Liz’s stomach was starting to turn ever so slightly.
‘I said to him, “What’s going on?” I still hadn’t twigged. Honestly after all this time, I never suspected what was coming, it didn’t even cross my mind.’
Liz was beginning to find that hard to believe.
‘I thought maybe he got a promotion,’ Emma went on, ‘or a big bonus, that he was going to surprise me with tickets for some exotic overseas holiday. Anyway, he took me up to a suite – it was gorgeous, three rooms, three balconies with views across the harbour to the Opera House. He really surpassed all my expectations.’
‘But you said you weren’t expecting it,’ said Ellen.
‘Well, no, of course, but you know what I mean,’ she dismissed, and went on with her story. ‘There was champagne chilling in a bucket and Blake poured us both a glass. By then I was so excited, I just had to say, “What are we toasting to?”’ Emma took a breath. ‘And he said, “To our future.”
‘And right at that precise moment, a waiter walked in carrying a tray covered with a sterling silver dome. I’m almost certain it was Georg Jensen.’
‘Who, the waiter?’
‘No, Evie,’ Emma smiled. ‘The silver. Anyway, the waiter passed it to Blake and then he disappeared. I said, “What’s this?” And Blake said, “Something special to start with.” And he lifted the lid . . .’
Evie squealed.
‘And there, on the tray, was a blue Tiffany box!’
‘What did you do?’ Evie gasped.
‘My eyes filled with tears as Blake picked up the box and opened it to reveal my engagement ring.’ She paused to gaze at it now. ‘And then he said – let me remember this right – “Emma, you’re my best friend, my partner, and now I wonder if you’ll take the next step and consent to be my wife.”’
That did it for Evie, she burst into tears.
‘That’s beautiful, Em,’ said Liz, though she thought it was a bit prosaic after all the build-up.
Evie was wailing now. ‘Evie, are you okay?’ Ellen asked her, giving her back a gentle rub.
‘Yes, yes,’ she sobbed, ‘it’s just all the emotion. It’s been a very emotional day,’ she added, her voice barely a squeak.
‘Does this have anything to do with what you wanted to talk about before?’ asked Emma.
But that just set her off again.
‘Hey guys.’ It was Eddie coming around the perimeter of the tree. ‘What’s wrong with Evie?’
‘Nothing, she’ll be fine,’ Liz assured him, her arm firmly around her sister.
‘Okay, well, people are starting to leave and Mum and Dad were wondering where you all got to.’
The house was finally empty of guests, the caterers had packed up and left, but Edward and Evelyn had asked the family to stay back a while longer. They put Sam and Kate in charge of the littlies and had sent them all to the lounge room to watch a DVD. The adults were gathered around the dining room table.
‘Dad and I have something important we need to tell you.’
‘What is it?’ Evie looked fearful. ‘You’re not sick?’
‘Of course not, darling, we’re fine. This is nothing bad, okay? In fact, it’s good news. We’re actually pretty excited about it and we hope you will be too.’ Evelyn glanced at her husband. ‘We wanted to let you know that we’re selling the house.’
The announcement was met with complete silence as the shock reverberated around the table.
‘What?’ Evie said weakly after a while.
Ellen felt shattered. ‘Why?’
‘For the same reasons anyone does it at our age,’ said Edward. ‘The house is too big for us to maintain –’
‘We can help,’ Liz volunteered. ‘We all should be helping out more anyway. We can work out a roster –’
Her father was shaking his head. ‘It’s not just that, Liz. There’s the expense involved in keeping a big house . . . The rates alone –’
‘If it’s a matter of money,’ she persisted, ‘you know I can help there too.’
Evelyn covered her daughter’s hand. ‘That’s very generous, darling, but it’s not what we want.’
‘But surely you can’t want to sell the house?’ said Ellen.
‘Yes, actually, we do,’ Evelyn nodded, with another glance at her husband.
‘It’s time, girls,’ he said. ‘This house has been a wonderful family home, and we’ll miss it. But it’s time for us to move on, for the house to take its place as part of our family’s history.’
