Chapter 3
Fiona
There’s good news, and bad news,” the older electrician declares, startling me out of my reverie as I sit reading at the farmhouse
table. “The good news is, I didn’t see any ghosts.”
“That is good news,” I say wryly as I shut the book and set it on the table. They’ve been at it for under an hour and he told me it
would take all day, so I look at him warily and ask, “Is the rest all bad news?”
“I was kidding about the bad news. This whole house was rewired fairly recently, maybe ten or fifteen years ago. Looks like
they even put a new hot water system in at the same time too, which will save you a heap of hassle. So, you can reconnect
the power safely whenever you please.”
“Wait—no,” I say, looking at him blankly. There’s no way Tad would have undertaken such a big project—not without a whole
lot of grumbling and complaining and trying to figure out a way to avoid it. If he had rewired the house and replaced that hot water unit, I’d know about it, because he would have called me for advice.
“Come see,” the electrician says and shrugs.
I follow him out the front door and realize the apprentice is already sitting in the car, studiously avoiding my gaze as we pass.
The older guy notices and mutters, “My kid has heard a few too many stories about this place. He’s glad we’ll be out of here quickly. ”
At the circuit box, I’m distracted first by the spiderwebs, and then the spiders, which are everywhere. I take a step back
automatically, suppressing a shudder. The electrician remains undaunted. He lifts the cover and points inside, and I gasp
in surprise to see a neatly organized collection of modern safety switches. Not an old-style fuse in sight.
“What the . . . ?” I mutter, blinking in disbelief.
“This model of safety switch they’ve used here? They came out when I was an apprentice myself, and that was fifteen years
ago, so the wiring can’t be any older than that. But the hot water system is a model we were installing around the time I
qualified, so putting it all together, I reckon that places this work at about twelve years old. And it does make sense they’d
rewire the whole place because it looks a whole lot like the house almost burned down at one point,” the electrician says,
and he crouches, pointing towards the bottom corner of the new circuit box. I crouch too and wince, first at several large
redback spiders, then again at the sight of smoke damage and bubbled paint behind them. “Given the age of the house, it was
probably lousy with that old-style Indian Vulcanized Rubber wiring. The rubber decays over time until it just crumbles into
dust. I still see it in old houses like this sometimes—” he winks at me and points to the charring on the brickwork again
“—usually because I get called in to rewire after they almost burn down.”
“But . . .” I was so certain that the house would have its original wiring, I didn’t even think to check the circuit box myself.
I’m no electrician, but even I would have recognized the new tech in there.
“Run a heap of water through that hot water system. It looks okay, but if it’s been sitting unused for ten years, you’ll want to flush it well.
And you might still run into trouble with it, there’s no guarantees.
Probably just expect to replace it at some point in the next few years even if it does work now. ”
“Right,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Best of luck to you with this place—I reckon you might need it.”
After he leaves, I slip my phone from my pocket to text Jon.
Did you know there was a fire here at some point?!
Before Dad bought the house? he replies.
No, sometime recently. Probably a few years before he died?
Not that I know of, he writes.
I bend gingerly, trying to avoid the spiders as I extend my phone to take a photo of the charred paint beneath the new switch
box. A few seconds after I send it, Jon calls. I explain about the age of the safety switches, and then we sit on the line
in stunned silence for a while, trying to make sense of it all.
“Why wouldn’t Dad tell us about this?” Jon finally asks.
“I have no idea.”
“You know what he was like. He was so stubborn about maintenance on that place.”
“He most likely had no choice in this case,” I say. If anything, Tad was probably lucky the fire started down here against
the brick, and not against the flammable wood in the ceiling, or in one of the internal walls. The whole place would have
gone up like a tinderbox. I shiver at the thought.
“Your mum would know the whole story,” Jon says.
He’s right—she probably does. Mum didn’t just run the business side of Tad’s career; she basically ran his whole life.
“Well, I’m not asking her today,” I mutter.
Wurimbirra stands a few kilometres from the outskirts of Forbes, a small town towards the center of New South Wales. It’s
a quaint place with less than eight thousand residents, a town built around a picturesque lake which wreaks havoc and splits
the township into three islands during semiregular floods. This is a region of sheep and wheat farms, of kangaroos and brush-tail
possums, of river red gum and yellow box trees. Phoenix palms introduced to the region dot the landscape, including across
the front of Wurimbirra’s yard. It’s a species somehow now synonymous with Forbes, despite being native to the Canary Islands,
some eighteen thousand kilometres away.
I’ve booked a hotel by the lake for the next three weeks, assuming it would take at least that long to get the wiring sorted.
When I check in, I tell them there’s been a change of plans, and if I can get the power connected to Wurimbirra over the next
few days, I’ll be able to cancel most of the booking.
