Chapter Three
CHAPTER
THREE
Historically, she’d always loved the moment of arrival in a new place.
No matter how much she’d hated moving, no matter how much she’d resented Rosie’s nomadic lifestyle, she’d always harboured a smidgeon of hope whenever they’d arrived in a new town.
In the early days, she’d savoured the possibilities, wondering whether this would be the place that finally inspired Rosie to stay put, or if the kids in town would be different from others she’d encountered.
Would they welcome her and accept her as one of their own?
As she got older and made peace with the fact that those things just weren’t on the cards for her, Beth focused instead on getting the lie of the land.
There was comfort to be found in knowing a place as well as one might know a friend, so she made it her mission to learn each town’s secrets, its customs and traditions, its places of refuge and its claim to fame.
On that first drive through, she’d always keep her eyes peeled for anything worth exploring.
But this time?
Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, Beth tried to make sense of what she was feeling.
On the one hand, she was finally here, ready to serve her time and claim her inheritance, but there’d be no dreaming of possibilities, no making plans to explore.
She’d stay long enough to claim her aunt’s estate and sell the house to the highest bidder, by which time her landlords hopefully would’ve accepted her expression of interest on the cottage and she could head home to Townsville and her forever home.
Two weeks had passed since she’d received the letter from Barrington and O’Dwyer.
Thankfully, her boss at DHB had agreed to grant her leave without pay.
So now all she had to do was meet the conditions of her great aunt’s will—oh, and find a job in town so she could keep paying rent on the cottage.
The stipend from her aunt’s estate wouldn’t extend as far as covering her expenses in Townsville, so job hunting had to be one of her first priorities.
Distracted, she glanced out at the undulating hills, green with pasture, that decorated either side of the highway.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen such lush farmland.
Drought had devastated the cattle stations in central Queensland and the land was bone dry, animal numbers were dwindling and farmers’ businesses were suffering.
That didn’t seem to be the case here. The hills were dotted with dams sparkling in the mid-morning sun.
The speed limit dropped and Beth eased off on the accelerator before navigating a bend.
The hills dipped and a swollen river, lined with eucalypts, ran between them.
The car’s tyres rumbled over a wooden bridge spanning the waterway, the sound softening when she reached the other side and the smoother road surface.
She’d reached the centre of town.
Shifting in her seat, she attempted to ignore the sights along Karlup’s main street and focused on the car’s GPS instead.
She refused to be sidetracked from the task at hand, but her gaze landed on something so bizarre her interest was piqued.
A bicycle, its basket overflowing with flowers, leaned against the entrance to the caravan park, its frame completely encased in pastel-coloured crochet. Even the wheels hadn’t been spared!
The planter boxes were next to catch her eye, dotted as they were along the footpaths and filled with tulips of every colour. Did tulips have a scent? If they did, it must smell glorious out there.
She passed quaint shopfronts and an enormous old country hotel that sat in the centre of town.
Directly opposite was a bowling green, the grass perfectly manicured and edged with deep-red roses.
She glimpsed a monument of a dingo-like animal with a sign beside it that declared it to be the Karlup Tiger. Like the Tasmanian Tiger?
Just as the GPS instructed her to turn right, Beth passed a beautiful two-storey red-brick house, its front yard featuring an enormous tree.
It looked like it might be a jacaranda—her favourite kind of tree—though at this time of year, its branches were bare.
She bet it would be a focal point for everyone in the street when it was in full bloom.
On Blackwood River Road, she kept an eye on the house numbers and pulled up to the kerb in front of number twenty-seven.
Her stomach plummeted. Hoping she’d misread the address, she scrolled through her phone and double-checked Vince O’Dwyer’s email.
Yep, number twenty-seven. She had the right house—and the place was a shambles.
Selling it wouldn’t be as easy as she’d hoped.
To be fair, though, Vince had warned her when she’d spoken to him to arrange their meeting. ‘It’s been sitting empty for years,’ he’d said, ‘and requires a bit of TLC.’
Deciding to take a closer look—and needing to stretch her legs after the long drive—Beth hopped from the car and cast her eyes over the property.
The front yard was badly neglected. The grass was high enough to swallow a small child, though mowing it to a respectable length might be all it needed.
The external cladding on the house, however, was badly weathered and needed repainting, or perhaps replacing.
Green shoots sprouted from the gutters and moss covered a good portion of the roof sheeting.
So much to do before she could put the house on the market—and she hadn’t even looked inside!
A vehicle approached and pulled up behind her rental car. A balding man, dressed neatly in a suit and tie, stepped out. He tucked a brown leather satchel under one arm and made his way over to her. His brows rising expectantly, he smiled and thrust a hand towards her.
‘You must be Ms Sullivan.’
Her own smile slipped slightly.
She might’ve grown up as Bethany Sullivan, but the day she’d learned that her last name had supposedly once been Campbell, her sense of identity had crumbled like a house of cards.
She’d subsequently torn the cottage apart, looking for a copy of her birth certificate, but if Rosie had ever had one, she’d hidden it somewhere Beth was unlikely to ever find it.
The more she’d thought about it, she couldn’t recollect ever seeing a copy of her birth certificate, but surely she’d needed it to enrol in the many schools she’d attended, and to apply for her driver’s licence and her own Medicare card?
Rosie must’ve handled all the paperwork, which spoke volumes, because her mother had detested paperwork so much that she’d often left the task up to Beth.
In the end, she’d given up the search and had tried to let it go, she really had, but a few days ago, she’d applied to the South Australian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages for a copy.
