‘Tell me about it,’ Harvey agreed, giving the pages a little pump as he extended his arm towards her.
‘Can’t say he isn’t keen,’ said Bob from his office.
‘Morning, Bob,’ Ella said, taking the papers from Harvey and continuing to her space, where she stowed her handbag under the desk.
Ella pulled out her chair and sat, scanning the pages. This time, $479,000 had been crossed out and $499,000 was written in Henry Graham’s meticulous hand, initialled HG.
Was it terrible that her very first thought was, I wonder if Jake might kiss me when I show him this?
A tingle of excitement started in her toes, ran up the back of her legs, shivered a path up her spine and settled somewhere at the tip of each ear.
CHAPTER
20
‘You’re kidding,’ Ella said to her boss when she walked into work the next morning and found Harvey at the door of his office holding four pages of white paper in his hand. Only the pages weren’t looking so white and crisp now, and the print had begun to bleed with all the back and forward printing, initialling, scanning and faxing.
Harvey had his twinkle up. ‘Nope.’
‘He’s not kidding,’ called Bob from his office.
Bob had a twinkle up too.
‘You two are enjoying this,’ Ella said, stowing her handbag, shucking her cardigan off—it was cooler today—and laying it on the back of her chair.
‘You’re the only one of us getting any action this month, Ella,’ Bob said. ‘We’re living through you.’
Ella retraced her steps to Harvey and took the pages from him, glancing down. ‘Bloody hell,’ she muttered.
The $499,000 from yesterday was crossed out. In its place was the new figure $519,000.
‘What do I do, Harvey? This is crazy, surely? Have you ever had anything like this?’ Ella asked.
‘I’ve had offers where we had to get a new front page because they offered and countered so much,’ Bob chipped in. ‘They had arrows going all over the page and we lost track of what had been crossed out and when.’
‘It can happen,’ Harvey said.
‘But yesterday was exactly the same as the day before, Harvey. Jake won’t countersign. He looks at it.’ He kisses me till I’m so messed up I can’t think straight. ‘Then he hands it back and says, “Tell Henry I’m at the asking price”. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to try to negotiate it. Jake won’t negotiate. Henry won’t go higher.’
‘Why not?’ Bob said.
‘He told me yesterday if he made another offer,’ she tapped the page, ‘that means this one. He said it was the last roll of the dice.’
‘So that’s his best price?’ Harvey asked.
‘I think so, yes.’
‘You believe him?’ Bob asked from his desk.
‘I do,’ Ella said.
‘Never know. He might still have some in the bank,’ Harvey said. ‘He’ll go higher if he wants it enough. Everything is for sale eventually. But he’s already raised the bar for prices on Chalk Hill Bridge Road, whatever happens with this one.’
Ella studied the offer again and chewed the inside of her bottom lip. ‘Okay, I’ll present it to Jake, but I have to see Irene Loveday and her friends first.’
‘Rene Loveday? Watcha doing around there?’ Bob asked with interest. ‘I play bowls with Perry, Rene’s other half.’
‘I saw her in the street the other day when she was walking her dog. She asked if I’d come around and have morning tea.’ Ella smiled at Bob; he really wasn’t so bad. ‘She said I could appraise her house, and her neighbours’, for practice.’
‘Lilac Hill Loop, hey?’ Bob said, clicking something on his computer and scrolling up the screen. ‘I thought Lilac Hill was one of my streets.’
Ella’s newfound fondness for Bob dropped like a stone. ‘No. Lilac Hill Loop? I’m sure it’s mine, Bob.’
‘Dad? Lilac Hill Loop. Did you give that to Ella?’
Harvey Begg cleared his throat. ‘Lemme check.’
Ella stood in the corridor, shifting as if she was barefoot and the carpet was too hot. Harvey took forever to call out, ‘Lilac Hill is Ella’s street. Says so in the leads folder on the server.’
The weight in her tummy lifted. ‘Thank goodness. I thought I might have done the wrong thing,’ she said to Bob.
He didn’t look up.
And Ella thought maybe her first impression of Bob had been right all along. He was a controlling arsehole who’d hang on to every contact and every client and never let a damn one of them go.
* * *
Irene, Sally and Loraine had gone all out on morning tea. There were savoury mini quiches, the most amazing scones with jam and cream (that Sally whipped in front of the three of them with a hand-held whisk) and Loraine’s apple and cinnamon teacake with a sweet treacle topping that stole the show. Wisely though, given the way the three women watched her savour each mouthful as if she were about to pronounce a winner on The Great British Bake Off, she didn’t nominate her favourite.
‘I won’t need lunch or dinner,’ she said, pushing her plate away.
They had, by now, been all through Irene’s home, then to Loraine’s house (two doors up on Irene’s right) and finally to Sally’s house on Irene’s immediate left. Ella had nodded appreciatively at Sally’s sparkling below-ground pool and at Loraine’s particularly lush and abundant fernery, set right alongside their outdoor alfresco. Loraine had offered to pot her up an offshoot of a birds-nest fern she’d openly admired, and Ella had thanked her, but said it would be best to wait until Ella had found a house of her own.
Oh, did that start a conversation!
‘You’re renting, Ella? We thought you would have bought here by now. Don’t you want to stay for good?’ Sally wanted to know.
‘It’s okay to rent when she’s still getting settled in,’ Irene defended.
‘But if people don’t think she’ll stick around, they won’t give her a chance now, will they?’ Sally said.
‘I would like to buy here,’ Ella said, putting her empty coffee cup near her empty cake plate. ‘I need