‘Not if some developer gets hold of it,’ Liz declared, ‘and demolishes it.’
Blake shifted uncomfortably in his chair as Evie gasped, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘Oh no, could that actually happen?’
‘Things change, girls,’ Edward reassured them. ‘And that’s okay. Come on, you’re all adults, you’ve all moved on with your own lives, you have to let your mother and I do the same thing. You can’t expect us to stay put, be some kind of caretakers of your childhood memories.’
‘But why now?’ said Ellen. ‘Aren’t we going through enough change right now? Couldn’t this wait?’
‘Not everything’s about you, Ellen,’ said Emma.
‘I’m not just talking about me.’
‘Well, who else is going through a big change?’
‘You are,’ she countered. ‘You’re getting married.’
‘So what?’ said Emma. ‘This doesn’t affect my wedding plans.’
‘Not everything’s about you, either,’ Ellen threw her words back at her.
‘I don’t think this has anything to do with any of us,’ Emma said archly. ‘It’s Mum and Dad’s house, it’s their life, and therefore their decision. And I for one am right behind them.’
Ellen folded her arms. ‘Well I just think it’s terribly sudden. Don’t you think you should take more time to make such a huge decision as selling up the family home? I mean, it’s such a big move.’
‘Absolutely,’ Evie sniffed.
‘And now that it’s out in the open we can all help you decide,’ agreed Liz.
‘We can discuss all the alternatives,’ Ellen added.
‘It’s not our decision,’ Emma maintained.
‘I think your parents are old enough to know what they want.’
‘Whose side are you on?’ Evie glared at Craig.
The discussion, such as it was, rapidly descended into squabbling, with no one actually listening to what anyone else was saying, and Edward and Evelyn sitting dumbfounded at the end of the table.
A loud thump sounded from the other end of the table. All heads turned to look at Eddie.
‘Now that I have your attention,’ he said. ‘The house is already listed with the realtor. The signs go up on Monday.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ellen asked him accusingly. ‘Did he put you up to this?’ she added, turning back to her parents.
‘No, we actually approached Eddie,’ said Edward.
‘Why didn’t you come to us as well?’
‘If you want to know the truth, we were trying to avoid this very scene,’ said Evelyn.
‘So much for that plan,’ said Liz.
‘And what does Eddie know about all this?’ Ellen said indignantly. ‘He’s just a kid.’
‘Girls,’ Eddie interrupted, ‘I might be the baby of the family, but I’m not a kid any more. And I do have some experience, and contacts.’
‘Come on, Eddie,’ Ellen rolled her eyes. ‘What experience do you have in real estate? You still live in a rented share house.’
‘Not real estate, but finances,’ he explained. ‘I have been running a successful business for several years now, in case you forgot.’
‘You teach people to hang-glide,’ Ellen said drolly.
Maybe it was being surrounded by so many nurturers that had made Eddie a tearaway from the time he took his first steps. He climbed trees and made billycarts, before progressing to dirt bikes and skateboards. He was attracted to anything that had an elemen
t of danger. When he discovered hang-gliding, he found his calling.
Ellen turned back to her parents. ‘He takes risks for a living and he’s who you go to for financial advice?’
Eddie managed to keep his cool. ‘I have made a lot of contacts, Lenny, people who could give Mum and Dad the kind of advice they were looking for. They didn’t need a realtor, they needed to secure their future. And we’ve figured things out so that they can live comfortably till they’re a hundred and fifty.’
‘Well, what’s the point of that?’ said Ellen.
Her parents looked taken aback.
‘I mean, no offence, Mum and Dad,’ she added quickly, ‘but you’re not going to live that long, much as I wish you could.’
‘Me too,’ Evie croaked.
‘The point is,’ Eddie resumed, ‘we’ve worked out an investment portfolio that gives them a comfortable lifestyle, with security to cover all contingencies. They can travel –’
‘You want to travel?’ asked Liz.
‘Of course.’
