have the day off school
if I needed it.
Perfect. It was like Eve had set it all up.
‘If I wanted to find a house called Hatherlea ,’ I asked Gran casually as she tipped
leftovers out of the recyclables into a bucket and put some elbow grease into wiping
down the scarred main bar, ‘how would I go about doing it?’
‘Now why’d you want to do that ?’ Gran said, raising her eyebrows. Good question.
Hadn’t thought it through before I opened my big mouth.
I back-pedalled furiously. No one had twigged to the Crime Stoppers call I’d made
with that kid’s mum yet, or connected it with me saving the old bastard on Sunday,
but I didn’t want even Gran to know about Eve. It was all too hard to go into without
sounding insane and she already watched me, like a hawk, when she thought I wasn’t
looking.
‘History assignment,’ I babbled. ‘Important landmarks of early Melbourne. Since I’ve
got the day off—cheers—I want to try and find it, maybe take some shots for my project,
but I can’t remember the street name. Just the name of the house, silly me. It’s
old. Very, very old.’ I held my breath, feeling dishonest.
Gran’s face cleared. ‘Well, love,’ she said reaching under the countertop and feeling
around. She pushed an old street directory across at me and sailed off to the kitchen
to try and impose her will over Cook about the day’s menu. I knew she would lose,
but hope sprang eternal with Gran.
There was only one Hatherlea Street in the book. It had to be a good place to start
since the name was so unusual. And a pretty expensive one to reach, too, once I figured
out I’d have to hop a tram, a train and a bus to get to what might not even be the
right place. But I had all day now. And there were worse things to do, I supposed,
than trek all over town doing one final good deed for a genuine, paid-up member of
the Undead. Who got to put that on their CV?
I got off the bus someplace that had to be the farthest I’d ever travelled from home
before on my own. Usually, I lived my whole life within walking distance of The Star.
It was a real eye opener.
Hatherlea Street was the absolute heart of darkness, the outer, outer north-eastern
’burbs, practically a different universe. It ran off a street that ran off the poor
excuse for a main road I was standing on. I stopped into a milk bar for a fried dimmie
to fortify my nerves, then I started properly looking.
In the end, it was pretty easy to find. Almost like Eve had pre-planned the entire
operation, which, in a sense, she had. Hatherlea —more an old homestead than a house—was
on a massive block at least the size of three ordinary gardens knocked together.
Turned out the street was named after the house, not the other way around, and if
that house wasn’t already haunted up the wazoo before I set foot in it, I’d be laughing.
In real life, in the harsh autumnal light, the house looked even worse than Eve had
made out, if that was possible. Half the trees in the frontyard were actually dead
and parts of the guttering hung down like a rusting sort of exotic creeper, a decorative
feature that dovetailed nicely with the missing wooden floorboards in the return
verandah. The roof was missing a few slate tiles and the cement walkways were badly
buckled and overgrown with weeds. There were bedsheets hanging in most of the windows
in place of curtains. Good housekeeping did not figure highly in the life of whoever
owned this joint.
No one could possibly be living here , I told myself, the last bit of the dimmie sticking
in my throat.
Trying to get a better handle on the problem, I walked up and down the street a couple
of times. I swore a curtain twitched here and there but no one bailed me up to ask
me what I was doing. Save for Hatherlea itself, it was a pretty ordinary street.
Nineteen-seventies brown brick places mostly. Neat, neat gardens. Lace netting in
the windows. Lots of roller guards. Probably all built on Hatherlea ’s old
if I needed it.
Perfect. It was like Eve had set it all up.
‘If I wanted to find a house called Hatherlea ,’ I asked Gran casually as she tipped
leftovers out of the recyclables into a bucket and put some elbow grease into wiping
down the scarred main bar, ‘how would I go about doing it?’
‘Now why’d you want to do that ?’ Gran said, raising her eyebrows. Good question.
Hadn’t thought it through before I opened my big mouth.
I back-pedalled furiously. No one had twigged to the Crime Stoppers call I’d made
with that kid’s mum yet, or connected it with me saving the old bastard on Sunday,
but I didn’t want even Gran to know about Eve. It was all too hard to go into without
sounding insane and she already watched me, like a hawk, when she thought I wasn’t
looking.
‘History assignment,’ I babbled. ‘Important landmarks of early Melbourne. Since I’ve
got the day off—cheers—I want to try and find it, maybe take some shots for my project,
but I can’t remember the street name. Just the name of the house, silly me. It’s
old. Very, very old.’ I held my breath, feeling dishonest.
Gran’s face cleared. ‘Well, love,’ she said reaching under the countertop and feeling
around. She pushed an old street directory across at me and sailed off to the kitchen
to try and impose her will over Cook about the day’s menu. I knew she would lose,
but hope sprang eternal with Gran.
There was only one Hatherlea Street in the book. It had to be a good place to start
since the name was so unusual. And a pretty expensive one to reach, too, once I figured
out I’d have to hop a tram, a train and a bus to get to what might not even be the
right place. But I had all day now. And there were worse things to do, I supposed,
than trek all over town doing one final good deed for a genuine, paid-up member of
the Undead. Who got to put that on their CV?
I got off the bus someplace that had to be the farthest I’d ever travelled from home
before on my own. Usually, I lived my whole life within walking distance of The Star.
It was a real eye opener.
Hatherlea Street was the absolute heart of darkness, the outer, outer north-eastern
’burbs, practically a different universe. It ran off a street that ran off the poor
excuse for a main road I was standing on. I stopped into a milk bar for a fried dimmie
to fortify my nerves, then I started properly looking.
In the end, it was pretty easy to find. Almost like Eve had pre-planned the entire
operation, which, in a sense, she had. Hatherlea —more an old homestead than a house—was
on a massive block at least the size of three ordinary gardens knocked together.
Turned out the street was named after the house, not the other way around, and if
that house wasn’t already haunted up the wazoo before I set foot in it, I’d be laughing.
In real life, in the harsh autumnal light, the house looked even worse than Eve had
made out, if that was possible. Half the trees in the frontyard were actually dead
and parts of the guttering hung down like a rusting sort of exotic creeper, a decorative
feature that dovetailed nicely with the missing wooden floorboards in the return
verandah. The roof was missing a few slate tiles and the cement walkways were badly
buckled and overgrown with weeds. There were bedsheets hanging in most of the windows
in place of curtains. Good housekeeping did not figure highly in the life of whoever
owned this joint.
No one could possibly be living here , I told myself, the last bit of the dimmie sticking
in my throat.
Trying to get a better handle on the problem, I walked up and down the street a couple
of times. I swore a curtain twitched here and there but no one bailed me up to ask
me what I was doing. Save for Hatherlea itself, it was a pretty ordinary street.
Nineteen-seventies brown brick places mostly. Neat, neat gardens. Lace netting in
the windows. Lots of roller guards. Probably all built on Hatherlea ’s old
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