Pepper Cassidy’s nostalgia hit her like a nail gun to the heart. Cutting the car engine, she stared at the blue beach cottage. Home or is it?
To her right, on the idyllic Queensland beach, waves surged over rocks, booming and rhythmic like a heartbeat. Seagulls screeched above, gliding in a baby-blue sky. They swooped into the ocean, pinching fish from a school of mullet close to the shore. Lemony eucalyptus and frangipani blended with salty air in a fragrance so familiar it hurt deep in Pepper’s chest. Yesteryears’ memories swirled, making her dizzy. She steadied her wobbly legs, placing a hand on the hot car bonnet, glancing at Livia to check she missed the stumble. Why, after all this time, have I chosen to come back here?
‘We’re finally home.’ Liv glanced around and yawned, stretching one slender arm over her blonde head.
‘It’s a bit cliché returning to my hometown. I honestly never thought we’d settle back here,’ said Pepper, giving Liv at least some of her thoughts. Leaving the car, they strolled to the cottage. She brushed the dusty weatherboard surface, and dry, faded aqua-blue paint came off on her fingers. One thing noted on the list of things to do. Rubbing her hands down the side of her jeans, she bit her bottom lip before saying, ‘Oh, well, new year, new life, I guess.’
The stand-alone garage on the left-hand side came into her vision, even though she told her eyes not to stray there. Goosebumps popped along her arms. She quickly averted her gaze, avoiding Liv’s questioning look by walking towards the veranda, gulping back her fear. Lantana trailed over the rail and into the gutter.
‘Your hometown, Mum. My sea change,’ said Livia, pulling an earphone from her left ear. ‘The beach is amazing. I’d forgotten it’s this close. What was I, about four last time we came here? It seemed miles away when I was little. It’s like right there. Wow!’
‘Nearly five.’ The same age as me when Dad went to war. ‘You can hear the surf. It’s beautiful at night. I remember it lulling you to the most peaceful sleep.’ Considering how much Pepper dreaded moving back to Blueshell Beach, finding one pleasant memory was reassuring. A two-hour drive north from Brisbane with crawling traffic for the first hour hadn’t helped her apprehension. Too much time to think. She inhaled a deep breath of salt air, stretched stiff shoulders, and stepped on the timber stairs. The second one sunk and creaked. Another thing noted on the list of things to do.
Livia strolled to stand beside Pepper, taking in the ocean with wide eyes like the first beach she had ever seen. Her young face was hopeful. ‘Oi, check him out.’ Liv pointed, grabbing Pepper’s shoulder to make her face the north. ‘Bit old, but what a six-pack and those arms,’ Liv said, elbowing Pepper’s ribs.
Pepper gazed at the fine specimen of a man jogging shirtless along the goat-track path winding around the beach in front of their home. A large dog with pointy black ears and tan fur ran in front of him close to his feet. It wore no collar or lead but didn’t stray far. The man glanced at her, holding her gaze for a second before facing the track. A small smile tugged his lips. The barking dog loped towards them, seeming excited by the prospect of new people. The man whistled, and the big dog stopped, tilting its head towards his master, triangle ears raised at the command.
‘Awww, he’s so cute. Hello, boy.’ Liv grinned at the pet.
The dog hunched low, returning to its owner with his tail between his legs. They jogged, but in the dog’s exuberant state, it circled back to happy-bark at them, causing the man to trip over the mutt. He righted himself in one fluid movement, said something to the dog, patted its head and glanced over his shoulder with irritated eyes.
Pepper stifled a giggle and placed her hands over her mouth.
Liv enthusiastically flapped a hand towards him. ‘Hi.’
He shook his head but didn’t wave; instead sprinted the rest of the track with the dog following closely.
‘Not very friendly.’ Liv laughed. ‘That was pretty funny, though. Mum, mum?’ She waved a hand in front of Pepper’s face. ‘Earth to Mum.’
Her mind was still holding a vision of the guy in her head. Her dropped jaw was having trouble returning to her face. To cover her weird reaction to the guy, she asked, ‘Since when have you noticed six-packs?’ She ruffled Liv’s hair, ignoring the weird something stirring deep inside.
‘Who doesn’t?’
A tiny niggle of worry about Livia’s comment stayed with her. Don’t grow up, Livy.
At fourteen, Livia already developed a womanly shape, much to Pepper’s concern. Unlike Pepper, Livia took after her father’s side — tall, with long angled limbs and her mothers-in-law’s enviable model body. At least Liv didn’t have their snobby, mean disposition. She takes after you, always wearing a bright smile. The thing mother and daughter shared most was the unique colour of their violet eyes. People always commented on their eyes—eyes the same as her father.
Pepper opened a screen door and inserted a key in the intricately carved timber door. It would have looked more at home in a place like Bali or Zanzibar. Her mother had imported it from Morocco, and her dad lovingly installed it. A recollection so happy, Pepper smiled. In 1970, the year Pepper was born, he’d devotedly built the house. In a time before he changed.
‘Come on, Mum, open the door already!’ Livia said, startling Pepper from her thoughts. Liv glanced at the mobile phone in her hand. She smiled before tucking it into the back pocket of her jeans.
