At Home with the Templetons

by Monica McInerney

  Audrey is still not talking to anyone but us. She’s mostly fine at home but as soon as she goes outside, nothing. Mum’s still taking her to hundreds of psychologists (or maybe the other one that is harder to spell) to try and get to the bottom of her problem. It’s called ‘selective mutism’, apparently. Charlotte rang from Chicago to say she’d read a newspaper article about something called Munchausen syndrome, which is when someone pretends to be sick to get attention. Mum just got mad at her and told her to start showing some compassion, so this time Charlotte hung up on Mum.

  I am too unhappy to write any more. I keep thinking there’s something I could have done to keep Mum and Dad together and to help Audrey talk again. Everything in my family seems like a big mess at the moment. I miss you, Nina. I wish you lived nearer to us.

  Love Gracie xxx

  London, April 1997

  Dear Nina

  Thank you so much for your letter. I know you also faxed something to my mum about me being unhappy because she came and had a talk to me even before your letter arrived in the post and she let it slip that you’d mentioned something to her about me wishing I could fix things between her and Dad. She told me that there was nothing I could have done and also that I must never think their splitting-up was my fault. They split up because they couldn’t stop fighting over lots of different things, all the overdue bills especially, and Mum thought it might do them some good to spend some time apart while Dad went off to try and sell as many antiques as he can (including all the ones you shipped over from Templeton Hall for us, thank you). We need a lot of money by the sound of things. Mum told me everything. Well, not everything, but a lot of it. I suppose she has no one else to talk to at the moment. If you ever had a spare minute, would you be able to ring Mum now and again? I’m not always sure I am giving her the best advice. And I’m biased, of course, because all I want is for Dad to come back, Audrey to talk again, Spencer to come home and stop smoking, Charlotte to decide she hates Chicago and wants to be with us again, and then for all of us to come back to Templeton Hall and run the tours and be happy again. Is that too much to ask, do you think?

  Love from your friend,

  Gracie xxx

  London, November 1997

  Dear Nina

  Thank you for your latest letter. You helped me so much. You’re right. Life is like the sea sometimes, big waves and then calm days, but I am sick of the waves. I want some calm days. Thank you also for agreeing to look after the Hall for us for yet another year. It feels like a dream sometimes, doesn’t it? All of us there, and Tom and Spencer and the dam and that raft they never finished making. I wish we could have seen Tom being interviewed on the television after that cricket competition. You made it sound so exciting and you must be so proud of him.

  School is okay, thank you for asking. I still don’t have any close friends. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I seem to get to a certain point in conversations with most girls my age and then I run out of things to say. I’m not very good at talking about clothes or make-up or boys and that seems to be all most of them want to talk about. But I’m not lonely, I promise, or feeling sorry for myself. I read a lot and spend my breaks in the library and I like it there.

  I’ve started doing babysitting on the weekends to try and save up some money for when I go to university. I’m also doing voluntary work after school. It was quite funny how it happened, actually. I saw a poster in our corner shop asking for people to visit the local old folks’ home for a Share-A-Skill Hour. I was curious what it meant, so I went along – I’m glad I did. I was the only person who turned up. There was a group of about ten old men and women there wanting to pass on a skill each of them had, and only me to pass it on to. So I stayed for the whole afternoon, not just an hour, and came back the next two nights too, listening and talking to as many of them as I could, and it was so much fun I’m going back next week too. So far they’ve taught me how to play whist, juggle three lemons, say hello in ten different languages, play the spoons and sing ‘Jingle Bells’ backwards! They’re all so lovely and such good company, I think I’ll keep going to visit them even after I’ve learnt all their skills.

  Dad is abroad travelling a lot but he sends me postcards all the time. (He sends all four of us postcards all the time, actually. It’s become a bit of a joke among us.) But on the positive side he does include an interesting fact about each city or country, so it’s been helpful with my geography studies. He makes it sound exciting, that he’s learning all the time about whole new areas of antiques and getting to use his French (which he says is already good) and Spanish (not so good). He said there’s a possibility that he might also get to travel through the USA and that his first stop will be Chicago to visit Charlotte. I don’t know whether to tell him that Charlotte is still furious with him for the mess he got us all into and has declared she won’t talk to him again until he has paid off all our debts, with interest. Charlotte loves making these pronouncements, but she does actually stick to them. She still hasn’t spoken to Hope in all these years. So perhaps I’d better tell Dad and save him a wasted journey.

  I’ll write again soon. Lots of love to you and to Tom, and please thank him again for the beautiful photograph he took of the sunrise over the paddocks behind the Hall. I felt so homesick to see it. I’ve stuck it above my desk and I’m looking at it now. I miss you both very much.

