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Coulter Valley

by Barbara Yates Rothwell

281 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1365; ISBN 1-4120-3537-6; US$24.00, C$27.00, EUR20.00, £14.00

Tom resolves to unravle the mystery of the Coulter Valley artists. But what of the Aunts, sad Bernice and vindictive Sophie? Can the Coulter family survive exposure?

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book When Tom decides to write the history of his artistic family, he finds himself embroiled in the strange situation at Coulter Valley, the family's old home, where elderly aunts Sophie and Bernice still live. Artists Tom and Edith, young Tom's great-grandparents, raised their four children as 'a family dedicated to art', isolated from the adverse influences of the outside world, and young Tom's research gradually uncovers the results of this dedicated, rigid attitude. Will his investigations end in tragedy? Or will family soidarity triumph?

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About the Author BARBARA YATES ROTHWELL lived, married and brought up six children in Surrey, England, before emigrating to Western Australia in 1974 with her musician husband and their two youngest daughters. Her other children arrived in Australia in due course. Also a musician and a trained singer, she was for ten years in the 1980s a music reviewer for The West Australian newspaper. After founding and running the Yanchep Community School for eight years, and having successfully written and sold innumerable short stories and articles to major magazines in several countries, Barbara decided it was time to branch out into novel writing. Longman Cheshire published her teenage historical novel, THE BOY FROM THE HULKS, in 1994, and in 1998 her historical novel DUTCH POINT was published privately in England. In 2004 she joined forces with Trafford Publishing (Canada) to produce COULTER VALLEY, an Australian story tracing the effects on a family of artists of a despotic father; and in 2005 the same cooperation produced KLARA, fiction based on fact, the story of a German Jewess who, forced to leave Nazi Germany, was sponsored by an English family. Barbara was a journalist in the UK for several years, as Women's Page Editor for a large group of weekly papers in the south of England, and as a free-lance. She has also written two full-length and several one-act plays, which have been performed in community theatres in Western Australia and New South Wales. Dutch Point, Barbara Yates Rothwell's historical novel, largely based in Western Australia, was published in 1998 under her own imprint, The Lagoon Press. It is still available in hardback from The Lagoon Press: e-mail -morgand_hbyr@iinet.net.au Price: AUS$35.00 plus p&p. Schools and libraries can purchase it at a special low price, plus p&p.

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Excerpts

In spite of his reservations he banged the knocker (a rather splendid brass affair, unpolished, with a bored-looking lion's head glaring down at him peevishly), and waited for the confrontation.

He could remember little about these two. He had tried to work out the relationship, and came to the conclusion that Uncle Gerald and he shared only their mutual forebears, the legendary Tom and Edith, founders of the clan Coulter. It hardly seemed a close kinship at this point in time.

A discreet brass plate by the gate had stated 'COULTERS ANTIQUES'. And below: 'Open 9 to 5, phone for appointment'. It was less than encouraging, and Tom wondered again how a living could possibly be made from such a source. As he put out his hand to repeat the knock, the sound of a chain being unfastened came through the solid front door, and a crack appeared, with a segment of a small, pale face inserted.

'Hullo,' Tom said, feeling more than a little foolish. His aunt surveyed him carefully, then pulled the door wide enough for him to slip through. The hallway was as dark as he had anticipated, but the slight mustiness was not as all-enveloping as he had imagined, consisting of essence of old leather furniture and the indefinable odour of the insides of old books. It was neither a shop nor a home, he thought, intrigued, following Aunt Judith down a long corridor in which majestic antique chairs lined the walls like soldiers on guard.

At the end of the dark passageway a door was slightly ajar, and she opened it with that same odd, peering action of the head with which she had greeted Tom. Here, at last, there was some light from a large bay window overlooking a garden somewhat less neglected than the front. By a small desk with shapely legs stood Uncle Gerald, posed as if for a turn-of-the-century photograph, a hand in his waistcoat pocket ('waistcoat?' Tom queried silently, wondering if he knew anyone else who wore one), his eye on the door in a watchful manner which had a touch of aggression.

In a moment of penetrating insight, Tom realised that they were both alarmed at this unusual intrusion into their routine, and his own nervousness dissipated. 'Uncle Gerald,' he said heartily, holding out his hand and striding across the room. 'How are you?'

