The House On Burra Burra Lane (3 page)

She took her gaze back to the homestead. She’d transform the house into a home. It sparkled even now, in her mind, in her heart. The sunlight cast dappled drops of happiness on its neglected trusses.

The burgundy metal roof slanted sharply over three dormer windows jutting out of biscuit-coloured weatherboard on the top floor. The stone blocks of the ground floor, aged to a peppered honey colour, looked invincible beneath the deep colonial veranda running from corner to corner.

The ramshackle porch extension on her kitchen wasn’t visible from here, but it was near to collapse. The old outhouse needed attention too.

A truck’s engine thrummed in the distance.

She turned to the lane. The driver of the big blue ute had to be Dr Ethan Granger. The vet. The carpenter.

She’d never been shy before yesterday. Not silly shy; the kind that prickled and heated the skin. There wasn’t time for timidity now either. She was no longer the impatient little girl, pretending stillness for her mother, wanting to please and be pleased. The daredevil kid who’d snuck out behind Verity Walker’s stiffened back was up and running again. The grown woman had reclaimed some of the young tomboy’s courage.
About time.

She eased her shoulders down. This was her first shot at making a go of things her way. No-one was going to feel sorry for her, especially not this man. The man who’d possibly already drawn conclusions about her. Well; she wasn’t asking for help, she was
hiring
help. If he thought he’d be meeting the bashful, retiring type of woman this afternoon, he was wrong.

Ethan slowed the ute half a kilometre from the driveway. There she was, sitting on the wooden crossbar of the gate, swinging her legs. He’d been six years old when the gate had first been hung. The grass had been kept short then.

He turned the truck into the entrance of her driveway and swallowed the uneasiness thickening his throat. A five minute drive could sure unsettle a man. He didn’t look at the house.
Let’s get this meeting over with first.

‘Hello,’ he called through the open window. ‘Is this a good time?’

She smiled, raised a hand to shade her eyes. ‘Yes. I was taking a break.’

‘Want a lift up to the house?’

‘Could I hitch a ride on the running board?’

Surprise stopped him from answering immediately, but she was waiting, her smile hovering. ‘Sure. Hop on.’

She kicked her legs to push off the gate. ‘I’ve always wanted to do this.’ She stepped onto the silver plate at the base of the passenger door and caught hold of the window frame. ‘Go as fast as you like.’

Was this a game? ‘Never had a damsel on my running board before.’

She lowered her face to the window. ‘When I was young, I hung around with a gang of boys who never allowed me to join in their dangerous adventures. Now I want to be perilous. Believe me, it’s long overdue. Just floor it.’

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. What had happened to yesterday? He’d expected wariness between them this afternoon but he was being pulled into something that felt like an old friendship.

‘All right then.’ He put the ute into gear and took off slowly. Into second gear, a slight pressure on the accelerator.

‘You’re disappointing me!’

He gave it more thrust and struck the gear into third. If she wanted to fly, he’d oblige. ‘Hold on!’

As the vehicle curved at speed at the bend in the driveway and her laugh rang in the air, something warm hit the pit of his stomach. A thirty second ride … it was like giving a present, although he wasn’t sure which of them had received the gift.

She hopped down, flicking tendrils of hair from her face. ‘Where shall I start the tour?’

His mind wasn’t quite in tune. He needed another few minutes for all this to register but she was moving them right along. Perhaps she’d been teasing him yesterday. He found that notion less frustrating than rejection, and he didn’t need a tour, he knew every inch of the place.

He got out of the cab, his gaze wandering the property. The sandstone blocks of the house in need of re-pointing, the dulled white paint flaking on the veranda railing and posts.

She glanced his way. He gave her his friendly-at-a-distance look, and almost saw the veil of relief lift from her shoulders. She
was
nervous. He eased down a notch or two. He hadn’t wanted to be the only hesitant one, as though yesterday had never happened.

He stepped around her. ‘I’ll take a look at the porch then. Don’t want it collapsing on you.’ He hadn’t seen it since he’d sold the house six years ago when he’d moved back to town, and it was in a worse state now.

