The dust scatters in the stiff October breeze as Liza’s mother lifts her hand to toss a handful of fresh earth onto the pine box.
Liza sniffs, her head bowed at her mother’s side. Pa would have hated this. His will requested that his ashes be planted under the snow gums on the far hill. Instead, her mother snuffles in her Carla Zampatti suit as the local priest eulogises in solemn tones over a stony hole in the Catholic section of the town cemetery.
Liza glances about. A good crowd really, considering the recluse he professed to be. Bespectacled men and women in business suits huddle together on one side, while the elder statesmen and women of the community stare outwards on the other wondering who will be next.
Liza notices her father assessing the crowd, no doubt calculating the cost of the bar tab at the reception Mum has organised. The priest closes a worn bible and steps back with a slight nod to her father.
“Thank you all for joining us to farewell my father-in-law. Those of you who would like to continue to share your memories are welcome at the Bowling Club,” Dad announces and then ushers Mum towards the arms of a local matriarch. Liza remains, still staring at the cloth that shields layers of red clay and dark loam from her gaze. Her cheeks are stiff as she offers a weak smile to each of the kind faces that pause to offer pleasantries and condolences.
“Great loss to the scientific community. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Mr Wigham.” Liza recognises the Professor from the University as he pauses to offer his sympathies to Dad, one neat hand extended outwards in greeting.
Her father meets the Professor’s hand with his well-practiced business grip and nods. “Yes, it seems my father-in-law was a busy man right till the end. We have been away some time in the city with business so had not kept up so much, my wife and I would love to hear more. Will you be joining us at the reception?”
“Liza, Liza! Mrs Thompson spoke to you,” her mother’s shrill voice draws her attention back to a huddle of women at her side.
“Oh, sorry Mrs Thompson. I was miles away. Thinking, about Pa, sorry.”
“Oh, of course my dear. I know you were close. You must miss him terribly.”
“Yes, but don’t worry Mrs Thompson, I’ve grown to love Marmite. I can’t get it anywhere else,” Liza jokes softly “so you won’t be losing a customer.”
“Must be a genetic thing then,” Mrs Thompson soothes, “you, and your Pa, the only ones in town, lucky it has a long shelf life,” she reaches across, and Liza feels the comforting weight of her tuck shop tricep beneath the soft wool of her dark cardigan as she folds Liza’s sobs into a warm embrace.
“You’ll all be joining us, won’t you? Just something little – to catch up,” her mother turns awkwardly as her stiletto heels sink into the newly turned sods. “Oh dear!” she stares in horror at dark specs dotting the fine net of the stockings stretched across her elegant ankles. Mrs Thompson raises an eyebrow and her mother coughs and bends her head to retrieve a delicate lace handkerchief from the patent leather bag dangling at her wrist. She flicks her head toward a dark saloon where Dad is waiting, his arm stretched over the open door. “This wind is a little biting. I think I best be going, to get things set up. Please join us. I am sure we will all enjoy a warm drink.”
“You OK, pet?” Mrs Thompson asks. “You going with your parents?”
Liza lifts her head from Mrs Thompson’s shoulder and wipes her eyes. “I should.”
“Ah, I’m sure they won’t mind if you spend a little more time with your Pa. They have people to greet. Seems to me they’ve been happy to leave you and him, before?” Mrs Thompson’s eyebrows lift softly, as she nods over her shoulder to her waiting parents. “If you like I’ll tell them you’ll come with me.” Liza sniffs and nods. Mrs Thompson hands her a fresh tissue from the infinite supply old ladies store under their cardigan sleeves. From a distance Liza sees her mother stretch on tiptoes to assess whether it is appropriate to leave her grieving daughter, and then bend gracefully into the waiting car as Mrs Thompson waves her away.
There is no one left at the graveside and Liza moves slowly into the shadows of a towering gum. The leaves sway in the stiff breeze, casting spiderweb shadows over the soft earth mound at the side of her grandfather’s grave. Light flickers, incandescent and ethereal, then disappears. A bee buzzes gently, attempting to capture tiny balls of pollen suspended on the thin fuzzy strands of the flowering gum, and then gives up.