The old man stood for a moment, head up, eyes piercing. ('Stag at bay-how appropriate!') Then he took Tom's hand briefly, his own cool and dry and quite unreassuring; and indicated a Victorian sofa complete with shiny black leather for his great-nephew to sit on.

Aunt Judith was standing, hands clasped, a model for 'The Perfect Servant'. Her husband turned without quite looking at her and barked, 'Tea! Biscuits!'; and she left (Tom would not have been surprised if she had bobbed a curtsey), closing the door silently behind her.

It could hardly be called conversation, the sporadic half-sentences that Uncle Gerald threw at him, and his own fractured replies. 'Don't suppose you've ever been here, eh...?' 'No, but...' 'Don't often see folks...' 'No, I don't supp...' 'Keeps me busy...' (with a wave of the hand at the accumulation of tables and chairs and whatnots and tarnished brassware). 'Yes, I...' When Aunt Judith returned with the tea-tray it was a relief to have something to hold in his hand, another person to add a third dimension to the old man's lack of humour.

'You must have been here a long time,' Tom tried, once the cups were filled with a weak, biscuit-coloured liquid that was presumably some obscure kind of tea unknown to him. Aunt Judith nodded.

'Oh, yes. Forty-two years, haven't we, Father?' She turned to Tom earnestly. 'Father is very dedicated to antiques, you know.'

'I can see that.' He addressed the old man directly. 'I should very much like to see round the place, if you have the time.'

'Would you?' This seemed to catch Uncle Gerald's attention. He stared at Tom as if evaluating his reliability. 'Do you know anything about antiques?'

'Not much. But I'm always willing to learn.'

'Hmm! What do you do, young man? Are you unemployed? Free to visit during the day?' He made it sound like a moral aberration.

'I'm a writer, Uncle,' Tom said, trying not to sound self-conscious.

'A writer, eh? One of these modern fellows? Bad language and filth on every page?'

Tom recalled his grandfather's comment and smiled slightly. 'Well, it helps to sell books!' But at the look of disgust crossing the other man's face he stopped. 'No-I write non-fiction. As a matter of fact, I've just had a book published.'

'Oh, how lovely!' Aunt Judith said with a fleeting smile of approval. 'What was it about?'

'Biographical. About a farming community in New South Wales at the turn of the century.' He hesitated for a moment. 'It's done quite well. Top of the non-fiction lists for three weeks. Of course, that's because it hit the 'greenie' nerve.'

'Greenie?' It was obvious Uncle Gerald did not understand.

'Yes. Conservationists, the environment-you know?' He glanced from one to the other, but in each pair of eyes was a complete lack of understanding. 'The big movement to save the planet,' he tried, with a little more emphasis. 'The greenies liked my book because it brought up methods of farming that may be of use to us in the near future. If things go the way the scientists expect.'

As if by magic, both faces cleared. 'Oh, scientists,' Aunt Judith said, pouring more tea.

'The whole lot of them should be put down,' Uncle Gerald said, breaking a biscuit and dunking half of it in his cup. 'We used to manage very well without them in the old days. Trouble makers!'

Tom regarded him with wonder. 'Haven't you ever heard of the greenies? Or conservation? Or the greenhouse effect? Haven't you heard about the ozone layer and the danger to the planet?'

'Scientists talk a lot of rubbish,' the old man said. 'I prefer not to be involved.'

Aunt Judith took Tom's cup. 'We don't have television or radio, you see, dear. And we only take the antique dealers' magazines. We don't feel that we want to be a part of the silly things that go on out there...' She waved a hand vaguely towards the window. 'We like to keep ourselves to ourselves.'

'But this is a worldwide threat,' Tom protested, leaning forward. 'It will affect everyone.'

She smiled gently. 'Oh, I don't think so, dear. We made up our minds a long time ago, didn't we, Father? Not to let the scientists take over our lives, as we saw happening to so many. New things all the time, and nothing lasting for any time at all. It all seemed very silly and wasteful. So we just live in our own way, and if people want to get mixed up with scientists, then that's their own problem.'

She placed a second cup of weak tea before him and held out the biscuit plate. Tom took one, bemused. 'I don't think even the scientists could make us join in if we didn't want to, could they?' She sat back in her chair with a strange air of contentment, her eyes totally at peace, and for a moment Tom envied her. Such certainty in the face of the world's confusion! Why try to change their thinking? By the time anything conclusive happened to the world they would be gone, anyway.

