Upsizing

By Michelle Endersby

From the author of Rose Garden Reverie comes a delightful tale about positive aging and connecting with the world around you.

When her inner-city terrace house is acquired to make way for a freeway extension, retired stenographer Gillian Rule must make a choice. Will she downsize and move t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Busybird Publishing
• Release date: Sep 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922691804

Michelle Endersby

Michelle Endersby is a writer and visual artist from Melbourne, Australia. She was the winner of the inaugural Audrey Daybook Short Story Prize in 2019 with her endearing tale, The Caretaker. Inspired by a vision of a light-filled rose garden she experienced on awakening from a coma following emergency brain surgery, Michelle is enthusiastic about growing, photographing, painting, and writing about roses. Michelle is the creator of the popular monthly Art, Gardens and Always Roses email newsletter. www.michelleendersbyart.com

Book preview

Chapter One

The Eviction

She would take cuttings of her roses. You cannot move a twenty-year old New Dawn climbing rose. It was massive and had brought her so much pleasure when the fragrant pearlescent blooms had clustered around the upstairs bedroom window.

New Dawn, now that’s ironic, she mused.

She would pot up her rare white and pale blue double Parma violets and take them, too. Her sophisticated Café au Lait dahlia tubers, quintessentially Melbourne, which had been so difficult to acquire, could be lifted easily. The algae-stained vintage alabaster birdbath weighed more than Gillian did herself; she would have to get help to move it.

Gillian was glad she would not be around when the bulldozers came in, screeching and crashing, their hungry, greedy claws grasping and ripping everything apart. When they tore down her home of the past thirty years and one hundred years of history, would they save the intricate cast iron lacework and the bluestone cobblestones, or would it all end up in landfill? She hated wastefulness.

The homeowners weren’t given long to plot out their new futures. The stakeholders held a public information session at Trades Hall, and then delivered the acquisition papers by knocking on each door. The fresh-faced young man in his odd-coloured blue suit, more peacock than royal and certainly not navy, with the too-skinny trousers had his work cut out for him explaining all the ins and outs of the contract and the timeline for the eviction and demolition of their homes. There had been angry, raised voices, and tears of desperation, but not from Gillian. She had felt a lingering frisson of excitement ever since she heard the announcement that the route of the new freeway extension went right through her backyard.

All the residents were in a state of turmoil, as if the doors of their cages had been left open inadvertently. Some were wandering around dazed, not sure what to do, but others, like Gillian, were eager to test their wings. She reluctantly admitted that the stairs up to her bedroom felt steeper these days, and that she now left a light on in the stairwell in case she had to visit the toilet downstairs during the night, which invariably she did. Close to public transport and within walking distance to her job as a stenographer at the Magistrates’ Court, Gillian had loved living in the pulsating heart of a big city. But now that she had retired, she no longer felt tied to the place. Her only regret about moving was leaving her garden behind.

She was washing up her dinner dishes in the single sink as she looked out into her tiny backyard – just enough space for the clothesline, a few terracotta pots of culinary herbs, a potted daphne for the fragrance, a climbing miniature rose, Jeanne Lajoie, on the back trellis, vibrant green baby’s tears between the cobblestones, and her small garden ‘shed’ which was actually a repurposed metal stationery cabinet.

The wire door squeaked open. It would be Denise and Barry from next door.

Gillian called out. ‘Come on in, the door’s unlocked.’

Barry was a bit of a sweet tooth, so Gillian had baked a zesty lemon slice and she would pour them a fresh pot of tea. Her neighbours made themselves comfortable at her distressed kitchen table as they had so many times before, fumbling with the cushions on the hard, wooden chairs.

Denise was the first to speak, unable to contain her outrage. ‘I cannot believe we’re being forced out of our homes. We’ve lived here forever, put down our roots, and now they’re going to yank us up.’

Gillian smiled inwardly at her friend’s choice of words, considering her own misgivings about her precious front garden being ripped up.

‘But we were going to have to downsize sometime soon anyway,’ the ever-pragmatic Barry interjected. ‘This gives us the encouragement we need, plus the price they are offering for the house seems good.’ Barry was into his sales pitch. Gillian rolled her eyes, having heard it all before. ‘If we register our interest early and put in our forms together, we might still be able to be neighbours in the village. The downsizing consultant is coming tomorrow at two, and Gillian, you must join us and meet with her, as well.’

Gillian had had enough.

‘No, thank you very much,’ she snapped, ‘and if you mention that blasted D-word again, I am going to scream. Why are you going to let these people pack you up and put you in a shoebox to live out the rest of your days?’

Both Barry and Denise were shocked by Gillian’s outburst, looking at her as if seeing their neighbour of thirty years for the first time.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Gillian apologised. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken like that. It is kind of you to want to include me in your plans, but I’ve got plans of my own.’ How could she tell them that she was looking forward to having her own space and some freedom, privacy at last, and that she did not want a repeat version of her current life just in a different setting?

