Her uncle’s will stipulate that Rose could inherit the house only after she spent one full year living in it, hence her travel to Australia. He really enjoyed living there and wanted to give Rose the opportunity to check it out. Her first reaction to the news of inheritance was disbelief. Yes, this from someone who believes in LUCK. Her second reaction was to ask the lawyers to sell the house. Alex and Letitia were influential in Rose’s decision to move to Australian for twelve months. Letitia was not able to come with her as her doctor was concerned that at her age, early 70s, she might develop a fatal deep vein thrombosis after such a long air travel(more than 24 hours). So Rose was on her own and it was useful to have some help even if it came from the lawyers. They had introduced her to the Bank and the neighbors and supported her visa application.
The local police and library also received a letter of introduction from them. The local GP was Rose’s choice but also came highly recommended. The Bridge club followed suit but on that on Corinne was more influential. They also decided about the electrical and water company, Foxtel, electrician and plumber.
Frightening thought if you possess some paranoid traits, isn’t? Luckily Rose was more a cluster C type of personality. Anyway she had times when she dearly missed her grandma and friends at home. Thanks God for iPhones as Letitia was not comfortable with the internet and the written letters take too long to communicate in real time.
At 10:40 am Rose left home driving her uncle’s Mini Cooper hatchback. After a ten minutes’ drive through her neighborhood she parked under their building on Park View and took the elevator to level 33. Two minutes to 11:00 she was entering their office. Their AO girl recognized Rose and said ‘righto’ with a broad smile while continuing to type furiously. She seemed to be in great shape from all aspects.
‘Last minute order’ she said with a big sigh while rolling her blue eyes over. She was wearing her long blonde hair in a ponytail today and was in a tight fitting blue suit. She was wearing unbelievably dangerous looking high-heeled sandals. Rose feared for her safety. But then she was sitting in her chair and as long Rose was there she did not leave her sitting position. Probably she gets her cardio exercises in other ways, she thought. The two firm partners came into the room almost at once from different directions.
‘Cracking, ’ Alex said as a form of salute and trying to play cool. He was a pleasant looking man probably in his sixties but Rose knew that appearances can be deceiving these days. With the focus on healthy style, Botox and surgical enhancement possibilities, the sky was the limit for someone determined to fight the ageing effect on the body.
‘Righto’ said Peter. Rose bearably managed not to laugh. Hilarious, she thought. The surprise might have been written all over her face as they managed to pull themselves together and for the next few minutes was all plain English and small talk.
‘How do you keep in shape Rose? ’ they wanted to know.
‘I play bridge, ’ Rose smartly answered and they smiled. They were also bridge fanatics and at times they bumped into each other at various gatherings. They had tried to persuade her to start playing golf but so far she was not interested.
‘How do you find the weather? ’ they wanted to know.
‘Air conditioning helps, ’ Rose said.
‘Oh, yes, ’ they agreed in unison.
‘Have you been to the beach? ’ adventured Alex looking at Rose’s tanned looking skin.
‘Went to see the Gold Coast and tried the water, ’ Rose confirmed. ‘I don’t like sharks and jelly fish, ’ she added aware that she was introducing a negative point into the conversation, something that ‘good girls don’t do’ as her teacher would say.
‘By crickey, don’t tell me that you already ran into trouble, ’ Peter said. ‘I’ve been living here all my life and never faced these things, ’ he added. Rose, with a pang of remorse, reassured them that nothing happened, it was just a thought.
‘Fair dinkum’, both said almost in agreement again. They seemed relieved. After a cup of coffee and recommendations to visit the Sydney Opera House they wrote Rose another check and she was allowed to leave. Her very next move was to go and deposit the money at the bank. Now that she was not working it was necessary more than ever to watch her account regularly and plan ahead the spending. She was far away from home, family and friends and with little prospects of finding a job. It was true that she had a house of her own, something that she had always wanted, but she needed the money to pay for her everyday expenses.
