The car juddered across a cattle grid. I sat up straighter. The driveway was lined with liquidambars planted so closely they competed for light and stretched to the sun, rangy and tall. We drove through a long tunnel of coloured leaves turning from green to yellow, some red. On the left was a paddock and further down was a weathered grey timber shearing shed. On the right was a low, dry-stone walled fence and beyond it a garden, the impression of aged large shrubs and trees. The house was dark-red brick with a faded red corrugated iron roof. A shimmer of smoke came from one of the two chimneys.
Mark made a sharp right turn and we pulled up outside the back door beside a white 1970s Mercedes. The lower half of it was pasted in dirt and it was missing a side mirror.
I stepped out of the car, shrugging deeper into my coat and wishing I had brought my gloves. I zipped Sophie’s coat higher and pulled her hood up, but she straight away pushed it back off her head.
The back lawn had been roughly mown and clumps of recently cut grass had blown onto a concrete path that led to a clothesline where a single blue sock hung. There was a ragged-looking fruit tree beside the back fence. A grey Fergie tractor and a red ride-on mower sat useless among other rusted and derelict-looking machinery in an open shed. Tucked to the side was a small lean-to, half full of firewood. A rough carpet of bark was on the floor.
A small shadow crossed the path, a passing bird. I turned to the scrape of an opening door.
Charlie Chandler was standing behind the flywire. The sun was behind the clouds so I could only make out the outline of his body and his white hair. Mark Palmer reached forward and pulled the screen open and there he was, staring down at me. His hair was too long, curly and perfectly white. His skin was pale, rice-paper thin, and the loose weave of wrinkles around his eyes and neck told his age. His clothes – khaki corduroy trousers and an orange cable-knit jumper frayed at the elbows and cuffs – were flecked with paint of different colours. He didn’t reach out to shake my hand or stand back and invite us in out of the cold. From deep inside the house came the faint sound of jazz – piano and trumpet.
It was only when he saw Sophie standing off to the side that he smiled; his blue eyes almost disappeared into the creases and his dimples showed. He would have been a handsome man once.
A Westie terrier appeared from behind him, scuttling on short legs, and squatted on the doorstep beside Charlie’s brown leather shoes. The little dog took us in with its pointy upright ears and dark eyes, and when it saw Sophie it trotted straight into her outstretched arms.
‘Who have we got here?’ Charlie said.
‘This is Sophie,’ I said.
‘And this is Blondie.’
With the dog wriggling and Sophie struggling to keep it in her arms, Charlie leaned out of the doorway and looked around. ‘Anyone else here?’
Mark put a foot on the bottom step. ‘It’s just the three of us, Charlie. This is Greer O’Reilly.’
Charlie looked at me. ‘Where’s your husband?’
‘It’s just me and Sophie.’
‘You want to take this place on by yourself?’
‘I don’t know. I only saw the ad this morning. Thought I’d take a look around.’
He frowned. ‘What’s your background?’
‘Not blueberries. But I’m a fast learner.’
‘Where’re you from?’
‘Prahran, in Melbourne.’
‘You got a job?’
I glanced at Mark. He shrugged.
‘Fifteen years in public relations.’
Charlie half laughed. ‘Blueberries don’t need a spin doctor looking after them. We’re wasting each other’s time.’
He called the dog and she scampered to him; he lifted her up slowly, both of them with their white curly hair. Then he started to close the door.
Mark stepped onto the back step. ‘Hang on, Charlie. Greer has driven a long way to see the place. I think we should come in and take a look around.’
‘I’m not in favour of this,’ he said. ‘Off you go now.’
Mark glanced away, thinking.
The door was closing.
‘Charlie,’ I said.
He hesitated.
I stared at his hand on the edge of the door, the paint flecks on his fingers and under his nails, not knowing what I was going to say. In that moment of bewilderment, I felt overcome by this new rejection – that this old man was refusing me the opportunity to decide my own fate. I’d lost my job and Nick had a new partner and my best friend had let me down. And now this. Even this stupid, whimsical idea I had to run away from everything was being taken from me before I’d had a chance to seriously consider it.
‘What is it?’ Charlie asked.