‘First I’ve heard of it,’ Ellen muttered.
‘We’ve talked about travelling all of our lives,’ Evelyn insisted.
‘Yeah,’ said Liz, ‘but that’s just like everyone talks about it.’
‘No,’ said Edward, ‘we really want to travel, we always have, but it’s a little hard to do with five kids,’ he added rather bluntly.
‘On our existing government super we could have done a little travelling,’ said Evelyn, ‘but we have so much equity tied up in this house, we were shocked when we realised how much, and what we could do with that money.’
‘Remember when we bought this house?’ Edward said, squeezing his wife’s hand and looking fondly at her. ‘Our parents thought we were mad for buying in Annandale. It was little better than a slum back then. Of course, there were still some very grand houses around, but we weren’t in the market for any of those. We bought the worst house in the worst street, according to our parents. But we couldn’t afford anything else.’
‘Don’t you see, girls,’ said Evelyn, ‘we won’t have to worry about money for the first time in our lives, and we’ll have the freedom to go wherever we want for as long as we want.’
‘We’re going to live like kings,’ added their father.
‘But where will you live?’ asked Liz.
‘We’ve been looking at studio apartments in the city,’ said Evelyn.
‘What?’ said Ellen. ‘But they’re tiny.’
Evelyn shrugged. ‘Down the track we might buy something more substantial, maybe up or down the coast, or in the mountains, we don’t know yet. But for now, we only need a base, somewhere we can lock up and leave when we’re gone.’
Who are you people and what have you done with my parents? Ellen felt like saying. ‘So where are the grandchildren supposed to stay when they come to visit?’ she put to them.
‘We’ll visit them instead,’ Evelyn smiled.
‘And family dinners?’
‘You kids already take turns,’ said Edward.
‘Well, that’s it,’ Liz declared with a loud sigh. ‘Call the realtor tomorrow, Eddie, tell them not to bother with the signs. I’m going to buy the place.’
Now Eddie sighed, rubbing his forehead as if he was getting a headache. ‘Liz, we are going to get full market value for this house. I know you earn good money, but it’s a very valuable piece of property.’
‘Of course I’ll pay market value,’ Liz said. ‘You think I’d rip off Mum and Dad?’
‘But you wouldn’t get finance, Liz,’ Blake chimed in. ‘A developer is going to pay premium because they’ll earn on the investment.’
‘I knew it!’ Liz declared. ‘You’re selling out to developers. You can’t think that’s okay, Mum? Dad?’
‘We’re not the devil incarnate,’ Blake muttered.
‘Look, cards on the table,’ said Edward. ‘We were approached sometime back by a developer. A proposal to rezone the street was about to be put to council, which would allow low-density development of large blocks. The offer they made, well, your mother and I have never seen that kind of money. And that wasn’t the last offer we got. Don’t you see, it’s an opportunity too good not to take up.’
He looked around the table at the stunned faces of his daughters. ‘What exactly is it that you’re so worried about, girls?’
‘That they’ll pull the house down!’ Ellen said plainly.
Evie looked like she was in shock.
‘Some of the proposals we’ve been shown have them keeping the house and incorporating sympathetically designed town-houses into the backyard. Council around here is pretty strict about preserving the streetscape.’
‘But you can’t guarantee that,’ said Liz.
‘If we sold to a private buyer we couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t turn around and sell it either,’ Evelyn pointed out.
‘Surely you didn’t expect us to stay here forever?’ said Edward. ‘And once it’s sold, it’s out of our hands.’
‘And we lose our family home,’ said Ellen. ‘The place where we grew up, our history.’
‘But we can’t lose our history, Ellen. You of all people should know that, you teach the subject,’ said Edward. ‘History is not in bricks and mortar, and leadlight windows, it’s in our memories, in our hearts. Tearing down the house can’t destroy that.’
He looked around the table. ‘You’re all in the process of creating your own histories, with your own families, in the work that you do. People move on, and life goes on. Mum and I have got a little more history we want to create ourselves. It’s our time.’
