Delia tells me that from childhood days in Scotland she has always had feelings about houses that she visits; a sense of happiness, of sorrow, of fear.
Buoyed by both the wine in my hand and Delia’s company on the sofa, I ask the inevitable question: how does she feel at Baddow?
‘I would not like to stay a night here on my own,’ she admits.
There’s a moment of silence. I fancy I hear wind whipping through the cracks in the walls, a tinkling in the chandeliers.
‘But that is mostly because of the size of the house. It’s too big for me to be comfortable in. If there is something here …’
‘Yes?’ I’m slurping at my wine, edging closer to her.
‘It’s something good,’ she says. ‘Yes, definitely. I feel that quite strongly. It’s a sense of relief and rightness. I think they must be pleased you are here.’
CHAPTER 7
WILD LIFE AND WILD CORPSES
IAN RETURNS AND I tell him Delia’s reaction to the house. We are walking Topsy down by the river. It’s late in the afternoon, the end of a perfect, balmy day. Ian laughs off my conversation with Delia, but I can tell he’s listening hard, hanging out for the verdict she delivers at the end, relieved when he hears it.
The eucalypts are turning amber in the dipping sun and the grass looks unnaturally bright. I’ve always found the light at this time of day the most beautiful by far. Everything looks richer: intense colours, contrasts well defined. Flocks of white birds follow the river home at the end of every day. We see them now, in a wedge formation, flying so low they almost skim their reflections on the water. At moments like these I can hardly believe my good fortune, to live somewhere so idyllic. Underpinning delays are far from my mind. I’m awash with calm, happy thoughts.
From the river the house with all its dilapidation is hard to see. It’s close by, but the Sleeping Beauty forest blocks our view. Sometimes I worry that when we have restored the house fully, it will lose its romance. Not that I would keep the awesome fissures in the walls. They worry the hell out of me and would be gone this instant if I could wave a wand and heal them. But the crumbling masonry on the chimney stacks, the rusty edges of the roof and the stained exterior walls excite my imagination. I don’t want the house to be bland and flawless, shiny like a new penny. I don’t want to erase the fingerprints of time.
We take the path back up the hill toward the end of Queen Street, Topsy is running miles ahead. ‘Topsy!’ Ian calls, for she shouldn’t really be unleashed. Like everyone else, we turn a blind eye to this particular by-law when we are down by the river, but once we near the road we know we must obey.
Topsy ignores Ian. She’s a dot on the horizon, showing unusual verve and speed for a dog that generally struggles with a lumbering gait. Ian calls again – shouts, more angrily this time. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her,’ he says, ‘she’s not usually this disobedient.’
As we climb the last bit of path to the road, Ian strides ahead of me, ready to chastise his wayward dog. We turn into our driveway in time to see Topsy disappear across the lawn and down to the far reaches of the garden. We follow as fast as we can, both now calling her crossly.
‘Wait,’ says Ian, ‘I think she’s got something there.’
As we approach, I can see Ian is right. There is a very large object in her jaws. Too heavy for her to lift from the ground, she’s endeavouring to drag it.
‘Perhaps it’s a big fish or something from the river,’ I suggest.
‘I don’t know, but whatever it is, she knew it was there. She couldn’t wait to get back from her walk to retrieve it.’
Topsy’s hauling efforts grow more frantic as we approach. There’s desperation to protect and keep the trophy she’s sure we mean to deprive her of.
We’re still baffled. The closer we get, the more certain we are that it is not a fish. It’s round, like a basketball, only larger. There’s no doubt in my mind that we are dealing with organic matter, else why would Topsy be so excited? I stop in my tracks. ‘I think you can handle this,’ I tell Ian. ‘She’s your dog.’
I watch from a distance and see Ian, with the utmost difficulty, separate Topsy from her prize before dragging her away and tying her up. He then fetches a large plastic bag and returns to the site, gathering the mysterious item into the bag before dropping it in the wheelie bin.
‘What was it?’ I ask as he wheels the bin out to the road. Luckily it is collection day in the morning.
He turns to face me. ‘A pig’s head,’ he says.
‘You’re joking.’
‘No, take a look if you don’t believe me.’
‘I believe you!’
We return to the house, discussing it all the way.
‘How the hell did a pig’s head get on our front lawn?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Someone must have chucked it there,’ I say, thinking wildly of The Godfather: horse’s heads, vendettas and all that.
‘I expect someone must have.’
‘That’s a very scary thought.’
‘It is.’
‘Someone mustn’t like us being here.’
‘Don’t think like that. There’s bound to be another explanation.’
‘I can’t think of one.’
‘Perhaps Topsy found it elsewhere and carried it here.’
‘But you saw her. She couldn’t even lift it.’
‘True.’
‘And it’s not as if there are any abattoirs or butcher’s shops just up the road.’
‘True.’
‘So what are we going to do?’
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he says. ‘It’ll be gone in the morning. Try not to think about it.’
But I do think about it. I am certain there must have been human involvement. It couldn’t have just materialised in the garden, someone had to have put it there. But why? What possible reason could someone have to hurl a pig’s head into our – or anyone else’s – garden? I think about it all evening. It keeps me awake for ages that night and I’m thinking about it the minute I wake up in the morning. I know the ghosts are not the only thing we’re going to have to keep quiet about when the children come to stay.
