Chanel Sweethearts (26 page)

That night Jess lay in bed thinking back on the joyful, busy week she'd spent at the General Store, enjoying the bittersweet happiness at being back where she belonged, tempered with the constant weight of sadness that shadowed her.

Her grief had been soothed and she'd been distracted by the pleasure of returning to her store and throwing herself into styling and merchandising the displays. She'd spent hours trawling the local second-hand shops, picking up bits and pieces to enhance her beautiful space.

She had decided on a display of old apothecary bottles and had just today sourced a beautiful set in shades of purple and blue. They would be perfect along the top shelf above the display of tins.

Being back in the General Store had meant she'd been able to meet Tori for lunch, and was relieved to hear her friend was sticking with her therapy and continuing to deal with her shopping addiction. But there seemed to be no hope for reconciling her marriage.

‘That ship has sailed,' Tori had told her sadly, her eyes bright with tears. ‘I thought that now I am addressing the issue Joseph might be interested in trying again, but he doesn't want to even discuss it.'

Jess had squeezed her hand in sympathy. ‘All you can do is face one day at a time, Tori,' she'd said, knowing how trite her advice sounded but unable to think of anything else to suggest. Sometimes life just didn't turn out the way you wanted.

Now she sighed and turned over, her mind racing with everything that had happened in the past year. It'd been a difficult, challenging year, but she'd got through it.

She was so proud of how the General Store was looking, and she knew her dad would have been proud too. She would invite Nick to come in for lunch tomorrow, he'd love it.

Suddenly the Country Fire Authority siren wailed into life. The eerie call sent a chill through her bones – it was always an ominous noise in the country, and unusual this early in the spring. She rolled over again and pulled her doona up over her shoulders. She hoped it wasn't anyone she knew.

Then her phone rang. Oh God, no.

It was Merle from the supermarket. ‘Jess, it's the shop, love,' she said in a shaky voice. ‘You'd better get down here, quickly.'

Jessica stood and watched in disbelief as flames licked from the front windows, up to the facade and pulled at the letters spelling out the store's name. The stench threatened to overpower her. She was aware of arms around her pulling her back. Explosions came from the rear of the building. The noise of crashing tin; the rabble of onlookers. She was confused, she didn't understand: how could this be happening when she'd just started to get her life back on track? It didn't make any sense.

The firefighters had assured her no one was inside, so where was Nick? She shook her way out of Rainbow's embrace and shouted to Merle, ‘Where's Nick? Why isn't he here?'

‘Didn't you know, love?' Merle seemed confused by Jess's question. ‘He's moved to Western Australia. He left earlier tonight.'

Jessica's knees gave out. She wobbled to the ground. Merle supported her head. ‘But why?' Jess asked, the fire momentarily pushed to one side.

‘Oh, Jess, you don't need this right now. Let's just get this sorted out,' Merle said.

‘Why, Merle? What did he say?' Jess's face was terror-stricken.

The old woman stroked the hair from Jess's forehead and said quietly, ‘He said that there was nothing left here for him anymore.'

Late the next day, Jessica sifted through the rubble at the site. The Fire Chief had declared the blaze an accident. One of the gas burners might have been left on, a tea towel must have caught and the tinder-dry remainder of the building had just gone up. It was completely and utterly gone. Not a thing remained.

Jess felt as if she was going mad, wading through charcoal, metal and rubbish. What could she possibly find in this mess, except for miserable reminders? A little gingham foot poked out from a burnt metal box: one of her Christmas decorations. They were all charred and ruined, but still merrily smiling with soot-blackened faces.

A wave of desolation swept over her. How could she get through this with no Dad and no Nick? She had no idea what to do, or how to even fit this disaster into her mind. She stood on the street at the front of the building, still clasping one of the little gingham people by the hand. Looking at where the store had once stood, she tried to make her addled brain understand what had happened. There was nowhere to go from here. There was nothing to be done. It was over, all over.

A car toot behind her caused her to turn. She vaguely recognised the little BMW, but her brain was in too much shock to place it.