‘It’s hard working full-time with a child, chasing billable hours and getting to after-school care before six.’ I could hear the strange breathless pitch of my voice, and had the terrible thought I might not be able to finish what I needed to say. I took a breath and carried on: ‘It’s just that I’m over worrying about precious clients and I’m just in need of change in my life right now. And the traffic down Chapel Street’s a killer and I’ve tried every which way to avoid it, but it’s the only way to the office and I’m over it. I’ve had enough.’
He put the little dog down and ushered it inside. Then he turned back to me and searched my face with narrowed blue eyes, the same clear blue as a summer sky. He shook his head and spoke quietly with a slight throaty burr: ‘Chapel Street has always been bumper to bumper, so I understand. But I came from the city fifty years ago and it was a tough adjustment. I had Audrey and her family around me. A young woman like yourself with a child? Well I’m sorry, but you won’t last here. You want to be isolated with no cafés close by? No fancy dress shops? And as for the orchard, do you really want the worry of when it’s going to rain, or get too hot, or when a late frost will kill the fruit? And what if in the middle of a harvest you get pelted with too much rain – do you really want that stress? And that’s not even half of it.’
He held my gaze.
‘Why are you trying to talk me out of this?’
‘Because you’re not the type to run a blueberry orchard.’
‘Isn’t that for me to decide?’
‘I’m doing you a favour. Now I’ve got things to do,’ he said, putting his hand back on the door.
Mark reached up and stopped it from shutting.
‘Charlie, I think we’ll come in and have a bit of a look around.’
He shook his head, no.
‘Warren’s phoning me this afternoon. He wants to know how this inspection goes.’
Charlie turned square on and pointed at him. ‘It’s none of his damn business.’
‘We can give him a call now if you like.’ Mark pulled his mobile out of his jacket pocket.
‘Keep him out of it,’ Charlie said.
‘Who’s Warren?’
They ignored me.
‘But he wants to be kept informed about this visit.’
Charlie stared at the phone in Mark’s hand. And together we watched Mark tap through his contacts. Staring directly at Charlie, he put the phone to his ear.
One, two, three long, silent rings. Mark’s eyes were on Charlie, who was working out what to do with his hands. For a moment they were in his pockets, then they fidgeted around the hem of his jumper until he clasped them together to stop the trembling in his fingers.
Four, five, six.
‘What’s going on?’ I said, turning to Mark. ‘I’m not happy –’
‘Hello, Warren. Mark Palmer here.’
The poor old man, the way his shoulders slackened and his chest sank as he stepped aside in defeat.
‘Never mind. I’ll call you later,’ Mark said into his phone.
As I took my first step inside I looked at Charlie, ready to fix whatever was wrong between us, at least to smile, but he was staring hard into the coat rack on the opposite wall, with flared nostrils and a tight jaw.
There was a dank odour in the
house that I put down to old man smell: piss, whiskey, not much cleaning, and the dog.
Mark led the way and Charlie didn’t follow.
The kitchen had a 1970s renovation: olive-green laminate benches, and orange tiles. The oven was in the cavity where an Aga had once been. The sink needed a good scrub. There was no dishwasher.
Mark was talking, something about a lick of paint, other things I could do to improve the house, but I had turned and was looking through open double doors, instantly distracted.
Marilyn Monroe filled almost the whole dining room wall, her head and shoulders in bright coloured palate knife scrapes and dabs of thick oils. And through the archway to the lounge there were paintings on every wall, two levels, one above the other, all of them in the same style, but of flowers or garden scenes in a kind of layered mosaic pattern.
‘Charlie’s a painter,’ Mark said.
I stared at the detail, the combinations of textures and colours. They were good.
The living area was overwhelmed by the paintings, heavy antique furniture and tired, split leather armchairs and a couch. Faded Persian rugs covered the thin floral carpet. Charlie’s CD player was in a bookcase – the jazz kept on, the long sigh of a saxophone and irregular trill of a piano.
On the mantle above the burning firebox was a row of framed photos. I stared into a black-and-white one of a younger Charlie and a woman leaning into a row of bushes. Both were holding secateurs.
