27. A Secret in the Deep Blue

Chloe puts her hands on her hips. Her eyes are fiery.

“You promised me you and Ronnie would sort out your nonsense but you only talked shit! I asked Susan how things are between you and don’t like what she told me. You don’t even share a meal at a table and she had to convey your messages to each other. I told her to keep me informed and if you are going to continue this way with your crap, I won’t return and only visit the workshop on Mondays. In any case, I enjoy my little place because there I don’t have to worry about your nonsense.”

Leo is flabbergasted. “Oh no, come now, Chloe, don’t be daft. You are the queen of this palace.”

“Yes, and you both want so dearly to be the king.”

Susan interrupts: “Lunch is ready. Leo, will you please call Ronnie and our visitor while I lay the table?”

Hunter has completed all his interviews in Ronnie’s workshop and they all sit down at the table. Hunter is looking out over the garden and Chloe sits opposite him with her two juvenile delinquents on either side. The sliding doors are open and birds are frolicking amongst the plants and trees around the swimming pool.

Hunter eats greedily. “Susan’s food is fantastic, Chloe.”

With his fork he points towards the garden. “Clea truly was an exceptional gardener. Who is looking after it now? It still looks stunning as always.”

Chloe smiles and calmly answers. “It is Leo, Hunter, he truly has green fingers. Everything he touches and puts in the earth shows unbelievable results. The farm has thrived since he has taken over from Tony three years ago.”

“I would like to admire the garden closely after lunch. Will you be my guide, Chloe? It truly is a masterpiece.”

“Leo will be a better guide, Hunter, he is an expert.”

Leo excuses himself. “Sorry, Hunter, but I am really in a hurry. We are busy with something that we have to finish by the end of the day, so I am short of time. I’ll appreciate it if you can interview me and my workers right after lunch and then Chloe can show you the garden afterwards. Okay with you?”

Hunter looks up and studies Leo for a while before he answers: “No problem, Leo, I am sure the management of this farm keeps you all very busy. I understand completely.”

They have a nice time around the table. Ronnie and Leo enlighten Hunter about their activities on the farm. Leo talks about the interesting, rare birds that visit the garden through a hole in the roof. Hunter assures them that Chloe secured her place.

Just when they are ready to rise and leave the table, Leo looks earnestly in Chloe’s eyes.

“Chloe, Mrs Kennedy told me that your place is a real ghost house. No one could stay there for longer than two weeks before they fled and they were all people who did not believe in supernatural things. I know you very well. You are very hard-headed. You will determinedly pretend there is nothing wrong, but in the meantime, you are living in fear there in the outback. Are you sure you are okay there? Look into my eyes. I shall see whether you hide something.”

Chloe puts on her naughty, little-girl face: “Naughty monkeys, Leo.”

Confused Leo frowns: “What ..?”

“Naughty monkeys hide in the very high trees deep in the woods. No one knows about their existence, except Robert, the caretaker. They hide because he shoots at them when they become too tame. Now the little devils come out in the middle of the night and try their luck and frighten all gullible people like you.”

Leo lifts his eyebrows. “It is difficult to believe that they were capable of chasing all the previous tenants away.”

Chloe pulls up her nose in a frown. “Robert showed me. There in the highest treetops, the mischief-makers peeped at me and they thought I would be just as stupid to run away.”

She puts out her tongue and shakes her head from side to side: “So, huh-huh!”

Leo refuses to give in: “I don’t think Kennedy has informed us about everything at that place. When I visited you, my hair was raising. That place gives me the creeps. I am sure strange things are happening there and you are hiding it from us. That is why you put up an act like a naughty, teenage girl.”

“Sorry to spoil your expectations, Leo, because I am not going to freak out for nonsense and run back to the farm and fall into your arms.”

She hears Ronnie’s chuckles of delight behind her because he simply loves her show immensely and Leo menacingly stares at him.

Chloe turns and faces Ronnie. “Come now, Ronnie, don’t rub it in! Are you never going to put your honed axes aside?”

Ronnie smiles and winks happily at her: “There is only one Chloe Eastwood and no one messes with her. That is for sure!”

Hunter and Leo start their interview at the table and Ronnie and Chloe help Susan to clear and carry the dirty dishes and left-overs to the kitchen. Susan knows they do not have to do it but she keeps quiet because silently this moment brings back deep memories that the three of them share. There is a dishwasher but they ignore the machine and Ronnie en Chloe start to wash the dishes like in the old days. Ronnie washes and Chloe dries and they enjoy every moment while they are talking about Ronnie’s newest creations.