  Love Gracie xxxxxx

  London, August 1998

  Dear Nina

  Thank you for the beautiful card and scarf. I know, sixteen, imagine! I don’t feel any older yet. Or wiser. Though I’m pleased to tell you I’ve discovered the secret to managing my hair. It’s grown long enough that I can now just tie it back into a plait. Spencer of course says I still look like a deranged kewpie doll but I like it, and it has got darker lately, I’m sure of it. More blonde than white, finally.

  Thank you for your congratulations card too. Yes, I was so happy with my GCSE results too. I was worried beforehand that I wouldn’t get all nine, so it’s been a huge relief. Now all I have to do is pass my A Levels and then after that decide whether I want to study history or classics at university. Perhaps both. There’s the next five years of my life mapped out …

  Yes, Dad is now based full-time in America, in San Francisco at the moment. He rang last week to talk to Mum (not that she always takes his calls – I have to act as their go-between most of the time) but she was out so I got the news from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. He’s moved on from buying and selling antique furniture to vintage cars. There’s a fad for expensive English cars in America apparently and he’s at the front of the pack, he tells me. As Charlotte would say, if I was to tell her, which I won’t, ‘Here we go again.’

  Can you please thank Tom for his latest photograph? No, don’t. I will write and thank him myself. If he ever decides to stop being a cricket champion or an academic genius, he could be a champion photographer, don’t you think? The latest photos of the Hall and the trees in that misty autumn light were so beautiful. If/when the Hall ever opens to the public again, I am going to ask Tom to be our official photographer and make souvenir postcards of all his beautiful photographs.

  More soon and love til then.

  Gracie

  PS Spencer’s got a girlfriend. It’s quite funny. She pretends to be a punk, swearing all the time, but I heard her on the phone talking to her mother and she was very upper-class. Audrey’s still not completely cured yet, though Mum must have taken her to every clinic and psychologist in London so far, but nothing has worked. She’s now decided to go down the alternative therapy route, so perhaps there’ll be a change there one day soon. I’d never tell Mum but I’d quite miss Audrey’s note-writing if she started talking full-time again. As for Charlotte – she’s still trying to take over the world, starting with Chicago. We spoke last week and she started dropping hints about the next stage of what she is calling her ‘ground-breaking career in childcare’ – I’ll let you know what she’s talking about as
soon as I find out myself …

  FAX TO: Nina Donovan

  FROM: Eleanor Templeton

  DATE: October 1998

  Dear Nina

  This is a brief note just to confirm our phone conversation that yes, we are happy to agree to lease the bottom rooms of the Hall for the purposes of a meditation retreat. We can’t thank you enough again for your part in this, not just in minding the Hall for us (can you believe it is now nearly five years since we left?) but for somehow engineering this excellent solution to our current situation and ongoing financial difficulties. I promise I will fill you in on everything, one day, when we are face to face, but it’s not something I feel comfortable writing about.

  On the plus side, yes, Gracie is doing wonderfully at school. I am so proud of how hard she works at her studies, and she deserves every one of her good marks. She also seems to have taken over the old folks’ home up the road as well. I don’t know if she told you, but for the past year she’s spent nearly every afternoon up there, reading to them or chatting away or organising book discussion groups and concerts apparently! I was talking to the matron last week, who said all the residents love her and think she’s a breath of fresh air. Hopefully it’s a breath, and not a hurricane …

  Not so brief after all! I will try to call soon. Thank you again, for everything.

  Eleanor

  FAX TO: Nina Donovan

  FROM: Gracie Templeton

  DATE: July 1999

  Dear Nina

  I’m so sorry it didn’t work out with the host family the cricket association arranged, but of course Tom can stay with us instead. We’d love to have him! Please excuse me using the fax instead of our usual letters, but Mum thought you’d both like to know straight away. We’re all just sorry you can’t come with him. But that is so exciting that you have started teaching too. You don’t need any advice from Mum. I bet your students are already in love with you. I always thought you were the most fantastic artist and now all those lucky children will get to learn to paint like you too.

  Mum is working two jobs at the moment, teaching in the day and tutoring at night, but she’s also happy that Tom is coming over. Thanks too for sending over the newspaper cutting of Tom with the rest of his team. He’s got so tall, hasn’t he? Please tell him not to expect another Templeton Hall when he comes to stay, but I’ll make sure our spare room is really comfortable and I’ll be sure to meet him at the airport or the tube station too, whatever is easiest for him.

  Spencer has moved back home again. (I never did find out exactly why he left in the first place, but I heard Mum and Hope have a rather tempestuous conversation about it the evening before he turned up. Hope is still sober, but there’s still quite a lot of tension between her and Mum at times.) As for Spencer, he’s got very good at blaming everyone else for anything that goes wrong for him. His latest excuse is that his misbehaviour and bad marks at school are all due to Dad’s absence, that he missed the steadying influence of a father figure, or some nonsense like that. As I pointed out to him, he managed to ignore Dad’s steady hand for the first ten years of his life, so why he would have started paying him any more attention now, I don’t know. He’s smoking all the time, in his room too, unfortunately. It stinks but he doesn’t care, he says.

