I’m going, Spencer. This is boring.’

Spencer didn’t try to stop her that time. Yabby catching wasn’t boring. It was sisters who were boring. As he sat impatiently watching for a tug on the line, throwing pebbles across the dam, he thought back to what Gracie had said. He sighed. Maybe it was worth a try. It couldn’t be any worse than sitting around on his own like this for days on end.

Nina rarely had a night to herself. Not completely to herself, when she was alone in the farmhouse, a whole evening stretching out in front of her, the prospect of a lie-in in the morning a reality rather than a longing. Now, as she drove back along the highway from Castlemaine, she realised it was an unfamiliar, almost unsettling feeling. When he was younger, Tom had hated spending a night away from her. Now, he seemed to take any opportunity he could to stay in town with one of his friends.

She knew she wasn’t the only mother of a twelve-year-old son finding the relationship between them changing. What had happened to the Tom who would tell her everything he had done, was doing or planned to do in great detail? She missed him. She didn’t know this new Tom yet. He was becoming secretive. Independent. Grownup.

‘He’s not turning against you or suddenly hating you,’ Hilary had said. It had been just the same with her two stepdaughters, she told Nina. ‘He’s just stretching his wings. Testing the boundaries. He has to change some time. He’s nearly a teenager, remember.’

Nearly a teenager, yes. And she still hadn’t told him the truth about his father. She’d had every intention of doing it that night in Castlemaine a few weeks previously. Throughout the drive to collect him, she’d rehearsed what she would say, even decided what stage of the dinner she would raise the subject. When it came to that moment, though, after their main course and before dessert, she simply hadn’t been able to do it. Hilary had been angry with her, as she’d expected. ‘The longer you leave it, the worse it will be. Don’t make an occasion of it. Just tell him.’ But she was too nervous now, Nina realised. Too worried it would change things even more. Create a bigger gulf between them.

Even tonight, as she dropped him off at his best friend’s house to stay for the night, she noticed the difference in him. He barely said goodbye to her. Just thanked her for the lift and went straight in the front door to Ben’s room.

At the car her friend jenny sympathised. ‘You’d swear they’ve been taken over by aliens, wouldn’t you? Our beautiful boys replaced by these strange creatures. He’s still in there, don’t worry. Ben’s my fourth and it’s been exactly the same with each one.’

Home alone now, Nina decided to try and be positive about it. Enjoy the night to herself. Have a glass or two of wine. Play the music she wanted. Watch the TV programs she wanted. Paint until three a.m. if she wanted, in the knowledge that she didn’t have to wake up at seven to get Tom organised for school or cricket.

The phone rang and she actually ran to answer it. It would be To

Tom, homesick, wanting her to come in and get him. It wasn’t Tom. It was another of the school mums, confirming an arrangement for tuck-shop duty the following week. It was a friendly, brief and businesslike conversation and it didn’t last long enough for Nina.

Two glasses of wine later, she was finally starting to relax. She’d eaten a simple dinner of tuna salad. She’d read a glossy magazine from cover to cover. She was just deciding whether to turn off the TV or watch a video when she heard the sound of footsteps outside. On the gravel and then on her verandah.

She froze. She hadn’t heard a car and people didn’t visit her on foot, not this far out of town. There was a knock at the door. A fast, efficient knock. A burglar wouldn’t knock, would he? She stood up. This was ridiculous. Why was she so jumpy? If Tom had been here, she would have been fine.

‘Hello? Is there anyone home?’ It was a woman’s voice. Nina instantly relaxed. Women didn’t tend to be burglars, rapists or escaped prisoners. She opened the door, a welcoming smile on her face, and then stopped. Standing on her front verandah was Hope. Hope from Templeton Hall.

‘Good evening,’ Hope said graciously, as if she was the one welcoming Nina. She gave no

indication that they’d met before. ‘I’m Hope Endersley. From Templeton Hall.’

‘Yes. Yes, I know.’ ‘And you are?’

Nina blinked. ‘Nina Donovan.’ ‘May I come in?’ Hope said.

For a moment Nina hesitated. If this woman didn’t know who she was, why was she visiting?

‘It’s quite cold out here,’ Hope said. ‘I’m sorry. Please, come in.’

Nina had heard plenty of stories about Hope since the fete. Antics during tours, gossip that she had a drink problem, a drug problem, a drink and drug problem. That she was inclined to swan around Templeton Hall in ridiculously over-the-top clothes. She seemed sober tonight, and she was wearing quite an ordinary sundress. Not so ordinary, perhaps, Nina thought again, noting the beautiful fabric and cut. She suddenly felt too aware of her own faded T-shirt and jeans. Hope was also wearing a beautiful pair of red, high-heeled shoes. They were covered in dust. She’d obviously walked over. Nina’s own feet were bare. As she opened the door and let Hope go past her, she hurriedly slipped her feet into a pair of Chinese slippers.

Hope stood in the hall, gazing around her, relaxed, confident. Nina found her voice again. ‘Please, come through to the living room.’

The TV was still playing. The side table was covered in the remains of her dinner-for-one. A plate. A half-f bottle of wine. A half-empty glass. Nina felt strangely guilty, as if she’d been caught misbehaving.

‘Can I get you a cup of tea? A glass of wine? Water?’ she asked as she straightened the cushion on their one good armchair and gestured to Hope to take a seat. At the last second she grabbed at a sneaker that was wedged halfway down the back of the chair. ‘Sorry,’ she said, smiling for the first time. ‘My son’s.’ ‘You have a son? That’s right, someone mentioned that.’ Nina knew then that Hope definitely had no memory of their altercation at the fete. She decided to at least try to be polite. ‘So, wine, water? Juice? Tea?’

‘Do you have whisky?’

