The Peppercorn Project

by Nicki Edwards

  ‘We’re lucky. If you head to Booleroo they have more cafes, but none as good as ours. And they don’t have Shelby’s cakes!’

  ‘What do you do for a job, Leah?’ Isabelle asked when they had ordered and found a table near the window. The mountain formed an impressive backdrop.

  ‘I work from home as a bookkeeper. I do payroll and tax stuff for some of the businesses in town and also help a lot on the family farm. Mum and Dad have a property outside of town – mostly sheep and wheat. I’ll take you and the kids out there one day – you’ll love it. I do Dad’s books but if it’s busy I help out with the real farm work too. It’s good to get my hands dirty.’ Leah shrugged one shoulder and smiled. ‘It keeps me busy.’

  Their order arrived and they stirred sugar into their drinks.

  ‘Have you lived here all your life?’ Isabelle asked.

  ‘Yeah. I was born here. Well, not technically in Stony Creek – they haven’t had a hospital here since the 1950s – but in Booleroo, before they took away their obstetrics license. No doubt I’ll live here for the rest of my life. Once you get to know it, Stony Creek is a special place. They say it’s either already in your blood or it gets into your blood.’

  ‘Have you ever wanted to leave?’

  ‘I did once,’ Leah said.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Would you believe, London?’

  Isabelle raised her eyebrows in surprise and Leah laughed.

  ‘Yeah, I know – perhaps I should have picked a smaller city first. It was overwhelming after living here all my life. Even spending time in Adelaide at boarding school didn’t prepare me for London.’

  ‘What made you come back?’ Isabelle asked, before biting into her warm raspberry and white chocolate muffin. She groaned with pleasure.

  ‘I told you the food here is amazing,’ Leah said. ‘I guess I came back because I’m a country girl at heart and the city life didn’t suit me. Or rather, I didn’t suit the city life. I got a job as a receptionist in a law firm in Earl’s Court, but when they wanted me to wear killer heels and skirts instead of pants and flat shoes, I knew I was in the wrong place.’ Leah chuckled as she sucked her stomach in and patted her waist. ‘Can you imagine me trying to squish myself into one of those pencil skirts or whatever they call them? They’d look okay on you, but I bulged out in all the wrong places!’

  Isabelle laughed. She liked the way Leah didn’t take herself too seriously. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever worn skirts like that. My style is more beach wear.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed,’ Leah replied.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Isabelle was instantly on the defensive.

  ‘I reckon I might have to help you find more practical clothes for living in a country town. Dad would have a fit if you showed up at the farm in those shorts and thongs.’

  ‘By all means you can take me shopping, but I imagine the choices are limited unless I want to wear jeans, a shirt and boots every day.’

  Leah looked down at her own clothes and laughed. ‘You got that right, but I’ve become an expert at online shopping.’

  ‘When did you come back to Australia?’ Isabelle asked, returning to the original topic of conversation.

  ‘I travelled while I was there – trotted over to Europe and came home when my money ran out. I was away for four years and came back six years ago.’

  ‘But you don’t live on the farm anymore? You mentioned something about not living with your parents.’

  ‘Gosh, no! I bought a place in town and I’ve spent the last two years doing it up. I’ll take you past later and show you. It might give you some ideas for working on your place. It’s stone, like yours and tiny, but it’s the perfect size for me and Max.’

  ‘Max?’ Isabelle’s ears pricked up instantly. Until now, Leah had made no mention of a significant other.

  ‘Don’t get too excited. Max is my cat. The biggest ginger cat you will ever meet. A pure-bred Persian. Totally impractical in the bush, always covered in knots and tangles, but I love her.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Yeah. They told me she was a boy when I got her as a kitten but it turns out, he is actually a she! I only found out when she produced a litter of kittens a few weeks ago. So Max should become Maxine, but when you meet her, you’ll know why I’ll always call her Max. It fits.’

  ‘I’m not much of a cat lover, to be honest,’ Isabelle said. ‘Fletch loves animals, and I promised him if we moved I’d consider getting a dog, but I’m not going to bring up the topic unless he does.’