She told herself that she was lucky that she was getting any money from her uncle’s will but reminded herself this strange arrangement was just temporary. She had another six or seven months ahead till the reading of the will and then she imagined that she would be faced with angry relatives who might consider her uncle’s decision insane. Someone might want to challenge her rights to inheritance.
OK. Maybe she was becoming a bit paranoid. Was this the result of reading to many mystery novels or listening to the 06:00 pm news? Rose’s inheritance came from her father’s family side and she didn't know them at all. After her father’s death they completely ignored her and her sister. The orphans were lucky to have grandma Letitia. Her uncle Adrian was the only one who kept in touch with her grandma and wanted to help.
He would send money regularly and requested a regular update about the girls; Adrian wanted to know about the girls’ likes and dislikes, school progress, health. He regularly requested photos although he never sent one of himself. Adrian was the mysterious uncle who travelled a lot and was invisible but helpful. After the girls graduated they heard from him less often. They were informed about his death seven months ago by his lawyer in Australia. It was two weeks after he died.
His lawyers had detailed instructions on how to deal with the estate in such event. That was all Rose was told. And they told her that she had to move into the house in Australia immediately and live in it for 12 months. After that time she could decide what she wanted to do with the house.
Now there are people who would point to the fact that time flies but when you are young being stuck in one place for a full year could be bothersome. And moving into another country and culture can give people a lot of headaches. Stressfulllllll! Rose recalled the discussion that she had with Letitia after getting the news.
‘And it’s just money, ’ Rose reminded to her grandma when trying to find an excuse for not travelling to this part of the world. She knew that her grandma had respect for the money but never allowed that to control her freedom. To her surprise Letitia replied: 'Now Rose, for a minute, let’s just take a gander at the facts, let’s just put all cards on the table: you are a young girl with no strings attached and not much money. This sudden and unexpected event has put another spin on things. We are not going to pin all our hopes on it but for you it’s an undeniable opportunity to see the world, meet people, make friends and live life. An opportunity like this rarely comes around, ’ she added and looked at Rose pensively.
Rose was not a flake and the type with the head in the clouds but she didn’t know how she felt about this issue. Rose was hesitating. She trusted her grandma and accepted her guidance. She knew that she was looking out for her. And that was the moment when the decision was made. The next day grandma sent an e-mail to the lawyers. It was brief: ‘Rose will arrive in 10 days’ it said. And then they started to prepare. One might say that their preparations resembled the frenzy of the Victorian era ritual of the coming out season. Only that their aim was not finding a mate. Or that was what Rose thought. Now in hindsight she was realizing that she ended up taking a lot of clothes with her. Her grandma’s hopes might have been different, Rose thought of a reasonable explanation.
…
After Rose’s visit to the bank she stopped to have lunch at her favorite place ‘The Turkish Café’ by the park in Garden Way. Its name did not tell you much about the place hence few people knew about it. Rose thought that they serv
ed really good food that would have been appreciated even by a gourmet traveler. They had a large variety of products there: fresh and tantalizing, mouthwatering and finger-licking such as the fresh oysters from Tasmania, fresh salmon to earthy bush tucker type of ingredients of indigenous Australia. She could not imagine anything more enjoyable for the really connoisseur. She considered herself one of them and a lucky one with such options close by. Now of course, Rose had to agree that money can make a difference in people's life style but you don’t need to spend a fortune to eat quality food.
Here at ‘The Turkish Café’ they also offered an outdoor dining option embraced by many young people of a multicultural diversity that attend the nearby University. The meals were excellent, the atmosphere was great and the owner is actually an intrepid Romani person from Turkey had lived in Australia for more than 20 years.
He seemed to be in his late 30s and Rose discovered that he was Romani when she incidentally overheard him giving a few instructions in a Romani dialect to his apprentice. It was about 2 months ago and Rose was eating at one of the tables at the back of the room. There were just a few people at the tables around, and he spoke quietly. His English was quite good without a