Chapter 33
Aunt Jane, Aunt Lizzie, Juliet, and the other cousins did all they could to help Rosie and Lily carve out a new place for themselves in Sydney.
Jane’s house was large and messy, so the girls didn’t feel in the way and the cousins Kat and Martin were happy to have them around.
Yet they were still intruders in a life that didn’t belong to them.
Waking up every morning in Aunt Jane’s guest room with very little to fill the day ahead left Lily feeling anxious and depressed.
She worried about things. She couldn’t even think of her mother up on some tropical island resort with Alex King without imagining a fresh humiliation, danger, or disaster.
The thought of Alex King as her stepparent filled her with dread.
The very real possibility of a new half brother or sister was even worse.
And Rosie seemed to have left her personality behind in Queensland.
She was pale, quiet, and sad. When Lily finally got her to talk, she burst into tears and wanted to know why everyone kept abandoning her. It was grim.
Thinking about the past offered no relief.
Lily saw nothing but the mistakes she had made, all of which seemed to have led to her current state of limbo.
She should have done something, anything, to keep Alex King away from her family.
The fact that she hadn’t, or couldn’t, was just more evidence of her helplessness.
Here she was with no prospects, a recent history of misfired nonstarter relationships, her best friend Nicola not talking to her, and her mother uncontactable.
Thinking about the future was even worse.
She flicked through university websites and career advice pages with a growing sense of certainty that there was nowhere she would fit.
She didn’t want to do just anything. She wanted meaning and purpose. Right now, nothing seemed achievable.
She felt the need to stay positive and impress upon her sister, cousins, and aunts that she was everything her mother Lydia was not.
Reliable, dependable, driven, with the intelligence and staying power to see anything through.
That had been the impression she had always wanted to make, and everyone around her still seemed to be falling for it.
While Rosie was showered with concern, the only attention Lily seemed to attract was occasional mild praise for handling everything so well.
She got up each day, helped around the house, attended to any little tasks that Aunt Jane had for her, and spent time with her sister and cousins.
But as the situation dragged on, playing the role of the capable one seemed like a big lie.
And when Aunt Lizzie visited to drop off some books she thought Lily might like, Lily thanked her and promptly burst into tears.
“Hey! What’s wrong, darling?”
“I don’t know. I just—I don’t—I don’t know what to do,” Lily sobbed.
“They’re for reading.”
Lily laughed through her tears.
“And if this is about your mother—there’s nothing you can do. She’s a grown-up, you’re not responsible for her. She’ll change if she wants to and when she’s ready.”
“I know. It’s not that. It’s me. It seems so selfish and stupid, with everything that’s going on, but I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”
“I see.”
“I know I’ll be fine, thanks to you and Aunt Jane, and really I could do anything and it wouldn’t even matter, but I want to make what I do count. You know?”
Lizzie enveloped her in a warm, scented hug that solved nothing and everything all at once.
“I know.”
“It’s got to be worth it. Otherwise—oh wow, I know, I just sound arrogant.”
“You’ve got so much to offer, Lily. It’s natural for you to search for meaning, to want to dedicate yourself to something worthy of your attention.”
“But I don’t know what that is.”
Lizzie paused.
“When I was younger, I had very little control over what happened to me and in some ways I think that made it easier to carve a meaningful path. You’ve got so much choice, you can afford to take your time. And in the meantime, just do whatever is in front of you.”
“Read these books?” Lily smiled a watery smile.
“Maybe start with something that needs to be done.”
Lily’s mind cast about. What needed to be done?
The next day, she took the bus up to Pippi Beach.
She wasn’t living there anymore, but she still considered it her home.
And as long as Lydia was away ignoring her responsibilities, including all the maintenance and administration associated with the beachfront house, Lily was best placed to fulfill them.
Aunt Jane, whose house it really was, agreed that it was a splendid idea and would save her having to go up there herself to pick up the mail or check on things.
Lily sat at the back of the bus, opened a window to enjoy the breeze on her face, and felt better than she had in weeks.
At the Point post office, the sight of their mailbox jam-packed with letters and bills filled her with a sense of purpose.
Here was work to be done. She continued on to the wharf to catch the ferry over to Pippi, and the smell of the salt air made her feel happy.
Salt water has cleansing, healing properties.
That was one of the first things Lily learned when she moved to Pippi.
When she was younger, Lily had often cut herself on the oyster shells that lined the underside of the jetty’s steps.
She used to run back to the house with bloody knees or feet and bite back tears as Lydia doused her cuts in antiseptic and dug out the broken shards of shell with tweezers.
Then she became friends with Nicola, who taught her that the best thing to do was just keep swimming.
The seawater would wash away any leftover bits of shell, sanitize the wound, and even numb the pain.