Ian is a long time fetching the paper from the letterbox. When he finally appears in the kitchen, he’s grinning hugely.
‘I have an answer for you,’ he says.
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve been exploring. There’s a stormwater drain under the road. A big one. It must come all the way from town. It emerges into the creek at the bottom of the garden. There’s a huge pipe half-hidden by all the vines and weeds there. The offending item must have been washed down with all that rain a couple of days ago and Topsy dragged it up the hill.’
‘Explanation accepted,’ I say, and offer a silent prayer of thanks to Ian for being such a good, exploring, problem-solving type. I’m not sure I like the idea of a town with pig’s heads floating around in stormwater drains, but at least I can sleep tonight.
Sleep. Always an optimist. I do sleep at first, tired from the previous night’s cursed imaginative journeys. But it’s hot and the mozzies are buzzing. I twist in the sheets and toss on my pillow. After a while I get up and turn the fan on full. It helps, but some sneaky mozzies hide in the lee of my head and bite my ears.
Ian, of course, is fast asleep. He has spent the day chainsawing and loading the ute with great boughs of dead trees.
I am spinning in the sheets, seeking a cool inch of linen when an almighty THWACK – THUD! has me half off the bed with fright. I grab Ian.
‘What was that?’
He’s heard it too, and jumps up, reaching for the light switch. We both blink, blinded by the sudden brightness. I can hear my breath harsh in the frozen silence. The only movement is the steady whirring of the fan. I look up. ‘It sounded like something hitting the fan,’ I whisper.
Ian rounds the bed, eyes scanning for evidence of intrusion. Suddenly he stops.
‘What is it?’ I
say.
He’s pointing at the floor.
‘What is it?’
I hang over the end of the bed and see the corpse of a huge bat, dribbling blood onto the floorboards.
David Attenborough is missing a good few opportunities at Baddow House.
A friend gives me a book called Orchid Bay by Patricia Shaw. It’s set in nineteenth century Maryborough and she thinks I’ll be interested. I am. It features a man getting eaten by a crocodile in the Mary River. Normally I would have taken this as artistic licence employed by an author desperate to inject excitement into an otherwise tame plot. But Orchid Bay has a well researched air about it, prompting me to ask around a bit.
‘Oh yes,’ say two kids I meet fishing on the jetty near the house. ‘There’s a couple of big salties living up on them mud flats.’
‘Oh yes,’ says a neighbour, ‘you should see the size of the croc in the pub at Tiaro. Stuffed it is. Shot not far from here. A while ago now, but.’
A fellow doing some bobcat work for us has even better stories. He tells us of a mate who’s fishing for barramundi one night on the river bank. It’s late, the best time for a good catch, and he’s sitting on the mud flat with his dog at his side. He hears a thump and a splash and the dog is gone. It’s the last fishing trip he ever makes.
Another story is of a farmer up-river from us, whose cattle were disappearing. He staked out the river and shot a six-metre crocodile. That these incidents are reputed to have taken place years ago is little comfort.
I suspect the locals get a kick out of scaring the newcomers. Perhaps their stories are wildly exaggerated, perhaps they are total fabrications. I have to know the truth, so ring the local council offices. They put me on to a cheerful young town planner, Jamie Cockburn. ‘Certainly,’ he informs me. ‘Not so many as there once were, of course, a lot of them have been shot out now, but it’s still possible you might see one. We get sharks too. Small bull sharks.’
I eye the murky waters of the Mary with increased respect. My plan to host river swimming parties for my friends from the Montville swimming club evaporates faster than a snowflake in hell.
I make the mistake of ringing my mother in England. Her daily newspaper seems to specialise in deadly Australian wildlife stories. I get frequent alarming phone calls from her advising me of such horrors as a killer locust plague sweeping Queensland or the discovery of the new and previously unheard of flesh-eating ant of New South Wales that is marching north. I’m forever promising to shut the windows and wear gloves in the garden.
Now she has visions of me being stalked by monster crocodiles while mulching the camellias or pruning the roses. I’ve done my best to reassure her, telling her that the sightings occur only once in twenty years, that the river is one hundred metres from the house and that there are not one, but two, solid embankments between it and my rose garden, both far too steep for such short-legged beasts to negotiate. She’s not convinced.
We decide to install gates across the old driveway. This entrance is a lovely feature but seldom used, there being another, newer, more convenient way to reach our parking spot. This original driveway deserves a majestic entrance, and a set of bolted gates should also deter the steady stream of curious locals who wander in. We get kids taking short cuts from the park through to Queen Street. We get whole families – mum, dad, grandparents with walking sticks, babies in strollers – all sauntering in for a look. We get strangers knocking on the door asking to do a tour of the ‘museum’. Most accept with good grace when we tell them the place hasn’t been open to the public for a decade and is now a private home, but we encounter the odd one who gets belligerent.
‘But I’ve heard it is a museum.’
‘No, I’m afraid not. It used to be, but the previous owners closed their business many years ago. Now it’s just a private home.’
