Winter (3 page)

I
'd hardly finished breakfast when Mr Carruthers arrived. I'd been expecting him but not quite that quickly. I was taking my second-last mouthful of porridge when the bustle of people at the door told me someone new was coming in.

I knew why. Sylvia or Ralph—probably Sylvia—had called him. I could imagine the conversation: ‘She's being difficult. Worse than difficult. She's being impossible.'

I never quite knew about Mr Carruthers. For as long as I could remember he had been in charge of the estate. Every three months he'd come to see me in Canberra—in recent years anyway—to give me a copy of his report to the court, and to have a chat about the way it was all going. Sometimes Ralph was with him, more often not.

‘Any questions?' Mr Carruthers would ask at the end. It was only in recent years that I'd been able to think of questions. The last two times I'd hit him with so many that he looked horrified. I had a distinct feeling that he liked me better when I was sweet and cute and passive.

No matter what though, he was always friendly, polite, cheerful, positive. That part was OK. It was just that somehow—I didn't quite know how—I sensed it was a bit false. Like he'd been through a course or something, in how to be positive. You wouldn't know what he was really thinking.

He came towards me now, eyes flashing behind his glasses. ‘Winter!' he said. ‘Welcome back. Welcome back to Warriewood. It's been a long time.'

That was typical of Mr Carruthers. He'd fought like hell to stop me leaving the Robinsons, but now that I was here he would act like it had been his idea all along.

‘So,' he said, drawing up a chair and sitting beside me, ‘how's it been so far?'

‘Fine,' I said. ‘Good.'

‘I believe you slept in the homestead last night?'

‘Yep.'

‘Goodness me. All on your own? You're braver than I am. Weren't you nervous?'

‘No,' I said, not bothering to tell him how un-alone I'd felt.

‘Well now, we can't have you there while the place is in such a poor state. What would you like to do? I know Ralph and Sylvia are very keen for you to stay with them.'

No-one seemed to have got the message yet. I was back for good.

‘Why is the homestead in such a poor state?' I asked, pushing back the empty bowl of porridge.

‘Sorry?' he said, gaping at me, his eyes widening behind his glasses, the glasses lifting slightly as his eyebrows went up.

‘Why's the homestead such a mess?' I asked. ‘Holes in the roof. Rotting floorboards on the verandah. Paint peeling off. Why hasn't anyone looked after it?'

‘It's a question of priorities,' he said, as though he was my housemistress at school, giving the boarders a lecture on keeping the supper area clean and tidy.

‘It's the main building on the property. Were you just going to let it fall down?'

‘Oh, no, of course not. I didn't realise it was so run-down.'

Considering he'd raised the subject himself, I thought that was a bit much.

‘But Winter,' he continued, ‘if you feel you'd like some work done on the homestead, why then, that can certainly be arranged. There's enough money available in the trust, and as the administrator I'd see renovations as a perfectly legitimate expenditure.'

‘OK, well can we get the verandah fixed? And the place painted?'

‘Certainly.'

‘And the carpets replaced?'

‘Why don't I call a friend of mine, Bruce McGill. He was a good friend of your parents too. He's an architect who specialises in these old places. He can advise you on what it needs.'

‘OK. Can you call him today? This morning?'

‘Well, certainly, yes, I can certainly do that. He's a busy man, but I'm sure we can get him out here for a look. Now, in the meantime, what will we do about your accommodation? I know Jenny, my wife, would be happy to have you come and stay with us if you think—'

‘I'm staying in the homestead.'

I wished I could have put it more politely, more graciously, but I was tired of these battles, and I didn't know any other way to win them.

‘Oh but Winter, really, I—'

‘Where did the furniture go? From the homestead?'

‘The what? The furniture? Oh I don't know . . . isn't it there any more? Have you asked Ralph? I imagine it's stored somewhere around the place.'

‘He said it had all been wrecked.'