‘I’m trying. The key’s a little stubborn. It hasn’t been used in months since Nana went to the nursing home.’ Pepper jiggled the key, and the lock clicked. She pushed the door wide open. The hinges didn’t even creak. At the same time, a gush of memories surfaced like ghosts circling over her head.
The mudroom flowed to the sunroom facing the veranda, where faded cane lounges took in the picturesque view. Beyond, the main lounge room housed the old purple velour sofa and a huge Persian rug that never seemed to match the décor, but the carpet held favour with her mother.
Daylight streamed on the kitchen benches from a circular skylight. The cabinetry, dated lime melamine with curved metal edges, was art deco at its best or worst. Pepper wasn’t sure which, but she knew she had shitloads of work to do renovating it back to a proud little beach house. At least the modifications would keep her busy enough to forget things. A folded note sat like a tepee on the bench.
She unfolded it. Welcome home, Pepper. I’m so sorry for your loss. Meg was a dear friend. It’s terribly sad. I’ve been feeding Chloe until you arrived as I said I would. Poor thing seems to be pining but must be eating all her food because she’s looking on the chubby side. She’s an adorable cat. I just loved looking after her. Any questions, just give me a call. Mrs Charlotte Walters. A phone number at the bottom was written in a different pen ink as if an afterthought.
‘It’s all so old,’ said Livia, running a hand over the velour lounge. ‘Jeez, who’d put purple with that rug?’
‘Your grandmother,’ Pepper said with a catch to her throat. The rug seemed to lift and roll. She steadies her feet. No ocean breeze to do that, and the rug was heavy. Odd.
Liv didn’t seem to notice. ‘Oh, sorry, Mum. Are you okay? You look a little rattled?’
‘I’m fine. It’s just strange being here after all this time.’
‘You didn’t come back much because of Granddad, right?’
Pepper glanced away, trying to ebb the flow of tears pooling in her eyes. Changing the subject, she opened a door. ‘This will be your room. It was mine growing up, at least when I wasn’t at boarding school. The bay window has views of the beach.’ She strolled over to where a bench seat tucked under the windowsill. The view wasn’t as clear now that the native bush had grown. ‘I read here, escaping into books when Dad was —,’ she trailed off, taking a deep sigh. ‘Anyway, what do you think?’
‘It’s so huge compared to my room in Brisbane. I can put my bed here.’ She spun around, pointing to a blank wall. ‘My Five-SOS poster could go up here.’
‘Sure, but after I paint. What colour do you want your walls? I’m doing shades of white everywhere else, but you can choose in here.’
Livia shrugged her shoulders, but the smile remained. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Liv’s room led to an adjoining patio taking in the backyard. A double cat bowl for food and water sat near the door; a small pet bed wafted of cat piss and mould. A couple of deck boards were rotted black like stumps burnt in a bushfire. Add it to the list of things to do.
‘Chloe, here pussy,’ Pepper called, but there was no sign of her mother’s cat. Probably under the house in the shade, where their old dog Mahli used to sleep.
She strolled to the second bedroom, the one her two brothers shared. She could see the overgrown backyard from the grimy window where they would chuck a football or wrestle each other and her on the freshly moved lawn. Having boisterous brothers made her robust even though she was small. Fighting with them taught her how to beat boys and later men at their own game. She never backed down when she knew she was right while working in construction, which helped her business thrive, and the primarily male tradesmen respected her.
The room would be a spare room or an office for her company, Pepper C Construction, at least at the start. Anyhow, Rob wouldn’t be coming back to the house any time soon. Tim definitely wouldn’t.
Pausing at the door to the main bedroom, Pepper sighed. She opened it slowly, hearing the familiar creak of the hinges. Her mother’s scent wafted. Pepper lifted a pillow and held it to her face, sniffing deeply. Lavender mixed with the spicy vanilla and sandalwood Coco perfume. The tears came. She muffled them with the pillow, but they dampened her face until she felt Livia’s thin arms wrap around her shaking shoulders.
‘I miss her too, Mum.’
Pepper dropped the pillow to hug her sweet daughter. ‘I know, darling. It will get easier one day. This house brings back all the memories.’ The sooner she packed up her mother’s things, the easier living in the house would be—another thing for the list.
‘I could take this room instead.’
‘No, it’s okay. Once we renovate, it will be fine. We’ll have to camp out in the lounge or outside while we get at least one room habitable. We’ll do yours first.’
‘Why don’t we stay in the garage instead. It looks like there’s a loft?’
‘No.’ Pepper said it too abruptly. ‘It’s um, dirty, and it’s locked.’ She glanced at the floor, scuffing her feet over a worn section of laminate flooring. Add it to the list.
‘We could break the lock and clean things,’ Liv said. ‘It looks like a Miami condo, well, if you renovated it.’
‘I said, no, Liv. Just drop it. The garage is out of bounds.’ Livia was clueless about what happened in the garage, and Pepper planned to keep it that way. She couldn’t face it yet, either. What happened in there could never be erased from her mind but moving forward meant it had to be. One day at a time.
