A Grand Passion Read online

  ‘I love it!’ I blurt. ‘I want it and I’ll buy it myself even if you’re not interested.’

  Ian knows I could afford to buy the house, but he also knows I’d have trouble financing the indescribable number of necessary repairs without a partner. He tells me this.

  ‘I don’t care,’ I say, and mean it. ‘I’ll live in it as it is, cracks and all.’

  ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  ‘You’d really live in it as it is?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  There’s a second or two of silence.

  ‘I’d clean it, of course,’ I add. ‘I don’t mind scruffy and dilapidated, but I don’t like dirty.’

  More silence.

  I look at him, a bit annoyed. This game is no longer novel, and beginning to test my stretched nerves. ‘So what about you?’

  ‘I bloody love it!’ he shouts so loudly I half-jump off the seat with fright. ‘Did you see all that cedar? My God, not just the doors and skirting boards, but the whole staircase! It’s all cedar, never been painted over, do you know how rare that is? For decades people were painting over that quality of woodwork, but at Baddow it has escaped – probably because of neglect, no one’s ever renovated the house. Did you see the height of the ceilings? What about the size of the rooms, the view of the river from upstairs – of course we’ll have to put the verandahs back on.’

  I melt into my seat with delight. Ian is off and running, his brain flying with ideas that are music to my ears. In my head, we’re there already, it’s all clean, repaired and painted. The garden is a botanic riot of luxurious colour. I’m stepping out of the French doors upstairs and strolling about the verandah, inhaling the sweet jasmine, sipping tea, watching the river flow by.

  ‘Of course we’ll have to get geological tests done on the subsidence problem that’s caused all those cracks before we consider it further.’

  Reality returns with a thump. I know he’s right. I know we can’t go careering into this thing without due caution. And I know we might get told things that will make it unacceptable to proceed. Property is Ian’s game. He’s made a living out of investing in land, shops and houses. He knows heaps more than I do about this sort of thing, and it’s obvious we’ll need his steady head to stop me running away with the irresponsible enthusiasm I’m currently experiencing.

  ‘Remember how they repair ruins in England,’ I say again. ‘Remember Aunty Dorothy’s house …’

  ‘The soil in Maryborough is clay, the worse sort of ground to build such a large brick building on.’

  ‘It’s survived a long time, since 1883.’

  ‘Yes, and according to Patrick the cracks only became serious about ten years ago following a very dry season. We’ll have to check for termites too, get under the roof, look for dry rot, check the foundations.’

  The journey back to Montville flies. We talk nonstop. We don’t even stop for our usual chocolate.

  CHAPTER 3

  NEGOTIATION AND ACQUISITION

  BEFORE WE ARE willing to part with good dollars to pay geologists, engineers, building inspectors, termite inspectors and the thousand other people necessary to our peace of mind, we have to know if Jan and Barry will actually sell us Baddow House.

  We arrange a date with them.

  I’m itching to get into the house again, but nervous about the outcome. We head off at the crack of dawn, and the drive north is a nail biting two-hour drag. We try to buoy each other up with excited chatter, but our nerves are stretched taut, and we keep falling silent. We arrive at Baddow at eight o’clock. Jan and Barry invite us in to commence negotiation.

  Negotiation is Ian’s forte. I have promised to keep my mouth shut tight so as not to put my foot in it. I’m very likely to betray excessive keenness, and have been told to maintain a meek, hangdog sort of a look.

  We soon realise that, though Jan and Barry really do want to sell, having already bought another house elsewhere, as professional antique dealers, they are seasoned wheelers, dealers and negotiators. Our one weapon is the dawning suspicion that Barry is a lot keener to sell than Jan.

  Ian makes an offer. Jan, as expected, refuses. I stare at the ground. Discussion occurs, cases are pleaded, faults in the house are pointed out. Back and forth we go. Back and forth. Nothing is achieved.

  We stop now and again and talk about other things. They tell us about the cellar beneath the old kitchen that’s all filled in now and about the legendary tunnel to the river that no one’s been able to find. There is an impressive trapdoor in the cupboard under the stairs which they show us, but it only gets you into the crawl space beneath the entrance hall floorboards.