Now, as she plunged into the cold water, Lily wondered for the first time if salt water had emotional healing powers too.
The water seemed to do more than just chill her skin and clear her lungs.
It drowned her negative thoughts: her lingering anger at her mother, at Alex King, her self-reproach and shame.
She ran back to the house to snuggle into a towel and felt all her wounds start to heal.
Not even a visit from Birdie-Round-the-Back, who happened to be passing, could dampen the quiet spark.
Indeed, she rather welcomed the opportunity of getting all the gossip over all at once.
The county council was replacing the signage, clearing old vegetation or planting new vegetation, upgrading the path or eliminating it altogether.
Whatever they were doing, it was certain to be a disaster because nobody had asked her, Birdie.
Real estate agents were all sharks who were cheating everyone at Pippi, except the clever ones like herself who refused to deal with them and would rather receive an envelope of cash, thank you very much, even if it was half the commercial holiday rental rates, because Birdie, who owned two cottages around the back, wasn’t going to have her business made public on the internet.
Unless, of course, she was advertising. Lily took most of what Birdie said with a smile and noncommittal agreement, but when Birdie began talking about a particular visit from some Americans, Lily’s interest was piqued.
“Spent thousands already, they have, looking for a place to make their movie. Been up and down the coast, but it’s Pippi they want. Going to buy the whole thing, buy everyone out for months, then they’re going to turn it into some sort of studio just to make a single stupid movie.”
“Really? A movie at Pippi?” Lily could barely believe it. After all she had heard and seen about moviemaking, surely Pippi Beach would be hugely inconvenient as a location. “But there are no roads in.”
“That’s exactly why they want it,” declared Birdie triumphantly. “Privacy. And of course, for its pristine natural beauty. But I’ll tell you something for free: they won’t get their hands on my property without a fight.”
Lily found county council letters buried deep within the pile of mail, notices up in the jetty shed, and other locals who confirmed what Birdie said.
There was indeed a very elaborate and advanced plan for Pippi to be used as a filming location early the following year.
Exclusive access to all public property, including the beach, for three whole months!
The weekend residents were very concerned about what it would mean for the environment and the wildlife, not to mention their own access.
The permanent residents were justifiably alarmed.
As much as the Pippi community had enjoyed flirting with Hollywood last summer, no one wanted anything more.
They had little idea what could be done beyond complaining vigorously to each other that they weren’t going to stand for it.
The council hadn’t officially approved it yet, but there was a general feeling that the decision was all but made and the council never listened to what residents had to say anyway.
“It’ll be a bloody circus,” Bob-with-One-Dog confirmed to Lily when she found him at the jetty unloading his boat that afternoon. “All the works and lights and what-not. This is what happens when you let celebrities in.”
“Really? You think Casey Brandon—or Dorian Khan—is behind this?”
Bob-with-One-Dog grunted and shrugged. “You’d know better than me.”
Lily felt she did know. They couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. Surely they would have said something?
“Is the Pippi Committee doing anything about it?”
“Everyone wants something done, but no one’s got the time, as per usual. I got on the horn to the council, was on hold for an hour.”
“Maybe there’s something I could do?” Lily wondered.
“Knock yourself out. Want a lift? Come on, Grom.”
Lily followed Grommet-the-One-Dog into Bob’s boat and was back on the other side in time to get an earlier bus.
The entire way back to the city she thought of nothing but the filming.
She knew what it meant for the whole of Pippi to become a film set.
It would be overrun more than it had ever been, even on the busiest of summer days.
Filming equipment, lights, and tents for months at a tiny settlement with no escape.
The residents would leave and the natural landscape would be transformed, possibly forever. No one at Pippi wanted that.
As soon as she got home, she researched the film and the film production company behind it to see if it had anything to do with the people she knew.
No. Extensive internet trawling revealed no connection to Casey, Dorian, or Stacy Black, who were making something different.
Good. That would make her task much easier.
She would take up the fight to preserve Pippi Beach without the added complication of having to deal with people she wanted to avoid.
Over the next few weeks, Lily threw herself into the task of defending Pippi.
She researched. She spoke to everyone she could, transcribed what they said, selected important quotes, and collated results.
She found articles on the local ecosystems, recent changes to the shoreline, and what was needed to maintain the populations of endangered species that lived on Pippi.
She spoke to council representatives and environmental campaigners and finally, after weeks of work, delivered a comprehensive document that had the best possible chance of convincing the council to prevent filming at Pippi Beach and maybe even take up some of her environmental recommendations instead.
The work had given her a sense of purpose, restored her interest in the world around her, and reminded her that her efforts were worth something.
Whether her submission influenced the council decision or not, she had awakened her motivation to strive for positive change.
Now she knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.