House for All Seasons

  Praise for House for All Seasons

  ‘Jenn J McLeod’s debut novel is an enthralling read that will leave you feeling compelled to ponder your own childhood memories … A captivating story.’

  Heike Boughton, The Australian Women’s Weekly

  ‘A painful exploration of estrangement, loss, truth, redemption and the power of wishes.’

  Elaine Fry, The West Australian

  ‘This debut novel from Australian Jenn J McLeod impressively weaves a tale of secrets, scandal, surprise and reunification.’ Ross Southernwood, The Sun-Herald

  ‘A warm, engaging read, and such a great cast of characters.

  All readers will find someone they can relate to.’

  Diane Blacklock, author of The Best Man

  ‘The cast of supporting characters is vividly drawn.

  I was reminded of Monica McInerny’s beautifully crafted stories.

  The benign spirit of Gypsy adds a mystical layer.’

  Hélène Young, author of Half Moon Bay

  To the four women who have shaped my life.

  Each as different as the seasons.

  Jeannette

  My partner in dreams

  Kristine

  The wind beneath my wings

  Shirley

  My mum

  And to Pam Leicester ~ whose courage inspired Sara’s story.

  It’s the happy ever after you deserve.

  ‘Live each season as it passes;

  breathe the air,

  drink the drink,

  taste the fruit,

  and resign yourself to the influences of each.’

  ~ Henry David Thoreau

  MY HEARTFELT THANKS

  Never during the process of writing House for all Seasons did I struggle more for words than when faced with this task. So many wonderful people, in ways large and small, knowingly and unknowingly, have contributed to this story and to the process of getting it into the hands of readers. I can’t name you all, but please know that without each and every one, no matter what part you played—are still playing in some cases—I would not be sitting here trying to find the elusive words.

  Here goes …

  To Clare Forster, Curtis Brown Literary Agency—I had seen your name in so many author acknowledgements; you had to be special. Thanks for pushing me to expand and grow this story and its characters well beyond what I ever thought I could. Life sure did throw us a couple of curve balls. But we hit that home run. (And there’s a couple of clichés you can’t edit!)

  To my publisher, Larissa Edwards, publicist, Carol Warwick, and the entire team at Simon and Schuster Australia. Thank you for loving my story. You are so much more than publishers. You make people’s dreams come true. You know that—right?

  When it comes to editors, you don’t get much better than Belinda Castles and Elizabeth Cowell. Their amazing attention to detail made sure my House for all Seasons remained structurally sound. Then they helped spring-clean, de-clutter and spruce it up until it sparkled. To not thank them … Well, that seems NQR! (*wink*).

  Thank you for making my House a home.

  To those who read bits, checked bits, corrected bits along the way: Jeannette and Kris; Stephen Deist and Sandie Hudson for your foaling expertise; from across the Tasman: Rae Roadley and Lesley Marshall; local lovelies Marie Miller and Annie Seaton, who helped me eradicate my exclamation marks, halve my hyphens, curtail my colons and part with my parentheses. (Shame you didn’t allay my alliteration, ladies!) Thank you also to Lisa Chaplin, my 4PAN friends, Bootcamp buddies and anyone in RWA who has ever said ‘Go Jenn!’

  Of course, I would not be living my dream without the unconditional love and support of my ‘everything’: my co-conspirator, caring critic and partner of thirty years. Thank you for putting a positive spin on the lows while keeping me grounded with the highs, ensuring the vegie gardens kept growing, the fridge stayed full, and I had a constant supply of perfectly brewed soy lattes delivered to my desk. Most of all, thank you for never once doubting my ability even though I doubted myself. (Those relentless re-writes and re-reads have well and truly earned you that ‘J’.)

  Finally, to my readers …

  Thank you for choosing to invest your time in my story. I hope when you read House for all Seasons you love it, talk about it, and take from it. And if you had a favourite character, maybe drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you.

  Enjoy,

  Jenn—www.jennjmcleod.com

  Calingarry Crossing (township)

  1

  ‘I’m not going back there. Not for three months, three weeks, not even three days.’

