At Home With The Templetons (4 page)

the best looks in the family - a mass of blond curls that Audrey would have killed for, dark-blue eyes like their father and lashes so long they could have been false. Still, Audrey thought again now, leaning in towards the mirror and practising arching her left eyebrow, the mark of true talent was making the best of your attributes, wasn’t it? Growing into oneself. Having faith in oneself and one’s place in the universe, staying grounded and yet confident at the one time.

‘Breathe, Audrey, breathe,’ she said to her reflection in the low voice she was trying to cultivate. ‘Centre yourself. Trust in yourself. Believe in yourself.’

A noise outside made her jump. She swiftly blew out the candles and hurried back to bed. Charlotte had walked in on one of these private moments once, and after howling with laughter, ‘Who do you think you are, Audrey, Sophia Loren?’, had spent the next week mimicking her: ‘Breathe, Audrey, breathe, or else you will die, Audrey, die.’ Audrey knew it was counter-productive to waste valuable emotional energy on negative feelings, but sometimes she really did hate Charlotte. What would she know about the trials of having an artistic spirit? All Charlotte cared about was annoying teachers and spouting her ill-informed opinions. What would any of her family know about her hopes and dreams, if it came to that? Her parents barely gave her any attention when she was home on the weekends any more. It was always all about the stupid Hall. Even Hope got more attention than she did these days. It wasn’t fair, it really wasn’t. She was truly starting to believe she was the cuckoo in the Templeton family nest.

To hell with them all, she decided now. Liking the sound of that sentence, she said it out loud, in a melodic deep voice. She tried it again, in an American accent. She was good at accents,

her drama teacher had told her as much. Perhaps she could even try doing Ophelia in a foreign accent? What a great idea! Checking the schedule again, she was happy to see the next rehearsal was three days away. Plenty of time to prepare a convincing case about the accent. Already imagining the applause on opening night, she slipped the schedule under her pillow and fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Spencer was too busy to sleep. What a great day that had been. He liked to think of a day’s events as being divided into Good Things and Bad Things. Today had definitely been more Good Things. He made a list of them in his head as he rummaged around in the cupboard in search of ingredients for his current project.

The Good Things were: 1. Successful stink bomb 2. Gracie’s crash

3. Police visit

The Bad Things were:

1. Crackdown on kids driving

That was exactly how his mother had put it. ‘There’s going to be a crackdown on the children driving from now on.’ Spencer was hiding behind the curtains in the dining room after the police arrived back with Gracie and he’d heard a big fight between his parents. Lots of soft shouting about whose fault it was, about the children running wild ever since Hope had started drinking again. That wasn’t true, in Spencer’s opinion. He’d been running pretty wild before Hope had started drinking again, it was just his parents didn’t know about it. But it was a

shame about Gracie’s accident. Charlotte had promised to start teaching Spencer to drive now he’d turned ten, but it looked like there wouldn’t be much chance of that for a while, at least until all the fuss had died down about Gracie’s crash.

In the meantime, there was still plenty of other stuff for him to do around the place. His new friend, Tom, who lived in a farmhouse a few paddocks away, thought Spencer had it made. No school. A huge house to roam around. Spencer had put him right on a few things. He did have school, it was just that he did it at home and his mother was his teacher. Tom had asked loads of questions about it, as if he’d never heard of homeschooling. What happened if Spencer misbehaved? Did his mother get him to stand outside the classroom? Did he still have to sit exams? Wasn’t it lonely sometimes? What if he woke up one morning and felt sick? Did he still have to go to school if his home was also his school? Spencer hadn’t even thought about all that stuff before. He’d just always been taught at home and that was that. ‘Is it because you’re so rich?’ Tom had asked.

‘We’re not rich.’

‘Everyone in town says you are. Look at the size of your house.’

‘Dad inherited it. We didn’t buy it. His grandfather gave it to him. Or his uncle. Someone, anyway.’

Spencer wasn’t completely sure of the facts. He’d sort of listened when his father gave him the lessons about what to say when he was showing visitors around, but they couldn’t expect him to remember everything. He’d never told his dad or his mum or Gracie - especially not Gracie, who would go crazy if she knew - but sometimes he just made up any old thing about where a painting or a piece of furniture had come from.