  ‘Oh you have to get a dog,’ Leah exclaimed. ‘It’d be perfect for the kids, and your yard is big enough. Dad’s dogs are always having pups, so let me know when you want one.’

  ‘What sort of dogs?’

  ‘Kelpies.’

  Isabelle scrunched up her face. ‘They’re farm dogs. I was thinking something small. More of a lap dog. Maybe one of those poodle-cross dogs that don’t shed any hair.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Issie, you don’t want a fluffy dog around here. And trust me, when you see the kelpie pups, it’ll be love at first sight.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Isabelle replied, finishing off the last of her drink.

  ‘Tell me more about yourself,’ Leah said, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs, looking like she had all the time in the world. ‘Start at the beginning.’

  Isabelle relaxed back into her chair. ‘I’m an only child. My parents married later in life. I’m not sure they ever planned on having kids – I always imagined I was an unwelcome surprise.’

  ‘Do you get along with them?’

  ‘Some days yes, some days no. I guess you would say we’ve formed an uneasy truce over the years. As a teenager I had little to do with them. They worked fulltime and sent me off to boarding school at Geelong Grammar, despite living twenty minutes away in Newtown. My father’s a plastic surgeon and my mother was his nurse. Now she works as his receptionist.’

  ‘So you followed in your mum’s footsteps and went into nursing?’

  Isabelle shook her head. ‘No. I think that was the first of many disappointments for them. Dad wanted me to do medicine, but there was no way I ever would have got the marks. Karen – Mum – suggested nursing, but I didn’t start studying until after Fletcher was born. When I finally finished my degree and my graduate year, I had Mietta. Dan had a well-paid job and liked me being home with the kids, so I only worked occasionally.’ Leah’s eyes widened and Isabelle laughed. ‘I know, I know. It makes me sound like a 1950s housewife.’

  ‘Did you and Dan go to school together?’ Leah asked.

  Isabelle was glad Leah hadn’t made any comment about her stay-at-home mum status. Plenty of other women thought poorly of Isabelle for choosing to stay at home and run the household instead of using her nursing degree. The reality was, with Dan’s income, Isabelle hadn’t thought she needed to work. What she hadn’t realised until after Dan had died was they’d been living well beyond their means with no budget. A mistake she was now paying for.

  ‘If you asked my parents, they’d tell you Dan was the proverbial boy from the wrong side of the tracks,’ Isabelle said. ‘He grew up in Queensland and didn’t finish high school. He got a sponsorship with Rip Curl to surf when he turned sixteen, which included a job in Torquay at their head office. He climbed the ladder quickly and moved into a management position at Quicksilver before Mietta was born.’

  ‘How did you two meet? Do you surf as well?’

  Isabelle laughed and shook her head. ‘I can barely stand up on a board. It sounds bad, but I met Dan during schoolies week. A group of us stayed in Lorne, and one day the girls persuaded me to watch a surfing competition. I was mesmerized by this one guy. He was mad! He’d choose the biggest waves without any sense of danger. We were introduced, and by the end of the week decided we were madly in love with each other.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so sweet,’ Leah said.

  ‘Yeah, well that’s when it got messy. I was never a
one-night-stand kind of girl, but there was something about Dan’s sassiness and the way he kissed me. I lost my common sense and virginity in one night. I fell pregnant with Fletch the first time we had sex. Both of us were young, naive, and didn’t think we needed contraception. For some crazy reason when Dan found out about the baby, he promised to stick by me. Which he did. Until the day he died.’

  A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed a mouthful of water. She wasn’t going to cry today. Why did all the good memories get bullied into submission by the tragic ones at the most inopportune of times?

  ‘I take it your parents didn’t approve of your relationship?’

  Isabelle smirked. ‘Not. At. All. I don’t think they ever forgave me for embarrassing them, and they never welcomed or accepted Dan. He could never be good enough for them. He didn’t seem to care, but it made family functions awkward.’

  ‘Where do your parents live?’

  ‘Geelong, but they spend most of their time travelling around the world – taking a different cruise to a different country every year.’

  ‘It sounds like they’re in a position to help you out financially.’

