CHAPTER 1
Distinguishing Boundaries
The strong wind swept across the undulating hills, driving before it a misty rain. The grey sky heralded further rain for the afternoon. From above, this zone seemed like a giant green field, cut into neat squares and rectangles bordered by one hundred year old cypresses in sentinel lines in a determined dark green shade that served as wind-breaks and cover for the cattle.
This was a dairy-farming district, like most of Gippsland, but being only one and a half hours out of Melbourne made it commutable. Walvern had once been a thriving, late nineteenth century town that somehow remained old-fashioned, but in the 1980s the whole town was bypassed by a freeway that connected Melbourne right through the whole of the Latrobe Valley. So this town, which had pulled itself up to the head of an important commercial agricultural town little by little slipped back as a result of no through traffic entering its determined but sleepy existence. It was not a huge town, but with the suburban sprawl it went ever outward and whatever type of nondescript modern houses were required or demanded, they were available.
The older part of the town was Victorian, but as the land undulated the houses were depending on the layout of the land; either the front or the back of each residence was considerably elevated. As a result of the very high rainfall and the acid soil, rhododendrons and camellias flourished, as did all types of evergreen trees and those planted a century ago were now in a mature state that gave the whole town an anchor into the ground. The trees that lined the street in the older part of Walvern were plane trees, with trunks of enormous girth. Unfortunately these street trees were cruelly pollarded, so they never had the opportunity to show their true splendour.
Outside Walvern the countryside rolled away and each little zone had had its own character. It was now almost invisible, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries these areas had developed their own personalities, and this was obviously determined by money. The properties around the town had never been very large, its being a dairy-farming area. Originally, large areas were no required. The land was hard won originally, but won it was. The clearing of trees, planting of fields and the development of a rich diary industry was established. But with time, with milk quotas, the farms that had done well before found themselves in financial difficulties due to the fact that the hectares were not sufficient, so cut-backs had to be made. Near Walvern, the people who owned the properties worked the land. There were very few who held the land and had share-farmers running their properties, simply because the hectares were not sufficient to allow this. But one or two properties did have this luxury, though it was relatively rare.
North of Walvern was a tiny hamlet called Aspel. At its height it had boasted a railway station, a general store, a local hall, Church of England and Methodist churches, a series of houses and a jewel of a state primary school of considerable architectural merit. That was it. In the mid-sixties, the railway was closed, a survey having decided it was uneconomical to keep it open. So the hamlet slowly slipped back into its own dream world. The general store closed, due to the supermarket in Walvern offering the same products at lower prices, as well as a greater choice. In time, both churches were physically removed to areas where the population was prepared to use them: the church-going population had fallen to basically nil, so it was not worthwhile to keep them open. There had never been a Catholic church in Aspel: all the Catholics were obliged to make the journey to Walvern to St Joseph's and still d0. The houses in and around Aspel were average Victorian and later houses that held families and the numerous outbuildings all served to support their domestic and economic survival. Not all were aesthetically pleasing. But Aspel, although forgotten, boasted, several miles apart, three houses that were different from the rest. Two of them were much larger and the third a fine house but smaller.
The first house we shall glance at was called Rosebae. If one left Walvern and continued for eight kilometres, it stood on a high embankment. The main road had been cut below and a high cypress hedge – or to be honest a row of unkempt cypress trees – masked the front and side of the house as well as serving as a wind-break from the strong winds that swept across the neighbouring valley and upwards toward Rosebae. Sheltering behind was a very large, weatherboard, late-Victorian house that was the home to Terry Williams and Simon Osler. The large house was not pretentious: it had a veranda across the front, with a central passage and was completely symmetrical. But one rarely used the front door, as, when they had re-developed the road system and cut the embankment into the side of the hill directly under the cypress hedge, it made access to the house from the front impossible. So one entered from the side road that was gravel and continued in a straight line down to the bridge and then up again to the crossroads. From there, if one went on, it left one finished up in the forgotten hamlet of Aspel: if one went straight ahead, one finished up at a little farm property: if one went right, the first house one saw was Killpara, a modest Victorian home, and then on to a 1960s modern home, and a little further on, behind a huge barrier of pine trees, the largest of these three homes, Houghton Hall.
