‘We got an offer on Nanna’s house?’ Abe said, a full two seconds after asking how Jake was and being satisfied with ‘good’.
‘We did. $429,000,’ Jake said, adding, ‘cash.’ He could hear Abe splitting the pot three ways and coming up with …
‘That’s about $143,000 each,’ Abe said, right on time. He’d always been good at maths. ‘It’s not as much as you thought we’d get, but it’s a start.’
Jake’s hackles rose. ‘It’s not a start, Abe. I won’t sell it for that, and Henry Graham’s not going up a hundred grand anytime soon.’
Abe said, ‘So if the offer was $529,000 you’d take it?’
Big mistake, Jake thought; now he’d given Abel a sniff. ‘Maybe I’d look at it for longer than four seconds, yeah.’
‘If you’d take $529,000, why the hell are we asking $649,000? You think buyers are mind-readers? You’ll scare ’em all off.’
‘I don’t want to sell Nanna’s place at all, Abe. You know that,’ Jake said, slowing at the Chalk Hill town boundary. A dog wandered the street and Jake thought the mutt was out on his own until Irene Loveday trotted around the corner of the gift shop, following the ball of white fluff.
‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to sell it either,’ Abe soothed. ‘But it’s no use to Nanna now, and it’s no use to us just sitting there. All we’re doing is paying rates on it, and everyone says it’s getting pretty run down, needs a paint, that it’s an eyesore. Who has time for that shit?’
Had Abe been sneaky talking to Ella? You’d think so by the way he was going on about paint and maintenance and eyesores.
‘We could rent it out,’ Jake said. ‘That’d be my preference. Wait till the market picks up.’
‘Just sell the fucking thing,’ Abe flared. He softened straight away. ‘I can’t be arsed with renting it—’
‘I know you can’t be arsed. I’d handle it through here. Not much for you to do.’
Abe kept right on going, talking through him. ‘… and you hear so many stories. Just our luck we’d get someone in who trashed the place …’
‘Why are you so keen to sell it, Abe, hey?’
‘Can’t see the point having it sit there is all.’
Jake tried to prise the information from him. ‘Are you in trouble? I’d help, you know.’
‘What makes you think that?’
The fact that Abe switched straight into defensive mode told Jake a heap. ‘What have you got to keep track of now? The Perth tapas restaurant. The place in Dunsborough. You started something new in Broome last season, didn’t you, with that cocktail bar? That’s a lot to keep going. Lot of rent. Lot of staff.’
‘It’s a rough patch, but we’ll trade out of it. Everyone’s in the same boat. It’s the whole end of the mining boom thing. People aren’t spending.’
Jake waited for more, but maybe Abe thought he’d said too much because he repeated, ‘It’s nothing we can’t trade out of. We’ve done that before and we can do it again. So how’s Nita going, and Ollie?’
Nice change of the subject. ‘Both fine. Ollie let Irma’s bird out the other month. Guess where he flew?’
Abe chuckled. ‘I bet he flew right up to Nanna’s verandah like he still owned the place.’
‘You got it.’
Jake scanned the shops stretched along the highway. There were cars lined up outside the bakery: tradesmen’s cars he recognised, some he didn’t, all stocking up for the day ahead. More than usual for Chalk Hill at this hour. Probably workers heading out to a shift at Pickles’ new dam.
He turned off the highway and into the drive that led behind the brick and tin building that had housed Honeychurch Hardware and Timber for more than thirty years. ‘Alright then. I better let you go, mate. I’m at the shop.’
‘Catch ya,’ Abe said.
Jake ended the call but his thoughts stayed with his brother.
Abe had been pushing for the sale of Irma’s house since Nanna died. His other brother, Brix, didn’t care one way or the other—he’d moved on from Chalk Hill—and in the end Jake put the property on the market because the more Abe pushed for it, the more curious Jake got about why. And Abe wouldn’t say.
Abel had always been the risk taker, into stocks and shares and business ventures. Jake and Brix were far more salt of the earth when it came to where they put their money. Jake liked living off the land: farming, land, lumber, stuff you could see in front of you, stuff you could touch and feel. Brix was much the same. Brix had his vineyard.
Of the three brothers, it was Abe who put his trust in bits of paper and a promise. Right now, Jake was pretty sure his youngest brother had a whole fistful of paper nothing and a bellyful of ache. Jake meant it when he’d told Abe he’d help him out if he could, but until Abe asked for it, there wasn’t much point barking up that tree.
* * *
‘So how did Henry’s offer go down with Jake yesterday?’ Harvey Begg called out to Ella, before she’d even got far enough into the office to put her handbag on the floor of her space.
‘Like a lead balloon, I reckon,’ Bob Begg said from his room, steepling his fingers, then extending his arms above his head so his fingers cracked.
From the door of Harvey’s office where she had a view of them both, Ella tried not to wince at the cracking sound. ‘He didn’t have much to say at all.’
Bob’s elbows came back to his desk with a soft thud.
‘Did he counteroffer?’ Harvey asked, head down, trawling through a report, ticking off items with a pen. His bald spot stared from the top of his head like a baleful eye.
‘No.’
Harvey’s head came up. ‘So you’re back to the drawing board? Have you talked to Henry