A rush of sadness came over me when I looked into Charlie’s bedroom. There was something too lonely about a queen-sized bed with a single pillow to one side. I still had Nick’s pillow on my bed and every night when I settled to sleep I shoved it length-ways and pressed my back into it as though his body were still there. Even his books lay on the bedside table – a Granta edition on memory and another on the global food crisis. Some of his clothes were still in the wardrobe and drawers.
Mark and I walked to the blueberry orchard with Sophie trailing behind hoping to see the little dog reappear. The orchard was on the south side of the garden, beyond a row of skyscraper cypress trees.
There was still no sign of Charlie.
Mark waved to the points of the twenty-acre blueberry orchard.
‘There are sixty rows,’ he said.
The bushes were a tangle of head-high pink canes; some crimson and gold leaves still clung on. On the ground between the rows was a heavy, uneven mat of leaves and clumpy grass. Two parrots flitted into a bush and out the other side.
The canes had grown so wild I couldn’t see more than twenty metres down the length of the 300 metre row.
‘It looks pretty unkempt.’
‘There’s a bit of sorting out to do, there’s no doubt about that. But these bushes are healthy and just need a bit of tidying up – once you’ve got all that sorted you’ll be on your way. Backpackers are the go. They’ve got the best reputation for working hard.’
‘How do you water the plants?’ I said bending down, looking at a thin black hose threaded between the bushes.
Mark waved towards the right. ‘There’s a dam and a pump shed over there. Water comes out of those drippers.’
I looked around with no idea how to assess what I was seeing. All I saw was beauty. It was in the shades of fallen leaves, the cluster of pines in the distance, the avenue of eucalypts and wattles down Josephs Road and the dome of the pale-blue sky. An Airbus, as small as a distant bird, was cruising north.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Mark said. ‘You can make good money on blueberries. They’re the new health pill. Everyone wants them. Antioxidants, that’s what they’re called. Stops people getting cancer.’
I looked back to the house – its two proud chimneys, the weathered corrugated roof and ancient garden with giant rhododendron bushes. Magpies were carolling.
‘Huntly’s a small place, there’s no getting away from that. But it’s only two and a bit hours from Melbourne. And there’s a train from Euroa.’
To the left were three sheds like oversized beach boxes. The middle one had been painted a now-faded yellow. ‘They’re the packing and storage sheds, one is a cool room. And over there –’ Mark turned and pointed to the other side of the orchard to a small prefab structure. ‘That’s Charlie’s studio. It’s where he paints.’
‘Who’s Warren? What was that call all about?’
‘Warren’s his son. He lives in Singapore, works in commodities, something like that. The problem is, Charlie doesn’t want to sell. But Warren’s now got a unit for him at the new retirement village in Euroa. He’ll be taken care of there, close to doctors, that type of thing. He’s over eighty, you know. He’s moving in a fortnight.’
‘Why doesn’t he want to sell?’
‘He’s lived here more than fifty years. Imagine. But he can’t manage the place, as you can see. And Warren doesn’t want him here on his own. Shane next door keeps an eye on him, but it’s not enough.’
Sophie tugged on my hand to let me know she wanted to go.
‘You’ll make decent money on the blueberries, there’s no problem there.’
‘I need time to think.’
‘Mum.’ Another tug.
‘I’ve got a couple of other people looking through tomorrow.’
‘He wants four hundred and fifty thousand, right?’
‘That’s a fair price.’
‘I don’t know. I’ll call you.’
‘Don’t take too long. Since the ad went into the magazine there’s been a lot of interest. I’ve had more than thirty calls. Even someone from Broome called me. The property will sell. But you’ve been the first to visit, so you’re in front.’
Charlie was standing at the back door when we drove away, arms folded across his chest. I waved but he ignored me. Mark accelerated abruptly and drove too fast down the driveway, under the autumnal arch of liquidambars and across the cattle grid. Out on Josephs Road he was talking about the local primary school, but I wasn’t really listening. I was looking out the window, wondering if it was possible that everything I was seeing could become familiar: the tunnel of leaning eucalypts, dead logs, grasses, granite boulders. On the right was the neighbour’s house, four chimneys reaching above the tall clipped hedge.
