They’d done well, pushing at least thirty metres beyond Stan’s expectation, neat work, greenery piled ready for chipping. I was admiring the elaborate brick and cut stone path uncovered, thinking about where to establish the compost heaps, when I heard a vehicle in the driveway, just a hum. I didn’t think about it, backed into the dense overgrown box hedge beside the path, looked back towards the house. A month earlier, I wouldn’t have done this. Fear had come back into my life, uninvited.
I waited.
Anne Karsh, hair pulled back today, jeans, battered short Drizabone, looking around. I stepped out of hiding. We walked towards each other down the path, eyes meeting, looking away, coming back.
‘Checking on progress,’ I said when we were close enough.
‘You or me?’
‘Both?’
‘No, not me,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Just wanted to be here, really. In love with it. What were you doing in the hedge? If that’s a hedge.’
‘Hedge examination. How about this path?’
‘This is an unbelievable path. It’s so ornate.’
I turned and we walked to the edge of the known garden. Beyond was wilderness. ‘It’s like archaeology,’ she said. ‘For the first time, I can understand the thrill.’
‘Thrill time next week,’ I said. ‘The pines come down. Then we see the steeple. See what the man wanted us to see.’
‘Who cuts them down?’ We were on our way back.
‘A professional. The biggest one’s nine metres around at the base. Death to amateurs. We could bring in a portable sawmill, turn them into planks. You could have something made out of them. Terrible waste otherwise. All those years of growing.’
She looked at me. ‘Leon’ll like that. Could you do it?’
‘If you tell Francis that’s what you want.’
She held out her right hand. We stopped. ‘I’ll tell him now.’ She took out a small leatherbound book, found a page, took a mobile telephone, minute, from another pocket, punched numbers. After a short wait, she said. ‘Francis, Anne Karsh…Well, thank you. Francis, the pines blocking the view to the church steeple are coming down next week. Can you arrange to have them turned into usable timber?…Leon will be thrilled. Stan will arrange it, I’m sure. Thank you, Francis…I look forward to that too. Bye.’
We walked, explored the thicket around the site of the original house, forced our way through to the old orchard, desperate-looking fruit trees but the least overgrown place because of the deep mulch of fallen fruit.
‘You can prune these buggers back to life,’ I said. ‘If you want them.’
‘I want them,’ she said. ‘I want everything the way it was.’
I looked at her.
‘I’ve got a flask of coffee,’ Anne said. A thorn had scratched her cheekbone, delicate serration, line of blood like the teeth of a tiny saw. ‘Drink coffee?’
‘Got enough?’
‘I’ve got enough.’
The Mercedes boot held a wicker basket with a stainless-steel flask and stainless-steel cups. We sat side by side on the front steps of the house, huge, dangerously aged poised portico above us, drinking coffee, talking about the garden. She had an easy manner, sense of humour, no hint of rich lady about her. A weak sun emerged, touched her hair.
‘Nice,’ she said.
‘Good coffee.’
‘The day, the place, the moment.’
‘Those too.’
We didn’t look at each other, something in the air. Then our eyes met for a moment.
‘Mr Karsh working today?’ I said, regretted the question.
‘No. He’s in Noosa for the weekend. His new girlfriend goes to Noosa for the winter.’
I looked at her. ‘I understand it’s wall-to-wall girlfriends in Noosa.’
She leaned sideways, studied me, smiled a wry smile. ‘I’ve been a girlfriend. There’s no moral high ground left for me.’
‘Not for any of us,’ I said.
‘Leon’s a charming person,’ she said. ‘His problem is chronic envy. Non-specific envy. His greatest fear is that he’s missing something, that there’s something he should be doing, that there’s something he doesn’t know about or hasn’t got that will make him happy and complete. If he saw a man leading a duck down the road on a piece of string and looking at peace, Leon would send someone out to buy a duck and give it a try for fifteen minutes. Then he’d say, fuck this duck, why’s that woman on the bicycle look so pleased?’
‘Why did you?’
‘What?’
‘Look so pleased?’
‘So,’ Anne said. ‘Blacksmiths are not without insight. I worked for a merchant bank that was hired by a company to fight off a takeover bid by one of Leon’s companies. Very messy business, went on for months, working seventeen, eighteen hours a day, seven days. One Sunday I got home and my husband had gone off with my best friend. Anyway, we fought off Leon and we had a no-hard-feelings drink with the other side and Leon showed up. I think he then began to see me as a substitute for the company he couldn’t have. Anything Leon can’t have leaps in value in his eyes.’
‘So he took you over.’
She smiled. ‘Well, as I said, he’s a charming person. He has the gift of charm. It was a totally uncontested takeover. But as I found out, for Leon, you conquer the peak, another peak beckons. More coffee?’
‘Just a drop.’
‘There’s plenty.’ She poured. ‘That’s me. And I’m not complaining. What about you?’
‘My wife didn’t like my hours either.’
‘Blacksmiths work long hours?’
‘Pre-blacksmith.’ I stood up. ‘Time to go. Thanks for the coffee.’
She stood up too. Standing on the step above me put her eyes level with mine. We looked at each other. ‘Let me know when you’d like to see the mill,’ I said.
Anne nodded. ‘Can you give me a number?’ She wrote it in her leather-bound book.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘See you soon then.’