‘What do you want to drink, Councillor Demetriou?’ Jon asked.
A thrill zipped up Helen’s spine as it did every time someone used her title. The first shire council elections since the sacking of the previous council had been held in October. Helen’s family—another thrill tingled—had urged her to stand. Bob had managed her campaign, Jade ran her social media and Lachie had designed her posters. She was still pinching herself at the community support. Tara and Jon had put posters up all over the store, the members of the community garden had decorated the fences with her image, and Roxy and Cinta had handed out how-to-vote cards. Helen had expected a hard battle, but it appeared Boolanga was grateful for her role in uncovering the corruption and she’d won easily.
There were four other new councillors, Messina was mayor and Geoff Rayson was her deputy, lending his experience while she found her feet in the job. Helen and Geoff had bonded over being used by Vivian and she’d been relieved to discover he was a caring, albeit naive man who genuinely wanted the best for Boolanga. Cynthia had decided not to stand again and Vivian and her other councillor mates, along with Andrew Tucker, were all spending varying amounts of time in different Victorian prisons.
‘Champagne, please, Jon,’ Helen said and linked her arm through Bob’s.
Tara clapped. ‘You’re getting married?’
‘Let it go, Tara.’ It never ceased to amaze Helen why the under-forties crew thought she and Bob should marry. Neither of them needed that piece of paper to convince the other of their love and commitment. And with Bob more financially secure than her, marriage would only complicate things. But she had a sneaking suspicion that after two successful years growing together, Jade and Lachlan might return from Melbourne engaged. If it happened, she’d be first in line to congratulate them.
‘We’re celebrating the unanimous vote for Riverfarm to be the site of a sustainable co-housing project,’ Helen continued. ‘The community garden will be at its heart. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of and worked towards for the last five years.’
‘Congratulations!’ Tara hugged her. ‘You so deserve this.’
‘We still need Hoopers’ sponsorship of the garden.’
‘Goes without saying.’ Jon passed out champagne.
Fiza arrived in a blaze of colour—blue and yellow and green and red—carrying a cake. Clementine and Flynn immediately took off with the twins and the Hegarty kids to watch Lachlan’s magic show. Amal, biceps bulging, lowered an esky to the ground with a grunt.
‘She’s cooked enough to feed everyone, hasn’t she?’ Tara said sympathetically.
‘There’s more in the car.’
Jon slung his arm over the young man’s shoulders. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
Amal had just completed his first year of medicine at Monash University and was back working in the store for the summer. After his uneasy first year in Boolanga, he’d attacked his final year of high school with determined ferocity. For a break from study, he’d played football for the Boolanga Brolgas under-eighteens. Although his grasp of the rules was a bit hit and miss, his skill with the ball was enviable. There was nothing like helping a team win a grand final to fast-track community acceptance. And back in January, when Amal was the first Boolanga high school student in over a decade to be accepted into medicine and his photo and the headline From Refugee Camp to Doctor appeared in the Melbourne papers, the town had claimed him as their very own success story. The Rotary Club had provided a bursary. It was a bittersweet moment.
There were still troubled youths in Boolanga struggling with social dislocation and the inability to picture a future for themselves. But at least there were now some programs in the school and projects in the community helping to re-engage these young men and women. Tara was proud that two boys had secured apprenticeships with local tradesmen after working on the cottage restoration. Fiza and Jon had also worked together—Fiza acting as interpreter and Jon as a business advisor—to assist a woman from South Sudan with a successful application for a business grant. ‘It is exciting,’ Fiza had told Tara. ‘I no longer have to drive to Shepparton to have my hair braided.’
As proud as Fiza was of Amal, Tara knew she missed him and worried about him being so far away. Just like Tara worried about Jon. When those concerns overwhelmed her, she ran and gardened. She and Fiza now shared an enormous vegetable garden on Tingledale’s boundary that both families called ‘Aussie Sudan’. Fiza had mastered maize and okra and Jon teased her that all she needed now was a goat.
The garden was the place Tara went to think. There was something about feeling warm dirt on her skin, freeing tender shoots from weeds and bugs, and harvesting hard-earned bounty that stilled the mind and allowed for reflection. It gave her time to grieve for losses. But most importantly, it instilled strength. Life was an unpredictable lottery. But surrounded by a community and a garden, the future was easier to face.
And Tara dared to hope.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel was written during the uncertain times of the COVID-19 pandemic and its huge impact on health and the world’s economies. As I write these words, we are still uncertain if we will have a vaccine or how our new world will look. So rather than guess, I have avoided it completely. A Home Like Ours is my fifth novel in five years and each time I am struck by how many people are involved in helping me bring a book into your hands.
As always, research plays a big role in writing a novel. Many thanks to the Geelong