“Oh Pa.” It was Liza who had found him. His head was slumped on his chest as he sat in his favourite chair by the fire, his hands still cradled around the wooden armrests. The embers were cold and it was mid-morning. She imagined him drifting off. “Resting my eyelids,” he would say as she chided him for falling asleep mid-sentence in the afternoons. She had stroked the wispy hair across the sunspots on his forehead and laid her warm cheek against the chill of death, hoping she might somehow extract some last wisdom from his sharp intellect.
Quietly, she had picked up the paraphernalia of his thoughts and placed it on his office desk, called the ambulance and her mother.
“Oh Liza,” her mother had gasped. “Do you want me to come? I imagine we’ll have to clear things up. It was always such a mess.”
“I can do it,” she answered softly.
“Oh, you are a dear. We’ll come first thing tomorrow and I’ll call you tonight to check everything is OK.”
“It’s fine Mum, really. I’ll call you if I need anything,”
*
“Really! I can’t believe it.” Liza’s mother is incredulous, her red-lined lips gape fish-like as she stares at the small man in a grey suit, huddled behind an ancient wooden desk in the aptly named office of Small and Gray; country solicitors.
“Yes. I have the contract here. Signed last month. Your father sold his research and prospecting license for $500,000. Liza is to receive the proceeds. He redrew his will up immediately after. Everything else has been bequeathed to you.”
Liza’s father turns to her, his forehead is lined as he rubs at his temples. “Liza, did you know anything about this?”
“No.”
“I simply cannot believe it!” Her mother turns towards her, her voice high and tight, manicured fingers rub at the centre of her eyebrows in a desperate attempt to prevent a new wrinkle. “The water? He was right?”
“I am not aware of the specifics Mrs Griffith, only the legalities.”
The ride to Small and Gray took fifteen minutes. The ride home seemed to take months as her parents whisper incessantly. It is as if they think she is a three-year-old in the back seat and they should whisper in code about the trip home to avoid alerting her to a king-sized Maccas they are passing. She shoves EarPods in hoping to dull the tide of Mum’s hysteria and Dad’s reassurance, but even Jeff Buckley can’t stifle her mother’s voice: builder, mortgage, solicitor, real estate. He was mad, you know, mad. It’s impossible!
The car pulls into the driveway and Liza kicks the car door open. “I’m going up to Pa’s for a while. Want to stay up there for a bit.” She jams clothes into a bag and returns to the hallway as her parents enter the house.
“Call us if you need anything Liza. We will be in town till things settle,” her father offers, his eyes trained on his wife as she fills a crystal glass with scotch.
She is finally alone. The breeze holds the soft warmth of early spring, and Liza bends to feel the black loam in her Pa’s vegetable garden. By now her grandfather would have sorted the seed to plant ready for November’s gentle heat to coax the dicots from the hard shells before December’s sun burnt them to a crisp. Perhaps she will just plant a few. But then she remembers. Mineral claim, sale. It will all be dug up. What’s the point?
She kicks at the old wooden gate to the chook run and watches as fat red chickens bolt from a dark corner, perhaps hoping Pa had reappeared with his “scrap tin” of household treats, and then turn their backs, disappointed, to peck at bare earth. She wonders how long a chicken’s memory is – when will they stop looking for him? Tears drip and coat clean straw as she parts the biscuits of hay from a bale and tosses it against the greyed timber beams of the chook house wall. The hens peck at cascading seeds, then scratch and scrape, eager to transform this new landscape to a more familiar shape.
Liza feels the lump of “Hey Pa” rise and stick in her throat as she enters the house. The yellowing lace curtains filter the afternoon sun into triangles on the upholstery of his vacant chair. It is still there, in position, as if the fire is waiting for him to poke it back to life. A log has split in two, its heart burnt into charcoal squares, its edge still ringed. She can see the bite of the little chainsaw Pa used to cut small timber. She will have to light that soon if she is to stay warm, but not yet. There is still time. Maybe tomorrow she will. It is still light, and a blanket might do.