Rosebae had been in Simon Osler's family since the lad was selected and at 37 he continued in the family tradition of dairy farming. He had met Terry Williams seven or possibly eight years before, and they had decided that they were well suited to one another, so Terry moved in and began an amazing transformation of the house and its surroundings. Terry was thin, blonde and with a sharp face. His arms, which in summer were always exposed, were so thin that they looked like two lengths of thick, pink rope, but he, for some odd reason, was very proud of them, always exclaiming that he was fortunate to have such elegant arms. He was tolerant until tackled and then if he felt insecure he attacked viciously; his rapier tongue was well-known among his small group of friends. Simon was exactly the opposite in character and appearance. He was much taller, dark and extremely well built, with thick dark brown, unruly hair and almost black eyes with bushy eyebrows and a full mouth and a strong nose. He had an obvious beardline and was very much the man of the country. He was extremely popular with everyone, kindness itself, and it was said that he did not have a cruel bone in his entire body.
The same could not be said for Terry. When he moved into Rosebae, the property was a little run down and, as he saw it, completely in disorder. This he set about rectifying at once. He began with the house. Simon's parents had been dead for some years and he had lived by himself for a period; housework was obviously not his forte. So Terry found the house to be in the most forlorn condition. As all entry to the house was through the back door, it most certainly did not give one a sense of grandeur and that is what Terry set about changing. He had a new veranda built, right across the back of the house, and transferred the front door with its leaded side light to the back and had a window fitted in place of the front door, allowing more light into the house. A great number of the rooms were damaged, with cracked plaster and water stains on the ceilings, from which were suspended the most rudimentary light fixtures, generally a plastic-coloured shade above a naked bulb. The roof was repaired, and Terry himself set about systematically, room by room, re-plastering and painting. He tore up all the old, damaged, cracked lino which had spread itself into every room and automatically changed colour and design at every doorway. The acrid smell of the burning of all this floor-covering was terrible. A dense pall of black-grey smoke signalled the finish of the stuff. Terry spent the next few weeks pulling nails out of the floorboards as the sanding machine would not tolerate this metal intrusion. And so, in a year, great changes occurred at Rosebae. Terry never stopped. He was always throwing himself into one project after another, and complaining bitterly until each was completed.
But he had a great love, apart from Simon, and that was bird life. With Simon, he built a most elaborate and decorative enclosure to house the hens and he was most attached to one that he called Tahlulla, that was black and white and, when he was working in the garden, was always with him. Tahlulla followed him everywhere. This grand enclosure of a hen house, with knobs and finials, trimmed with decorative cast iron he painted cream and highlighted everything with white. He then moved on to an aviary for parrots, and a large arrogant peacock called Pete. Pete was always to be seen strutting about the yard between the house and the sheds. He had probably absorbed some of Terry's attitudes and when together they seemed to be mimicking one another. The oddest thing to watch was the night exercise, when it was time for Pete to be locked safely away for the night. He would allow only Terry to pick him up, but the minute he worked out he was to be locked up he generally put up a fight and when finally pushed into his very decorative enclosure he always walked to a low perch and turned his back on everyone. No amount of coaxing would convince him to turn around or open his tail. He just looked at the wall and sulked.
Terry also began an overhaul little by little of the outer farm buildings, the replacement of rusty tin and then a paint job. He did everything himself. He was considered a human dynamo but he was actually more like a bee: if left alone, he made honey, but disturbed or criticised he stung.
The interior of Rosebae now was comfortable but it could never be described as high chic. It still had a mixture of furniture, and all the prints and one largish painting had the same subject, of course – birds. Every time Terry went to Walvern he immediately dashed to the charity shops to see if they had any statuettes of birds and so the house little by little began to fill up with china birds of all sizes and colours, not to mention a great variety of quality items, but this did not worry Terry at all, and Simon just smiled as every time Terry returned from Walvern with a find he then had to decide where to place it.
Simon was the one who rose at 5.30 to 6.00 every morning and set about his methodical rhythm of daily life. He assisted the share farmer and then milked 89 cows. Terry was not up at 5.30, but by 6.30 or 7.00 was in the milking shed also helping. The relationship was one of mutual trust and a genuine sense that they were doing the right thing, but lo and behold if someone decided to move in on the gentle and dark, good-looking Simon, Terry was extremely jealous of him and he was quick to defend his territory and his lover with a vicious verbal attack. This rarely occurred, due to their isolated living, so their friends were very few, as both of them, when this relationship began, were discarded by many of their acquaintances.