Chloe thinks way back to the time they were teenagers. Ronnie has been the brother she never had and she the sister he never had. And then he became like a stepbrother eventually as things developed in a certain way. He was ten years old when his father left them. His elder brother, sixteen years of age, had to leave school and try to fulfill his father’s role. His mother had cancer and that compelled his brother to leave school and work for next to nothing. In the meantime, Ronnie and Chloe became close friends at school and she often invited him to stay over at the farm during weekends.

Ronnie’s brother tried shortcuts to bring more money home and clashed with the police. When Ronnie turned sixteen, his mother died and his brother was in jail. Eventually, they lost everything, even their house, and Tony and Clea felt sorry for him and he moved to the farm. Ronnie has, as far as she knows, lost all contact with his brother since he was released from prison.

Ronnie has always been very handy and helped Tony to service the vehicles and further played handyman on the farm. Tony was enormously impressed with the creations he brought from his woodwork class. Tony then gave him a chainsaw and told him he could try and make something out of the many trees on the farm. To Tony’s surprise, Ronnie soon built a sawmill out of old machinery and equipment that stood idly on the farm. He started to saw planks and beams and dried them. He then surprised Tony with a unique sitting room set that he had designed and built.

Chloe and Hayley were school friends and they were both so enormously impressed with his work that they, during their final year at school, got the idea to launch a furniture shop. Within two years they have paid back the loan Tony had granted them. The workshop on the farm and the furniture shop in town has become a profitable operation selling unique furniture. Farm workers also now have steady jobs. New trees have been planted to substitute those that were transformed into furniture. She thinks back at Susan’s description. Ronnie really is the Palestinian and Leo is his Israelite.

Hunter enters the kitchen. “Thank you so much, Susan, your meal was really out of this world. Chloe, we have finished our interviews. You may show me the garden now, if you are ready.”

Susan smiles. “Thanks, I see you are nearly through. I will do the rest, and Ronnie, the workshop waits.”

Chloe shows Hunter all the interesting plants while they walk around the swimming pool. Hunter is impressed with all the rare, indigenous and foreign plants. He stops at each special colour and admires it from nearby.

Chloe finds it strange. “I am amazed that you admire these kinds of things, Hunter.”

“Chloe, I don’t even have a green little finger on me and everything I plant, dies. I have no patience to even try to draw, sketch, paint, or for any type of art. That is why I marvel at the care and detail of everything in this garden and this garden is a special piece of art. I must tell you, the most breath-taking artworks I’ve experienced were the beautiful sunsets in Angola and Namibia during the war.

“Sometimes during the rainy season the sky is clear and blue but then a range of thick thunderclouds drift in over the horizon. With the right timing, it looks like a big mountain range that floats in the sky. The sun brightens the top in a blinding, brilliant snow white. But, Chloe, those are not these small clouds that you get here. They reach far up into the sky and are brilliant snow white and stunning. As the sun sets over the snow white ‘mountain range’, it colors the clouds. And as the sun changes from white to yellow and then to a red ball the colors changes. The clouds and landscape changed in color all around us. We sat in the middle of a dynamic, three-dimensional artwork that cannot be captured by anything.

“Chloe, Tony and I frequently just sat perfectly still under these momentous sunsets and enjoyed the moments together. Tony then habitually lit his Rum and Maple pipe and I could see he thinks seriously about the farm and his family down under in the ‘states’.”

Chloe looks in amazement at Hunter. “You must really tell me about your experiences in the war, Hunter.”

Hunter stops in front of a beautiful plant with deep blue flowers that caught his eye in the shady part of the garden. “What an interesting, beautiful plant is this! The flowers are almost purple; so deep blue, it must be non-indigenous.” He reaches out to touch the plant.

Chloe is frightened and grabs his hand. “Beware, Hunter! Don’t touch it with your bare hand. It is extremely poisonous!”

Hunter is amazed. “Honestly, Chloe, can it be so poisonous?”

“They call it Monkshood. Clea had to import the seed and had to take great care after it to grow here. She was simply passionate about blue flowers and look at this exceptional, blue colour of these flowers. She regularly warned us not to touch the plant and she wore gloves whenever she handled it. A South African gardener is believed to have died after he had only rubbed against the plant in England.”

Hunter ponders the name and tries to get his head around it. “Monkshood? Very interesting! I have heard this name before. I wonder exactly where?”