The study is neat and ordered just as he left it, only the glass of his distillation equipment is coated with a fine layer of dust. It is usually pristine, catching the sun from the window and splitting it into a kaleidoscope, but today the light hits the layer of glass and leaves only a shadow. Filing boxes are stacked neatly in the rear of the room, dated and labelled, stretching back over twenty years. Pa had taken time to explain to her the contents, since that awful snowy night by the fire.
The scotch (or perhaps her desperate demeanor) must have mellowed Pa. He announced that perhaps he had been “a bit gruff” with her. He said, “he thought he had spent to spy on him for her mother, and Jack was there to sell the place, or maybe she was a Uni plant, wanting his data.” It was all bit blurry, but she had begun to wonder if he really had been on the hill too long. She stayed a while, and then a while longer to listen to Pa and his stories. Winter can hang on in the mountains and it had turned out to be a very long winter – a whole case of Merlot long by Liza’s reckoning. It turned out whoever visited Pa was a great house guest; the house was always well stocked with cordon bleu casserole and red wine. Pa had let Liza know the very best times to pay him a visit.
He had pointed out his data boxes with a grandiose flourish. “One day, Liza, all this will be yours. All the front boxes contain useful data which must be protected at all costs, and behind that was the background material, BUT Liza, never throw anything out, you never know when you will need it.” On his demise, he told her in weighty tones, “she must ensure that the University did not convince anyone to just give it to them. It was extremely valuable. Only if they paid a fair sum, should the data be handed over. “And what was that sum?” Liza had asked, her eyes dancing in a childish game with her grandfather as her hand happily swished a glass of merlot side to side, admiring thick lines as they slid nonchalantly down the walls of her wine glass. Her Pa dug his hand deep into the pocket in the front of his overalls and said he “reckoned he could negotiate half a million dollars.”
Liza stares at the boxes. She can’t touch them. They are her Pa; his eyes as he squinted and blinked; his lined fingers as he scratched results into notepads with a wooden pencil; the edges of his mouth as he twists his lips and chews his tongue, thinking. She moves to the desk and gently sweeps a collection of wooden swirls into her hand. She lifts them to her nose and sniffs. They smell of lanolin, wax and wood smoke. Pa always sharpened a pencil with a penknife, he held the timber firm and slid it down, leaving curling tendrils befitting an eighteenth-century princess. She wipes over the outside of the distillery equipment with the inside of her sleeve and watches as the sunlight splits across the table, catching colour in the scratches of its wooden surface.
She closes the door to the office. It can wait. In the kitchen, she opens the pantry and surveys the inside. A last bottle of merlot is hidden behind a crumpled-up paper bag of flour. He always saved a treat. She starts to empty the pantry out, checking dates and filing mechanically into boxes; keep, discard, donate. It was an odd experience, filing someone’s life. Intimate, what they ate, the odd assortments of a life; supplements they thought might once save them, spice for a recipe never cooked, neighbourly Christmas presents of fruit cake, chocolate, and biscuit tins, opened once, the sticky tape shrivelled or the lid jammed tight.
Liza opens the merlot and pours a glass, savouring its plummy warmth as her hands linger over a jar of marmite. The scrape of Pa’s ivory-handled butter knife is still evident. Keep. At the back she finds her own long-ago offerings of “no-name” staples. The tins stare back with their black and white no-nonsense labels. She gulps at the remnants of her glass, reaches in, and sweeps the lot in the crook of an elbow into the discard box.
Two days later and her car is full. Every tiny space is filled with boxes and bags; the souvenirs of ninety-five years on the planet. She had neatly labelled things for her mother to sort, photos, trinkets, and then others; food, clothes, redundant and broken appliances. There were more boxes waiting for the trip down the mountain, but this was a start. It was good to be doing something. Liza’s phone trills for her attention. “Liza, about time. Where have you been?” Liza checks her messages – ten missed messages from Dad.