The back door flung open. ‘Jessie! Jessie!' It was Liam, swiftly followed by Callum. As they darted across the road, Jessica looked quickly left and right, relieved to see there were no cars. ‘Boys! Callum, Liam, darling boys, come here this instant.'

They were already in her arms, squealing with happiness. ‘What a mess, Jessie,' Callum said, pointing at the fire site.

‘Yes, it is rather.' She turned to follow his gaze and had to admit that it was just a mess. Not a disaster. And messes could be cleaned up.

‘Wasn't that your shop?' Liam said. ‘Was there a fire?'

‘There was a fire last night.'

‘Oh, no,' Liam said. ‘That's terrible. I loved your shop. What are you going to do?'

‘That's an excellent question, Liam, and I'm very glad you're here so I can ask you both your advice. What do
you
think I should do?' She glanced over their heads and waved at Karen, who was waiting at the car.

Looking back down at the boys, who were now standing side-by-side surveying the damage in exactly the same way she'd been doing when they arrived, she marvelled at their growth in the last couple of years. She also marvelled at how her love for them had only strengthened in that time.

‘So? Do you have an answer for me?'

‘Build it again?' Liam said and looked up at Jessica, seeking her approval.

‘Yeah, we can fix it!' Callum said quoting his favourite TV program,
Bob the Builder.

‘What a brilliant idea! Should we do that? Should we build it again?' She felt a seed of optimism deep within start to bloom.

‘Yeah!' both boys yelled, jumping up and down at the prospect.

Karen came over as the boys skirted the cordoned-off site, poking at its perimeter, fascinated by the destruction.

‘Was this your shop?' Karen asked.

‘Yep, 'fraid so,' Jessica replied.

‘What are you going to do?'

Funny how everybody kept asking that question when the answer was so clear.

‘Rebuild it. I've just had some excellent advice.'

‘Wow, you're brave,' Karen said. ‘I could never do anything like that.'

‘Why are you guys in town?' Jessica asked, turning to look at Karen. ‘It was perfect timing, by the way – I really needed the boys at that exact moment. Thank you.'

‘Well, it's about the boys really. Graham and I are getting divorced.'

‘What? Oh, Karen I'm so sorry.'

Karen's mouth twisted with sadness. ‘He's leaving me for someone else.'

‘You can't be serious?' Jessica was aghast. She knew he was bad news, but this was too much, even for him.

‘Never mind, that's life.' Karen wiped her eyes, sighed and continued, straightening her posture. ‘But the good news is, as Graham's wife and stepmother to the boys, I'm getting joint custody. It was a battle, let me tell you, but I told the judge about you and the death of their biological mother so the court felt the boys needed a stable maternal figure, and that's me!' She said it with such pride and love that Jessica was suddenly choked up by how much she obviously adored her stepchildren. ‘And I was thinking that maybe we could share my half of the custody.'

Jessica was stunned with happiness. ‘I would love that, Karen,' she beamed.

Karen nodded happily and rushed on with her story. ‘The boys have missed you terribly, Jessica. Callum still cries every other night. Graham hasn't been at all honest when he's told you that they've moved on.' She wrapped her cardigan around herself.

‘Graham not honest? What a surprise.' Jess rolled her eyes.

During their conversation both women kept a close eye on the boys. Liam started to tug at a lethal-looking piece of timber.

‘Liam, put that down,' they called in unison and laughed at their joint-mothering.

The four went down to the beach for a quick walk to discuss future plans and let the boys stretch their eager young legs. The seagulls were at their mercy and flew away squawking at each ambush. When the group climbed the beach steps and returned to the car, they all stood once more and faced the wreckage of the old shop. Callum looked up at Jessica.

‘So, can we fix it?' he asked.

‘Yes, we can!' Jessica replied.

Front Cover,
BRW
December 2010:
Photograph of Rainbow and Songbird

Cover headline:
Eco-Warriors Billion Dollar Deal with Peninsula Energy

Story, page twenty-two:

In an unprecedented Australian energy deal, Rainbow McIntosh and Songbird Patterson, of Stumpy Gully, Victoria, have just signed a $1.1 billion dollar deal with power company Peninsula Energy, while saving the planet at the same time.

