The Final Proposal. Robyn Donald
‘What?’ she asked warily.
He picked out a piece of paper. ‘There is a house on the property. He wanted you to stay there for a month before you decide what to do.’
‘That’s impossible. I have a business to run.’
‘You have a year’s grace. After you’ve fulfilled his wish you can do what you like with the property.’ He looked at her with something like compassion in those cautious eyes. ‘There is quite a lot of money involved, Ms Carruthers,’ he said.
‘Exactly how much?’
‘Well, the place itself is on the coast. I believe there are several beaches. People are prepared to pay a considerable amount of money for coastal property nowadays,’ he said calmly.
Slowly she asked, ‘And if I don’t stay there everything goes to the government?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Jan thought of the centre. She could sell this unexpected inheritance and use the money to buy land closer to Auckland for a camp. Or perhaps, she thought, excitement quickening inside her, it would be suitable in itself for such an enterprise. At the very least, its sale would give the centre money to buy a van and add to the trust fund.
Compared to that, a month out of her life wasn’t much sacrifice. She’d allowed herself a fortnight’s holiday in May, and with a little shuffling she could probably take a whole month.
Instantly making up her mind, she said, ‘All right. If I decide I want this land, do I have to stay there the whole time? I mean, can I make dashes to Auckland overnight?’
‘Certainly,’ he said gravely.
She nodded. ‘And exactly where is this place?’ ‘Reasonably close to Mangonui,’ he said. ‘It’s a very scenic area. The property has frontage on Doubtless Bay.’
‘Good heavens,’ she said blankly.
‘Does that make a difference?’
‘No. No—no difference at all. You don’t happen to know who the neighbours are, do you?’
He shuffled more papers. ‘There’s only one—a Mr Kear Lannion. Well-known in the north—an excellent farmer—and, I understand, prominent in business circles both here and in Australia.’
As she went away Jan thought it was very strange that she should meet a man one week and within the next fortnight find herself committed to a month’s stay next door to him.
And she would not, she told herself, firmly squelching something that could have been an eager, forbidden anticipation, consider that it might be some sort of omen—that it might be meant.
Six weeks later she drove the MG carefully down a narrow road beside a harbour formed by the estuaries of two small rivers. Black tarmac wound ahead of her. Across an expanse of glinting water the main north road bypassed the little village of Mangonui to head for Kaitaia. She could see what was probably the peninsula where Kear lived, a hilly appendage separating the harbour from the huge, open Doubtless Bay beyond. Within the protective embrace of pohutukawa trees were tantalising glimpses of a double-storeyed house.
On the neck of the peninsula the land crouched to reveal a glimpse of kingfisher-blue sea. Somewhere on a beach below that dip stood her grandfather’s house. Inland, a vast area of hilly green farmland crumpled eventually into the foothills of a high bush-covered peak.
By some quirk of settlement the only access to her grandfather’s land was across Kear Lannion’s property.
‘That’s odd, surely?’ she’d said to her stepfather, before he and Cynthia had left for a holiday in Fiji.
‘Very,’ he’d answered drily. ‘I imagine there’s some form of easement across Lannion’s land.’
The road finished at what was obviously the entrance to Kear’s farm. A notice proclaimed that it was called Papanui, and five letter-boxes indicated a surprisingly large workforce. Jan stopped and examined them in case one had her grandfather’s name on it. None did.
She stood looking around, breathing in the sharp, sea-scented air, smiling a little as she recalled the swift glint in Kear’s eyes when she’d teased him about the quality of rural air. A cattlestop kept animals within while allowing vehicles through without the bother of opening and closing a gate. On the edge of the road an old rosebush scrambled in an untidy heap over a bank that revealed the shells of cockles, washed bone-white by rain and sun. An ancient Maori midden, probably.
Jan drew an unsteady breath and got back into the car. After some careful driving through what even to her city eyes were obviously fertile paddocks, she came to a place where the road divided; obeying her instructions, she took the right-hand fork. Immediately the surface of the road deteriorated into a series of ruts as it plunged down through a thick forest of feathery kanuka trees.
‘It’s all right,’ she comforted the MG. ‘Not much longer now.’
But it seemed to go on for ever, gouged into deeper and deeper furrows by the same rains that had produced the lush green grass on Kear Lannion’s station. Jan changed gear so cautiously that she felt she was on tiptoe, and finally, after creeping down a last steep grade, emerged onto a swathe of what had once been grass but was now reverting rapidly to coastal teatree scrub.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said as she saw the house.
She stopped on a final flourish of white road metal and, half-horrified, half-delighted, got out of the car.
The flat area, about three acres of it, was cradled by hills and bordered by a beach of white sand. To one side of the bay a little stream debouched into the sea. So far, so good. However, on the other side of the stream mangroves crouched, olive-green and sinister, their gnarled roots anchoring them into mud that seemed to have a life of its own, if the furtive movements she could see from the corners of her eyes were any indication.
‘Oh, hell,’ she said aloud, repressing a shiver. It looked the sort of place that should have crocodiles lying in wait.
Worse even than that was the house, an old weatherboard bach left over from the days when families used to camp out all summer in such affairs, with a large brick chimney supporting the end wall. Further back from the beach, and on higher ground, stood a floorless, three-sided shed clad in sheets of rusting corrugated iron. The two buildings looked forlorn and dingy and lonely, a jarring note in the serenity of sea and sky.
‘Why,’ Jan asked herself aloud, ‘don’t you listen when people tell you you’re too impetuous for your own good? And why on earth did he want me to spend a whole month here?’
Tears sprang to her eyes. No man should have to live in conditions like this when he was old and death not far away. The fact that her grandfather had chosen it didn’t help.
She fished out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes before heading determinedly across the coarse, springy grass towards the bach, the key to the door in her hand.
‘It’s highly unlikely,’ the solicitor had told her as he’d handed it over, ‘that it needs locking. However, your grandfather was a careful man.’
Careful? Jan nearly laughed. Anyone who lived in this shack had to be positively reckless! It looked ready to collapse at any minute.
It should have been impossible, but the inside was even worse than the exterior. Dust lay squalidly on the few items of old furniture and coated every other surface. Mixed with salt and rain-stains on the windows, it was so thick that she could only just see through the panes.
Jan was standing in the middle of the main room, looking helplessly around, when she heard the sound of an engine. It startled her so much that she scanned the room desperately, searching for a place to hide.
‘Don’t be an idiot!’ she commanded stoutly. But she stood out of sight as a Land Rover came down the hill, considerably faster than