  Two decades on and Poppy, once powerful playground prima donna, could still command a crowd. ‘As lovely as it is to catch up with you ladies after all this time, I can’t do this. I won’t. Sorry. Besides, it makes no sense.’

  Time pressured—as usual—Poppy stood apart from her three companions, alone and restless on the window side of the conference room. She eyed the wall clock hanging at one end of it, then her friends.

  Former friends.

  Strangers.

  ‘Didn’t you understand the conditions when you read them?’ Sara said, struggling to project her voice. She was propped on the edge of the Chesterfield sofa in a very girly skirt and top—all pastel and flowing—fidgety fingers pressed into her lap, twisting themselves in knots. ‘The will states we’re all supposed to go back.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s madness.’ Poppy didn’t bother hiding the exasperation in her voice. ‘Even if I wanted to go back there, the Walkley Awards are on earlier than normal this year. I have to be here for that.’

  Sara blinked big brown eyes. ‘Wow, a Walkley! Do you think you have a shot?’

  Poppy shrugged. ‘As much as anyone else. Whatever happens though, I can’t up and walk away from my life like the rest of you seem to have no problem doing.’

  Who was she kidding? She had no life.

  Living and breathing her job was all Poppy did, twenty-four seven.

  ‘You know the news business. No predicting when a story will break. And if I do win, well, who knows. I’ll definitely need to be on the spot ready to do what I do.’

  ‘And we all know what it is you do, don’t we, girls?’ Amber piped up from her pretentious pose at the opposite end of the Chesterfield, her body draped in such a way that it took up two-thirds of the magnificent old sofa. ‘Making up the news rather than reporting it.’

  Poppy ignored the stab. She’d learned to disregard Amber Bailey’s caustic remarks at school. She knew all too well the cattiness was a result of growing up amid the bitter feuding of an alcoholic mother and a pushy father.

  A tinge of regret niggled Poppy. At least pushy meant Amber’s father had cared enough to want the best for his child. Poppy’s father, Johnno Hamilton, was too damaged to care about anyone, especially his daughter.

  Poppy made a point of addressing Sara. ‘All I’m saying is, win or lose, I’m bound to be busy around that time.’

  Amber ran a manicured hand over slender, solarium-enhanced legs and in a tone as high and mighty as the heels on her designer shoes said, ‘What our roving reporter means, ladies, is she’ll be busy recovering from wearing stilettos and a dress. Or perhaps, Poppy darling, walking into the Walkley Awards in those very stylish Blundstone boots and combat pants is your preferred style. You always loved making statements at school.’

  ‘And you, Amber, always wanted to be the centre of attention. I see that hasn’t changed either.’ Poppy sneezed, three restrained achoos, either an allergic reaction to the miasma of perfumes and potions floating over Amber, or the artificial ficus plants plonked in each corner of the room.

  One by one, Poppy searched the multiple
pockets of her khaki cargo pants until she located a tissue to wipe her nose. ‘Besides, Johnno’s actually coming out of that jungle home of his in Nimbin to attend the function. I suggested he stay with me a few days. He didn’t say no.’

  ‘Your father is coming to Sydney to watch you win an award for a report you did on the war? Now that’s madness.’ Amber flicked a small makeup mirror open and bared bleached-white teeth in a kind of snarl, vanishing a red lipstick smear with the tip of a bejewelled finger before closing the compact with a snap. ‘Your dad hated war stories. He hated war. As I remember it, he hated people too, didn’t he?’

  Poppy stared at the sharpness of the cold, overcrowded Sydney city skyline, her thoughts waging their own war.

  Attack or retreat?

  She decided to ignore Amber’s sneer. Ordinarily, mostly where people were concerned, retreating came naturally to Poppy. Only for some reason she had the sudden need to defend her father. But how could she explain Johnno to anyone when she didn’t understand him herself?

  Wedging her fists into her trouser pockets, as if digging deep for the right words, Poppy decided to try. ‘Johnno doesn’t hate people, Amber,’ she said in a voice as cold and flat as the pane of glass between her and the view outside the thirteenth-floor office window. ‘He hates the world. Besides, he was fine with my job when he thought I was protesting against the war. Not so pleased when he realised I was reporting on it—or as he would say, “glorifying” it. When he bothers to acknowledge one of my letters to let me know he’s still alive, they always start the same way: Dear Poppy-ganda.’