  They also show us the original water tanks: domed brick structures that, like icebergs, sit mostly beneath the surface. All we can see is the curve of the brick tops above ground. They are huge: six metres deep and almost as wide.

  We go back inside. Further discussion occurs. Barry throws Jan the odd pleading look, but Jan won’t budge. I begin to fear that pride might prevent both Ian and Jan from backing down. I think the house is worth every cent of the asking price, but have promised not to say so.

  We stop for lunch. Ian and I go to the pub in town for an hour.

  I’m all jittery. With any other house, I could let myself believe that it’s not the end of the world; that if an agreement couldn’t be reached, another place would come up. But there isn’t another Baddow House and Baddow House is calling me.

  We return. Nothing is achieved. Back and forth go the words again. At one point Barry lets out a desperate, ‘Do you want to sell this house or not, Jan?’

  We stop for a cup of tea. Then Ian says, ‘Anne and I need to talk alone,’ so we move into the garden while Jan and Barry disappear deep into the house. Much whispering and conferring goes on.

  Outside, Ian and I stand under the guava trees at the back of the house. We’re directly opposite the Big Crack, and it occurs to me, facing Ian – facing the devastated wall – that over the last few years, between us, we have done danger, loneliness and hardship. We’ve done fear, struggle and loss. Acquiring and mending a broken house is a very minor thing against all these earlier trials. It is simple, a matter of some trivia, and the dollar difference at this stage of our negotiations is small. I voice my thoughts.

  Suddenly we’re smiling, clasping hands. ‘Whatever it takes,’ says Ian.

  I nod. ‘Whatever it takes.’

  Sealed with a kiss.

  We find the others. Negotiation recommences. We’re close, I’m scenting victory, trying not to smile. Ian suggests paying the price Jan and Barry seem stuck on if they throw in a couple of pieces of the old furniture. There are a few items in their possession that belonged to the family of Edgar Aldridge, original owner of Baddow House. It seems appropriate that these pieces stay.

  It is the catalyst.

  At four in the afternoon, eight hours after our arrival, we are shaking hands with Jan and Barry. There are smiles all round.

  I almost dissolve with relief.

  Back in Montville, we ring our children. Ian has four: Dinie, Georgie, David and Annabel, I have three: Andrew, Elizabeth and Robert. They descend in age in that order, from Dinie, Ian’s eldest at twenty-seven, to Robert, my youngest at seventeen. If they all still lived at home, we’d be bigger than the Brady Bunch, but the entire seven have flown their respective nests. Four are in Australia, three are overseas, five are now working, two – my youngest, Elizabeth and Robert – are still at university.

  Our discovery of a huge and unique old wreck of a house is not our only piece of news. We have to tell them all that we plan to move in together. Ian and I have been a couple for some two and a half years at this stage, engineering every possible moment in that time to be together, seldom passing a day when we haven’t seen each other. But this is not the same as Moving In.

  I’m a bit nervous about telling my children. My eldest, Andrew, is over in Italy, teaching English at a language school i
n Venice, the university students are in Brisbane. I call the Brisbane ones first, then spend two days tracking down the elusive Andrew.

  I’m not sure why I’m quite so nervous. My children have known Ian slightly since childhood, have come to know him much more over the past couple of years, and are, happily for me, genuinely warm in their acceptance of him in my life. Perhaps there’s a sense of guilt that I haven’t managed to follow the straight and narrow path that my own parents followed, that I’m not married to my children’s father, presenting a united and solid front of respectability to the world. I’ve made mistakes, been impetuous, muddled along, done my best but been imperfect.

  None of my children have ever given any indication that they wished things could have been different. They’ve been loyal, supportive, my best friends as well as my children. It’s a huge relief when they welcome the news. They just want me to be happy and, if living in Maryborough with Ian is what I want to do, then they are right behind me. I’m proud of their mature and selfless attitude, and can’t wait to show them Baddow House.