“What’s wrong?”
“We need you to come into town to talk to Pa’s solicitor. He said it was important. 2 pm, OK?”
“Um, sure. I was just,” her father hangs up before she can finish.
Liza and her parents are ushered into three waiting seats in front of Mr Gray as he flicks through a wad of paper, highlighted in mardi-gras shades of pink and orange. On the screen beside him Liza can see her parent’s solicitor; Stan Wallis’ moon-like face waiting, his lips firmly set.
“Thank you for coming in,” Mr Gray begins. “I was contacted by the University this morning. They are walking away from the contract, say it is undeliverable without Mr Wigham’s expertise.”
“Can they do that?”
“I have checked the contract and there was a three-month transition clause.”
“I knew it! I told you he tricked them! Just like he fooled Mum!” Liza’s motherdrops her head into her hands, as Dad places a hand on her heaving shoulders, rubbing the pointy bone angling from her slender neck.
“Perhaps it’s for the best, Marion. You know what Jack said. It will be easier to sell the place that way. We can move on. Leave this all behind.”
“No!” Liza hears her own voice, and then hurriedly raises her hand to cover her mouth as her parents’ eyes turn to her.
“Don’t be ridiculous Liza. You have no idea!” her mother scolds.
“Can I object?” Liza asks softly, turning to the solicitor.
“I can help with that,” Stan Wallis’s voice invades the room, perhaps eager to account for his so-far redundant appearance. “I have a colleague who works with a mining company, I can get them to take a look.” He pauses. “For a fee of course.”
Liza watches as Dad weighs Mum’s pulsating nostrils, the cost of a second opinion, a half-million dollar payout and the cost of supporting her while she “finds her way”, as he so often put it.
“Perhaps, Marion we should talk to Stan offline about that, and meet with the real estate again to discuss it before you make your mind up.” He turns to the elderly solicitor. “Is there anything else we need to be aware of?”
“Ah yes. The prospecting lease will expire in three months. It can only be transferred, not renewed.”
“And after it expires?”
“To get a new one you have to start again, with landholder consultation, among other things.”
Stan Wallis intervenes.“There is a lot to this, Phil. Complicated stuff. Why don’t you leave it with me? I’ll talk to my mate. I’m sure he will be happy to chat, obligation free, and you can make your mind up.”
“Yes. OK.” Dad nods and stands. “Excuse us, Mr Gray. This is all a lot to take in. For my wife, particularly. We’ll get back to you. Liza, can you come round the house in an hour or so? We can talk more then.”
Liza nods. She checks her watch. She had only got as far as the op-shop with her laden car, before having to go to the solicitor. Everyone wanted to stop and talk. “How was she, such a loss, a real character, good innings”. Her face ached with small-town pleasantry, and now her jaw feels locked as she holds back the words she wants to hurl into the stale air of Small and Gray; country solicitors. Didn’t they realise this was just a university game, to get the research for a song? Just like Pa said. They had what they wanted, otherwise they wouldn’t have signed a contract. They must think some new owner would let them make a claim at no cost. Maybe they thought they would buy the land themselves.
“Triple shot, and make it extra hot.”
“Long day?” The barista played the cafe game perfectly. He was good, new to town, a city boy with hipster hair. She nods, and rolls her eyes. “Last coffee of the day. I was just turning the machine off. I’ll bring it over. Where you sitting?” Liza thumbs at the darkest corner of the cafe.
The coffee burns at the words caught in her throat dissolving the mass until only bitter dregs remain. What choices does she have? She is not Pa. The Professor would laugh himself stupid if she turned up demanding they honour a contract on the strength of what? Her failed expertise as a barely passing student? Even if she did get them to talk, her mother would never allow it. She checks her watch, noticing the barista flicking a chux over a benchtop for the tenth time, clearly waiting for her to leave.