  Isabelle made a strangled sound in her throat. ‘My father told me he spent my inheritance on my education, and that I threw it back in their faces when I fell pregnant.’

  ‘Whoa! Ouch. I’d be furious if my parents didn’t help me out when I needed it most.’

  Isabelle shrugged. What else could she do? The one and only time she had asked her father for help he’d paid off one of their credit cards, and then for the next six months had belittled Isabelle for her lack of financial acumen. It had made her feel like a child, and she’d vowed never to ask him for help again.

  ‘But surely they must love Fletch and Mietta?’

  ‘In their own way, I guess they do,’ Isabelle said. ‘And to be fair they were good in the weeks after Dan died. But when we hit the three-month mark and I found out I was going to lose the house, they backed right off.’

  ‘They should have helped you. That’s what parents do.’

  Isabelle gave a sad smile. ‘Not my parents. To be honest, I don’t care. I don’t want their money.’

  ‘What about Dan’s family?’

  ‘Dan was adopted, and when he turned sixteen he decided he wanted to find his birth mother. He found her, but she wanted nothing to do with him. In the process, his adoptive parents, Wayne and Rowena, couldn’t get past what they felt was a betrayal. Rowena died of ovarian cancer before Mietta was born, and I haven’t heard from his dad since. I only found out recently he remarried and lives somewhere in Far North Queensland. He didn’t even come down for Dan’s funeral.’

  Shock swept across Leah’s face. ‘Are you kidding me? He didn’t come to his own son’s funeral?’

  ‘By the time Dan moved to Torquay and started his life with me, Wayne no longer considered him his son. He’s met Fletcher and Mietta, but doesn’t have anything to do with them, except for a Christmas card every year, and a ten-dollar note in a card for their birthdays, on the few occasions he remembers. I haven’t even let him know we’ve moved.’

  Leah shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. I feel like I’ve led a fairy-tale life in comparison. Mum and Dad are happily married, and I’ve always felt loved and wanted. We were sent off to boarding school too – Walford, an all-girls’ boarding school in Adelaide – but I loved it.’

  ‘Is it only you and Rachel then?’

  ‘No, we have an older brother, Luke. He’s thirty-six. He works on the farm with Dad. He and his wife Penny and their two kids live in a house on the farm. Luke’s the quiet one. I’m the middle child. Rachel’s the bossy one. She might be the baby of the family – five years younger than me – but she likes to be in charge and keep us all in line. She was supposed to be called Lucy, but when she was born Mum was overcome with how pretty she was, and changed her name.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t you know the story in the Bible?’

  Isabelle shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Leah and Rachel were sisters. Rachel was the beautiful one. A man named Jacob met Rachel by the side of a well. Jacob wanted to marry Rachel but he was told he had to work for seven years before he could have her as his wife. On their wedding night, the girls’ father covered up Leah, the older ugly sister, and married her off to Jacob. Jacob was furious and had to work another seven years for his father-in-law until he was allowed to marry the one he was still in love with – Rachel!’

  ‘What a crazy story,’ Isabelle exclaimed.

  ‘Oh, it gets crazier,’ Leah said with a chuckle. ‘My sister got remarried two years ago – to Jacob King.’

  Isabelle joined in the laughter. ‘What about you? No boyfriend on the scene?

  ‘I wish,’ Leah said with another laugh. ‘Unfortunately the pickings around Stony Creek are slimmer than Victoria Beckham.’

  ‘What about Matt Robertson?’ As soon as Isabelle said his name, a strange sensation flickered in her chest.

  ‘That’s a long story. When Matt moved here eighteen months ago he came with baggage, a dirty look whenever any single female went near him, and a sign above his head that screamed “stay away”. So that’s what I did. Of course everyone tried to set us up, but as sweet as he is, he’s not my type.’

  ‘Is he …?’ Her question remained unasked.

  ‘Still single, and says he has no intention of changing that status.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  Leah smiled. ‘Unfortunately you didn’t meet him at his best.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Isabelle said.

  ‘Honestly, Matt’s not like that usually. You won’t find a more caring guy.’

  ‘You sure you’re not interested?’

