Then she checked the social pages for Chalk Hill and Mount Barker in case there were school fetes, or concerts, or farmers’ markets or other competing priorities for prospective buyers.
Yes, she even checked the Bureau of Meteorology for Chalk Hill weather for both Saturday and Sunday, and she sent an email to Jake asking if he had any preference that, surprise, didn’t get answered.
She asked Harvey Begg. He said Sunday afternoons were best.
She asked Harvey’s son, Bob, fellow property consultant and her colleague. He swore by Saturday mornings.
She asked the office receptionist, Gina. Gina said it didn’t matter what day she held the Home Open because a buyer would come whenever, if he or she were keen.
Ella split the difference and went with Sunday 11 am, because there was a Lions Club auction on the Chalk Hill oval that morning from 9 am, and she figured two hours at an auction would be more than enough for people to opt in to a Home Open afterwards before they went home for lunch.
Sunday morning dawned sunny and warm, but not as hot as Saturday, which had been over thirty-three degrees (thank you, Bureau of Meteorology).
Ella got there a good half-hour before the advertised time so she could open windows and let the air flow through, having been up even earlier that day baking cookies for the viewers.
She put her signs out, making sure the 11 am time was prominently displayed.
She wiped the windows with a soft white cloth and swept the porch yet again.
And she was trying to keep her nerves in check and not let herself get worked up at every bwub-bwub vibration as car tyres crossed Chalk Hill Bridge. Not that there were many.
With ten minutes until the inspection time, Ella put a cinnamon stick in Irma’s old oven and fired it up on low. Cinnamon was one of her favourite scents so it was as much about putting her in a relaxed mood as it was about creating a home-style ambience.
All that relaxation was going beautifully until Ella remembered she hadn’t opened the old shed at the back of the property, and she really should do that so people could take a look in the shed if they wanted.
Novice!
‘Hello? Is it on yet? Are we too early?’ A woman’s voice called from the front door.
‘No. Not at all. Come in!’ Ella called back, stepping quickly through the hall to open the door. The shed would have to wait.
‘It’s only me from next door, dear. Helen Nillson. I knew Irma from way back. My mum and her played Bridge,’ said an older woman with a kind, round face.
‘And I’m Penny. I live across the road. I don’t want to buy the house though. Is it okay if I still come in?’ Penny was younger than Helen, and might have come from church. Either that or Penny thought Home Opens were an occasion worth wearing her Sunday best.
‘Of course! Come in. I bet you can tell me all sorts of stories about this house,’ Ella said, channelling her inner charmer, telling herself there were bound to be tyre-kickers and stickybeaks at the first Home Open.
‘Oh, we could tell you stories alright,’ Helen said, with a giggle that set off a warning bell in Ella’s head. There was a thing in real estate called disclosure. If Helen or Penny threw anything too scandalous into the mix, like a dead body, Ella would have to tell potential buyers. Sometimes it was better not to know.
‘Welcome. Have a look around. You might know someone who could be interested in the property,’ Ella said. ‘This home makes a great option for someone who’d like to live in the house or rent it out, while they make their plans for what they might eventually build here.’
The two ladies came in, pecking through the rooms like chickens in a new coop. Other people followed them. Neighbours. Out-of-towners. Opportunists who’d come because they’d seen the sign. Those who’d come because it was Irma Honeychurch’s house and the Honeychurches were one of Chalk Hill’s founding families. Everyone knew them in this town.
‘You look familiar,’ a woman said to Ella at one stage, peering at her between opening the kitchen cupboard drawers and the pantry.
Ella had to stop herself ducking her head for cover. ‘I don’t think so. I must just have that kind of face.’
When Sam was a baby and then a toddler, Ella and Erik had sponsorship contracts which kept them in the public eye, but it was years since Ella had done a television commercial.
Those years now left a sour taste in her mouth. The ad agencies had wanted Ella’s celebrated swimming coach husband, Erik Brecker, every bit as much, or more, as they wanted Ella on camera. They were the Ella and Erik show: Perth’s golden swim couple. Swim team with a difference: Erik only had one arm.
‘Excuse me? That shed out back. Can we see inside? It’s locked.’ The man who asked was in his fifties. A farmer from the look of him, dressed in faded navy all the way to his beat-up hat.
‘Of course. I just have to open it up.’
Truth be told, Ella welcomed the distraction. It got her away from the woman who’d continued to look at her with such sharp eyes.
Ella accompanied the man, and a younger man who was waiting for him outside the back door, to the shed, treading carefully across the lawn so she didn’t dig in and trip in her heels. There were other people nosing around the back garden, staring up at the boughs of the ancient mulberry tree—probably sharing stories of sticky purple fingers, and the inevitable broken arm and trip
