Her favourite lolly shop was still there, but it looked as if it had halved in size.
Was Honeybrook suffering the fate of so many small towns in Australia?Was it dying?
Aunt Maggie hadn’t mentioned anything in her letters and the last time she’d been here was for the funeral and she hadn’t been paying attention to anything but her grief.
Chelsea turned down the street which led to Lilydale Cottage.She had the number of the groundskeeper her mother had hired but hadn’t got a hold of him to tell him she was coming.She’d see him soon enough.
She rounded a bend and the house appeared in front of her.The quaint two-storey building with its wrap-around verandah and balcony had always appealed to her.It was old, built in the early nineteen hundreds back when Honeybrook had been a milling town and the start of the push south to find more farming land.
She parked next to the house and got out, stretching and twisting to view the beautiful garden.
She froze, her mouth dropping open.
Chelsea sucked in a breath, the inhale painful as she scanned the grounds.
What had happened?Where were the manicured lawns and tidy paths which tempted you to explore further?Where were the flowers and the bushes and the plants?
She stumbled towards the wooden fence and leaned against it as she took in the yellow weeds choking the grounds, the unpruned hedges and the vines which spread as far as they could reach.Her throat closed over.This couldn’t be real.Her mother had someone maintaining the garden.
She fumbled for her phone and dialled Sabine, fighting back the tears.
“Chelsea, did you arrive safely?”
Chelsea swallowed hard and tried to keep the anguish out of her voice.“Yeah, flight was fine.”She cleared her throat.“When was the last time you heard from the groundskeeper?”
“Darren?He emails me every month with photos of the property.”
How was that possible?“Hang on.Let me put you on video call.”Her finger shook as she pressed the button and then held the phone up to show her mother.“Is this what his photos looked like?”
Her mother gasped.“No.Is it all like that?”
“I haven’t been around the back yet.”Didn’t have the strength.“Do you have Darren’s address?”
“I’ll text it to you,” her mother said.“I can’t believe this.He seemed so trustworthy.”Her voice shook, and Chelsea understood how upset her mother was.“He must have taken photos on the first day and then done nothing.”
Her phone dinged as the message came through.“I’ll check the whole garden and then visit him.I’ll call you tonight.”
“All right.Watch out for snakes.”
Good point.The long grass would be a haven for them, particularly as the block butted up against bushland.She debated dragging her suitcase inside and changing, but her steps took her down the side path to where the main path through the garden started.The flat sandals she wore had been comfortable plane footwear and weren’t the best for this walk, but she didn’t care.Slowly she walked the path from memory, not really watching where she was going.Her eyes were all for what was left of the garden.
The food garden held fruit trees laden with rotting fruit or needing a good prune, the vegetable patches were a mess of weeds and the banana passionfruit vine which had grown over a pergola was dead.
She closed her eyes as her heart squeezed.Memories of all the times she’d run down the path to pick one of the delicious fruits flooded her.She’d pluck a couple, then hurry to sit under a shady tree, or swing in the hammock and read her book while slurping on the fruit.
Blinking away the tears she continued, weaving her way through the native plant garden with its sweet scents from a flowering grevillea.These at least appeared healthy, being plants which were endemic to the region, but they needed pruning and the garden beds needed weeding.
She ran a hand over the railing of the replica Sydney Harbour Bridge and it came away dirty.She’d always found the bridge such an odd structure in the garden but had spent many hours playing on it.It wasn’t until the last summer she’d spent here that Aunt Maggie had told her about its significance.The real bridge was the last place she’d seen her fiancé.They’d kissed for the last time, but he hadn’t wanted her to come to the port to see him board the ship to Vietnam.He’d promised to meet her at that exact spot when he returned at the end of the war.
It was a promise he hadn’t been able to keep.
The bridge still looked structurally sound, but she wouldn’t test it yet.Instead she continued along the outer path where her footsteps slowed as she reached Cupid’s garden.
Someone had pruned the roses and cleared the bed of weeds.It was so strange in a garden otherwise choked to death.
Was it the one garden bed Darren had actually tended?
She gazed at Cupid in the centre.She’d once thought he was her own personal deity, the one who had finally given her a man who loved her and made her feel worthy of love.