  Audrey is doing so much better since Mum found the new therapist for her, and between you and me, I think he is becoming more than her therapist. His name is Greg and he’s from New Zealand and he’s started taking Audrey out on what she calls ‘excursions’ and I would call ‘dates’ most weekends. He’s shorter than Audrey but has a nice kind face and he really does seem to know what he’s doing. It’s amazing to see (or should I say hear?) Audrey talking to people besides us. Charlotte (of course!) is still sceptical. She thinks that Audrey has just switched her attention-seeking behaviour from Mum to this Greg but I don’t know if she’s right. Mostly I think it’s good for Mum to have one less of us to worry about.

  Speaking of Charlotte – she’s decided to go into business with Ethan’s dad, setting up a nanny-training business of all things. I’m glad for her but sad for us. I really thought that now Ethan was getting too old to need a nanny she’d come back to London permanently, but not yet it seems.

  Congratulations again on Hilary’s news. You must be so excited to be about to become an aunty. (No chance of that for me yet – Charlotte says she’s a career woman, not mother material, though I’m getting hopeful it might be serious between Audrey and Greg … ) I told some of my friends at the old folks’ home and they’ve started knitting furiously so I will have quite a parcel of matinee jackets to send Hilary by the time the baby arrives!

  We’ll ring you closer to the date to make the arrangements about meeting Tom but for now, please tell him we can’t wait to see him again. I wish you were coming too. I miss you very much.

  Lots of love,

  Gracie xx

  FAX TO: Nina Donovan

  FROM: Eleanor Templeton

  DATE: August 1999

  Dear Nina

  This fax is just to confirm that we will ALL be at Heathrow on Tuesday next to meet Tom. No banners, though, we promise. I only wish he could stay with us for longer than five nights.

  Congratulations again on the wonderful news of your sister’s baby daughter. It has obviously been a long, difficult road for her and her husband (it hardly seems possible that it is six years since we had Tom to stay at the Hall when you went to Cairns to be with her) but I can imagine the joy they are now feeling. Please give her our warmest congratulations (and I will also pop something in the post to her, care of you).

  All our best wishes for now,

  Eleanor

  To: Nina

  From: Eleanor Templeton

  Date: September 1999

  Dear Nina

  Thank heavens for school computers and my apologies if this seems brief. I am always terrified I am going to press the wrong button and the whole email message will be erased before I’ve sent it.

  We’ll talk soon I hope, but I just wanted to let you know that Tom has arrived safe and sound. What a fine young man he’s become, and he is so tall for an eighteen-year-old (or perhaps it is that Spencer is so small for a sixteen-year-old??) And I still can’t believe all that is happening to him with his cricket – to think we were there the day it all began!

  I’ll get him to call or email you as soon as he is settled in. (I do like that he calls you Nina now. How grown-up of him! Spencer announced this morning that he now wants to call me Eleanor. I wonder where he got that idea from?)

  Love from all of us until next time,

  Eleanor

  To: Nina

  From: Tom

  Date: September 1999

  Dear Nina

  Hello from London!

  Everything’s going well. We’ve already done a tour of the Lord’s Cricket Ground and met Test umpires and coaches and even some of the Australian players based here in England.

  Things are great with the Templetons too, but very different. I thought Gracie was joking at first when she brought me to the house. I suppose I expected it would be another big mansion, even bigger than Templeton Hall, but it’s an ordinary London terrace house. Spencer hasn’t been around much. Eleanor (yes, she asked me to call her Eleanor) told me he lives with Hope (yes, she is still sober) and her boyfriend most of the time. It’s strange Henry not being around either. He’s in France or America working, Gracie said. She also told me I had to tell you her hair isn’t like a dandelion any more. It’s not. She looks great.

  It’s cold here, though. Not what I’d call summer!

  See you soon.

  Love Tom

  London, October 1999

  Dear Nina

  I’m so glad we decided to keep writing to each other the old-fashioned way, rather than faxing or emailing, aren’t you? I love hearing the post land on the mat and
wondering if there will be one there from you.

  Now I not only miss you but I miss Tom as well. I loved having him here to stay. I don’t know if he told you anything, but Spencer went off the rails again while he was here and went back to live with Hope again, so poor Tom had only me for company most of the nights. He was so nice about it and it was great to be able to show him a little bit of London. I’ll write and tell him myself, but I wanted you to know as well that he’s welcome to come and stay with us any time he feels like visiting England again, cricket trip or no cricket trip.

  Apart from missing Tom and missing you still, of course, all is well here. I spend all day and what feels like all night studying. (Everyone tells me that A Levels are harder than university, but surely that can’t be true?) If you need to know anything about Greek mythology, ancient Rome, the division of plant cells or the irony to be found in Shakespeare’s sub-plots, please just ask!