Autumn
Evie dropped down on one knee to retie her laces. She’d put her runners on in a hurry this morning and her left foot felt sloppy inside her shoe. She pulled the laces in firmly; that was better. She stood up again, positioning the earphones of Tayla’s iPod into her ears. Tayla would have a holy fit if she knew her mother was using it, but Evie always had it back in place before she was home from school, so what she didn’t know . . .
Evie did a quick survey of her surroundings. She hadn’t walked here before. It was a bush reserve with a level walking track that bordered a creek for part of the way. She had discovered all sorts of places over the last month or so, courtesy of Google Maps. She liked going out of the area a bit, she was less likely to bump into anyone she knew that way. It made her feel anonymous, and free. At first she hadn’t cared where she walked. She just had to walk. It was better than wandering aimlessly around the house, wondering how her life had got to this point, what had happened to the man she had married.
She took off along the path, her shoes pounding on the concrete, quickly establishing a rhythm in time with the music piping into her ears. The day after that dreadful night Evie had functioned on autopilot. She had sent Craig off to do whatever he wanted for the day, in truth because she could barely stand to look at him. She had taken the kids to McDonald’s as she had promised and ordered herself a large burger meal with every extra available, and a thickshake instead of Coke. Once they had sat down and she had organised everyone with their meals, laid out Cody’s burger and emptied his chips into the box the way he liked, Evie had opened hers and the look of it had made her feel suddenly queasy. Even the smell was nauseating. She’d been feeling sick to the stomach since the previous night.
‘So, there are these places, for adults, you know,’ Craig had said. ‘Where adults can get together.’
She’d frowned. ‘What, like a club?’
‘Yeah, they are like clubs. That’s exactly right. You can have a drink, and there’s music, and you get to meet people.’
Evie didn’t know what this had to do with their sex life. She’d heard some couples liked to go to dance classes. Her friend, Wendy, had only recently decided to take up dance classes with her husband, to spice things up a little, she’d told the girls one morning at playgroup. Everyone had oohed and aahed, and giggled and asked questions. Evie had wondered how dance cl
asses could spice things up – Craig would hate it. She was glad they didn’t need to spice things up.
Or so she had thought.
‘Is there dancing?’ she asked him.
‘I reckon there’s probably some dancing.’
‘But you hate to dance.’
‘I don’t think you have to dance.’
‘So you’re not talking about dance lessons?’
Craig had laughed a big belly laugh then.
‘I don’t get what you’re talking about,’ Evie said, becoming a little frustrated. ‘I thought you were going to tell me something you wanted . . . sexually,’ she added, lowering her voice.
He seemed a little nervous. ‘Well, I am.’
She frowned. ‘What’s going to a club and meeting people got to do with . . .’ And then she stopped suddenly, her mouth hanging open, her heart dropping like a stone.
‘There’s these clubs,’ Craig went on carefully, ‘and they’re all above board, they’re only for married couples. Well, maybe you don’t have to be married, but they’re for couples anyway. Swingers’ clubs.’
‘What?’ she said, her voice barely making it out of her throat.
‘It’s all really safe, and clean, and respectable.’
‘Respectable?’ she squeaked. ‘Married couples . . . swapping with each other? You call that respectable?’
‘Look, you were the one who wanted to talk about this,’ he said defensively. ‘This goes on everywhere, you’ve got no idea, Ev. In regular neighbourhoods, with normal people. Probably someone you know is doing it.’
‘I doubt it,’ she grimaced.
‘How would you know? You think anyone’s going to tell you? You’re so narrow-minded.’
‘I’m not narrow-minded . . . it’s just a shock.’
‘You’re shocked, yet you were prepared to take it up the arse?’
‘Craig!’
‘You said it, not me,’ he taunted. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to do something so disgusting.’
‘But you want me to . . . be with someone else’s husband, and you don’t think there’s anything wrong with that?’
‘Not between consenting adults, no. And anyway, you don’t even have to do anything if you don’t want to.’
The Right Time Page 8