She needed to see for herself that what Vince said was true, that she’d been given her father’s last name at birth.
Only then would she allow herself to think about Rosie’s reasons for changing it and, more importantly, why she’d never mentioned doing so.
Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to answer in the affirmative. ‘Call me Beth,’ she said eventually and put her hand in his. ‘I assume you’re Vince?’
‘That’s me.’ He smiled and gestured at the house. ‘After you.’
She made her way up the uneven garden path and stepped gingerly onto the porch, sucking in a breath as the aged timber creaked and sagged beneath her feet.
‘Here we go.’ Vince took a key from his pocket and dangled it cheerfully in front of her. ‘You should do the honours.’
Beth took the key and, needing to apply some force, slid it into the lock. After a bit of wiggling, the mechanism gave way and she opened the door, a wave of musty air greeting her as she crossed the threshold into the gloom and waited for her eyes to adjust.
A long hallway stretched towards the rear of the house.
The first room on the left—perhaps a bedroom—was a decent size.
She couldn’t detect any major issues, though the carpet smelled incredibly funky and would need to be ripped up.
The room on the right was larger, appropriately sized for a sitting room, and had a brick fireplace.
Continuing down the hall, she found a third room much like the first, though in this one, a wall was damaged, as if a piece of heavy furniture had fallen against it at one point.
Across the hall was a bathroom sporting a fair bit of mildew, and in the back left corner of the house, she found the kitchen with a laundry to the right that led out onto a small porch.
Nothing in any of the rooms appeared to have been updated since the sixties or seventies, which was surely when the house had been built.
Attached to the kitchen was a small dining space, which featured a questionable stain on the ceiling and ominous-looking cracks in the walls, but with some general maintenance, a thorough clean, a coat of paint and some polish on the floorboards, she was certain the house would scrub up all right.
Where she’d find the time to do it all in the next three months, she didn’t know, but she’d worry about that after she found herself a job.
‘Let’s get straight down to it, shall we?’ Vince lifted his satchel onto the kitchen counter. ‘I’m sure you’re eager to get all the legalities out of the way so you can take a closer look around.’
As he rummaged through his bag for the necessary paperwork, Beth gazed past him and envisioned how the place might’ve looked when her aunt lived here.
It was odd. She hadn’t given much thought to who Prudence Campbell had been, but now that she was here, she couldn’t help but wonder about her.
What would Beth have called her if they’d met? Great Aunt Prudence? Aunty Pru?
She imagined her aunt standing at the kitchen sink, staring out the window.
Had she lived here alone? Vince had mentioned during their first conversation that she was Prudence Campbell’s only living relative, so it was probably safe to assume her aunt had never had children.
Had that been a conscious decision on her part?
Or had she simply never met a person she wanted to have a family with?
Did Beth face a similar fate? Would she grow old alone, single and childless, destined to breathe her last in an aged-care home with nobody to hold her hand?
‘Beth?’
With a jolt, she glanced up to find Vince studying her, his brow furrowed.
‘I’m sorry, what?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I, ah, mentioned in my email that I’d arrange accommodation for you, expenses covered by the estate.
I took the liberty of booking a few nights at the bed and breakfast in town.
Thought that’d be enough time to decide whether you wanted to stay on, set up shop here or find somewhere else to stay. ’
Still shocked at how strongly she felt her aunt’s presence, Beth glanced around the room without really taking in her surroundings. Words evaded her, but she was grateful for Vince’s foresight, so she met his eye and nodded.
He seemed to sense her inability to communicate and kindly took the lead, going through the legalities of her aunt’s will and the logistics of how she would receive the stipend for her living expenses.
He let her read through the agreement that outlined her rights and responsibilities as the occupier of her aunt’s former home and she signed on the dotted line as instructed.
She paused, staring down at the letters she’d formed, the S curling and swirling as it always did. What would her signature look like if she were still Bethany Campbell? More importantly, who would she be now if she had remained Bethany Campbell?
The room swayed and she gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself. She focused on her fingers, attempting to overcome the dizziness, her knuckles standing out, white and stark against the bold turquoise laminate.
‘Is everything okay?’ Vince’s words filtered through the buzzing in her ears.
She chewed the inside of her cheek. How on earth was she supposed to answer that question? Her life had been turned upside-down in the last two weeks.
As her vision steadied, she realised Vince was studying her, his brow creased with concern. Normally, she’d baulk under such scrutiny, but in this case, his kindness seemed genuine.
‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. ‘I’m sure the next three months will fly by, and this place will be yours before you know it.’
Hers. The house would be hers.
She looked around the space again, feelings of unworthiness taking root.
Two weeks ago, she hadn’t even heard of Prudence Campbell, yet the woman had left her a house and a large sum of cash.
It didn’t feel right. Beth should’ve been there for her, just as she’d been there for Rosie, only she’d never been given the chance.
Rather than voice all this to Vince or correct his assumption about the cause of her distress, she nodded. ‘Thank you. I’m sure it will.’
Vince offered a sympathetic smile, gathered up the paperwork scattered over the bench and packed it into his satchel. With one last reminder to contact him if she needed anything, he let himself out.
After he’d gone, Beth again inspected each room but found she couldn’t stand to be there any longer. She imagined her aunt in every room, every corner, which only made her question why Rosie had never mentioned Prudence Campbell.
Sighing as she hopped into the driver’s seat of her rental car, she decided she didn’t have the strength to solve the puzzle of her family’s history. The past belonged in the past. It was time to build herself the future she’d always wanted, and in three months’ time, she’d be able to do just that.