‘But they say it’s worth having a look round.’
‘Yes, that may well be, but I’m afraid it’s not possible.’
Silence. Lingering. Trying to peer over my shoulder.
‘Some mates of mine said that they had a look. They said the place is still a museum.’
Topsy, where are you?
‘Well, no, I’m afraid they are wrong. Or perhaps they were here ten years ago.’
More lingering.
‘We’ll pay admittance.’
‘I’m sorry. Really, this is just a private home.’
And on it goes.
A young couple knock on the door and tell us they plan to have their wedding here at the house.
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell them, ‘we don’t do functions. This is just a private home.’
‘But we know you do weddings. Some people told us they were married here a couple of weeks ago.’
‘That’s not possible,’ I say, ‘we were living here then and I think we would have noticed a wedding taking place. Perhaps you’re thinking of Rosehill Homestead across the river, they do functions.’
‘No, it was definitely Baddow House. They said so.’
We also get visitors at night.
We wake up one night to the sound of talking and laughter on the driveway and hang out of the window to try to make out what’s going on. In the moonlight we can see a couple of figures wending their way toward the house. From their voices we know they are girls. We suspect they are out with boyfriends and have been dared to approach the Haunted House.
‘Get the torch,’ Ian whispers.
I rummage in Ian’s bedside table where he keeps his brand new spot-a-predator-a-kilometre-away-strength spotlight. He aims it at the shadowy figures and flicks the switch. Trapped like the proverbial bunnies in headlights are a pair of clinging, cringing teenage girls. Their screams are worthy of Hollywood. Ian and I giggle as we watch them bolt back down the driveway. When we hear a car roaring off we get back into bed.
A minute later we hear the car engine again and know it’s coming up the driveway. Ian repeats his torch trick. There are more screams and the car reverses out, fishtailing all over the place. We don’t see them again. But we know we need gates.
Graham Morrison comes from a long line of blacksmiths. We’re told he can make and shape anything out of metal and that he works with a patience and skill that’s all but lost these days.
Graham is obviously chuffed to be asked to make new gates for Baddow House and the three of us pore over design ideas together. His workshop is inspiring: a hothouse of hissing cauldrons and leaping naked flames. Everywhere there are sections of half-constructed gates and grilles, and there are moulded twists of iron: spindles, bars, rings and arrowheads; all pieces of assorted puzzles waiting to be assembled.
We choose parallel vertical bars for our gates, crossed with a swirly, deco pattern. The curved top will have little arrowheads running along the edge, and we decide to powder coat the whole thing in charcoal grey. It takes Graham a month to make them. Achieving something, anything, goes a long way to appeasing our frustration at the continued absence of the underpinners.
Because of the height of the gates and the width of the driveway, they are going to be very heavy, but Graham assures us he can get hinges that will cope. He crafts and hangs the gates perfectly and we are ecstatic both about their beauty and by our ability to lock ourselves in. Ian hammers a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign at the entrance.
CHAPTER 8
GEORGIE
JUST WHEN I THINK the Deal is about to become a reality, I get a massive stay of execution. Georgie, Ian’s second daughter, comes to stay. Georgie has been living in Sydney but is about to go overseas. She has three months up her sleeve and decides to spend it with us at Baddow. It will help her to save for her trip.
It is not long since her father and I began living together. It must be a very strange feeling to move in with your father who’s just moved in with someone who’s not your mother. Even at twenty-six years old. I think Georgie’s very brave.
It’s little more than three years since her mother died, and everything is pretty raw sti
ll. A delicate situation: I know I must tread warily. Georgie is particularly sensitive to the loss of her mother. Ian is nervous about the visit too. None of the children, mine or his, have yet spent a night under a roof with us. We know we will soon get weekend visits from those of the children who are in Australia, but Georgie is the first.
I am aware that there were tears when Ian and I first started seeing each other which, though understandable, is bad for my hard-won confidence. Georgie and I are going to be alone for two days each and every week till she goes overseas and I have no idea if she is still upset about my being with her father.
Ian and I intend to be together for the long haul. We are going to marry one day, but we need the time to be right, and for everyone to be happy about it first. We discuss tactics. We know that I must be relaxed with Georgie; friendly without fawning. We know that trying too hard will make it worse, but trying too hard is a real danger when it is so important that this goes well, for my sake as well as Ian’s.
I’m so nervous when she arrives, I’m almost talking gibberish. Conscious of how foolish this is, I try to get a grip. After all, I remember Georgie from when she was a little girl and I’ve seen her quite a few times in Montville since Ian and I became a couple. But this is different. We’re all living together now. I’m sharing a bedroom with her father. We’ll be seeing each other first thing in the morning, in pyjamas, cleaning our teeth. We’ll be together twenty-four hours a day.
I suspect she’s nervous too.
Georgie settles into the Babies’ Room, so named because it has a connecting door to our bedroom and I imagine a family using it as a nursery, given the proximity to Mum and Dad. We know that any of our own ‘babies’ who are scared of our ghosts will opt to sleep in there – my own daughter, Elizabeth, included.
A Grand Passion Page 7