I still can’t believe my luck. The modern wiring feels very much like a good omen.
It’s too late for lunch but too early for dinner, so I help myself to some junk food from a vending machine on my way to the
room, but I promise myself I’ll start eating better once I’m settled in Wurimbirra. I’m neck deep in menopause and I’ve stress-eaten
my way to a whole new shape over the past few months.
The year started out with so much promise.
Until late February, I lived with my youngest daughter, Mia, and my husband, Lucas, in a remodeled California bungalow in Waverly, in Sydney’s east, not far from the famous Bondi Beach.
I was the principal architect of the award-winning architectural heritage firm I co-founded with Lucas and our best friend, Keira.
Our eighty-odd employees worked out of three offices: one in Melbourne and one in Adelaide, and the largest in Edgecliff, just a ten-minute drive from our home.
I thought I’d be spending this year fully engrossed in challenging projects and I wasn’t dismayed about that at all because I had always loved my job.
Mia fled the nest in February, to live on campus at the University of Sydney, where she had been accepted into a competitive
medicine program. Caitlin was already living in an apartment just off campus there—she followed in my footsteps when she graduated
high school a few years ago, taking on an architecture degree.
The day after we finished moving Mia into her dorm, Lucas sat me down and told me that he and Keira had fallen in love. My
marriage ended in a single conversation, and it quickly became obvious that my best friend and my husband had already put
plans in place to force me out of our business too. They’d already had lawyers draft a proposal to buy me out with a financial
settlement that was, at least, generous—even if it came complete with a non-compete clause that means I can’t work in heritage
architecture for at least five years.
Marriage and career gone in an instant. Just as my youngest child left home.
Keira and Lucas wanted to tell our staff and clients that I was leaving because of “health issues.” I wanted to tell them
I was “forced out of my own business because my husband and best friend were having an affair right under my nose like the
slimy rodents they apparently are.” Our lawyers managed to find a compromise at “Fiona has left W&J Heritage to pursue exciting new opportunities.”
I stopped coloring my hair right after Lucas moved into Keira’s house, at first because I was too depressed to get myself out of bed and to the salon, and then because it just felt like it was time.
I grew out a few months’ worth of my now-natural grey, then last week, I went in and had my hairdresser cut the long bob I’d worn for decades into a pixie cut.
I’m not sure if this bold new look I’m sporting is because I’m feeling free and brave at this stage of my separation, or if it’s a clear sign that I’m halfway to some kind of mental breakdown.
After I’ve showered to get the dust out of my hair, I dress in fresh clothes and I sit on the bed with my notepad and pen
to figure out a list of tasks I need to complete over what’s left of the afternoon. Just the thought of those spiders around
the switch box has me fumbling for my phone to schedule the pest controller first. I don’t love the idea of chemicals or killing
the things, but I have to be practical here—I’m deathly afraid of spiders and I’m going to be out there alone.
There are only a few options here in town, so I call the first result on Google, and a friendly-sounding man takes the call.
He seems keen to help, especially after I explain the situation, and tells me he can come tomorrow to take a look. Then I
give him the address.
“That’s not . . .” He pauses. “That’s not that haunted place, is it?”
“It’s not haunted.”
“Everyone knows there’s something not right about that house. I heard that famous author that lived out there died of fright.”
“That’s my uncle you’re talking about, and he died of an aneurysm after living happily and safely in that house for over forty
years.”
“Oh,” the exterminator says, then there’s an awkward pause, and he clears his throat. “It’s just I heard . . . you know . . .
that there had been trouble out there.”
“Yes, I know what people say,” I sigh. “But the house is perfectly safe, except for a heap of spiders. Please can you help?”
Eventually he agrees to come out to spray the exterior of the house first thing tomorrow.
I tick off the first item on my to-do list, then call to arrange delivery of some firewood, a necessity because the house only has fireplaces for heating.
I’m fortunate to find a local vendor who can deliver a load of wood sometime over the next few days—and that just leaves the most important task—the electricity reconnection.
At first the power company tells me they’ll need two to three business days to reconnect, but the customer service representative
is surprisingly sympathetic when I explain the dust situation and how desperately I need an operational vacuum cleaner. She
puts in a rush order for me and tells me it’ll be done tomorrow.
The last items on my to-do list are to order the delivery of an extra-large dumpster, and then I drive to the rent-all place,
and book a few industrial air filters and a commercial vacuum for the next few weeks. The clerk does pause for a moment when
I give him the address, but tells me his driver will meet me at Wurimbirra tomorrow morning.
It’s really happening. This time tomorrow, I’ll be home for good. The very thought of that makes me so happy, even if my smile
fades a little when I think back to that call with my cousin, and that confrontation with my mother on the front steps this
afternoon.