  Ian is nervous too. His children took the loss of their mother very hard, it hasn’t been easy for them to watch him move into a new life with someone else. He makes his calls, and believes all the children are accepting. But it’s hard to tell, hard to know what’s really going on in everyone’s heart of hearts.

  Ian and I have to drive to north Queensland for the twenty-first birthday of his niece. Ian wants to stop in Maryborough on the way, to meet our local councillor and find out what plans are in the pipeline for the Baddow House area. Though Trevor has told us the land surrounding the house is deemed an historic site, never to be built on, we know we should get official confirmation of this.

  It’s a month since we signed the contract, another month till the house is ours and we can move in. We’ve already commissioned a multitude of building, termite and soil tests, but this is our first trip back up to Maryborough.

  That we arrive a little early is not entirely accidental. The pull of Baddow is magnetic. How could we contemplate driving all this way and not sneaking another look at the house? It’s unlikely that the Christiansens will welcome this visit, which is understandable, given that they must be busy packing and sorting decades of their lives into boxes, but we show up anyway.

  When we reach the house we see that both their car and van are missing. This is good news and bad. If they are out we won’t be able to get inside the house, but at least we will be able to wander about the exterior unwatched. We can take our time, soak up the feel of the place, and we can peer in windows.

  We do exactly this. It’s wonderful to saunter unhurried about the garden, identifying trees and shrubs, deciding what will stay and what will go, making wild and extravagant plans, listening to the birds in the park, acquainting ourselves with our new environment.

  Unlike Ian, I feel very much a trespasser and, despite my happy contemplation of the garden, can’t help throwing regular nervous glances toward the road. Ian’s attitude is, as always, more cavalier than mine. ‘Don’t be so English about it,’ he keeps telling me, ‘the house is as good as ours anyway.’ I try to relax.

  Ian loves to bait me about my English background which, in his eyes, renders me a correct, polite, law-abiding little citizen worthy of regular teasing. That I was raised in a military environment exacerbates this Englishness in me: excessive punctuality is in my genes, playing by the rules, telling the truth, holding justice and good manners as utterly sacred. The wild colonial boy at my side believes rules were meant to be bent, and gets a kick out of bending them. I know he’d be inside the house in a flash if there had been a window left open. Thankfully they’re all nailed shut.

  On the western side we can see the river clearly. Having a view of the river is an immense bonus, one that seems almost too good to be true. I have an intrepid, tight-knit, lap-swimming group of friends back in Montville, who love to test uncharted waters. Every year when our local pool closes for winter, we take ourselves to the deep, black vastness of the Baroon Pocket Dam. Some days we just round a few buoys, but some days we swim to the other side. What a startling sight we must present to shivering, rugged-up picnickers as we emerge: wild women in our togs, caps and goggles, water weed and blue-green algae clinging to our ample forms. Creatures from the black lagoon.

  Today it occurs to me that the Mary River is particularly murky and I am aware of a slight wavering of my river swimming keenness. I push it aside to focus on other, more exciting things.

  Strolling the environs of my soon-to-be home, I’m experiencing a flicker of hope that I might be able to write again. Writing has been one of the greatest joys of my life, but the words dried up along with my marriage.

  My last novel, The Legend of Creag Mhor, translated in Europe as Der Schwarze Highlander (The Black Highlander), took a tortuous four years to produce; four times as long as my previous books. Every sentence, every word, was wrung out of me with sweat, tears and not a little blood. It was like giving birth with everything going wrong: the baby too big, upside down, sideways, cord round its throat, no doctor, midwife out of town. Even the consolation of being told it was the best work I’d ever produced didn’t enable me to continue as a writer.

  Divorce, with all its unfortunate trappings, plus the death of a parent, the loss of a close friend, juggling single motherhood, trying to make a new home, to fend for myself, earn a living when the words had dried up: these are all problems for the head, or so I thought.

  It came as a massive shock to me when I discovered how emotional dramas could manifest as physical symptoms. Fit, healthy, invincible me, watching my blood pressure soar, my hair come out in clumps, waking up in the morning with every muscle and sinew so stiff that walking downstairs was a slow, painful experience. I’d always believed I was above and beyond such frailties. Strong in both mind and body, better equipped than most to triumph over adversity.