Terry was a good cook and really enjoyed it. He liked to make his own butter and could skim the milk for thick cream, so his cooking was rich. He caused a little drama once at Walvern when he found out via a friend of his, a true county matron, that the County Women's Association were having a one-day cheese-making course and was furious that because he was a man he was not able to attend, since he could not become a member of the Association. He wrote a scathing letter to the local newspaper, The Walvern Gazette, screeching sexism, which in a sleepy country own raised a lot of eyebrows. He was fortunate that his friend knew the lady personally who was giving instruction in cheese-making and invited both of them to her home where the lesson was repeated in private. But the letter to the Gazette was followed up by women claiming that although Terry was right, there were also many things in this town they were prohibited from taking advantage of, and so these letters continued to be published in a column called 'You Said It' for some months. There was also another column in this weekly newspaper that was called 'In and Out of Society', a poisonous column that was to affect most people living in and around Walvern directly or indirectly.
If one left the asphalt road at Rosebae and took the gravel road to the side of the house, one went down a steep hill across a bridge and up again. Turning right, the land on this corner belonged to the O'Riley family and had for many generations. The property, Killpara, although it had more hectares than Rosebae, was a smaller residence but a little grander, because it was built on a slope that fell away at the back. It was built on a slightly more level piece of land but much further in from the road. It boasted a gabled front and a half veranda which terminated at the projecting gable front. It had four bedrooms, a large living room but a tiny kitchen with a large skillion section that stretched right across the back of the house, enclosing a bathroom, laundry and a large waste space with cupboards for all manner of things. On the long side, these cupboards were topped by louvre windows which overlooked the share-farmer's cottage, which was built only nine or ten metres from the main house. Due to the sloping terrain, the back of the main house was a metre above the ground, whereas the front door was level with the ground. In front of the very austere cottage was a large square space; on the right was the hay shed, on the left there was a corrugated iron utility shed and the stable block. Directly in front but lower down was the milking shed. This was one of the few properties in this area that had a share-farmer: on most of the other properties the owner and perhaps his son and most definitely his wife were the sole workers.
Mr O'Riley was a surveyer, so that helped to supplement the salary, and his wife Joyce kept the house. They had two children. Thomas had left home sometime ago: he had finished university and worked for a very successful investment firm in Melbourne. He had only last week, with Joyce's sister Rose, celebrated his thirty sixth birthday in Rose's beautiful home in Toorak. Thomas had a sister called Patricia, who had decided not to go to university despite the avenue being open to her. She worked in Walvern at the local library and seemingly enjoyed it. She lived at Killpara and had no desire at all to take on the responsibilities of a flat in Walvern. This was a blessing to Joyce, as she and Patricia were quite close and good company for one another as Mr O'Riley, Samuel, was often away for work.
The interior of Killpara could only be described as very ordinary or suburban. The furniture was late Edwardian or 1930s, nothing special, but everything was functional. Joyce would not have it any other way. It was a cold house: it showed no warmth at all, and this may have been due to the walls being either a dull green or an even duller blue. All the original fireplaces were intact – there had been no re-modelling at all. The gems of Killpara were the exterior chimneys. These four had ornate cornicing around the top and decorative incised designs on the sides. They always seemed too grand for the structure. Again, as at Rosebae, the front door was rarely used. One generally entered up a steep ramp at the back, which had tyres cut up and nailed flat in horizontal strips so that in bad weather, which was often, one wouldn't slip.
As regularly as clockwork, every Sunday, a car would leave Killpara for the nine o'clock Mass at Walvern, as that was the closest Catholic church. Sometimes two cars left, depending on the arrangements later or the weather. The Timms family was going as well as the share-farmers were also Catholics, although Mr Timms generally had to be dragged out to go. Joyce always said in a soft joking way that there must have been a mix-up at the hospital. She was short and invisible; in a certain sense if there was a group of people no one remembered if Joyce had been there. Quite often at a shop she would stand for five minutes before someone noticed her. Her sense of humour was childish and it was as if she had lived a very sheltered life. Her grey hair and sensible but slightly old-fashioned clothes and the fact that she wore no make-up gave her the appearance of a much older woman. The joke she repeated often about the hospital now made no sense, as it concerned her two children. Thomas was thirty six, tall, with black hair, electric blue eyes and a very handsome face. At school he had been everybody's heart-throb and not just with the girls, whereas Patricia was a true Irish girl in every sense, red blonde hair, green eyes and a gentle face covered in freckles. She was short and very thin and a more pleasant and kind person one would never meet. But they were complete opposites. Patricia was also ten years younger than the handsome Thomas. The fact that he had left home almost eighteen years ago and so few people actually knew him as an adult meant that the hospital joke made no sense.