She followed. ‘I haven’t used the porch.’

He stamped his boot on the decking. It cracked. ‘These boards will need replacing.’

‘Let me show you the kitchen.’

‘I don’t need to see inside.’

She didn’t hear, maybe. He made a move to grab her as she walked across the deck … and missed. At least she’d placed her feet carefully, where the boards joined and were stronger.

‘How’s Duke?’ he asked, walking into the kitchen with no choice in the matter. A smell of toast lingered in the air. A few pieces of white crockery waited to be washed at the sink. He didn’t look too hard at the old benchtops or the stove; at any of it.

‘Wandering happily and feeding madly. So you were right, he’s glad to be here and away from the city.’ She slapped her thighs. ‘Me too.’

Somehow, this house always recovered from misfortune and reverted to the home it was built to be. Even now, in its disrepair, he was aware of the lightness in the air, as though the walls sucked up the bad and re-energised the good, giving whatever reprieve it could for the people who had lived in it. Including him.

A window rattled. White sheets billowed on a ropey washing line outside.

He checked the walls. The ceiling sagged in one corner, dark stains spreading where rain had seeped through from the bad joints of the porch outside. The whole kitchen would have to go eventually. An expense he wasn’t sure she’d be able to cover. Not that he had any intention of doing the work himself, but he could supply her with names of reputable firms in Canberra if she wanted them.

‘Would you like to take a look at the rest of the house?’

He hadn’t expected to look at anything inside, and rearranged his thoughts quickly. The kitchen was enough. ‘I thought you wanted me to work on the outside.’

‘Just take a look.’ She passed him, a waft of fruity scent trailing behind her. ‘There are a few things to fix but they’ll be last on my list. This is a strong house.’

He dragged his gaze from the window and followed her into the hall. He forced a glance at the staircase but couldn’t keep his eye on it for longer than a beat. He moved to the front door, making his steps even and steady. The door stuck, needing a quick, jerky pull. He took a breath of outside air. ‘This’ll have to be replaced.’

‘No thanks,’ she said behind him. ‘The squeak says hello every time I come home.’

On her own
. He didn’t intend to make
why
any of his business. He turned to her. She had an expectant smile on her face. One that said, ‘Follow me, look what I’ve got.’ He wouldn’t get out without good reason.

He looked through the opened wooden door to the living room. The walls in need of paint, the carpet worn, but the sense of serenity pulled him forwards.

‘This is my favourite room,’ she said, following him in.

He should have known it would be. He’d spent the better times of his young life in this room, and had made some hard but necessary discoveries about himself in here too, years later.

She’d placed fat, squashy cushions and striped blankets on the old furniture, most of which he didn’t recognise. Store bought logs sat in a wicker basket on the blackened slate. The hearth was swept, with kindling in the grate, ready to be lit for the cold evenings. This wasn’t the outback, sun drenched and barren. They were on the southern end of the Great Dividing Range. Undulating flat plains that dried out in the summer droughts like everything else in Australia, yet only an hour and a half drive from the ski slopes to the west, so they regularly felt the bite from the Snowies’ Mount Kosciuszko.

He looked out of the big bay window to the acres of native, open farmland; the sunlight sparkling on the wild grass, making a man want to tramp it in hiking boots.

He was dithering. He was thirty four years old, not eight. A house shouldn’t hold such fear.
Silliness, for a grown man.

He turned to her. ‘It looks good. You’ve got yourself organised.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled broadly. ‘You should have seen it before.’

The surprised delight caught him off-guard. Did she have no friends or family to visit her, give advice? And she obviously didn’t know this was the house he’d grown up in.

He looked for something to distract him. There was no way he was going to bring that subject up. He’d have to explain and he couldn’t lie, but neither could he face all that shame again.

‘You sketch,’ he said as he walked to the dining table beneath the window.

‘I draw.’

There was obviously a difference.

A large artist’s case, pale grey leather, sat on the table next to artist’s tools. The few pieces of equipment were arranged with precision, exactly where her hands would need to reach. ‘Can I see?’

