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Authors: Elsbeth Edgar

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BOOK: The Visconti House
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She hoped this even more fervently when she passed Kylie and Janie coming out of class.

“Leon Murphy still looking out for you?” jeered Kylie. “He must really like you.”

Janie laughed. “Maybe the note was for him.”

Laura hurried on. She must have been crazy to ask Leon over — what would happen if anyone saw them together now? She shuddered. Perhaps if she left immediately after school, she might make it home before him. Perhaps, then, he wouldn’t come.

She dashed out as soon as the last bell rang, but when she arrived at Mrs. Murphy’s cottage, Leon was sitting on the front steps, waiting for her, his bag beside him. Laura glanced around to check that no one else was nearby.

“Did you mean what you said about seeing your house?” he asked, coming up to the front gate.

“Yes,” replied Laura. After all, she
had
asked him.

“Then I’ll come now. I’ll just dump my bag inside.
Do you want to wait?”

“All right.” Laura stood uncomfortably by the fence, hoping that no one would appear. She tried to imagine what Leon would make of Mr. Visconti’s house. It was so different from Mrs. Murphy’s cottage.

As she watched him walk toward her, however, she realized that she was interested in his reaction. At least she felt certain he would not make jokes about ghosts and spooks. But then she remembered Samson, and a little pang of anxiety shot through her. Would he have appeared by now? She didn’t know what she would do if he hadn’t.

To take her mind off Samson, Laura tried to decide how much of the house she would show Leon. The studio and the murals? Surely that would be enough; she didn’t need to show him anything else. She glanced sideways. Leon was so quiet, just walking along, staring at nothing in particular. She supposed that she would have to offer him a snack, but would there be anything suitable in the cupboard? Her parents had probably forgotten to do the shopping, as usual. Then she remembered a recipe for pancakes that Harry had once shown her. If all else failed, she could try making that.

At the gate Leon stopped, looking up at the house and
the monkey puzzle tree in front of it. “It’s big, isn’t it?”

Laura could not tell if this was a statement or a criticism. “It’s not as big as it looks,” she said defensively.

“It’s big when you’re used to a tiny apartment.”

“But you don’t live in a —” She stopped just in time, realizing that his father probably did. She watched him anxiously but Leon did not appear to have heard. He was still gazing up at the house, his expression inscrutable.

Laura pushed the gate open and led the way into the garden. It was heavily scented with freesias and lilacs. The fruit trees were struggling into blossom, too, white petals opening on the gnarled branches, and there were a few roses still clinging to the old bushes. The grass around them had gone to seed, and the garden beds were full of weeds.

Leon drew a deep breath and said, seemingly to himself rather than to Laura, “Wow.”

“In the library there are photographs of the garden not long after it was planted,” said Laura. “It was very neat then, very new.”

“Imagine planning it all,” replied Leon. “Thinking about what it would look like long after you’re gone. Grandma always says a garden is a very hopeful thing.”

“I don’t suppose Mr. Visconti imagined it looking like this,” said Laura.

“But I like it like this.”

“So do I.” Laura smiled at him. She liked that he liked the garden as it was.

As she led Leon around the side of the house and under the trellis to the kitchen door, Laura looked around for Samson. He usually appeared from the garden when she arrived home from school, stretching sleepily and mewing for the small snack that he was not supposed to have (but often did). Her heart sank when he did not come; it sank further when she realized that he was not in the kitchen either. She longed to go and look for him but instead took two glasses from the cupboard for Leon and herself. In the pantry she found a box of cookies and decided she would make the pancakes later, if it seemed appropriate.

Leon had not said anything when they entered the kitchen, but Laura could see that he was fascinated; his eyes examined everything. As she put the cookies on a plate, he went over to the window and ran his hand over the solid wooden ledge.

“If I designed a house,” he said, “I would put in windows like this.”

“Would you like to design houses?” asked Laura,
watching him with interest. Was this one of the secrets he had spoken of?

Leon turned and looked at her, considering. “Yes,” he answered at last.

Laura felt somehow as though she had been judged and passed the test. “What sort of houses?”

“All sorts. Houses that would be fun to live in. Wild houses.” He paused, frowning. “Mathematical houses.”

“This is not a mathematical house.” Laura gave a wry smile. “None of the windows sit right in their frames. That’s why the rain comes in.”

Leon turned back to the windowsill. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

This time Laura felt that she had failed the test.
It’s like walking on shifting sand with Leon,
she thought, and changed the subject. “Would you like some juice?”

“Yes, thank you.” He had become very formal.

While Laura was concentrating on pouring the drinks, her father came into the room. He was in a disheveled state, hair falling over his forehead, holes in his sweater and stains on his jeans. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and when he looked at Leon, it was as though he was trying to focus. Laura knew
it was because he had been working all day and most of last night on an article with another tight deadline. She wondered if she should explain this to Leon, but he did not seem disconcerted.

“Hello, Mr. Horton,” he said politely.

“This is Leon Murphy.” Laura turned to her father, waiting for his eyes to clear. “Has Samson turned up?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m sure he will soon.”

Laura swallowed. She knew something was wrong. If she had stayed home, she would have found him by now.

“Who is Samson?” asked Leon.

“My cat. He’s disappeared.” She tried not to panic. “Leon has come to look at the house,” she said to her father, attempting to make her voice sound as normal as possible. She did not want to talk about Samson in front of Leon.

“Understandably. It’s a very good house to look at,” replied her father, smiling at Leon.

“Remember I told you his grandmother knew Mr. Visconti? Or at least she saw him when she was little.”

Her father nodded. “He must have been an
interesting person,” he said. “I like what I know of him, from the traces he left.”