  ‘Well,’ Amber huffed, ‘I say let’s get this come-back-to-the-country pilgrimage over and done with sooner rather than later, so we can get the place on the market. Spring or summer is the best selling time, although forget December and January. Real estate dies. We certainly don’t want to be trying to sell a cold old house surrounded by water in the middle of winter.’

  Amber still sounded like she was trying to control the four of them. Little had changed since school, when she’d acted as if everything and everyone revolved around her, the brightest star in her own universe, her fiery-red curls symbolic—everyone else mere moons to her bright sun. No curls anymore, though. Her slick, salon-straightened coiffure looked every bit as stiff and unnatural as the rest of her.

  ‘In his letter,’ Amber continued, ‘Mr Madgick suggests we pick a season each to spread out our stays. I think that’s a perfect idea.’

  ‘Are you seriously considering this, Amber? And enough with the bloody Mr Madgick thing. You make him sound all spoooo-keeee!’ Poppy waved her fingers and gave a little wolf howl, the moment of melancholy about Johnno pushed to the back of her mind. ‘Ah-woooo!’

  ‘I’m not considering it. I’m doing it. I suppose you think I can’t.’

  ‘Leave that perfect Potts Point palace of yours and get your hands dirty in the oldest tumble-down house in Calingarry Crossing? Frankly? No. And I figured you’d be the last one wanting to show your face back there, considering the mess you and your father left behind.’

  ‘I’m definitely going back,’ Sara chipped in, distracting the pair as though she knew from experience the situation between Poppy and Amber needed defusing quickly. ‘I can go first if you like.’

  ‘Oh, we know why you’re so peachy keen to go back to the old stamping ground, don’t we, Poppy?’ Amber’s face barely registered the little society snigger she let out. Botoxed to the max, her sole expression now seemed stuck somewhere between a scowl and a smile.

  The way she preened her hair, and with her big, almond-shaped eyes, Amber Bailey-Blair not only looked like a cat, she was a cat, purring one minute, the next sharpening her claws, and always landing on her feet. From the look of her—that hair, her flawless skin, designer wardrobe and jewellery aplenty—she’d done more than land on her feet. She’d landed in the lap of luxury.

  ‘So, Sara, we are right—aren’t we?’ Amber challenged. A cat taunting a mouse, although Sara seemed far from mousey these days with the defiant lift of her chin and a look that said that sticks and stones would no longer break her bones.

  ‘I’m sure you both think you know why I’m so keen, but I can assure you, you don’t.’

  At thirty-six, Sara Fraser’s voice did still have that thin ‘don’t make me cry’ whine, but if anyone was allowed that Sara was, simply for surviving every challenge life had thrown her way before her sixteenth birthday.

  ‘It’s not a case of seeing how a certain person’s getting on, is it, Sara?’ Poppy stifled a grin, sharing a rare camaraderie with Amber.

  ‘Okay, okay, enough!’ Caitlin Wynter—dux, school prefect and perennial peacemaker—propelled her office chair closer to the Waterford jug on the corner of the conference table, filling her glass. ‘I can’t believe you three are bickering like teenagers again. We’re supposed to be twenty years older and wiser. Just as well we’re keeping to separate seasons in the old place, if you ask me. I doubt we’d make it out alive if we all stayed together.’

  Poppy turned towards the woman who’d been her best friend and ally throughout high school. ‘So the good doctor is going to up and leave her life to do this crazy thing too?’

  Researching the trio of old friends Poppy had learned Caitlin’s father was behind the successful Dr Wynter Wellness Centre franchise, and with the old doc’s passing a few years ago, Cait and her brother now presided over the business as company directors.

  ‘You lot couldn’t shake me off at school. What makes you think you can shake me off now?’ Caitlin settled back with a grin, looking at ease in the executive leather armchair, tucking one toned but lily-white leg under her curvaceous bottom. Her eyes, the colour of burnt toffee, peeked out from beneath her heavy brown fringe. ‘Anyway, a little injection of something different never hurts.’

