The Visconti House (7 page)

“He was. And Mrs. Murphy was very young. She said he used to go for a walk every morning.”

“His name was Visconti, wasn’t it?” said Laura’s mother.

Laura’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

“From the papers that came with the deed of the property. I believe there are records and photographs down in the Heritage Society rooms at the library.”

Laura felt a tremor of excitement. An idea had come to her. A wonderful idea. She would find out all about Mr. Visconti. She would find out who he was and what he was doing here. She would get to know him. Now that she had lost her dragon world, this would be a new one to explore, another secret place.

Laura did not complain about going to school the next morning. She got up early and set off with time to spare. As she came down the hill and looked out over the town, she tried to imagine what it must have been like when Mr. Visconti arrived and began building his house — her house. How different it must have been from the way it was now. And how different it must have been from Italy.

Her parents had books with pictures of Italy. There were lots of photos of sculptures and paintings, but there were also photos of cobbled streets and stone houses and dark green pines. The skies in the photos were a soft blue, not like the deep bright blue of the Australian skies. Her father’s friend Richard had lived in Tuscany, and he was always talking about how different the light was there. She wondered if Mr. Visconti had missed the light of Italy.

The sight of Kylie and Maddy ahead of her
punctured Laura’s reflective mood and brought her thoughts crashing down. She managed to avoid the girls, however, and hurried to class. As she was finding a seat, one of the boys crumpled a piece of paper and tossed it at her. “Any more love notes you want to get rid of?” he called out. Laura shot him a wrathful look before burying her nose in her book. She was uncomfortably aware that across the room, Leon was reading, too.

It was French class, and she had plenty of time, after she had finished the exercises, to think about researching Mr. Visconti. She decided that she would start by going to the Heritage Society rooms that afternoon. Maybe there would be old photos of the house in the archives. Maybe there would even be a photo of Mr. Visconti.

She looked at the clock. Only five and a half hours to go. And after math, there were only four and a half hours. If she could just keep focused on this, she might make it through the day. She glanced at Kylie and Maddy, whispering together on the other side of the room. Would she be able to avoid them for five and a half hours?

Somehow she did. When the last bell finally rang, Laura dashed to the locker room and left before Kylie,
Maddy, and Janie arrived. She ran out the gate and headed straight toward town and the public library.

The wide main street with its shady verandas and newly planted trees was busy for a midweek afternoon. Laura walked quickly past a group of kids hanging around Sam’s Hamburger Joint and two Year Eight girls coming out of the supermarket with their mothers. She did not slow down until she reached the elaborate cast-iron gates, opening into the parched public gardens.

In front of her was the empty fountain, dominated by a stone sculpture of Neptune, and to her left, guarded by two tall palms, was the library. It was half-old, half-new. The new section was filled with light and was familiar to Laura. She often came there to borrow books. She had never been into the old section, though, a gray Victorian building with a rather forbidding facade and steps that looked as though they were never used. She guessed that this was where the Heritage Society rooms would be. She waited near the information desk in the new section until Mrs. Carlton, the librarian, was free, and then asked how she could find information about Mr. Visconti.

“I’m not sure what we have,” replied Mrs. Carlton, “but let’s go and look.”

Laura followed her through a door and down a gray corridor to a room at the end. It was dark, and the air smelled stale. Heavy curtains were drawn across the window, and the ceiling soared above them. In the dim light Laura could see shelves filled with books and papers. There were more papers on a large table in the center of the room and on a desk under the window. She wondered where Mrs. Carlton would start looking, and Mrs. Carlton, who had just switched on the light, looked as though she was wondering the same thing.

“I think there are papers under
Visconti,
” she said, pulling down a box. “Sorry, this is not really my area.”

Laura was used to things being easy to find in libraries. She watched, amazed at the confusion, as Mrs. Carlton rifled through various boxes and files until she found a manila folder with some newspaper clippings in it and two slim histories of the town.

“There may be something in these,” she suggested. “Bring them out to the front and see what you can find. If you want more information, it would be best to contact a woman named Miss McInnes. She has some connection to the family, I believe. She can be rather difficult, though.” Mrs. Carlton smiled at Laura. “You’ll need to tread carefully.”

Laura gathered up the folder and booklets and followed Mrs. Carlton out to the light-filled extension. “Maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for in these papers,” she said, “and then I won’t have to bother Miss McInnes.”

Mrs. Carlton headed back to her desk, and Laura found a free cubicle, where she sat down. Holding her breath in anticipation, she opened the folder. The newspaper clippings were yellow and brittle with age. Laura gently turned them over, looking first for a photograph of Mr. Visconti.

When she found one, however, she was a little disappointed. He appeared so old and frail, leaning on his stick in his neat three-piece suit and, except for his long hair, somehow seemed very conventional. She turned to another, larger photograph and sat looking at it, trying to imagine this man in her house, sitting in her rooms and strolling through her garden. She frowned. It was hard to do.

There was also a photograph of the house not long after it had been built. The garden was almost bare, except for a few bushes, the monkey puzzle tree, and the palm. It gave her a strange feeling to see it looking so familiar and yet so different. There were no sheds at the side, but there was a sort of fernery,
which had obviously since been pulled down.