Report: Simon Jarvis

McIntosh and Patterson, Greenpeace members and self-proclaimed hippies, are unlikely tycoons, yet have taken on the energy market with a unique invention based on the rich agricultural fields of the ancient Amazon.

Partnering with solicitor and entrepreneur Angus Wainwright, son of the recently deceased business tycoon Richard Wainwright, the women formed BlackGold, a company whose name describes its product to a tee.

‘Black gold is what we call the bio-char that is created during the pyrolysis process,' Songbird Patterson, Electrical Engineer and one of the inventors, explains. ‘The earth is so dark, rich and fertile that plants grow three times more quickly, fruit is larger and more plentiful.'

The two women began the business a mere two years ago. It started as an idea based on their research into the Amazon and the unique fertility of certain areas within the region. Horticulturist Rainbow McIntosh explains, ‘These agricultural fields were initially developed by the Incas five hundred to two thousand years ago and to this day they are still fertile and rich. They are essentially self-producing.'

The bio-mass begins the process. A conglomeration of compost, organic cuttings, animal waste and carcasses are collected and then burnt underground. The resulting slow burn, deprived of oxygen, is a process known as pyrolysis and the result is bio-char, a charcoal that literally sucks carbon out of the atmosphere and into the earth. The by-product of this process is a vapour or gas that when contained can power a fuel cell, a generator or even be converted to petrol.

‘It was a very exciting day for us when our own home-grown terra preta plot actually produced enough energy to power a fuel cell and then illuminated a sixty watt light globe for thirty minutes,' McIntosh says. ‘When we approached our dear friend Richard Wainwright, he immediately offered his two-hundred hectare property and a large amount of working capital for us to expand our operation.'

Angus Wainwright, Wainwright Snr's son, took over the operation shortly after BlackGold moved to the large Peninsula property, where the team wasted no time in starting the energy creation process.

‘It's fairly straightforward really,' Wainwright says, ‘in fact I don't know why everybody doesn't do it. Even if the agriculture industry doesn't harvest the energy, it makes so much more sense for it to slash-and-char instead of the current method of slash-and-burn, which sends damaging carbon into the environment. And the output using the resulting earth is phenomenal. My wife, Caroline, is running the agriculture by-product side of the operation and has won every category at every agricultural show she's entered in the last few weeks.'

One of the most phenomenal attributes of the BlackGold operation is that it's only in its infancy and yet Peninsula Energy saw the potential and rushed in with the offer before the company even began producing its own energy.

‘When Angus Wainwright approached us, we were ripe for a green, locally produced energy,' Frederick Nordstrom, CEO, Peninsula Energy explains. ‘In fact, we were desperate. A recent survey of our customers showed us that 87% preferred a green method of receiving their power.' Nordstrom continues to explain why the marriage between the companies was mutually beneficial. ‘It's a perfect product for us. The Peninsula has the land availability, small townships, and infrastructure already in place for energy distribution. It's an ideal test market for what will surely be the energy of the future.'

The small town of Stumpy Gully, population 2500, will be Black-Gold's first test site at the end of 2011. ‘We are going to light up that little town,' McIntosh says. ‘Everybody in this place helped us get started and offered their support. And on the night the lights go on, we're hosting an enormous vegetarian banquet with our organic by-product to thank them.'

Many universities and research centres around the world are investigating terra preta and bio-char and its essential role in arresting global warming.

Johannes Lehmann, Associate Professor at Cornell University, says bio-char is indeed the key to the future of our planet. ‘I think it (pyrolysis) is a very important opportunity that we should have a very close look at. I can't see that there's another opportunity such as pyrolysis with a bio-char return to soil that offers clear carbon-negative bioenergy where for every unit of energy that you produce you're actually net-sequestering carbon in the terrestrial ecosystem, anywhere on Earth.'

Songbird Patterson and Rainbow McIntosh, two women who wanted to save the planet. It looks like they might just do it.