The cold north wind howled across the “Paradise Valley Airport” as the locals ironically called it. It is in fact a strip of bitumen just about capable of bearing the weight of a light aircraft, and a galvanised iron shed for people awaiting the arrival or departure of the occasional aircraft that does use the strip, to shelter in.
Earlier in the afternoon the wind had changed to the north and was therefore blowing over the snow capped mountains, the foothills of which began about eighteen kilometres to the north of the town of Paradise Valley. By mid-afternoon the temperature had dropped noticeably, especially on the open airstrip. I tugged the collar of my overcoat up round my ears. Damnation, why did I have to be the one to meet the old girl?
“Aden,” old Phineas had said that Monday morning, “would you go out to the airstrip? There’s a plane coming in with a Mrs.White on board. She’s the one who bought Stable Cottages. I’d like you to drive her out to the cottages and just see that she’s settled in all right. God knows why she’s coming in today. There’s no furniture in the places except an old kitchen table and a couple of chairs the last people to rent one of the cottages left behind.”
I vaguely recalled the transaction. Then I had only been working for about three months as a solicitor and accountant for “Phineas Willow, Solicitor and Property Agent,” but had no hand in the transaction. That was Phineas’s area of work.
I had had just completed qualifying as a solicitor and accountant, and was looking for a position when I met Phineas. He had advertised in one of the legal journals for a solicitor (“qualtions in accntncy advntge”) to work in his practice at Paradise Valley.
The advertisement went on, “Plsnt. Twn. pop. approx. 1 thou. Old est. pract. Outstd. op. yng man. Pos. Prtnship.” Then followed the address to be applied to. Phineas did not believe in wasting money on wordy advertisements.
I applied, was interviewed, and got the job. Having said, “Phineas did not believe in wasting money,” I must add that the salary was very liberal. Phineas was a wily old law practitioner, but was also one of those people who saved every cent he could on small things so he could be generous in larger things. As I was to learn when I entered the practice with him, he did work for some of the poorer people in the town for what he called “A peppercorn fee.”
Now, having worked with Phineas for just over twelve months, I stood on the windswept airstrip waiting for the old girl that had to be transported to Stable Cottages. “Be nice to her,” Phineas had admonished, “She looks like she’s well-heeled, and there could be some future business there.”
I heard the buzzing of the aircraft before I saw it, then it appeared. It was single engine plane and as it circled to line up with the landing strip, it was clearly being buffeted by the wind. The pilot trying to steady the aircraft made an attempt to land, but at the last minute it was caught by the wind and tilted over so one wing almost scraped the ground. There was a roar as the engine was revved and the plane climbed to come round for another attempt. This time it made it, but only just.
The pilot taxied towards the shed and I went outside to meet it. It stopped, there was a pause before a door in the side of the plane slid back and steps were lowered. The pilot came down the steps and turned. A woman appeared at the top of the steps and the pilot held out his hand and helped her down.
“Had a bit of a bumpy ride,” he called cheerfully, and went into the aircraft again.
The woman was a surprise. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and why I had the impression I was to meet an older person, I don’t know. It might have been because we had a number of widows living in the town who had come here from Mine City some fifty kilometres from Paradise Valley, and I automatically assumed a woman on her own moving into the area would be a widow in her forties or fifties.
At one time, a piece of machinery had been used in the mine that was so dangerous it was called, “The Widow Maker.” The women whose husbands had been killed by the abomination, used some of the compensation money paid by the mine company, to buy houses in Paradise Valley, firstly, because property tended to be cheaper than in Mine City, and secondly, because Paradise Valley is a very pleasant location.
The woman who stood white faced and shivering at the bottom of the steps was about five feet five inches tall, but at that moment, she looked smaller and rather vulnerable. I stepped forward to her extending my hand; “Mrs.White?” I asked. She nodded. “Aden Barclay of Phineas Willow. I’m to take you to Stable Cottages.”
Her hand was very small and cold in mine and she said, “Thank you, Mr.Barclay. I’ve some luggage to be unloaded.”
The pilot had started unloading suitcases, and as he brought them to the top of the steps, I took them and placed them on the ground. The last item was a canvas bag containing something I could not identify.
The last of the luggage unloaded, the pilot gave a wave and called, “See yer later.” The steps were pulled up, the door closed and after a few seconds the engine roared and the plane prepared to take off. We watched it wobble down the strip and take off for its unenviable wind battering flight back to Mine City from whence it had come.
I said to the woman standing beside me, “If you like to wait in the shed, at least it’s out of the wind, I’ll get the car and pick up your luggage.” She nodded and entered the shed.
I drove the car onto the “airfield” which in fact was no more than an ordinary field, unfenced and with no one to guard the place. Any pilot landing here had no ground control to guide them in. It was a case of, “Enter at your own risk.”
I loaded the luggage, summoned Mrs.White, and we set off for Stable Cottages with the car heater going full blast.
Stable Cottages are about four kilometres outside the town of Paradise Valley. They have a rather strange history.
Back in the nineteenth century, world wool prices had at one stage gone very high. The owner of the sheep station on which the cottages stand had, based on those high wool prices, built a rather grandiose house. Along with this edifice, he had built large stables and two cottages to house stable hands. The cottages were semi-detached; that is, they shared a common “party wall.”
Eventually wool prices slumped and the then owner found the upkeep of the big house and it’s necessary staff, beyond his resources. Most of the staff were dismissed, the big house abandoned, and the owner moved into one of the cottages.
Many years later, after the Second World War, wool prices rocketed upward again. The owner at that time decided that he needed a residence more in keeping with his newly acquired wealth. By that time, the big house was badly decayed, and much of it had been plundered for materials to be used on other constructions around the property. The nouveau riche rural millionaire decided that a new residence was in order. It was built on a hill about two kilometres from the cottages.
The cottages were let out to rent. In the following years many people came and went at the cottages, until finally, the current owner decided to sell them together with the stables, the remains of the old house and four hectares of land. All this had come to a tidy sum of money, hence old Phineas’s idea that the buyer must be well off financially.
There were questions I itched to ask Mrs.White as we drove to the cottages. Most of all, I wanted to ask what she intended to do with the place, but her demeanor did not invite questions. She seemed withdrawn, an isolated figure sitting beside me in the car, but somewhere else in her thoughts.
As we drove through the town, I asked if she needed to buy anything by way of food or other items. She simply replied, “No, thank you.”
She showed no interest in the passing scene as we drove in the gathering dusk, and simply stared straight ahead through the windscreen.
Arriving at the cottages, I asked which of the two she was going to occupy. Without a word, she pointed to one of them, and I opened the door, then gave her the keys to both cottages. Still without a word, she went inside, leaving me to bring in the luggage.
Having got her goods into the passage that ran the length of the cottage and terminating at a back door, I called out to her.
“In the kitchen,” she replied.
I found her contemplating an old wood fired cooking stove. There was an electric cooking stove, but the power and telephone were not due to be connected until the next day.
