We number about seventy people.
We throw the house open and everyone wanders about upstairs and down, showing their admiring families all the crazy things they had to do here and, in the case of those who were employed in early days, seeing the finished product. Greg, indispensable as ever, mans the bar with his wife, Karen. The booze flows.
Ian gets up and thanks everyone. He’s great at this sort of thing, singling everyone out, getting our true gratitude across. What has started out as a thank you party for the workers suddenly feels like a re-birth of Baddow House, a fulfilment of Edgar Aldridge’s dream. Ian expresses this, and makes the point that we couldn’t have done it without the help of every person present. Calvin steps forward to say that no one minded going the extra yards for us, which is truly moving.
I’m feeling too damp-eyed to speak, but now it’s Mayoress Barbara Hovard’s turn. Her words are a heartfelt thanks from Maryborough to Ian and me for saving Baddow House, such an important Maryborough icon. Finally we call Margaret forward and hand her the scissors. She snips, the pink ribbon flutters away and cameras click like mad.
We party into the night.
Mother’s plane lands on time, and I whisk her up the highway for the three-hour trip to Maryborough. We arrive midmorning and Ian is waiting to greet us.
Everything has been pruned, polished and primped into perfection. Except for the silver. I ran out of time. It’s lurking, shamefully unpolished, in the dining room. But it’s dark in there and her eyes aren’t what they used to be. I’m hoping to get away with it.
Before we go inside, Ian beckons us over to the poisoned poinciana tree in the middle of the front garden. He’s grinning and pointing. We peer close. Sure enough, all along the poor denuded branches are plump little green swellings. ‘It’s a sign,’ he says, beaming at us.
And so it is. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, it is reborn after what had seemed a certain death. ‘Very symbolic,’ I say, and look up at the white walls of our finished home.
Ian catches my eye and flashes another smile. ‘Very,’ he agrees.
We put Mother in the Blue Room, Hugh Biddles’ room. I don’t tell her that his corpse lay in state there until the cortege arrived to take him to the cemetery. It’s a spacious sunny room with a couple of armchairs and I know she’ll love it.
She stays for six weeks. We get visits from Cyril, Greg, Benji, Calvin and Charlie, all coming to pay their respects. I explain to her how hard they’ve striven to finish off in time for her arrival.
She spots the silver on day two. We sit and clean it together. It takes all day and our fingers are stained and weary.
We do a lot of talking. She says how much my father would have loved and appreciated what we’ve done here, and how happy he’d be to see Ian and me together. ‘When are you going to get married?’ she adds.
I explain.
Mother is tolerant, non-judgemental, but I’m her child. She’s piqued, a bit cross with Ian for not sorting everyone out. Though she can see how happy we are together, and this gladdens her heart when I’ve obviously been a worry to her for far too long.
Most mornings are spent lolling in the deep shade of the western verandah overlooking the river; sipping tea, nibbling scones. Throughout the day we move around the verandah seeking shade as the sun moves, and by the afternoon we are on the eastern side watching the kookaburras fly back and forth to their nest in the Canary Island palm tree. Lottie runs across the grass beneath them, jumping and biting at the sky. Topsy, old and fat, lies at our feet.
Since the age of nine, I’ve lived on the other side of the world from my mother. When she was in Malaya, I was in England at school. When she and my father retired home to England, I flew to Australia. There have been countless visits over the years, but this is not the same as being able to call in on a regular basis. It is not the life that we planned, it just happened. So you learn to adapt to make the most of the time that you have together, appreciating those moments, storing them up.
Every week since I was nine years old, I’ve received a letter from my mother. Every week for almost forty years.
At school, each morning after breakfast, we boarders would file past a board where the day’s post was pinned. Every morning every girl hoped to receive a letter. Some never did. Once a week, there were two blue airmail envelopes waiting – one for Jane and one for me. Away but never forgotten.
