Magpie Hall (17 page)

Charlie got the tall, skinny gene in our family, from our father’s side. His lithe body drifted down the stairs to the ground floor while I scuttled behind him.

‘What’s going on here?’ His groomed self looked out of place in the room — he showed up all its ragged edges and dusty corners, its flaking wallpaper. ‘Jesus, it’s freezing. Why don’t you put the heater on or something?’

‘You’re in a great mood,’ I said, but I knew what the problem was. The architect, the phone call that I didn’t pick up earlier.

‘Well, what do you expect? I don’t even know what you’re doing here.’

I nodded. ‘Okay, you got me. I broke into
your
house and I’m squatting. I’m a dirty squatter.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t be like that. You know you can come here any time — it’s just as much yours as it is mine.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

He flopped down onto the couch. A cloud of dog hair and dust rose around him.

‘Rosemary.’ His voice was pleading. Even when he was telling me off he was so easily offended. He still wanted to be liked, even by his sister, even when she had made some mistakes. So different from Charlie as a child — a pinching, biting, kicking, annoying little brother.

‘So what’s the problem?’ I asked.

‘Dad’s worried about you. The architect called him this morning and told him you’d been really obstructive. Were you?’

‘Maybe a bit.’

‘Why? And you still haven’t said what you’re doing here.’

‘I’m working. I’m really behind on my thesis. They were making heaps of noise.’

‘Oh, bullshit. He told Dad you acted like a complete nutter. Dad told him to turn around and come back, but he refused. I think you scared him.’

I smiled.

‘Not funny. Dad called me, really worried. Asked me if everything was all right, how you’re coping.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I said I thought you were okay but what would I know? So I jumped in the car to find out for myself.’ He paused. ‘And to be here if those guys decide to come back over the weekend. Mum and Dad are pretty pissed off. But I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to come. Not if you’re in one of your moods.’

‘My moods.’ I had thought them all oblivious to my ups and downs. ‘Fine.’ I sat down next to him, pushing his bag onto the floor. ‘Actually, I’m quite glad you’re here. I would have frozen to death up there.’

‘Not if you’d gone back inside. You would have seen the open door.’

‘Things are weird here, Charlie. Didn’t you see the mattress and blanket up there? It’s like someone’s been squatting here.’ I didn’t look at him. ‘Someone other than me.’ I hesitated for a moment, then told him about Sam, about what had happened when Hugh turned up. I didn’t spare much detail — I’d always been able to tell my brother anything.

He didn’t give me the sympathy I was looking for.

‘Jesus Christ, Rosemary. Look at yourself. You’re a total fuck-up.’ He gestured at my clothes, covered in hair and dirt. ‘Always getting yourself into situations.’

I ignored the obvious truth in his words. He went on. ‘And how
dare
you throw those two out this morning.’

I stopped him before he could go further. ‘I didn’t want them here. I hated watching them poke around the place.’

He looked at the ceiling for a moment, as though searching the cornices for patience. He gave a grunt of frustration. Then he stared
at me. ‘It’s
not your decision
.’ His voice was low and strong, as though he were disciplining a dog.

‘Not my decision. Right.’ I nodded. ‘And a moment ago you were saying this place is as much mine as yours.’

‘Well …’ He turned his palms up and shrugged.

‘Fine. I get it.’ I stood and marched from the room, breaking into a run up the stairs.

‘Right, walk away,’ he called up after me. ‘Like you always do!’

It was Friday. I had lost track of the days. Charlie planned to stay the weekend, had taken the day off work to clean up after me, as he kept reminding me. He didn’t know when the architect would come back, but I think he was planning to take me with him when he left, just in case. I waited a long time in my room, not working, not doing anything except walking around and looking at the picture of Dora, which I had brought down from the attic and hung on the wall. I heard my brother come up the stairs and bounce up and down a couple of times on the bed with the saggy springs in the room next to mine. He muttered to himself on the other side of the wall.

Luckily Charlie had come with food — I was starting to run low, and the milk I brought with me had soured. He had been thoughtful, too. As much as he loved meat, he had brought only vegetarian food. And plenty of wine.

I finally came down, after he had ignored me for too long, and he had dinner nearly ready. I sat down at the kitchen table while he poured me a glass of red in silence. He had lit the fire in the lounge and the stove in the kitchen, and I felt truly warm for the first time in a week.

‘It’s good to see you,’ I said, not sure how he would react. He looked up from the pot he was stirring and smiled.

‘It’s been too long.’

I nodded in agreement. ‘We haven’t even had a chance to talk about everything. The will. Grandpa. What you’re going to do.’

‘And you. The menagerie.’ He laughed, but stopped when I didn’t smile.

‘Do you miss him?’ I asked.

‘What kind of a question is that? Of course I do.’

‘But you hadn’t seen him for ages before he died.’

‘I know.’ He was fighting the defensive tone, I could tell. ‘Well, my life is busy. And it’s been hard for us, coming back here. He knew that.’

‘He must have. You were still his favourite.’

He snorted. ‘You were, I think you’ll find.’

‘If I was, he would have left me some of the house too.’

‘Maybe … but then all the other cousins would have to have had a piece. I think leaving you the animals was his way of telling you. Look, when Mum and Dad die, you’ll get their share anyway. He knew it would come to you eventually.’

‘You’re right. I just feel so …’

‘Powerless?’

I put down my wine and covered my face. I nodded.

He took the pot off the element and came and sat down beside me.

‘It’s true you were much closer than I was to him. I’m embarrassed about him leaving the house to me. Do you know how much pressure I feel about that? God, the guilt. He wanted me to take over the farm, to have lots of little farm babies.’

‘You’ll never even have babies.’

‘Who says?’

‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’

‘There are ways and means, my little sister. Try and expand that narrow mind of yours a little. Just because I don’t want to sleep with women doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a dad one day.’

‘Okay, sorry. But you’d never come and live here. Be a farmer.’

‘Why would I? I often wonder if Grandpa wrote that will when I was five or something. Surely a doctor in the family is nothing to be ashamed of?’

‘I don’t think it was about that. I think it was about the first son of the first son thing. I’ve been thinking a lot about Henry. The one who started all of this. It’s like, once this place is gone, those ties to the past will be severed. Grandpa thought he was great. I’m pretty sure he was too. I wish I knew more about him.’ I remembered the letter then, and excused myself to go and get it. Charlie read it while he resumed stirring the risotto.

‘Oh,’ he said. He put the letter down and said nothing as he served the meal and poured more wine, then sat down.

‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ I had been so excited to show him the letter, with all its revelations about Henry and Dora.

He looked up at me, his body very still. Finally he spoke. ‘It’s just so … sweet. I’m kind of jealous.’

‘I’m sorry. That’s not why I showed it to you.’ I was filled again with resentment at my family for going against Grandpa’s wishes, but it wasn’t directed at Charlie and I needed him to know that. ‘I don’t think this has anything to do with you, anyway. Of course you would go along with what the olds want. I doubt they’d have listened to you if you’d argued.’

He just shrugged and started eating.

‘I’m just saying, I think we should at least acknowledge that he
wanted the family to go on living here. And now that it’s going to be changed so much, who’s to say they won’t want to sell it off the first time it starts to lose money.’

Charlie put down his fork. ‘Well, would that be so bad? There’ll be enough money to go around everyone then.’

‘But it’s not just about the money.’

‘No, that’s true. Mum and Dad hate this place, with good reason, don’t you think?’

‘It’s not the house’s fault.’

‘Maybe not to you. But anyway, think about it: what a great parting gift — you could buy a house, pursue your academic career, or whatever it is you want to do … What
do
you want to do, by the way?’

I shrugged. This was not the time for that conversation. ‘But I want to be able to bring my children here. Give them what I had, teach them taxidermy, take them swimming in the Magpie Pool. Maybe even show them how to ride a horse.’

‘Really? You’d do that?’

‘It’s just a thought.’

‘Rose, selling the farm is the only way to keep the house. And if the house becomes a burden, then that’ll be sold too. I’m afraid you’ll have to stop getting so emotional about things and start looking at things practically.’

‘Practically? Coldly, you mean. You’re telling me to be rational. Well, I’m glad you can separate your emotions. You’re right, I can’t.’ I knew I was lying. There were whole parts of my life I had successfully shut away when I didn’t want to deal with them.

‘Look.’ He stopped and topped up our wine glasses. His voice became low and even, quiet in the big kitchen. ‘I don’t know if anyone told you, but the farm has actually been losing money hand over fist.
That’s the main reason we’re selling it. There won’t be much left once the debts are paid, and most of that is going into the house. Do you really think Grandpa would have wanted to leave us with such a burden? I don’t think he was that stupid.’

I didn’t answer. I was too shocked. I hadn’t even considered that the farm was losing money. Why hadn’t anyone told me? How could this have happened? I hated to think that Grandpa might have run it into the ground. I’d never heard him complaining about the job Joshua was doing as manager, so whose fault was it? But I didn’t know the first thing about how a farm is run. All I knew was that there was a lot of land, a lot of sheep and an army of staff to keep it all going smoothly. But now that I thought about it, I had only seen Sam, coming and going on his quad bike. The old bustle was missing — I had felt as much when I first arrived, but had associated it only with the house. Now I realised the stillness had settled over the whole place.

‘Let’s get out, tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Go for a drive?’

‘No. Let’s take the horses out.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, I think it’ll be good for us.’

He looked sceptical, scared, even. ‘How long since they’ve been ridden? I haven’t ridden since I was a kid. I don’t think I’ll know how.’

‘Rubbish, you were a natural.’ It was true. Charlie had many times beaten me in races around the paddock, and had taken off on local hunts while I sat at home and sulked about the cruelty of it all. ‘We’ll go to the caves. Who knows, it might be our last chance. I’ll go on my own if you don’t come.’

He thought for a moment, sipping his wine. He sighed, as if
resigning himself. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I think you’re mad, but it’s probably better you don’t go alone. I’ll come with you.’

The tension between us had dissipated and we relaxed into our roles as brother and sister, catching up on news and gossip. The sympathy I had been looking for earlier finally arrived: he went through the motions of patting my arm and reassuring me I had made the right decision to extricate myself from Hugh, that someone much more suitable would be just around the corner. He didn’t ask me any more about Sam and I didn’t volunteer.

Later that night I took him upstairs and showed him Dora’s dress, her portrait hanging on the wall of my bedroom.

‘Do you think he murdered her?’ We sat on my bed, clutching armfuls of silk, looking up at the painting. She seemed at home here, and I wondered if this had been her room, where she slept and dressed and brushed her hair.

‘Surely not,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s just far too juicy a skeleton for the family closet. Have you been sitting here making up fantasies again?’ He leaned sideways and butted me with his shoulder. ‘I think that thesis of yours is going to your head.’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe. I would like to know what happened to her though. Don’t you hate the way when Grandpa was there we didn’t ask him enough? There are so many stories about our family I wish I knew. And now it’s too late.’

The house began to sway gently. Charlie grabbed my hand and looked at me with wide eyes. We both cocked our heads, waiting. There was a creak, as though from a wooden sailing ship riding a storm, then the rocking subsided as quickly as it had begun.

‘Letting off steam,’ said Charlie, and I nodded, my uneasiness returning.