  A close friend and staunch member of the swimming girls, who is also a general practitioner, told me that I was one of the sanest people she’d ever known. I hugged those words tight through the bad days. When Ian burst into my life and the smile returned to my face, she admitted she couldn’t understand why I hadn’t gone under. ‘We’ve all been waiting to catch the pieces,’ she told me.

  But I know I’m on the road to recovery and have been since Ian and I teamed up. I sense that Baddow House is going to complete that recovery. Can a house be a muse? I’m not so sure about that but when I look up at the soaring, battered walls of Baddow, I feel such a tug of affection and inspiration, I believe she could be mine.

  Away from the road, in the back garden, Ian grabs an empty terracotta flowerpot and says, ‘here, if you stand on this you’ll be able to see inside.’

  His words snap me out of my introspection. I eye the flowerpot, tempted. Most of the windows are heavily draped and afford no peeks, but a couple of panes in the living room are obscured only by thin netting.

  Ian up-ends the flowerpot near the best window. I hang back. Fear of being caught wars with an almost overwhelming desire to get another look inside the house. He prods me in the ribs. ‘Go on,’ he says.

  I can’t resist. With my nose pressed to the glass and hands cupped to block out the light, I can just make out the interior of the living room. Excitement dulls my apprehension and sense of guilt and I’m soon visualising the joyful furnishing of the room.

  But a solid edifice the size of Baddow House is extremely soundproof, and from the far side of the house we don’t hear the Christiansens’ van return home. It is the intensity of their stares we sense first. Then I’m off the flowerpot, nearly breaking my ankle in the unwieldiness of my leap. My face is burning with shame, my throat too tight for words.

  Ian comes to the rescue. ‘Barry! Jan!’ he says, and strides toward them, hand outstretched as though we’d expected them all along. ‘Thought you’d be home soon. Hope you don’t mind us dropping in to see you. But we’ve driven up to see Councillor Hovard. Pity t
o come all this way and not say hi.’

  Barry is relaxing a bit, but Jan’s entire being is throbbing with hostility. I really don’t blame her. I’d be a bit annoyed if I caught someone climbing on flowerpots to look inside my house. All I can think of is escape, but to bolt now would only confirm what they’re already suspecting: that we shamelessly seized our chance to snoop.

  ‘If we’d had your number,’ I say, ‘we would have tried to call you, but I’m afraid we left it in Montville. This was all very spur of the moment.’

  Jan still hasn’t spoken, but Barry and Ian are starting to chat. Ian is asking about stormwater drains and underground pipes, all relevant questions to be asking of Barry. Our visit starts to seem more legitimate.

  ‘I expect you’ll be sorry to leave this garden,’ I say to Jan, desperate to appease, ‘I can see you’ve done a lot of work here.’

  To my relief, Jan starts to unbend. We chat for a respectable few minutes, then make our excuses and leave for Barbara Hovard’s house.

  Barbara is the Maryborough city councillor for Division Four, the suburb of Baddow. She later becomes our mayor. Barbara was born and raised in Maryborough. She loves her town and is truly passionate about caring for its future. The hospitality she shows us is appreciated, considering we don’t yet live in Maryborough, and she is more than happy to discuss what’s earmarked for the farmland adjacent to the park and Baddow House.

  We learn that, though some of the farmland beyond the park will one day be developed for housing, as Trevor said, the park itself won’t be touched, being the site of the first township, the village of Wide Bay, settled in 1848. Barbara tells us that shortly after first settlement, the village of Wide Bay was renamed Maryborough by order of Governor Fitz Roy to commemorate his wife, the Lady Mary, killed in a carriage accident at Government House, Parramatta.

  In those early days, the township consisted of a cluster of slab huts, several inns and a few sly grog shops. There were pits for sawing timber on the river flats and a shingled-roofed church further up the hill that doubled as a school house during the week. Today, none of these buildings remain, however the site is of great historic significance and will never be developed. This is exactly what we want to hear confirmed, because it is the park, wrapping around Baddow House, that gives such a feeling of peace and privacy.