‘Really? Wrecked? Well, I don't know about that. I'll certainly ask him for more details though. That doesn't seem right.'

My strategy had worked. By asking him about the furniture I'd distracted him from his attempts to get me out of the homestead.

I got up. ‘I'm going to sleep in the homestead every night, Mr Carruthers. But I want a bit more furniture, just any old bits and pieces, while we find out what's happened to the other stuff. And I need to go shopping for food and things. Can you give me a lift into town? And arrange some money, like an account at the supermarket or something?'

The only comment Mr Carruthers made after that was as we were driving into Christie.

He said: ‘You're a strong young lady, Winter. You remind me so much of your mother. I'm still not sure what you've got in mind, coming back here like this, but I admire your spirit. I just worry that you'll get lonely, staying in that big old house on your own. That great big house . . . so many memories . . . '

I didn't answer. I wasn't going to tell him the real reason I had returned to Warriewood. I didn't trust anyone with that information.

A
week passed. I settled into a kind of routine. I had enough furniture in the homestead to be comfortable. Ralph dragged out odd pieces from sheds and storerooms around the place. It was junk; I doubted if any of it was from the original stuff, but it would do for the time being. I hadn't asked again about my parents' furniture. I was waiting to see if anyone would offer an explanation. It looked like being a long wait.

I spent a lot of money, and just sent the bills to Mr Carruthers. I got a TV and a video, and organised with Austar to install a satellite dish. I had the telephone reconnected, and rang my friends back in Canberra, spending hours updating them on my new life, catching up on theirs.

Mr McGill, the architect, arrived on Thursday afternoon. He was nice. We walked around the building, inside and out, then he disappeared underneath it for half an hour. He reappeared all muddy and hot, and covered in spiders' webs. Then he got a ladder and went up into the ceiling for another fifteen minutes, coming down all dusty and hot, and with a fresh coat of spiders' webs.

‘It's not too bad,' he said. ‘But it hasn't been looked after the way it deserves. It's a fine old home, Indian-bungalow style, best example in the district. I don't know why it's been let go like this.'

He went through his notes with me, then gave me a list. ‘Roof, mostly sound, but some new sheeting needed. New guttering and downpipes all round. Heating, probably gas-ducted'd be best, but we'll get quotes. I imagine you'll want a security system too. I recommend that you get one anyway. Painting of course, inside and out. That'll be twenty thousand dollars right there, minimum. Now the floor, I suggest you take up all this old carpet and chuck it. Have a look over here.'

He led me to a corner of the dining room where the carpet had lifted, and peeled it back. ‘Look what's under this. Very nice Baltic pine. What I'm thinking is, if we get this polished, and you invest in some rugs, it'll give the place a wonderful atmosphere. What do you think?'

‘OK, I guess.'

‘What exactly are your plans? I mean, you can hardly live here on your own. Not at your age.'

I needed to talk to someone, and I liked him. So I admitted, ‘I don't really know yet. I just wanted to come back. Homesickness maybe. There's only one definite thing I want to do. As for the rest, I'm making it up as I go along. Like, when I got here and saw the state of the homestead, I just thought I should fix it up.'

‘It was a wonderful home when your parents were here. Your mother had a great eye. She was famous for her sense of design. I don't know who painted the place white. Phyllis would have had a fit. She understood colours like no-one I've ever met.'

‘That's weird,' I said. ‘That's pretty much what my art teacher said about me last term.'

‘So are you going back to school?'

‘I suppose. Sometime. Lately I feel like I've outgrown school.'

‘There's a good high school at Exley.'

‘I'd like to go to a government school. I've been at private schools since grade one. I got claustrophobic.'

We were walking towards his car and I knew if I didn't ask him now he'd be gone before I got another chance. So keeping my voice nice and steady I said: ‘What were my parents like?'

‘Do you remember much about them?'

‘Nuh.'

‘Hmm. Difficult to know where to start. Look, why don't you come over for dinner Saturday night? We can talk then. My daughter'll be there too. She'll be a bit of company for you. Jess is eighteen. If you want, I can pick you up about six thirty.'

‘Thanks,' I said gratefully. ‘I'd like that.'

As he was getting into his Merc he said, ‘There's lots of other people you could ask. About your parents, I mean. Your neighbours on that side, the Kennedys, they've been there forever, and they were good friends of your mum and dad.'

I blushed at the thought. After the encounter with the boy on the horse I didn't want to go near them.

‘Who else?'

‘There's the Slades, in Christie. And Dr Li. But ask your aunt. She'll know them all.'

‘My who?'

‘Your aunt. Mrs Harrison. Your Aunt Rita. Your great-aunt. You know.'

It was kind of funny. He was adding information each time, like dealing new cards in a game of blackjack. It was because he could tell by my expression that I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Actually it wasn't that funny.

He got out of the car again. ‘You know. At Bannockburn. Just down the road there.'

He pointed towards Christie. I remembered noticing the name ‘Bannockburn' on an impressive white gateway, when Mr Carruthers drove me into Christie for the shopping.

‘I've got an aunt?'

‘A great-aunt, yes. You mean you didn't know?'

‘The Robinsons told me I didn't have any close relatives except them.'

‘Who are the Robinsons?'

‘Well, Mrs Robinson's my mother's half-sister. So she's half an aunt.'

‘And you didn't know about your Great-aunt Rita? That's astonishing. I can't believe no-one's told you.'

‘I can't believe she's never got in touch with me.'

‘Well I'm pretty surprised myself. But she is eccentric. And strong minded. Like all the women in your family.' He grinned at me. ‘Mind you, I've only met two of them, and now you. That makes three. But I think I'm pretty safe with my generalisation.'

Slipping back into the driver's seat, he added, ‘Maybe you'd better go and introduce yourself to Mrs Harrison. You could walk it from here.'

‘Thanks. I might do just that.'

‘OK. I'll see you Saturday night then, and you can tell me all about it.'

I
went back to the homestead in a state of confusion. I felt almost . . . frightened. I know that seems ridiculous, when you've just gained a new relative, a new member of your family. But I guess those words didn't have much meaning to me. My ‘family' only really had one member, and I was it. My last two grandparents, my father's parents, in Adelaide, had died within a year of each other, four years ago. That seemed to be a pattern in our family.

My mother's parents had died yonks ago—as far as I knew: I was suddenly starting to doubt everything I'd been told—and both my parents had been only children themselves, except for my mother's half-sister and half-brother. The Robinsons were officially related to me, but they'd never seemed like ‘family members' in the way that my friends had families.

I'm not sure why the Robinsons took me in the first place. Sorry for me, I guess. And I was grateful. Seriously grateful. I mean, if they hadn't, where would I have ended up? In some sort of orphanage? Did they still have places like that? I had a feeling that most kids with no families were fostered out these days. That didn't sound like a great option.

The Robinsons never abused me or anything dramatic. They just seemed indifferent. Maybe that is a kind of abuse. Maybe that's the worst abuse of all. I mean, what would I know? They went on with their lives, almost like they were determined not to let me make any difference to them.

I tiptoed around the house, year after year, thinking that if I made too much noise, if I wore clothes that were too bright and colourful, I wouldn't just disturb the universe, I'd send it spinning into a different dimension.

So I'd adopted my friends' families as mine, kind of, and over the years attached myself to quite a number of their relatives. I spent most of my weekend leaves from boarding school at their places. It had never been a very satisfactory way of getting a family. But beggars can't be choosers, and when it came to rellies I was a beggar.

Sylvia was up at the homestead, fussing around, cleaning the kitchen. I never asked her to do stuff like that, but I wasn't going to stop her either. I mean, I'm a teenager: like I'm really going to tell an adult to stop doing my cleaning for me? A lot of people think I'm crazy, and maybe I am, but I'm not that crazy.

At the same time I wasn't too comfortable about it. There was something irritating . . . a bit unnerving . . . like she was sticking her nose into my territory. Trespassing. Spying on me even. The last thing I wanted was to take her into my confidence. But there was no-one else to ask, and besides, she'd lived here so long that it would hardly be news to her that I had a great-aunt.

‘Do you know my great-aunt? Mrs Harrison? Rita Harrison?'

‘Sure.' She squeezed the mop into the bucket, then paused and looked up at me. ‘Everyone knows Mrs Harrison.'

‘Everyone except me.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘I don't know her. I've never heard of her before. I didn't even know I had an aunt until five minutes ago.'

‘You didn't? Well, that's strange. I just thought you'd always been in touch. Mind you, she is . . . well, she's a law unto herself. If she decided she didn't want to do something, an army of wild horses couldn't make her. A lot of people around here are terrified of her. She is, what can I say?, a powerful lady.'

She started mopping again. ‘I guess you don't remember too much about your mum and dad?'

‘No, not a lot.'

‘Well, I never met them myself, although I've lived in Christie all my life. Everyone always talked about them though. They were very popular in the district.'

‘Oh, thanks,' I said. I knew she was trying to be nice, but somehow it didn't quite work. It didn't feel genuine with her. If anything, I felt a bit violated by having her talk about my parents. More trespassing.

‘It was a tragedy that they both died. Everyone was devastated. Sometimes life is just so unfair.'

‘Mmm, I guess so.'

I was impatient for her to finish now. I wanted to get the homestead back to myself, so I could think about all this stuff, this news about my great-aunt.

Sylvia carried on, unconcerned. I don't think she was too sensitive to anyone else's feelings.

‘I remember my mother coming back from your mother's funeral. She had clay halfway up her shins. It had been raining for weeks, and the ground up there around the lookout is all clay.'

I stood there trying to process what she'd said. I could hear my brain going like a computer, when you give it a heap of functions and it makes that clicking sound, as though you're winding up a clockwork toy as fast as you can. Sylvia was mopping away. She hadn't even noticed. I knew I had to say something. Finally I opened my mouth.

‘Do you mean my mother's buried near here?'

I suppose the thing that I'd really shocked myself with was the realisation that I'd never considered where my parents were buried. How come? I was disgusted that I'd been so thoughtless, and ashamed that I'd never gone looking for their graves.

Sylvia was pretty shocked too. She stood there holding the mop and gaping. Her cheeks, normally so red, were white now, but there was a little burning spot in each one.

‘You mean you don't know?'

I was sick of people saying stuff like that to me. I was sick of not knowing anything. I bit my tongue but Sylvia kind of said it for me.

‘We keep forgetting that you were so young when it all happened. I'm sorry. I thought you would have known about their graves.'

‘Well, I don't.'

‘They're both buried here on the property. Very unusual these days. I don't know how many strings had to be pulled. Must have been a lot of paperwork, I'll bet.'

‘Where are they buried? Where exactly?'

I had my arms folded tight in front of me, like I was trying to hold myself in, to stop my insides falling out.

‘Why, up at the lookout. Like I said.'

‘Where's the lookout?'

‘Oh, you don't even know . . . '

She leant the mop against the door frame and took me outside. She pointed towards a gate leading out of the top paddock. ‘You go through there, and follow the vehicle track to the right. Go up about half a k and take the fork to the left. Just keep going straight on up. It's a good hike, but you can't miss the lookout.'

When people give you directions they always finish by saying: ‘You can't miss it'.

Sylvia looked at me anxiously. ‘Are you going there now? Straight away? You want me to come with you? You sure you'll be all right? It could be a bit hard on you.'

‘No, I'm fine. It's no big deal. I'm just interested to see it, is all.'

I felt her eyes watching me as I walked away across the paddock, but I didn't look round.