By the time we had reached the turnoff to Euroa, Mark had given up trying to talk to me. I felt weighed down with the worry of not knowing what to do. On one hand, it was outrageous and naïve to even consider buying the property. But there was this other voice urging me to be just that. Outrageous. Not naïve, but courageous. And in that moment the decision seemed easy – I should just buy the property and work things out after that. Nick had a new life and might agree to waive his share of the apartment in lieu of child maintenance. Then I could sell, pay off the mortgage and buy the orchard outright with no debt. Behind me, Sophie was tired and hungry, occasionally kicking the back of my seat. I ignored her. If I could pull this off, it would be good for her – we’d be together all the time, there was a little country school.
Under the freeway overpass, Mark slowed at the sixty kilometre sign, passed a caravan park, took a left turn and cruised over the Seven Creeks Bridge. In the main street he angle-parked outside his office.
‘Have a think about it,’ he said with a salesman’s smile. ‘But don’t leave it too long. I reckon the property will sell in the next few days. No worries there.’
On the Hume Highway, a squally wind buffeted the car. Trucks were in front and coming up behind. It felt dangerous, so I moved to the left lane and tucked in behind a yellow Freight-liner. Sophie started up a whimpering grizzle, saying she was hungry, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave that thirty-metre space behind the truck to pull into a service centre. Only after I promised we’d get McDonald’s when we were home did she slouch in her car seat and stare resignedly out the window.
The rain started past Seymour. Water smashed onto the windscreen and the wipers waved full speed to keep up. I tried to consider my situation, staring at the appearing and disappearing red tail ligh
ts on the yellow truck in front. I craved the conviction to buy, or not buy. I shook the steering wheel, demanding it. Buying a blueberry orchard was such a radical idea, I couldn’t imagine it, yet heading back to Melbourne to my old life depressed me. The rain eased off on the Western Ring Road and by the time we pulled into the McDonald’s drive-thru on Malvern Road I had a squinting headache from worrying that someone else might buy the blueberry orchard before I had made up my mind.
In the apartment, Sophie was too tired to eat her cheese-burger. After a couple of bites and a few chips, I led her to bed without brushing her teeth. Then I randomly chose one of Nick’s cherished wines from the hallway cupboard and settled down on the couch to nurse my headache with a Chilean pinot noir while finishing off Sophie’s lukewarm salty chips.
A faint yellow beam from the car park security light filtered through the sheer curtains into the dark room. I could hear the distant after-rain swish of tyres on Chapel Street. At Nick’s alcove desk, I logged on and resisted the urge to do a Facebook search on him and his new woman, or to check if Lena had blocked my access into the office. I explored properties in Huntly and surrounding areas. I jotted down notes, including prices. I located Charlie’s property on the Waughs website and it was as I’d seen it – neglected but interesting. Then I turned my attention to blueberry growing sites and found dozens of them, including YouTube videos on how to prune and harvest. Anything a grower would need was there. Giant orchards in the US mechanically harvested and bulk-packed frozen blueberries for the domestic market. Health websites declared that blueberries prevented cancer and just about everything else, even delaying the onset of dementia.
I stood and stretched, then took my glass to the kitchen for a refill. Back in the lounge, I was drawn to the balcony window. I stared out into the dark, barely making out the familiar lines of the corrugated roofs of the neighbouring houses and flats. Above the roofline I saw the pulsing red light of a plane crossing the city. I heard the faint rattle of a tram.
My neighbour drove in and parked in his space beside my car. Under the glow of the security light, I watched him reach into the backseat for a single bag of groceries, then the boot for a hard shell suitcase. When he locked the car the tail lights double flashed. I’d often wondered about his comings and goings. We’d been neighbours for more than a year and never spoken. I didn’t even know his name. The outside door closed with a heavy clunk. He was climbing the internal stairs. I waited, straining to hear him open his apartment door and the thud of it closing. But somewhere on his stair-climb my mind shifted and I heard Nick’s voice speaking in a whispering ugly-faced rage, ‘I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.’ It wasn’t the first time he had used that quote when we’d argued about his long absences to unsafe countries. Except this time he was pointing at me, stabbing the air, saying he wasn’t coming back. And I’d yelled, ‘Go then, because we don’t need you.’ He’d left that afternoon.
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