When I came to Australia, her letters continued. Through all the baby rearing years, the children at school years, through to the end of my first marriage, the years of my father’s illness, my time in the wilderness, and on into my life in Maryborough. There is something immensely comforting in peering into the letterbox to discover one of those blue envelopes, that familiar scrawling hand.
But it is better – wonderful – to have her here in the flesh, and a joy to sit back and drink in everything we’ve accomplished. She tells us how proud we should be. And we are. We are more than proud. When I stand back and look up at our home, feeling so strong and whole and well, I have the mad idea that the angel we’ve freed is a guardian angel, my guardian angel, who has been calling me since the day I stepped out of Trevor’s car – a gratifying, voluptuous thought.
My children all come up to stay, and Mother and I do a couple of trips. I take her to Adelaide for a reunion with her cousin, Dede, and we stay in Brisbane for a few days, visiting the children and doing the Botanic Gardens and antique shops. It’s a hotter than normal spring and, at her age, Mother is feeling the heat.
‘Next time, Mother Mary,’ I say, ‘you must come in August. It’ll be much cooler then.’
She is amused by her new name, started by Benji, Cyril and the gang, but not distracted from my transparent attempt to squeeze a commitment out of her to come again. She’s cautious about making one, hating the thought of another journey, far too comfortable in her Cotswold life.
Mother’s tiny village of Long Compton is a hotbed of Bridge-playing, curry-eating, tea-drinking widows. They are also all garden enthusiasts, go on regular coach trips together, go the theatre, the cinema, drive each other to doctor’s appointments, to dentist appointments, to chiropody appointments. And they all, even the Bishop’s mother, avidly devour my romance novels. (I suspect that in village circles I am known as the Australian who writes racy stories.)
I persist in my efforts to lure her back another time. Even when we’re at the airport, putting her on the plane. I point out the simplicity and comfort of today’s journeys compared to those of yesteryear. I point out that, listed as ‘needing assistance’, she is met at the door of the plane by a smiling airport employee with a wheelchair, ready to whisk her straight into Jane’s capable hands. ‘And next time,’ I add enticingly, ‘the garden will have grown beautiful. Next time the poinciana will be huge.’
She hesitates a second or two. ‘Next time,’ she says and, with a wave, she’s off.
Ian and I are officially engaged. I’m wearing a delicious pink sapphire and diamond ring on my left hand. How Ian found a ring just that right shade of pink is a wonder, and testament to his keen hunting and gathering skills. He slips it onto my finger at a decidedly unromantic moment while we’re checking emails.
Friends tease us, calling me the Bride, Ian the Groom, nudging and winking like we’re sweet young things. When? When? When? everyone keeps asking. ‘After Georgie and Tom,’ we say.
But I learn that our engagement provokes a few more tears when Ian tells his children. Half of me frets and worries when I hear this sort of thing. The other half knows I should ignore it all, hold my head up and get on with my life, which is a wonderful life in all other respects.
When I’m with friends and family who care enough to remind and prompt me to maintain a positive outlook, it’s easy. But when I’m alone or feeling outnumbered, the fretting part of me makes unwelcome appearances.
‘It’ll be all right,’ says Ian. ‘Give them time and all will be well. Remember, it’s not you. They would feel th
is way whoever I was with.’
A couple of weeks later Ian’s mobile phone rings. I don’t usually answer his mobile, but he’s gone to the tip and the ringing is persistent. I pick it up. It’s Georgie. This is the first time I’ve spoken to her since our engagement. I explain that her dad is out and that I’ll ask him to call her back when he gets home. She thanks me and hangs up. Two minutes later the phone rings again. ‘I know I didn’t say anything about you and Dad,’ she says.
‘That’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘I know it’s a difficult time for you.’
She goes on to explain that she’s disappointed in me for not having made the effort to see her and her siblings, for not having somehow paved the way for Ian to break the news to them. She adds that she believes that her father has been pushed into it.