The tip is mercifully quiet. She had timed it well to avoid old blokes clean up and lawn-mowing time. By now they would all have had their afternoon clean-up shower, feet up reading the local rag. The only thing left was the boxes labelled for Mum to sort.
Liza drives past her parent’s house and then swiftly reverses and pulls into the curb. She thought she must be going mad. A large wooden sign is stabbed into the manicured lawn with a square stake. For Sale. Treechange Real Estate. Specialising in unique rural properties. She had driven past thinking the boxes perched on the front seat must have given her parallax error. No, that was the townhouse for sale.
“Hi”, Liza singsongs as she turns the key to her parents’ house and enters, her arms laden with a first box. She is determined to ensure she gets this over and done with as soon as possible. “Just dropping these boxes in, then I’ll be back.” She dumps the first box in the hall and returns to the car to gather more. Dad is waiting in the hall when she returns.
“What’s all this?”
“Pa’s stuff. Photos, trinkets. Thought Mum might want to go through it.”
“Not right now Liza. Your mother just wants to leave all that behind. Best you keep it. Maybe later. “
“But?”
“We’re selling Liza as soon as possible. We can’t have boxes lying around. I’ll help you put them back.”
“Can’t we do it after?”
“No. Best now. Before your mother sees it. She’s just not in the right space. And the real estate is coming around with a contract. We’ve decided to accelerate things a little.”
“A contract, already?”
“We called him, straight after the solicitor, to let him know things might change. He says he has a buyer ready today. He’ll be round in half an hour. Lovely young man. Very personable. You would love him. He’s just your type.”
Liza stares after her father as he retrieves boxes and methodically replaces them at the boot of her car. “Keys Liza?”
“Liza, is that you?” Liza hears her mother’s groggy voice from the kitchen. Perhaps she has taken something to “calm her nerves.”
“Coming.” She tosses the keys to her father and steps through to the kitchen, where her mother is sitting at a round table, sipping at the edge of a gold-rimmed teacup.
“Cup of tea, dear? It’s chamomile, to soothe the nerves. What an unbelievable day?”
“Yes. It’s all moving really quickly. I didn’t know you wanted to sell that fast!”
“We were going to wait, but then Dad died, and now this. Phillip says it is better to just move on. It’s a good offer and we may not get it again. The real estate fellow says he will sell Dad’s place for us too at a discount commission.”
“Shouldn’t we wait to see what the mining guy says?”
“Oh, Phillip says we will keep that going of course, but that doesn’t change the sale. We need to sell this place to fund the city reno. We have had to stretch ourselves so thin to keep both places so we could look after Dad and you. Phillip, there you are. I was just explaining to Liza, about the sale, and the deal Jack has arranged for us. Must say, he is such a lucky find. So knowledgeable about the area. We told him about you of course and providing for you. You can of course come with us to the city house till you find something of your own.”
Liza’s hands clutch at the delicate teacup, watching thin stems of chamomile that have escaped the strainer dance in the tepid liquid.
“Liza, we were planning to discuss this with you of course.” Dad slices the silence that has descended over the table.
“Ding, dong.”
“Oh, that must be Jack. Perfect timing! Phillip, I asked him to bring some information on apartments for Liza. Once we sell Dad’s place, I am sure we will have enough to buy her one. We can all move on then. Leave this behind.” Mum stands, gently wipes the line of her lipstick smudged on the edge of the cup, and goes to the door.
“Come through.” Liza hears soft-soled shoes pad across the parquet floor, eager to fulfill her mother’s long dreamed of future. “I’d like you to meet our daughter Liza. Liza this is Jack Collins, our wonderful new real estate agent.”
He freezes as he turns the corner, his hand outstretched and his lips stuck in a plastic grin.
“You have got to be kidding?” Words burst from Liza’s mouth, as the teacup shatters at her feet.
Jack’s eyes glaze as his grin drops and he turns, runs down the hall and slams the door. Liza hears the roar of an engine. “Dad, you better call the Police, and Mum pour yourself another cup of whatever that is.”
*
Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash
