Tall Poplars

By Ian Burns-Woods

Leading interior designer, Sally Hampstead and prestige furniture manufacturer, Max Scarponi meet at an interstate furniture exposition. Instant attraction leads to the dapper Max being inveigled by Sally, a glamorous divorce four years his senior, into a hitherto unimaginable tryst.

Max finds Sally utterly irresistible. He leaves his young family and moves with her into a luxurious harbourside apartment from where they indulge their hedonistic desires unabated. To pursue their idyll they invest in a rustic weekend cottage within a secluded valley.

Their valley retreat contains intriguing aspects and soon they are drawn into the vortex of small-town life. The brazen allure of locals such as hard-living endurance rider, Luke Byrne and exotic bush regenerator, Veronica Jackson, sows seeds for lust, temptation and deception.

Outside the valley, Sally retains her professional ambition while Max struggles. His now-ailing furniture factory is a burden to his finances, pride and confidence and the situation only exacerbates his guilt about his parents welfare and his forsaken family.

Max and Sally open a restaurant in the valley to placate his parents but their omnipresence creates tension between the lovers. It doesnt help that Sally is frequently away on business - a situation that their part-time waitress Veronica is all too eager to exploit. As if their lives werent complicated enough, a mystery involving the enigmatic former owner of the cottage surfaces.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: May 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781452528755

Ian Burns-Woods

Ian Burns-Woods, born in Melbourne, Australia, attended Scotch College and Monash University, graduating in Economics. He joined the airline industry and gained considerable international experience before settling in Sydney as a tourism consultant. He and wife Gabrielle now operate a historic sandstone inn at St Albans, New South Wales.

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Copyright © 2015 Ian Burns-Woods.

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Front Cover Illustration by Isabella Edwards

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-2874-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2875-5 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 05/20/2015

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

For Clementine, 1979–2013

Acknowledgements

I would not have written this novel without having lived for many years within the small but diverse rural community of the Macdonald Valley in New South Wales, Australia.

The population of Macdonald Valley consists of a number of descendants from convicts transported on the First Fleet and other arrivals who farmed and worked in the area, usually with the aid of early colonial government land grants. Later settlers seeking a modest income from farms and orchards, which were limited in size by the steep sandstone escarpment surrounding those lands, augmented these numbers. Owing to hardship, mainly economic but also floods, many people left over the years. As a result, the area became known as the Forgotten Valley. Much later, during the 1960s, people of alternative lifestyles arrived, retreating from the perceived clutter in urban areas to the isolation and seclusion that the rugged terrain offered, even though the valley is located just one and a half hours by car from Sydney.

Such proximity also attracted part-time residents who later owned property, whether or not improved—the so-called weekenders. With most of the valley declared a national park, this group’s capacity for expansion is limited. However, their urban background, education, income, and transitory lifestyle have wrought considerable change within this remote community. Fictional places, characters, and events inspired from interactions with these people are the focus of this book.

My wife, Gabrielle, my daughter Matilda, and her children, Isabella and George, also inspired me. My younger daughter, Clementine, with her delicious sense of irony, persuaded me to change the story for the better while she was seriously ill. She was the perfect sounding board, I believe, until the draft was completed. Sadly, Clementine lost her battle with brain cancer and died just short of her thirty-fourth birthday.

My appreciation also goes to Sue Moran, who, while editing this work, provided me with expert advice on how to improve its structure.

Finally, I would like to thank my good friend Ian Robinson for wading through and typing my handwritten manuscript and also for coping with my numerous amendments.

Chapter 1

I could live here forever, Sally said to Max, sighing as she took in the view.

The expanse of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the glistening shells of the opera house formed a backdrop as ferries traversed the rippling water in front of her. Yachts with fluttering white sails darted like butterflies in the Saturday afternoon sun.

The third-floor apartment of the luxury Rushcutters Bay complex opened across to reveal this glorious spectacle, which entranced the observer with constant movement and subtle changes of colour throughout the day.

Max was stacking the few dishes from their light tuna-salad lunch into the dishwasher when he turned to peruse the scene and match Sally’s mood. Yeah, pity we don’t own it, he muttered, not so much as a putdown but more to acknowledge reality. Sure, we can afford to live here indefinitely, but to own something like this five-million-dollar baby could take, well, forever.

We’ve been here for almost a year, and I certainly never tire of it. Sally looked back into the apartment, as if seeking reassurance from the opulent but tasteful furnishings. The interior was festooned with sprawling indoor plants.

Max’s mind wandered to other obligations—an expensive divorce from an understandably vindictive wife, which included maintenance of their two kids in private schools. Then there was the business. With the proliferation of cheap Asian imports, manufacturing furniture in this country in this day and age seemed like lunacy to some people, although to date Max had acquired the Midas touch.

Max Scarponi and his wife Penny Fenton were childhood sweethearts who met at the local primary school in Marrickville, a modest inner Sydney suburb.

The son of Italian immigrants, Max left school at fifteen to become an apprentice carpenter to his father. He loved his trade. At twenty-one, he ventured from cabinetmaking to furniture design. His creative enthusiasm led to his starting up a furniture factory, which later employed his father.

After the couple married, Penny helped Max with his bookkeeping, but she became fully occupied with raising children, particularly with Max’s constant travelling interstate and overseas in order to develop the business. At thirty-three years of age apiece, with a son and a daughter, one could say that they were the perfect nuclear family.

Then along came Sally Hampstead.

The daughter of a barrister and raised in Wahroonga on Sydney’s Upper North Shore, Sally had attended an exclusive girls’ school, which had provided her with a diverse but largely unruffled upbringing. She was able to ride horses and learn dressage at Dural on weekends, and otherwise she participated in school sports and activities—such as netball trips interstate and to New Zealand, a cultural tour of Japan, and an excursion to New Caledonia to enhance her French. It was a smooth transition from school to graduating with a degree in fine arts from Sydney College of the Arts, with a trip to Europe—paid for by her parents—as a reward.

Sally married young, mostly because she was brought up to believe that it was the right thing to do. However, rather than proceeding to have children, as was expected by the parents on both sides, she broke from their mould and pursued a career in interior design. This forthright Nordic beauty also developed a roving eye and an appetite for more than good restaurants. After a series of secret love affairs, she divorced her staid, somewhat nonplussed husband.

Sally and Max met at a furniture exposition in Melbourne. It was love at first sight, although to any casual observer it would be an unlikely match. Of smooth complexion, medium height, and slim build, Max looked like a deferential cocktail waiter.

Being considerably taller, more experienced, and some four years older made it easy for Sally to play the maternal card. Later, in her hotel room, she began to mollycoddle him, to which he reacted with corresponding role-play by nuzzling into her well-formed breasts. So love at first sight became love on the first night and again at first light.

It could be said that Max should not have succumbed so readily to Sally’s seductive line. Hitherto, his dedication to family responsibilities had been exemplary. As he was Mama’s bambino, his upbringing ensured limited sexual experience and early marriage to that nice young girl down the road, as his mother was wont to say. On the other hand, Max’s mother’s considerable influence on him inadvertently helped him retain the fantasy held by many young men of having an affair with an attractive older woman.

This latent desire came to a head, so to speak, when he met Sally at the evocative major business opportunity away from home provided by the furniture industry. Plush surroundings, the buzz and excitement of new products, the contrived flattery, and the rousing hyperbole followed by heady wining and dining, considered vital to the success of such conventions, provided grounds—the size of the adjoining eighteen-hole golf course—for why Max might stray. It might be concluded that Sally’s simple strategy with Max had worked to a tee.

In hindsight, it was apparent that Max’s life was set to change from the moment he arrived at the convention, blissfully unaware of his fate—like a looming tsunami—until it engulfed him.

Being in the furniture business, Max and Sally had more than a bed in common. An interior designer by profession, Sally could converse with Max for hours on different styles and their application—well beyond the climactic furniture exposition that they literally enjoyed to the hilt.

As with a hangover, Max felt terrible guilt, if not regret, upon returning from the convention—or, more appropriately, the conference. He was hooked on Sally and would have to face the consequences.

As for Sally, she perceived that Max’s domestic situation could take time to resolve, but she was confident of her quarry and prepared herself to wait for ultimate conquest.

Upon reaching home, Max, like an embarrassed schoolboy, immediately blurted out a confession to his wife. Unexpectedly, he received a cool and collected response from Penny, as though she had been a fly on the wall for the duration of his interstate shenanigans. This exacerbated his discomfort until he perceived that her attitude was merely an extension of the controlled communication they had practised for years, to avoid open conflict in front of the children. The underlying realisation for both of them was that the marriage was finished.

The division of spoils was to be equally civil—very cooperative in respect of future access to the children—but totally stubborn when it came to his spouse’s retention of the family home at Castle Hill.

In contrast, acquiring and setting up the apartment in Rushcutters Bay was a pleasant diversion for the two lovers. Sally at last, it seemed, had decided to settle down and was very possessive of her new man. However, she had never been interested in bearing children and consequently felt no empathy for Max’s forsaken brood.

Max, on the other hand, was more submissive to than possessive of Sally. His thoughts of his family, including his parents, were reinforced by fortnightly contact with his children, his initially upset and disappointed mother, and his working alongside his father in the factory.

Furnishing the apartment provided Sally and Max an opportunity to pool their talents into producing a result nothing short of stunning. It was superior to the best boutique hotels Sally specialised in furnishing. Although tempted to promote their efforts through a photographic spread in a leading fashion magazine, the new couple declined the offer in order to protect their privacy.

The finishing touch was provided by way of Sally’s penchant for indoor plants. She loved her elegant pots containing palms of different species and sizes, bamboos, vines, and other exotic plants she regularly moved round the apartment like a veritable jungle. The only requirement for Max was to note the current floor plan before going to bed, so as to avoid an accident en route to his habitual fridge raid during the night.

They had many friends and associates in common: manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, importers, and exporters—urbane, sophisticated people right on the money, who spoke of current topics from international trends in fashion and markets to culinary delights offered by the best restaurants in the country.

At age thirty-seven, Sally had been reserving whatever maternal instincts she had for her partner, Max. Her soothing, motherly murmurings and her long, blonde hair, which she loosened onto her ample bosom, provided a mantle for Max’s indulgence, both before and after unbridled sex. Her lustrous, cascading hair was a source of continual joy for both of them.

Occasionally, Sally liked to tease Max. She once asked, How’s my little Ferrari tonight?

All revved up and ready to race, he quipped.

If you come first, I’ll kill you, came the deadly reply.

In business, however, Sally presented herself as elegant and desirable, but she put forth an air of don’t even think about it to her male clients. Immaculately groomed in a tailored suit, her nearly platinum hair pulled back in a bun to expose her elegant ears adorned with huge gold earrings, she certainly was formidable. Still, she could endorse with graceful authority any item of furniture she wished to promote.

Sally and Max both felt that the best way of keeping their relationship intact was to avoid any formal union between them. With both of them having been involved in failed marriages, they thought it wise to maintain relative independence rather than be bonded by vows or trapped into a quasi-marriage such as a business partnership.

In fact, their relationship flourished on the basis of running individual enterprises. They leased their cars separately. What each earned was his or her own business. They split the cost evenly on furnishing the apartment, and they shared living expenses on mutual trust. The only agreement they had ever signed jointly was the lease on their very expensive apartment. If their relationship wasn’t made in heaven, then it was well and truly within the realm of Mammon.

Two years later, there was a shift in the equilibrium of the couple’s idyllic existence. It came like a summer squall, which could whip the normally tranquil stretch of water in front of them into a sudden tempest.

We need to talk, Max said firmly in a tone of voice different from his usual conciliatory one.

So you’re going to leave me, came Sally’s semi-jocular response.

Ignoring her remark, Max continued. I’ve been thinking, aside from the apartment, we lease or own everything individually. To give our relationship more permanence, why don’t we invest in something together—perhaps a house?

How can we? We can’t afford to purchase this apartment.

I don’t mean here.

Where?

In the country.

You mean you need a tree change?

No, just something cheap we can own together while we continue to rent here.

So we would become weekenders somewhere?

Not every weekend.

Of course not, replied Sally, finally warming to the idea. We’d still need time for our friends in Sydney and for you to visit your kids. But as usual, while we’re away, I’d need someone to tend to my darling plants.

You mean your little offspring, added Max teasingly.

Surrogate offspring, corrected Sally, exercising her usual precision as she commenced watering each plant without spilling a drop on the floor.

It’s becoming more like an orphanage around here, continued Max, making an extravagant sweep of his arm around the large apartment.

I admit it’s rather overcrowded, replied Sally, using his remarks to mutual advantage. We really do need an outside garden.

Chapter 2

Apart from their mutual attraction, Sally and Max were very different people. Certainly, given their appearance and their socio-economic backgrounds, they were diametric opposites. Furthermore, he liked children, cats, and dogs, and she, perhaps with an innate sense of rivalry, hated the slinky sensuality of the feline species. As for dogs and children, a customary greeting or a pat on the head at least demonstrated her tolerance for their existence. She liked horses, but it required time to look after them. The only horses he was interested in were crammed into the back of the Porsche 911, ready to be unleashed on the open highway anytime. Plants, on the other hand, were quiet and easy to live with, for Sally more so than Max.

Intellectually, they were on a par. Also, they complemented each other with mutual friends and ideas for décor and running a business. While they returned to their apartment at separate times during the week, they arrived not that far apart. They tried to coincide their business trips interstate and overseas, assuring each other that it wasn’t a matter of mistrust but a desire to be together at all times. One thing was sure: they were both addicted to life in the fast lane.

Since Max had floated the idea of buying a house in the country and Sally was reassured they would continue to rent the apartment, she, with Max’s acquiescence, decided to run with the ball. What she wanted was a small, un-renovated cottage with a maximum of about ten acres, located three hours’ travel time away from Sydney. She had gleaned from the Internet that they could afford something like this without compromising their lifestyle. Moreover, owing to the advantages offered by their respective businesses, they would be able to renovate at cost or, at least, at wholesale prices.

So the hunt was on. Most weekends, Sally chose a country town to visit, not