‘I know this is all very sudden, Gill, all of our nerves are on edge,’ Denise said, forgiving her oldest friend for her rudeness. ‘But at least look at the display village and the communal facilities with us. You’ll be surprised. It will be fine, we can make a good life for ourselves.’

Gillian was tight-lipped. She did not want ‘fine’ and ‘good,’ but it was the mention of communal facilities that made her mind up for her. She would not be part of her friends’ plans. Gillian knew she had reached a stage in her life where she finally had the confidence to live life to the fullest and enjoy fresh air and wide-open spaces. There would be no rec rooms and happy hours for her.

Chapter Two

The Inspection

Out of habit, Gillian looked at all the photos in the real estate agent’s window. Even though she had made an appointment to inspect Rosenhaven Cottage, she still wanted to look in the window. Throughout her working life she had spent many weeks of her annual leave in quiet country towns. She would find somewhere to stay: sometimes a room on the second floor of a hotel, a motel room, or if she was lucky, a self-contained cottage. It was not always easy to find a place near the railway station.

Once she had arrived and checked in, put her bags down, and made a cup of tea, she would wander along the main street to get her bearings. She would look in all the shop windows, studying menus and opening hours, noting down the price of a wash and blow wave at the hairdresser, and looking for anything of interest on the community noticeboards.

When she got to the real estate agent, she would allow herself to dream. She had a checklist in her head that went something like this:

Cottage

Not too large

Must have a garden

Verandah

Roses

Picket fence

Close to town

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

If she saw something that ticked off all the boxes – which was seldom – the next part of her ritual was to find the newsagent, pick up a local paper, and purchase a lottery ticket.

For the next twenty-four or forty-eight hours the dream would play around in her mind, and then when she checked the lotto numbers she would experience that same feeling, a mixture of disappointment and relief, and she would chide herself for being so foolish and wasting her money.

But when Gillian arrived in Wilby Springs that morning the situation was quite different. She had ticked off all the boxes at home via an internet search. She had enlarged every image and studied every room in detail, she had looked at the house on Google Earth and checked out all the neighbours’ houses as best she could. But old habits die hard, and so she examined every photo in the window, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the photo of what she was already calling ‘her cottage’. Feeling a sudden sense of urgency, she opened the door of the real estate office and went inside.

‘Gillian?’ the receptionist asked, no Good morning or How are you?

‘Yes, that’s me. We spoke on the phone.’

‘Yes, yes. I’m very sorry but there is no one here to show you through the house today, they are all out at a funeral.’

‘Oh, dear.’ What else could she say?

‘I’m not meant to do this, but I know you’ve travelled up from Melbourne to see the house,’ she said. ‘So if you can promise me that you will lock up properly, leave the place exactly as you found it, and return here by four, I can let you have the keys.’

‘Well, that would be great,’ Gillian said, ‘as long as I’m not breaking the law or getting anyone into trouble.’

‘No, it will be fine. You look like a responsible person.’

‘Thank you.’ What a strange welcome to the town. She took the keys and slipped them into her handbag and, clutching the glossy brochure for the house with a map and floorplan, she made her way outside.

Even though Gillian had studied the pictures of the house obsessively online, that just didn’t compare with seeing the cottage and the garden in real life.

Real life, she said to herself, could this be my real life? Why have I waited so long to start living it?

The street seemed quiet, with little modern development. Nothing over one storey high. The houses were all set back from the road with large front gardens that merged into one another, giving the impression of ample green space. Hers, however, stood out. There she goes again, calling it hers. The once white picket fence was sagging and the paint peeling under the weight of a rambling Albertine rose. Gillian loved the exuberance of it.

She could see now that it was a house, not a cottage, and Gillian could sense the past grandeur of it. Now a little overgrown, the front garden must have once been quite the formal showpiece. She would reinstate the lavender hedges, but how much life was left in those knobbly standard roses? The rusted cast iron fountain with the stagnant pool of water in the base reminded her of one she had seen in a small-town botanical garden, and she could almost hear the water cascading and tinkling. Yes, she would get the fountain working again.

What a delightful daydream to be imagining that this was her place, deciding the tasks she would tackle first, and the long-term plans she would put in place. There were three steps leading up to the wide verandah. The turned rails were a little wobbly but the boards seemed in good condition. There was a two-person bench seat with little tables built on the sides, and she could not help herself; she had to sit down and survey the scene framed by climbing roses. This would be a shady retreat in Summer. She could add a pair of large potted palms to give it a Raffles Hotel feeling. So much to discover, she thought. How far did the verandah go around the house? Would there be other places where she could sit and enjoy the view? She was not going to rush this exploration; it was just too delicious.

She pulled the keys out of her bag and made her way to the front door. The heavy wooden door was topped with a stained-glass window of stylised Art Nouveau roses, and right in the centre of the door was a polished brass door