I don’t trust myself to speak. Even if I could swallow my outrage, I suspect that anything I might say in the current climate would be taken the wrong way. It’s a brief, tense, miserable phone call.
Perhaps the children are so incredulous that their father might want to marry any woman who is not their mother that they can’t help but imagine I’ve manipulated him into it. Perhaps they need to believe it, as a coping mechanism. But such a belief is hardly going to win me any favours.
I’m not sure what to do. There have been moments over these last months when I’ve questioned whether it’s all too hard, too heart-breaking. A life alone, free of complications, beckons temptingly. But then I look at Ian and know I can’t do it. There seems to be no good solution, no happy ending. What we’re doing is hurting others, but if we step back, we hurt ourselves. I run it all over and over in my head, torturing my brain. I want peace and happiness for everyone, but I don’t know how to achieve it.
The Maryborough Heritage Awards are an annual event. It’s a black tie dinner, with entertainment and an MC on stage reading nominations, declaring winners. It’s like being at the Oscars, we’re told. We nominate all our guys.
There are various categories, but unfortunately some of our nominees are running against each other. Peter Olds is against Brian White, the joiner, for the Manufacturer’s Award. Cyril, Greg, Calvin and Pud are running against each other for the Service Provider’s Award. Benji’s on his own for the Painting Award. As is Mike for the building.
I fill in the nomination forms and write glowing accounts of their work. They call in to sign the forms. Pud brings us a present. He’s made an exquisite, neo-Grecian wall moulding of Diana the Huntress with a running wolf at her heels.
I absolutely love it and know exactly where it needs to go. Ian is away, so Cyril and I attach it to the wall. A final nightmare job for Cyril who’s carried out so many already.
He smears the back of the moulding thickly with about a gallon of Liquid Nails. ‘Are you sure you won’t change your mind about where you want this?’ he asks.
‘I’m sure.’
‘Once this is up, you’ll practically have to knock the wall down to get it off.’
‘I’m sure,’ I repeat.
It’s large and heavy. We use our combined strength to place it against the wall and push hard. It doesn’t stick. We take it off and Cyril adds still more Liquid Nails.
This is repeated three times before we feel any kind of decent adhesion. We daren’t let go. We keep pushing as hard as we can. ‘We could probably take turns,’ I suggest eventually.
Cyril nods. ‘I’ll do the first shift.’
I release the moulding and go to put the kettle on, make tea, then hurry back.
‘I’ll give your arms a rest,’ I say and with one hand on Diana, the other on the wolf, start pushing again.
I do short shifts, Cyril, whose arms are three times as thick as mine, does longer shifts.
‘How long do you think we need to do this?’ I ask.
‘Usually dries in just five minutes,’ Cyril tells me. ‘But this thing is heavy and we put a lot of goo on.’
It’s on one of my shifts, while Cyril has his back turned and I’m starting to relax a bit, that I feel the unthinkable happening. ‘Cyril!’ I yell. It’s a panic-stricken, unladylike shriek.
He’s back in a flash. Diana and her wolf have migrated about a metre south. It’s almost impossible to slide her back up into place again because the Liquid Nails mixture is very close to dry. Cyril’s earlier words give edge to my panic; Once this is up, you’ll practically have to knock the wall down to get it off … I’m visualising Diana, interestingly oblique for ever and ever, about thirty centimetres from the floor. But we sweat and heave and she starts to creep back up the wall, millimetre by millimetre.
At last, she’s back in place. We both press her to the wall with all our might. ‘I should get some bracing,’ says Cyril.
‘Please be quick,’ I say.
He sprints for the shed and comes back armed with a plank of wood, jamming it against the opposite stairs and into Diana’s midriff. After about two hours we dare to let go, but sit and watch for signs of slippage. The bracing is in place for twenty-four hours.
We invite Pud back to have a look.
‘No problem fixing it to the wall?’ he asks.
‘Not at all,’ I say airily, and fancy I see a twinkle of appreciation in his eye.
