Mick sat in the seat next to his mother. Ella pulled out a chair opposite the Nillson pair and smoothed her skirt.
‘That looks a bit scary,’ Helen said, indicating the Begg & Robertson presentation folder Ella laid on the kitchen table. Inside were listing papers, marketing information and all the standard paraphernalia that went with listing a property for sale.
Mick sat a bit straighter.
‘I promise it won’t be scary, Helen,’ Ella said, before she directed her attention to Helen’s son. ‘I’m really glad you could come along, Mick.’
He opened his palms on the table. ‘No worries. I have to make sure Mum is comfortable with this. To be honest, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with this.’
‘Coffee? Tea? Water?’ Helen offered.
‘Oh, a glass of water would be lovely, Helen, thank you,’ Ella said.
Mick said he was fine as he was and, as Helen got up to bustle around her kitchen, Ella began. ‘So your mum ran through what I talked to her about yesterday?’
‘Yes, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it from you again,’ Mick said.
‘Is it too hot in here? Should I open a window?’ Helen worried aloud.
‘You do whatever you like, Helen,’ Ella said, wanting the older lady to feel at ease. ‘I’m fine, but you suit yourself.’
‘Sit down, Mum. We’re all okay,’ Mick said.
‘I know it’s a big thing for your mum,’ Ella said, folding her hands in her lap and holding them hard to keep her own nerves in check. If everything went right today, she could have her first sale tomorrow. Maybe even tonight!
Her first sale! Tonight.
‘So, what I explained yesterday was that I had someone interested in Irma’s house next door, but not at the asking price that Jake put on the place.’
‘We said he’d never get that,’ Mick said, shaking his head. ‘Crazy. Who’d pay $649,000 for that?’
‘Well, I can’t talk about what Jake and his brothers are doing there, but I couldn’t get these two parties to meet anywhere near the middle. Jake wasn’t budging and the buyer wouldn’t go any higher, and I was trying to work out what to do and I suddenly thought, it’s worth going and speaking with Helen, just to see if you had any interest in selling this place.’
Neither Mick nor Helen said anything, but Helen’s gaze flicked from Ella’s face to the window, to the sink, to her sideboard table and the kitchen clock, and to the back of Mick’s hand stretched on the table, before returning to Ella’s eyes. The old lady had so many memories here, Ella knew. It made it hard to think about leaving.
‘So yesterday, your mum said that the family had been talking about her maybe down-sizing,’ Ella said. ‘Maybe moving to be closer to your sister? In Mandurah, wasn’t she?’
‘The garden’s getting a bit much for her since Dad died,’ Mick nodded. ‘Yes, my sister is in Mandurah and I’m at Mount Barker, but we’ve been talking about moving to Perth now the kids are getting older. One of my boys is doing well with his cricket and we’re sick of driving him up and back to Perth all the time. Really, we’ve only stayed down this way these last couple of years because of Mum.’
‘There’s a few jobs need doing, too,’ Helen said. ‘Back steps get slippery in the winter. This house is just about as old as me!’ She said it with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Mick said, ‘I bet your phone’s been running off the hook since that story about Pickles’ ski park, and doing up Chalk Hill Bridge Road—’
Ella lost her train of thought. ‘I thought his name was Fields. Why does the whole town call him Pickles? It’s got me stumped!’
Mick and Helen chuckled at the knowledge they shared a secret. ‘You tell her, love,’ Helen said.
‘Have you heard of dill pickles, Ella?’
‘They’re like little pickled cucumbers,’ Helen put in.
‘Yes, I’m sure I have,’ Ella said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever eaten one, though. Are they like gherkins?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mick admitted. ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever had one. Mum?’
‘Beats me. Your dad would never eat anything if it was pickled. Not onions, not anything.’ Helen patted her tummy. ‘Upset his stomach.’
Mick took up the story, and Ella was glad they’d moved on from upset stomachs because the nerves and excitement in hers were doing their own kind of synchronised swimming.
‘No one remembers now if it was a teacher who called him Pickles at school, or whether it was the junior footy coach, or the other kids, or something. I dunno. But somewhere along the line someone put Dyl and Pickles together, and ever since he’s been Dyl Pickles. Everyone calls him Pickles. There would have been a heap of people scratching their head reading that story in the paper about the ski park and thinking, who the hell is Dylan Fields?’
They laughed, and then Ella brought the conversation gently back to the sale. ‘So, what I was saying was, I rang the buyer last night to tell him Jake rejected his final offer, and I asked whether he would have any interest in another property on Chalk Hill Bridge Road, if I could find one for him. And he said yes, he’d think about it, if it was zoned the same.’
‘But he hasn’t even seen the place,’ Helen sputtered.
‘He doesn’t need to see it, Mum,’ Mick said, touching her arm.
‘Mick’s right, Helen,’ Ella said. ‘This might be hard for you, but this buyer isn’t interested in your house, not really. It’s the land he wants. They want to redevelop the property.’
‘What would he do with it?’ Helen said, as her gaze roamed again. Window. Sink. Sideboard table. Clock.
‘I’m not sure, Helen. The land is commercially zoned town centre. There could be shops, a restaurant, accommodation.’
‘Depends what they want to spend, I guess,’ Mick said. ‘Sky’s the limit.’
‘They still have to keep within the
