Harvey and Bob had clients, contacts, listings, phone calls to return, leads …
Ella cut herself short. It wasn’t like her to whinge about things that were out of her control. How many times had Erik reminded her of that when they’d compared split times at the end of a training session? It is on you, Ella. You are the one in charge. You cannot control what the others will do in the pool but you can control what you will do in the race. Work it into the turn. Push off the wall with everything you have got and build, build, build.
She used to build, build, build till her arms were on fire.
Right. Ella picked up the phone. She dialled Jake’s mobile phone and waited through the first rings.
At the edge of her vision Bob sat in his office, hands behind his head, talking big with someone on speaker phone. Between them, Harvey and Bob Begg knew every man and his dog in and out of town. They’d just about sold every man the house in which he lived, and the house in which his damn dog lived, and that made it pretty bloody impossible to convince anyone in Chalk Hill to bypass the Beggs and let her sell their house.
‘It’ll take time, Ella,’ Harvey had said, when she’d come to see him at the end of January, her first full month at work where she’d door-knocked all the homes on her lead lists in Chalk Hill, talking to people, handing out business cards.
‘You’ve reached Jake. Leave a message.’
Sigh. Ella waited for the beep.
She did get a modest retainer from Harvey, thank goodness, to help her while she started up, but $500 a week didn’t go far once you took out rent. She was already dipping into her savings and she’d have to pay her retainer back once she started making commissions.
That was why Irma Honeychurch’s house was so important. It was her only listing. Her only hope for a sale.
Ella wasn’t stupid. The Honeychurch home was over-priced, and she knew that’s why Bob hadn’t seriously fought her for it. Harvey had thrown her a bone when he’d flicked the listing in her direction, and all she could do was chew. Chew until her gums bled because this was her new life and this is what she wanted.
The beep took forever. Jake must have a heap of messages.
Ella glanced at Bob. He had paperwork in a pile on his desk, pen poised above the forms. Was he writing another contract? Any second now he’d be ringing the made-a-sale bell.
Beep. Finally.
‘Hi, Jake, this is Ella Davenport. Sorry that I’ve missed you, feel free to get back to me if you’d like. Just a quick update on activity at your place at the Home Open last weekend—I had a good lot of people through but they were mostly neighbours again—my bet is you would have known most of them—so I don’t have any leads at this stage. The house is still getting views on all the major websites but the website isn’t generating many leads. I really think it’s about price mostly, though the house could also do with a paint. Someone commented at the last Home Open about the verandah posts. They’re a bit flaky.’
There was a pause. Not a comfortable one. Maybe she shouldn’t criticise his nan’s house over the phone.
Bit late for that now.
‘Anyway. I thought we might try a different style Home Open this week. Do a wine and cheese night on Friday. Um, that’s tomorrow night. Okay? I hope that’s fine with you. Call me if you’ve any problems with that plan. Okay?’
He wouldn’t call. He never did.
She had the least motivated seller ever.
* * *
So, Ella thought Nanna’s place could do with a lick of paint, did she?
And Ella thought he needed to adjust his price?
And some busybody said the verandah balustrade could do with sanding?
Fine.
Jake had listened long enough. He erased the message.
He might not want to sell the house, but he sure as heck didn’t like the townsfolk thinking he’d let his nan’s place run to wrack and ruin.
Nor did he need his brother, Abel, on the phone every five minutes asking if there’d been any action on the sale front.
‘Give Ella time, Abe. It’s only been on the market for six weeks.’
‘We should have listed the place with Bob Begg. Told you that,’ Abe had said.
‘Why are you in such a bloody hurry to sell it anyway?’
And that was when Abe always made some excuse about the restaurant getting busy, and he’d hang up.
He’d had enough of playing nice with his youngest brother. This whole charade of a sale was all about finding out what was up with Abe and why he was so desperate for his share of the proceeds from the sale of Nanna’s house.
All that put Jake in a grumpy mood as he drove up Chalk Hill Bridge Road on Friday afternoon after taking an early pass from Honeychurch Hardware and Timber. He parked his Landcruiser on the verge of Nanna Irma’s house, pressing just hard enough on the brakes to raise a satisfying grumpy skid, then got out of the car.
Jake snatched an extension cord out of the back of the Landcruiser and slung it over his shoulder, got a hand around his sander, caught up a stack of 100 grit sheets in the other hand and bumped the rear door shut. He almost tripped on Ella Davenport’s For Sale sign stuck at a perfect right angle where the path met Nanna’s front gate.
He opened the old gate, noticed it didn’t exactly gleam anymore, plus it squeaked, and wondered whether Ella had people suggesting he restore the gate to a shine too and oil it.
Up the path. Up the steps.
He dumped his gear near Nanna Irma’s doormat.
Hold it. This wasn’t the doormat that had welcomed his and hundreds of other feet over the years.
