At Home With The Templetons (30 page)

You did make me laugh with your stories of the more persistent visitors. Yes, I’m sure you did get as big a surprise as they did to find you in your pyjamas feeding the chickens! Please do feel free to put up another sign at the front gate, and as usual, charge it to our account. I do apologise again for that difficulty with the last cheque we sent you. Please rest assured Henry has rectified that and there should now be sufficient funds in the account to cover all your expenses.

I hope you’re enjoying that lovely late summer weather. It’s very cold here at present.

With warm wishes to you and Tom, Eleanor

December 1995

Happy Christmas Nina and Tom!

With love from all the Templetons in England.

Henry, Eleanor, Audrey, Gracie, Spencer (and Charlotte in Chicago) xxxxx

January 1996

Happy New Year Nina and Tom

We will see you this year, we promise! It doesn’t feel like more than two years since we saw each other but then sometimes it feels like it’s five years, if that makes sense??

That is wonderful and amazing news about Tom getting the scholarship to that school in Melbourne!! He must have written an incredible essay. As Spencer said when Mum told him, ‘That’s not fair. How come he got brains as well as the cricket stuff?’ You will miss him during the week, won’t you, but I’m sure he’ll come home most weekends. I asked Audrey if she had ever known anyone who went to that school and she wrote me a note to say it was the private boys’ school in Melbourne, and that it shows Tom is super smart if he got an academic scholarship there. But you must know that already. I hope he knows we are all very proud of him. I’m going to send him a congratulations card today. Charlotte’s

just been home for a visit - her first since she went to Chicago, can you believe it? (Between you and me, she’s got a bit fat but she said she doesn’t care, the food in America is so great it’s worth it.) The good news is Audrey has actually started talking a little bit again, but only to us, her family, so far. She doesn’t say much, hello and good morning and please and thank you, and when Charlotte was here she went completely quiet again, but I think she did it deliberately to upset Charlotte, and let me tell you, it worked! I am fine at my school. Not deliriously happy, but fine.

The other big news is that Hope has a boyfriend! I don’t know where she met him - a drinking den, Spencer said, but I think he was joking. If anything, I think it was in one of those AA meetings. (That is short for Alcoholics Anonymous, in case you didn’t know.) I heard Mum telling Dad about it. (It was nice to hear them talking for once. Lately they only seem to fight on the phone to each other.) Mum said she doesn’t believe in miracles any more, but if she did, this would be one. She’d been about to kick Hope out again, had even packed up all of her things. Hope went off, in tears and still a bit drunk and was gone for hours and Mum had started phoning the police and the hospitals, when Hope turned up again. I couldn’t hear a lot of what she said to Mum, but she seemed to be making a lot of promises and saying that this time something felt different to her too, she really was going to try, that something had ‘shifted in her thinking’. She’d seen a sign outside a church hall or something and gone in and started talking to this man and he’s become her mentor, if that is the right word. I saw him drop her off here the other night (his name is Victor) and he seemed very old to me, but she is definitely much happier and seems to have stopped drinking again and the best thing of all is she spends a lot of her time at his house rather than with us.

Sorry this has mostly been about Hope. She’s been all we’ve talked about here lately. I’ll write again with more news about the rest of us soon.

Love Gracie XXX

FAX TO Nina Donovan

FROM Henry Templeton

DATE: August 1996

Dear Nina,

This fax idea is a marvellous one, thank you for thinking of it. And may I say again in writing how grateful Eleanor and I are that you have agreed to stay on for a third year. Life has taken some unexpected twists and turns since we arrived back, but please let me assure you that we have absolutely no intention of leaving you in the lurch, responsible for the Hall and its grounds for the term of your natural life, if you’ll pardon my colonial pun. I have all sorts of positive leads or irons in the fire or whatever the terms are these days, so Eleanor and I are both still optimistic that we shall be Australiabound again very soon. We are all missing our Australian life very much, as I’m sure you would imagine, Gracie in particular, of course. Please don’t hesitate to write to me - sorry, fax me - at this number should any problems, no matter how small, arise and we will be back to you as swiftly as possible.

Yours gratefully, as ever, Henry

FAX TO: Nina Donovan

FROM: Eleanor Templeton

DATE: October 1996

Dear Nina

Thank you for your most recent fax to Henry. I’m sorry if I appear over-controlling, but from now on could you please write directly to me at this fax address as well as Henry on any matters to do with the Hall?

I also apologise again on behalf of us both for not warning you prior to the arrival of the valuation expert. I can understand that you might have thought he was pretending. I wasn’t aware Henry had been in touch with a local firm, or indeed that he had considered selling the contents of the Hall. You were well within your rights not to let them in. Henry has telephoned the head office in Melbourne and they now assure us we won’t be charged for what they called a wasted journey.

I’ll also arrange separately for a shipping company to pack the ornaments, vases, crockery and smaller items of furniture as outlined on the fax attached.

I will call you soon to answer the many questions I’m sure you have. Thank you again, as ever, for all you do for us.

Eleanor London, February 1997

Dear Nina

I wish you were here. I know I probably write to you too much but you feel like a Dear Diary except unlike a Diary you write back to me. Nina, it’s been so horrible here lately. Mum said I had to learn to keep family talk to myself, to stop broadcasting it to everyone, but how am I supposed to keep news like this to myself? Mum and Dad have split up. I don’t know yet if they are going to get divorced.

He’s going away for good and he won’t say where, and Mum won’t tell me where either, but he’s my father and I should know, shouldn’t I? Hope and her boyfriend have moved into a new house a few streets away and Spencer has started spending all his time there. He says it is much more fun, but I’m worried. He’s only thirteen and I’m sure he’s smoking or drinking or both (even though Hope and her boyfriend don’t do either of those things any more). Mum’s teaching fulltime in a different local school and we have to go to the same one now, and I keep being teased and Spencer won’t stick up for me, not when he’s got a whole cool gang that he hangs out with. All the girls my age knew each other for years before I arrived and no one talks to me. Except for one girl, but she is so weird I can see for myself why no one talks to her either. I asked Mum if she would please be able to teach me at home again, but she got upset and told me to stop wishing all the time that things were different and that it’s time I accepted that life isn’t always sunny and carefree. I know that, but I just wish it was more cheerful.

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 fulltime 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.’