“How’s the article going?” asked Laura, still trying to get the image of a bedraggled, frightened Samson out of her mind.

“Finished, thank God. Sent off — and ten minutes before it was due. Would you like a cookie, Leon? I think they’re all right but you never can tell with things in our pantry.”

“They’re all right,” confirmed Laura. “I tried one.”

“Very noble of you, putting your stomach at risk like that.” Her father grinned and ruffled her hair. “Well, Leon, the official food taster says they’re fine. Are you willing to risk one?”

Leon took a cookie.

“Come and see the ballroom,” said Laura. “My mom will be there.”

They went out into the hall, and then Leon stopped abruptly. “What’s that?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.

“What?”

“Listen.” From high above came a tiny meow. It was only just audible.

“It’s coming from the attic,” Laura cried. “I went
up there yesterday. Why didn’t I think of it before? Samson must have followed me up and been shut in.”

She dashed out into the entrance area and up the wide staircase, Leon following.

“He must be feeling desperate,” she gasped as they reached the attic.

Leon grinned. “He sounds more cross than anything else.”

When she opened the door, a small furry head appeared, covered in cobwebs. As Laura gathered him into her arms, Samson explained in loud, emphatic mews that he was terribly, terribly upset — and terribly, terribly hungry. They carried him downstairs and gave him two dinners and a bowl of milk, and his purrs were so loud they filled the whole kitchen.

Laura looked up at Leon. “If you hadn’t heard him, he might have died,” she said, stroking Samson’s gray fur.

“You would have heard him,” replied Leon.

But Laura was not so sure. She smiled at Leon, feeling suddenly very friendly toward him. “Come, I’ll show you the ballroom.”

Laura’s mother was leaning over the plan press, working on a sketch, when Laura and Leon came into the studio. The radio was on, and she was humming along to Bob Dylan as her hand moved across the page.

“Hello, honey bear,” she said, glancing up. Then she caught sight of Leon, lagging behind Laura, and put down her stick of charcoal.

“Mom, this is Leon Murphy. We found Samson.”

Laura’s mother smiled. “Hello, Leon. That’s wonderful news, Laura. I told you he’d turn up.”

“He didn’t turn up. Leon heard him. He was in the attic. He might have died!”

“Not with all the mice around. Still, he would have been lonely until we found him — and you would have been very miserable — so I must thank you, Leon, for rescuing our errant feline and saving us from that fate. It’s very nice to meet you. We don’t often get to meet Laura’s friends.”

Leon coughed awkwardly, and Laura blushed.

“Leon has come to look at the house,” she said.

“It’s a wonderful old place, isn’t it?” replied her mother. “We’ve made a bit of a mess of this room, I’m afraid, but the bones are still here. It must have been very grand.”

Leon’s eyes swept the room, taking in the half-finished sculpture in the center, the stone and metal stacked against the walls, the ceiling soaring above them, and the tall French windows looking out to the wild garden beyond. “It’s amazing,” he said.

“Do you think that Mr. Visconti held balls in here?” asked Laura.

“No.” Leon’s voice was firm.

Laura looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to have an opinion. “Why not? How can you be so sure?”

“Because my grandmother says she doesn’t remember anyone coming to the house.”

Laura considered this. “Maybe he held balls when he was younger,” she said. “He was already old when your grandmother was a little girl.”

“Maybe, but she doesn’t remember anyone talking about balls and things. She said that everyone said he always lived very quietly, very privately.
That was why people knew so little about him.”

“But why would he build a ballroom if he wasn’t going to use it?” protested Laura.

“Perhaps he thought he would use it and then something happened.”

Laura frowned. She did not want to let go of everything she had imagined. She had seen women, resplendent in silk and lace, swirling around the room in the arms of elegant young men. She had heard the strains of music drifting out into the candlelit garden and seen musicians, dressed all in black, drawing their bows across their polished violins.

“I think there were balls,” she insisted stubbornly. “Lots of them. And parties. I think there were carriages coming up from Melbourne, full of people, but they must have come late at night when your grandmother was in bed.”

“I don’t think so,” said Leon.

Laura’s mother smiled at them both. “You can each hold on to your own ideas,” she said. “I guess we’ll never know.”

“But I want to know,” replied Laura.

“Even if there were no parties?” asked Leon.

“Yes. I want to know what he was doing here and why.” She tilted her head back, gazing up to the
ceiling soaring above them. “It’s so strange to think that he lived here in these rooms, that he decorated them and walked through them and slept in them, and we know nothing about him.”

Leon looked at her with his considering expression. “Maybe we will find out,” he said after a pause. “Where are the paintings?”

“In here.” Laura led the way back through the hall, and Leon followed after a quick, polite nod to her mother. The curtains in the bedroom were still drawn, and in the half light the large bed appeared to fill the whole room.

Leon stared at it, his mouth dropping open. “Was that here when you moved in?”

“No. My mom made it.”

Leon ran his hand down one of the turned posts. “It’s really good,” he said. “It’s not like the other things she makes, is it? I mean the other things are good too, but they’re very different from this.”

Laura laughed. “This is furniture. The other things are art.”

“Is that what your mom says?”

“Yes. She made it because she said the room needed a four-poster bed. She can make almost
anything, like beds and sculptures. She can’t make food, though. She says so herself,” added Laura, in case Leon thought she was being disloyal. “What about your mom? What does she do?”

“My mom is dead,” said Leon.

“Oh, I didn’t . . .” stuttered Laura, stricken. “I’m sorry, I . . .” She stopped, not knowing how to continue.

Leon turned away. “There’s just Dad and me — and Grandma. Are those the paintings?” He nodded toward the wall.

BOOK: The Visconti House
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