He finished his biscuit and looked towards his uncle, who was gazing thoughtfully at a beautiful old grandfather clock, just about to strike the half-hour. A mighty whirring began, and a well-oiled clicking of elderly mechanisms, and then the chimes came, full and sweet, and the minute hand gave a little jerk and settled on the six. Uncle Gerald had taken out his pocket watch and was checking it.

'Perfect time,' he said with satisfaction. 'Perfect time. A hundred and twenty years old, but still perfect.' He put the watch away carefully before glancing towards Tom. 'That's the reality, young man. Fine workmanship, fine materials, the nearest we can get to eternity on this journey through life. Don't forget it. Let the men of science rave on! What have they ever done but make trouble?'

Tom realised that he had inadvertently trodden on a very sore point, and tried to divert the conversation. Aunt Judith got in before him. 'But we're very glad your book is doing well. Even if these-these brownies...'

'Greenies.'

'These people...' She faded into silence, sighing deeply. Tom gave her an encouraging smile.

'The greenies are not the scientists,' he said. 'They are the ones who want to save the environment.'

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded uncertainly. 'Oh-I'm glad to hear it, dear. You must let us have a copy of your book some time. Father would be very interested, wouldn't you, Father?'

'Not if it's about scientists.' The old man blew his nose loudly, and stood up suddenly. 'Well, come on if you want to have a look round.' He took Tom from room to room at a trot, hardly allowing time for questions. It was an impressive display, everything from Edwardian wardrobes and Victorian wash-stands to dark Jacobean tables and shapely eighteenth century chairs.

'Where do you get your stock?' Tom asked in a moment's respite as Uncle Gerald opened a cupboard.

'All over. People sell up. Get short of money. Stuff doesn't fit into their modern homes. They bring it to me.'

'You must have thousands of dollars-worth of pieces here.'

'Thousands!'

Tom hesitated. 'Do you sell much?'

The old man stared at him belligerently. 'Enough to get by. We eat. We live within our means. We're no burden to anyone.'

'I'm sure you're not. I just wondered-it seems a hazardous sort of business.'

'It suits me. It's more than a business to us. It's our way of life.' He took a deep breath, flaring his nostrils like an angry bull. 'When they go, they go. Something always comes to take their place.' He faced Tom fully, looking him up and down. 'What did you come for? To see us? To see what we're worth? Eh? What did you want? Something about the family, you said.'

Tom swallowed. It was tempting to riposte, be as rude as his uncle; but he subdued the unworthy thought. 'My grandmother has suggested that I should do a book about the Coulter family, their art, their influence on art in Australia, the way they lived when old-your father was alive. It would make a good book, don't you think?'

Gerald Coulter, looking remarkably like his own father at his most intractable, stared at his sister's grandson, and for a moment said nothing. Then he turned away abruptly, leading the way back to the sitting room where Aunt Judith was now knitting.

'No, I don't! I can't imagine anyone would want to read it. My father was a private person, and the way we were reared was our own business. We don't need any peeping Toms' (he seemed unaware of the irony) 'to dig up our backyard and reveal all to the public.'

'But your own sister suggested it.'

'More fool she!' He stood with his back to the room, staring out over the garden. 'I've no information for you, young man. Tell Daphne she ought to know better.' Then he swung round. 'Judith can see you out.'

Tom accepted dismissal gracefully. There was not much point in anything else; besides, he might want to come back again one day! Aunt Judith stood, putting her work to one side, and led him to the front door without question. Tom's impression of the place, as he was wafted out to daylight, was that it was the only time he had seen a home where every piece of furniture had a neat price tag hanging from it. At the door Judith suddenly took his arm, almost furtively. 'This-this danger to the planet-that's what you called it, didn't you? When is it going to happen?'

Tom smiled down at her reassuringly. 'Not just yet, Aunt.' He couldn't bring himself to tell her that it was happening already. 'In the next century or so.'

'Oh.' She nodded, clearly relieved. 'That's good. I don't like Father to be upset. Well, we can keep it to ourselves, can't we, Tom? Just between you and me. No need to bother Father. Good!'

Unexpectedly, she held her face up to him and he kissed her cheek. He turned at the gate to wave, but she had gone; and he could hear, through the spiked branches of the bougainvillea and the ancient, dilapidated trellis, the sound of the door chain being put back in place.

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Catalogue Information

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