‘If you like.’ She slid the case towards her, unzipped it and opened it flat like a book. Many pieces sat neatly in pockets, or under elastic ties, bordered to protect.

She picked up a piece of paper. ‘I’m an illustrator for a fashion house in Sydney. They work with up and coming designers. This is my living.’

He frowned, taking the paper. It was a flat sketch. A mannequin wearing a suit, coloured with haphazard scribbles.

‘The designers make sketches, send them to me and I turn them into fancy drawings. Then they’re printed and kept for reference. And history, I suppose.’

‘So this is one of their sketches?’ He lifted the paper in his hand.

She picked up a drawing; a piece of art, he couldn’t call it less. He took it from her carefully. She’d captured the basics of the sketch and taken it for a living walk down a city street. No longer a mannequin but a supermodel, one leg before the other, an arm flung up, the model in the midst of speaking. The skirt and jacket were coloured in the same tones of deep pink the sketch portrayed but with much more detail. Lines and creases showed movement in the skirt. The jacket sleeve was pushed up a thin arm.

‘This is excellent.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And you do it by mail,’ he reflected.

‘I do now. I labour from home and send it back to Sydney. I can pay for the renovations as I go.’

‘Well.’ He raised his face to the window. She was bright and talented.
What the hell was she doing here alone?
‘You might need a new window in here, but the light in this room is perfect.’

‘Yes, it is.’ She replaced the art in the folder, her hands working deftly to close and reposition the case.

An image of his mother came clearly and pierced his thoughts. Walking around the homestead, pulling at the weeds invading her precious kitchen garden and shooing the dogs off the lawn as she reminded him, and his older brother, about homework and chores. She was smiling. Those were the good times, when his father wasn’t home. When the townspeople’s eyes weren’t burning a hole in their backs, wondering how long it would be before Mrs Granger had another ‘little accident’.

‘Let’s take a look outside again.’ He headed for the front door, still open, and gulped at the air. He walked a little way from the house and viewed the old fence running down the side of the kitchen and the area that had been the vegetable patch a long time ago. The fence was leaning, like a lot of things. The gardens at the front were a tumble of overgrown shrubs and long grasses; thrilled to wander over a low boundary brick wall and on to the footings of the house.

He turned and looked up at the shuttered windows. The house was solid and stable. Built by someone who had money back in 1903; a grazier. But the isolation down this way made it impossible to keep workers. Now, it was only passing tourist trade and the dogmatic will of the inhabitants that kept the town going. Even today, they didn’t have anywhere near the amenities of the bigger towns.
Did she realise that?

It wasn’t such a bad feeling, looking at the house old and shabby. Some occupier had tacked on the porch extension without regard. He could put up with the mess but not poor construction. Come to that, he didn’t like anything leaning either, unless it was meant to be slanted by design.

He made his way past the porch. There was a gravel path below the weeds; it crunched occasionally under his feet.

The big wooden shed to the right of the house had one wall collapsed inwards. A sense of bewilderment settled inside him alongside his own responsibility for all of this. He hadn’t been through the gate much since he’d sold the house. It had been empty for the last four years, in the hands of a rental agent. No-one wanted it in the state it had been left in, then all of a sudden—
Sold
. To Miss Walker from the city, who hadn’t even set eyes on it before she moved in. She had probably only seen it in photos. The place would look like a country dream in need of rescue in the pictures—
Wanted: Tender Loving Care.

‘This is a big task you’ve taken on, you do realise that?’ He regretted his unsympathetic tone immediately. She hadn’t handed him his memories. He kicked the gravel, thicker there. The path wound to the front door. It would be easy to sort it out, give the front of the property some line and shape. The gardens could be spectacular, with a lot of effort and even more money.

‘I know it’ll be hard,’ she said, ‘but I have all the time in the world and I love it, even though it looks sorry for itself.’

He caught her gaze. Her eyes sat too big and too wide in a face that shone as though recently freshened by sun or air, or simply pleasure. There weren’t so many freckles, a smattering over the curves of her cheeks, and those three little ones on her nose. Hardly noticeable. Waiting to be wiped off.