Finally, finally I start to write, almost five years since I last put a creative pen to paper. It’s impossible to put it off another day. I buy a stack of school exercise books, pick up my pen and let it happen. The Ghost House of Maryborough, I scrawl across the first page, then write till my eyes are nearly hanging out of my head.
People are always amazed when I say I write my books, literally, with a pen onto sheets of paper. But I long ago discovered my inability to create onto a computer screen. It’s more than off-putting to stare at that static screen, upright at a desk chair for hours on end. I love the feel of pen travelling across paper, of shaping the words with my own hand. And there’s the added bonus of being able to write in comfort. I can sprawl on the sofa, the bed, or recline on the wicker chaise longue on the upstairs verandah.
Of course the time comes when my handwritten work becomes a mess of scribbled, edited additions and alterations, of paragraphs re-ordered and chunks re-arranged. My pages also grow increasingly congested with doodles and decorations; created when my mind is languid and my pen is restless.
When my work reaches this disordered state, reluctantly I migrate to the office, settle myself at the computer and type it up. Usually I’ll run through it all once on the screen to pick up simple errors, then I print out my first draft. Clean and tidy. Easy to read. Once more I can abandon the computer, pick up my pen and write until my printed sheets are a mess. Then it’s back to the computer to key in the alterations. Print it out. Write some more. Print it out. Write some more. It’s the only way I can work.
I’ve chosen Ian’s weekly trip to Montville for this momentous beginning, which gives me two days to get a good start before I have to train him not to interrupt me constantly.
‘You can interrupt five times a day – even ten,’ I tell him when he returns, ‘but not one hundred.’
He’s very meek, trying oh so hard to be good. I hear his booted feet tiptoeing along corridors. It’s hard to tiptoe in such clodhopping boots. I see his face at the window. He’s on the verandah, peering in, but darts away when I spot him. I sense a presence and look up to discover him, bootless and silent, at the office door. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asks.
I lay down my pen. It’s impossible to get cross. ‘Very well.’
Over tea he says, ‘I just wondered how you were going. Are you happy with your progress?’
I reach for a Tim Tam. ‘Yes, very happy. But I’m going to have to get Sally Henderson to have another talk to you.’
He hangs his head.
Sally is a friend from our Montville days who has just written a book about her experiences with elephant conservation in Africa. Sally has her husband, Jeremy, well under control. Sally, as Ian is well aware, is a woman who knows how to lay
down the law and get her work done. Already she has explained to Ian the importance of uninterrupted time to write. ‘When Anne starts writing, she must be allowed to shut the door and lock you out. No interruptions. And you can’t expect her to do any housework,’ she adds, wagging a threatening finger at him.
Her decisiveness makes me smile. I don’t mind the housework, as I do have some help already. But I am glad of Sally’s words, glad for Ian to be hearing this from someone else.
He makes a genuine effort to do as he’s told, but I soon learn to get most of my writing done during the two days he’s away each week.
It’s hard to describe how much it means to me to be able to write again. Though I’ve been able to throw my creative energy into the house and garden, it’s not fulfilling in quite the same way as writing.
With the restoration of a home and garden, the bones already exist. You take four walls; four very shabby walls in our case. You repair and adorn them. You give strength, stability and beauty to them. And they return the favour by providing a comforting, warm and inspiring place to live.
Writing, on the other hand, begins with a void. You stare at a starkly white sheet of unmarked paper. Your pen hovers over it for a delicious moment before the thrill of the first touch. And every word you put down is your own choice, your own arrangement, your own self. It’s seducing, revealing, not for the faint-hearted. It lays you bare.
Sometimes the words drop like gems from your ready pen, sometimes they are hard-won, wrangled and agonised over. Either way, the result is the same: you are replete and content, the satisfaction of expressing yourself almost meditative, so deeply relaxing to me that I sometimes fall asleep as I write.
A Grand Passion Page 23