Did she? Some brandy maybe, left over from last Christmas’s plum pudding. She offered that instead.

‘Fine, yes. With a little water.’

Nina got the servant feeling again. How did this woman manage to make her feel like this, she asked herself as she stood in the kitchen, getting the drink, making doubly sure the glass was clean, running the rainwater tap for much longer than usual to make sure it was as clear as possible. Her imperious manner? Her confidence? Or was it just the upper-class accent?

‘Your drink,’ she said as she delivered it, tempted to add the word ‘madam’.

Hope took a sip, closed her eyes as if in pleasure and then thanked Nina, very graciously.

Nina settled herself in her chair, picked up her own glass of wine and waited.

Hope began to speak moments after taking her second sip. ‘I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here. I’ve often seen your lights on as I take my evening walk.’

Nina couldn’t stop herself from glancing down at Hope’s shoes again. Bright-red silk. They were most definitely not walking shoes.

‘And it seemed rude of me to walk by one more time.’ ‘You take a walk past here every night?’

‘Most nights. My doctor in London advised regular exercise. Of course, I’m rattling with pills and tranquillisers as well, so why she thinks a pleasant stroll now and again will do any more good than all those chemicals, I don’t know, but it gets me out of the house and I suppose it gets me out from under their feet or in their hair as well. Which is it? Under their feet or in their hair? Or in their clutches?’

Nina found that hard to answer. She tried nodding instead. ‘It’s very difficult for me, you know,’ Hope continued. ‘I often feel like one of those condemned prisoners you see in photographs from death row. A human can sense when they’re not wanted. Sense when people wish them ill will. I know they wish that I was anywhere but where I am. Do they not think I don’t feel that way myself, sometimes? Do they really think I wanted to spend this much of my life here? “We need you,” they said. “Come with us,” Eleanor begged. “It’s not charity. There’s no one better qualified to do the Templeton Hall garden than you, Hope.”’

‘The garden? You’re a gardener?’

‘I’m a garden designer,’ Hope said, enunciating the words very clearly. ‘Though how I’m supposed to create an oasis of verdant beauty here when that ridiculous sun you have threat ens to burn it to a crisp most of the year, I don’t know. Still, they insisted. “Give us a garden that would make our ancestors proud, Hope,” Henry kept saying to me. “Fuck the ancestors,” I said to him. “I’ll give you a garden that will make me proud.” I’m good at my job, you see. Oh, people always said it was Eleanor who was the bright one, with her degrees and her campaigning for home education and the rest of it, but I’m the one who did the hard graft. It’s not just a matter of picking nice-smelling flowers or pretty shrubs. It’s about colour all year round. It’s about selecting the right plants. Not that any of the oafs -‘ she almost spat the word, ‘that come to drag themselves around the Hall and the gardens would notice even a leaf of it. You know I catch people cutting the roses every weekend? Pulling out whole plants? Taking cuttings? Thieves, all of them. Why don’t we just dig it all up and hand it to them as they leave? I said to Henry once. Give everyone a wheelbarrow and they can take a few trees as well. Do you have any cigarettes?’

Nina blinked. ‘I’m sorry, no. I don’t smoke.’

‘Too bad. Do you know not a weekend goes

by without something being stolen from the Hall? If it’s not pieces of my garden being dragged out of the soil, after all my hard work and imagination, it’s candles. Vases. A doormat one weekend. My sunglasses another time. I’d only put them down for a moment. I hadn’t even realised the Hall was open.’

Nina tried to think of something to say. ‘You could always put those red ropes up, I suppose. Like they do in museums.’ Hope gave her a scornful look. ‘You think I haven’t suggested that to Henry? Suggested he might think about securing some of the family heirlooms before they all vanish? Oh, but there’s no convincing Henry when he’s made up his mind. “If we do that, Hope,” he says,’ she switched to a deeper voice, “‘we may as well forget the whole idea. That is what makes us so appealing. That is why people come in droves to visit us.”’

‘So they can steal things?’

Another scornful look. ‘No. Because Henry believes the visitors think they’re getting an authentic experience. That they’re stepping back in time.’

‘It’s a very popular attraction,’ Nina dared to offer.

‘It’s ludicrous. The whole thing is ludicrous. When he first inherited it, my advice was to sell it. Sell it all. But, oh no, not Henry. Even if there hadn’t been that twenty-year no-selling clause with the inheritance, he wouldn’t have sold. It was an adventure, he said. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What fun! What games! And of course Eleanor just went along with him. I warned her, you know. About the age difference. When they first met, when she told me about this man she’d found to value our poor deceased grandparents’ belongings, how charming he was, how funny, I asked her how old he was. She was deliberately vague. She didn’t tell me the truth until they were engaged and it was too late. Our parents were unhappy enough. If our grandparents had been alive, they’d have turned in their graves.’

Nina bit her lip to stop herself smiling. She didn’t think Hope was trying to be funny.

‘Oh, it’s romantic at first. The older boyfriend. I know from experience myself. But it’s later that the problems begin. He gets used to being in charge, you see. And that’s exactly what happened. Eleanor became completely and utterly subjugated to him. Not only was she a child bride, barely twenty, but she was pregnant within seconds of signing the marriage certificate, as far as I could tell. She’d always told me she didn’t want to have children. Now look at her, four of them. And she’s not only mothering them, she’s educating them. Where’s the independence in that? It’s what Henry wanted, of course. For all his talk about women’s rights and love of her spirit, he’s got her exactly where he wants, under his thumb, under his control, and now trapped on the other side of the world in a ridiculous museum.’ She nearly spat the final word.

Nina was in a difficult position, enjoying every word while knowing she shouldn’t be hearing such personal information. She tried to change the subject. ‘And have you seen much of Australia yourself?’