  ‘Definitely! We’d drive each other nuts. We’re both happy being friends – good friends.’

  ‘I’ll bet there were plenty of other women lining up to meet him. He must have been one of the most eligible bachelors the town had seen for a while.’

  Matt Robertson wasn’t Isabelle’s type either, but she had to admit Leah was right, he was hot. In his uniform, she imagined girls would throw themselves at him.

  ‘True. There have been plenty of young women who would have gladly slept in his swag, but in the whole time he’s been here he hasn’t shown any interest in anyone.’

  ‘Is he gay?’

  Leah laughed like it was the strangest thing she’d ever heard. ‘Does he look gay to you?’

  ‘I don’t know – what’s a gay guy supposed to look like these days anyway?’

  ‘True. But I can assure you – he’s not gay. He’s a good looking guy who, for whatever reason, has decided he wishes to maintain his current bachelor status. He’s either too busy trying to catch criminals, is nursing a badly broken heart, or hasn’t met the woman of his dreams. Who knows?’

  *

  Four hours later Isabelle stood in the same spot in the school courtyard waiting for the bell to ring and release the kids. Over two hot chocolates and a muffin, she and Leah had cemented a firm friendship. Now, Isabelle stood fidgeting on the spot, hoping the kids had enjoyed their first day at their new school, and made new friends.

  When Mietta bounced through the school doors into the sunshine, hand in hand with Zoey, Isabelle had no doubt she had made the right decision. The girls looked like a United Nations advertisement – Ebony and Ivory.

  Fletcher was one of the last out. The smile he’d worn earlier that day was gone. Isabelle groaned inwardly.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asked when he came closer.

  He dumped his bag on the ground and grunted. ‘Boring.’

  Isabelle called out to Mietta. ‘Come on, honey, let’s go.’

  Mietta waved goodbye to Zoey and skipped over, handing her school bag to her mother. Isabelle draped both bags over her shoulders and the trio walked home. Fletcher refused to be drawn into conversation and dragged his feet the whole way. Mietta chatted no
n-stop about her new friends, her ‘amaaazing’ teacher, and all the fun things she would be able to do at her new school. The moment they arrived home, Fletcher stuck his nose in his phone, his thumbs tapping madly on the screen. When Isabelle asked, he said he was chatting to mates back home. His mention of home ripped at her already fragile heart. She stepped away, giving him the space he needed, not knowing what else to do. It was the first time he had given any indication of missing his friends or Torquay.

  The next morning Fletcher flatly refused to go to school but Isabelle dragged the cover off his bed and forcefully got him up and moving. He sulked and carried on. In the end, she ignored him. If he wasn’t going to tell her what was so bad about school, then he’d simply have to keep going until he was prepared to talk.

  She wished Dan was there to talk to him. When Fletcher got in one of his moods, he’d come home a different kid after a quick trip to the beach with his dad. Isabelle sighed. She couldn’t do anything about it. Fletcher would simply have to learn how to communicate with her.

  Chapter 16

  It was three weeks since Isabelle and her kids had arrived in town, and Matt was starting to have concerns. Was she okay? He’d only seen her briefly in passing when she dropped the kids to school or picked them up. Sometimes he drove stealthily past their house, but despite the gorgeous weather the front door remained closed and there was no sign of Fletcher or Mietta playing outside. It was odd. He’d expected to see them all out and about.

  Yet again Matt kicked himself for refusing to join the committee. If he had, he’d know everything about the Peppercorn families. He sighed. As much as he wanted to find out more about Isabelle and her family, he wouldn’t go digging. Rachel’s rules were that each family’s privacy was to be maintained. From the beginning, she was adamant the applications remain confidential unless the families chose to share the details of their circumstances themselves, which is what two of them had done.

  Kuda and Rumbi had told people they’d left their entire extended family in Zimbabwe, hoping for a new start in Australia. They’d initially landed in Melbourne, but had struggled with anonymity and a feeling of displacement. Since moving to Stony Creek they’d made friends easily, and the townspeople had enveloped them and accepted them into the community. Kuda ran his computer business from home and was an active member of the local church. Rumbi volunteered at the school and had big plans to create a community library.