It didn’t help that Spencer’s dad was always arriving home with new clocks or paintings or small tables, all excited, saying they were ‘great finds’. Spencer thought at first he was saying ‘grapevines’ but Audrey put him right. A week or two later, some of those new ‘great finds’ would turn up on top of the long cupboard in the big dining room, or in one of the glass cabinets in the morning room, or in one of the bedrooms they showed their visitors. Their father would give them a little speech about what to tell visitors: how valuable it was, how it had found its way into the Templeton family and been a treasure for generations now, blah blah blah. Spencer had found it all a bit strange at first. How could it have been in the family for generations if his father had just bought it in a shop?

He’d mentioned it to Gracie once, who got a bit funny, the way she did whenever

any of them said anything about the Hall not being the most perfect place in the entire universe. ‘Dad knows what he’s talking about,’ she’d said. Fine, Spencer thought. If Dad wants to tell visitors that the blue jug he’d bought the week before in some junk shop was six hundred years old and had arrived in Australia on a ship with Captain Hook or Cook or whatever, then that was his business.

It had been funny one day recently when Spencer was showing a group around. His dad appeared in the dining room, all dressed up and with that cloth thing around his neck as if he was going to a wedding, putting on the really posh voice he used in front of visitors, calling Spencer ‘son’. ‘That’s right, son. I couldn’t put it better myself.’ Spencer found it a bit weird. Of course he was his son. He was hardly the family dog.

His dad had taken over, telling all sorts of stories and making a fuss about the big glass vase on the table between the two windows. It was from the nineteenth century, he told everyone. It had been lying covered in dust in the Hall’s pantry for years, until he, Henry Templeton, at the time living in England and working in antiques, had learnt of his inheritance of the Hall and arrived in Australia with his wife and four children.

The Hall had been full of hidden treasures like that, he told them. A treasure trove of wonders. People nodded a lot, Spencer remembered, although a boy his own age just stood there pulling faces at him and picking his nose. Then a man who’d been having a close look at the vase put up his hand and started talking really loudly. He was an expert in that sort of glass, he told Spencer’s dad, and that vase wasn’t even fifty years old, let alone one hundred.

‘But this is terrible!’ Spencer’s dad had said. ‘Someone must have substituted a fake. The one that was there was certified by experts. I have the certificate somewhere. It’s registered with Sotheby’s. You’re telling me it’s a fake?’

‘It’s worthless,’ the man said. Spencer remembered him having quite red cheeks, as if he had run a race. ‘You’ve had a thief in the house. And if you don’t mind me saying, your whole approach here is very risky and opens you up to exactly this kind of crime.’

‘But if we can’t trust people in our home, where can we trust them?’ his dad had said.

Since that day, any time any visitor announced they were an expert on something, or questioned an item’s authenticity, there was a ‘new rule of behaviour’ to observe. They were to thank and congratulate the person, ‘quietly and firmly’, their father said, for noticing, and also ask them to keep the news to themselves. They were right, it was a copy. They had been advised by

their insurers and the local police that they’d been too relaxed about displaying treasured family heirlooms. So ‘regrettably’ (it had taken Spencer a few attempts to pronounce that word) the family was forced to lock away the most valuable items, and put nearly identical but less valuable copies in their place.

‘You shouldn’t say it’s original, then,’ a man said to Charlotte one afternoon, when Spencer was under the piano, listening. The man was cross about Charlotte telling his group that a painting over the fireplace in the drawing room was an original Gainsborough from the 1780s, commissioned by a member of the Templeton family. Charlotte had followed her father’s directions to the letter, gently drawing the man aside and explaining that there was an original in a bank safe in Castlemaine but in the interests of protecting the family’s assets, this copy had been hung in its place.

‘That’s false advertising, then. We paid good money for this tour and your brochure says all the interior decorations are authentic to the period.’

‘And so they are,’ Charlotte said. ‘This copy is from the 1860s. Thieves didn’t just appear this century, you know. Our greatgreat-grandfather in Yorkshire had this copy made after coming home from a shooting party and disturbing a thief about to cut the original from its frame. In many ways, it’s almost as valuable, don’t you think?’