  ‘Trust a doctor to say that.’ Poppy relaxed into a smile as she remembered the studious young girl. Only one thing could ever peel Cait Wynter away from her schoolbooks. ‘I wonder how big Gypsy’s menagerie is these days.’

  How Cait had loved helping Gypsy with her rescued animals—the lost, the hurt, the hungry—an analogy not lost on Poppy, seeing all four girls together again.

  ‘And Amber, I’m sorry to disagree,’ Caitlin continued. ‘But I happen to think the property is at its best in winter, especially early mornings when that layer of mist settles over the river and makes the house look like it floats on a cloud. To think old Gypsy left such a treasure to the four of us.’

  ‘But why us? Especially me. There must be someone else who …’ Amber’s voice trailed away.

  Of course, there had been someone else, and it seemed now that all four women were remembering the same moment twenty years ago.

  *

  It was late November 1989—school muck-up day—and the New South Wales country town of Calingarry Crossing was sweltering after a drenching of rain so hard there was talk among the locals of ruined wheat crops.

  Today was part of a great Australian tradition, a rite of passage for finishing students like Caitlin and Poppy. Sara and Amber, both sixteen, were two years younger and in Year 10. It was the day Year 12 students burned uniforms and books, many saying goodbye to Calingarry Crossing in search of a future away from the hardship and heartache of the land. Some students would stay on to work the family property or get jobs nearby. Others would choose university. The two older girls were both heading to Sydney Uni, Caitlin kicking and screaming, preferring country life to carrying on the family tradition, while Poppy couldn’t get out of town fast enough. Nothing was going to stop them all from making the most the day, though, except, maybe …

  ‘Willow!’ all four girls said in unison, seeing their young friend walking along the path outside the school grounds, the clickity-clack of a stick dragging back and forth across the galvanised wire fencing.

  ‘What are you doing, Willow?’ Poppy asked. ‘Does Gypsy know you’re here?’

  ‘I wanna hang with you.’


  ‘Absolutely not,’ Amber decreed.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’re not old enough.’

  ‘Not old enough for what?’

  ‘For muck-up day this afternoon, silly. Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘Amber!’ Caitlin censured, walking to the fence so she didn’t have to yell over the cacophonous chatter coming from the bottlebrush tree, home to a noisy family of lorikeets. ‘Willow, it’s really only a party for Year 12 students.’

  ‘But Amber and Sara are going. I can tell. They’re all dressed up.’

  Overdressed in Poppy’s opinion, but to a tomboy, anything more than jeans and a T-shirt was overdressed.

  ‘So what if we are going?’ Amber patted her lips with the tip of her ring finger as if a smearing of lip gloss made you grown up. ‘You’re too young.’

  ‘I’m almost as old as Sara and Amber,’ Willow challenged.

  ‘Muck-up day is for students who actually go to school. You don’t.’

  ‘That’s not my fault. I thought I was part of your group.’

  ‘Can’t Willow come?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Sara,’ Amber snapped. ‘She can’t keep up. We have a job to do, remember?’

  ‘How come Caitlin and I have to put the banner up anyway?’ Poppy complained.

  ‘Well, for one …’ Amber stuck her thumb in the air and began counting off with each finger. ‘Hanging a banner was your idea, Poppy. And two, obviously Sara and I are too dressed up to be climbing a dirty old bridge. Oh and three, it’s your Year 12 muck-up day. Us Year 10 kids are only organising the party afterwards. We’re too young to muck up.’

  ‘Too young to muck up, but not muck around. Isn’t that right, Amber Bailey?’ Poppy quipped.

  ‘Oh, you always think you’re smarter than everyone. At least I was smart enough not to burn my family’s house down.’

  Anger licked Poppy’s cheeks until they burned. ‘You know that’s not what happened.’

  ‘Quit it, Amber. Ignore her, Poppy.’ Caitlin turned her back and directed the next question to Sara. ‘Is Will going to collect the banner in his dad’s truck when it’s all signed?’