The only other photograph in the folder was one of the house taken before it was auctioned the first time. The garden was much more developed then, and Laura could see quite clearly the rosebushes under the ballroom window. She turned back to the photograph of Mr. Visconti and, yes, there was a dark shadow on his lapel where a flower must have been placed in his buttonhole.

After she had examined the photographs, Laura started reading the articles and the histories. She was so engrossed in them that she jumped when Mrs. Carlton came up behind her with another picture of the house. It was in a book about architecture. In this photograph there was a statue of a young woman in the garden. Her hair was blowing in the breeze, and she was holding a book.
Strange,
thought Laura, gazing at it intently.
This is certainly not in the garden anymore. What could have happened to it?
She read the caption beneath the photograph, but there was no mention of Mr. Visconti or the statue.

Mrs. Carlton was still hovering beside her. She smiled at Laura. “The library will be closing soon. Were the files useful?”

Laura nodded. “Yes,” she replied, a little dazed.
“But I won’t be able to remember it all. Can I photocopy the articles?”

“Of course. Just be careful you don’t crease them.”

It took all Laura’s spare change to photocopy everything. Mrs. Carlton was preparing to lock the front door as Laura dropped her last coin into the machine and watched the last sheet of paper appear on the other side. Then she started the long walk home, thinking about her discoveries.

Some of the information had been very confusing. One article had said that Mr. Visconti was born in Milan, and another that he came from Turin. One said that he had been a diplomat, but in the booklet it said that he had been a “man of leisure,” whatever that meant. There was even debate about when he died, which seemed very odd to Laura. Weren’t there proper records? she wondered.

What appeared certain was that he was wealthy, that he was musical, and that he lived alone, completely alone. In her imagination she saw an old man who had tried to build a small piece of paradise in a dusty, sun-bleached town. A man who had planted palms and roses in the garden and painted arbors on the walls of his house.

But why he was there and what he did in that big house remained a complete mystery. She realized that if she was going to find an answer, she would have to brave Miss McInnes. She was just trying to figure out how when Leon Murphy came up behind her.

“What were you doing at the library?” he asked.

Laura started. “What do you mean?” She eyed him warily. “How did you know I was there?”

Leon shrugged. “I was just returning some books. I saw you.”

Laura bit her lip. “Well, it’s none of your business.” She expected him to storm off, but he didn’t. He fell into step beside her and took some chewing gum from his pocket and offered her a piece. Laura shook her head and fixed her eyes on the road ahead. Why was he talking to her? Couldn’t he see that she didn’t want to talk to him? She hoped desperately that no one would see them together.

They were almost at the train tracks before she spoke. “The tomatoes were delicious. Would you please tell your grandmother?”

“Sure. She’s pretty good at growing vegetables.”

“Yes.” They crossed the tracks and reached Mrs. Murphy’s house.

“How did you get to be so good at math?” asked Laura, suddenly.

“Genes, I guess. My dad’s pretty good at math.”

“Where does he live, your dad?” But as soon as she asked the question, Laura knew that she shouldn’t have. Leon’s face closed over.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “See you around.” Swinging open the gate, he disappeared around the side of the house.

Laura stared after him, fuming.
What makes him think he can say whatever he likes and then refuse to answer questions himself? And what is it about his dad that is so mysterious?
She kicked a stone crossly, thinking about all the rumors. Surely Kylie was just making things up. But Leon had looked so lost when she mentioned his father. Perhaps it was true. Laura felt a stab of remorse. She should have guessed that he wouldn’t want to talk about him.

Well, what did it matter, anyway? she told herself, hurrying on. He was just Leon Murphy from the white house by the train tracks. She pushed the thought of him away and brought up the image of Mr. Visconti: elegant, exotic, strolling down the hill with his fine black cane and a rose in his buttonhole. He bowed to her slightly, inclining his head.

It was not until Friday afternoon that Laura summoned up enough courage to visit Miss McInnes. Her house was on the other side of the town, near the gas station. It was a small weatherboard cottage with a neat, well-kept garden and white painted stones lining the path from the wire gate to the wire security screen. As Laura walked along the path, she expected someone to pop out and tell her she was trespassing.

She reached the front door and rang the bell, listening to the buzz deep in the heart of the house, a shrill, annoying sound like an egg timer. It seemed to Laura it would be very uncomfortable to have a doorbell that sounded as though something had just boiled.

Miss McInnes took a long time coming to the door, and when she did, she left the wire screen closed, speaking through it. Her tone was uninviting. “Yes?”

Laura took a deep breath and launched into her rehearsed speech. “My name is Laura Horton. I live in the Visconti house and I am trying to find out something about its history. Mrs. Carlton at the library thought you might be able to help me.”

“What do you want to know?”

It was hard talking through a wire screen. Laura wondered if she might ask Miss McInnes to open it but decided that it would be no use — Miss McInnes was looking at her very distrustfully. It occurred to Laura that she must be a similar age to Mrs. Murphy, but Mrs. Murphy was large and comfortable and didn’t worry about her clothes at all, whereas Miss McInnes was small and thin and probably worried a great deal about what she wore. Laura suddenly wished that she’d had time to change before coming.