Spencer asked her about it afterwards. He didn’t remember his father telling him that story. Charlotte just laughed. ‘Of course it’s not true, Spencer. What do I know about nineteenth century forgery practices? Remember Dad’s second golden rule? If in doubt, make it up. Do it quickly and then move on.’

It was a lesson Spencer had taken to heart. He’d got away with it too, so far. His Aunt Hope had listened in one afternoon, standing in a corner of the room in that creepy way she did sometimes, hardly moving or even blinking. Her zombie mood, Spencer called it. He toned down his stories that day, but he probably needn’t have bothered. Hope just stood there for a while, doing that thing where she scratched her arm over and over before wandering out again. He’d thought about saying something funny about her being the house’s resident ghost but then his mother had come in and he was glad he hadn’t. His mum got very fierce very quickly if any of them said anything about Hope.

Still, he didn’t have to worry about doing the tours now for another week. He had his own projects to work on instead. The stink bomb had just been a practice run, but amazingly easy. Coming up next, just as soon as he’d saved up enough to buy all the ingredients he needed, would be the very best project of all. He created a new list in his head. Future Good Things.

The fire-spewing volcano was top of the list.

In her room, Hope was trying to make the inch of wine in her glass last as long as possible. The bottle on the floor beside her was empty. How could that be, she wondered, staring at it. It must have been half empty when she got it out of her wardrobe. She couldn’t have drunk it all already, surely?

She took a small sip. Then another. Another. All tiny ones but as quickly as possible, trying

to relax, trying to calm herself, trying to stop checking the door every two minutes to make sure no one was about to come bursting in. She hadn’t meant to cause a fuss today, she truly hadn’t, but when the police car turned up and she saw Gracie being carried in, she’d thought the worst,

thought that Gracie had been killed. Even when she learnt the truth, that it was just a minor accident, it was too late, her nerves were jangling, the anxiety had set in, the tears too …

Not that anyone understood, Eleanor especially, trying to shush her, saying that Gracie’s accident had nothing to do with her. But of course it did. She knew what they were all saying. If Hope hadn’t been there, causing problems, the Hall would be running like clockwork, the vases would have been filled with flowers and Gracie wouldn’t have had to drive into town. Did they think she didn’t know what they were all thinking about her? Even as she’d tried to apologise for her tears, for getting so upset, even though she’d slipped away as quickly as she could back to her room, their voices had stayed with her. She’d sat on her bed for five minutes, telling herself that of course she could get through this without a drink, she just needed to calm down, to think of something else, all the things she’d been taught in different consulting rooms over the years. But her own voice wasn’t strong enough. That other louder, stronger, nicer voice inside her started talking. She liked what it had to say. One drink wouldn’t hurt, would it? It would take the edge off everything, make everything feel better, wouldn’t it?

And it did. It always did. It just didn’t last, that was the problem. It was a big, big problem, she thought, gazing again at the empty glass in her hand. Why did people make wine bottles so small? Why didn’t someone invent an alcohol patch like a nicotine patch? Some sort of hidden device, like a morphine drip, that would keep a nice steady supply of alcohol drip-dripping into her vein, keep her nice and steady all day long, without anyone needing to know? She glanced over at the wardrobe, knowing she had another full bottle hidden behind her winter coats. No, she wouldn’t get it. She’d be strong. She didn’t need it. It wasn’t good to mix her medication with alcohol. Besides, the way her luck was going lately, Eleanor would walk in just as she’d taken out the cork and there’d only be another lecture, another reminder of how awful it had been that time Eleanor had found her on the floor of her London flat.

‘I thought you were dead, Hope. I thought you’d killed yourself. Can you even try to imagine how I felt?’

‘How you felt? It wasn’t exactly fun having my stomach pumped out.’

She’d been trying to be funny, but of course Eleanor had got all high and mighty again. No sense of humour. She’d never had one. Anyway, for heaven’s sake, why did she have to keep going on about that day? So she’d happened to drop round just in time. What did she want, a medal? Where was her Good Samaritan spirit? They were sisters, weren’t they? Family? She would help Eleanor if she ever needed it, of course she would. If Eleanor ever stopped being so bloody perfect and showed some vulnerability or understanding once in a blue moon … Anyway, why was there such a fuss about her choosing to dull her pain with the occasional drink? Eleanor should be glad it was only alcohol and a few tablets. What if it had been heroin or another class-A drug?