His Brand of Beautiful

by Lily Malone

  Shasta’s huge hand swallowed Christina’s.

  Bree said: “Let me show you inside. You can freshen up if you’d like? Take a shower?

  I’ve done that trip a hundred times, your head must be spinning.”

  The screen door squeaked and the two women disappeared into the shadows of the hall.

  Shasta let out a low whistle. “You’re sure you want separate bedrooms?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Mate, you must be losing your touch.”

  “Not much touch to lose.” Tate took in his brother’s feet, the thongs. “You knocked off for the day?”

  “Sunday fella, give me a break. Twist your arm for a cold one?”

  Shasta’s thongs flapped up the steps. All three dogs leapt after him, paws scratching cement verandah slabs. He shut the screen door on their red muzzles.

  It was cooler inside, dark. The only light funnelled from the door leading out to the back verandah, open at the end of the central passage like the distant exit of an underground tunnel.

  Tate sniffed. Bree had changed her furniture polish—tea-tree oil instead of sandalwood. Everything else was the same. His mother’s antique German meatsafe—a wedding present from his grandparents forty-five years earlier—guarded the front door, a pink-glazed pottery bowl on its Baltic pine top. He threw the Pajero’s keys in the bowl, heard them skitter against its sides.

  Shasta’s footsteps vibrated ahead of him and he watched his brother turn through the doorway into the kitchen. That screen door still squeaked too.

  Tate lingered, enjoying the feel of floorboards that actually moved beneath his feet.

  Floorboards should vibrate, he thought, pressing down with the sole of his boot, feeling the flex in his knees.

  Generations of Newells stared from photos on white-plastered walls, some black and white, some colour, depending on the era.

  After Jolie’s accident he’d avoided the photos. Seeing her frozen in time on the wall hurt too much. The photos opened a raw hole in his chest every time he came home, but it hurt worse if he stayed away. At Binara it felt like Jolie forgave him.

  His eyes sought the photograph that mattered most.

  His mother had it blown up. Jolie as a ponytailed teenager; long-limbed, gangly. He and Shasta used to call her Octo-girl because of those long arms and legs, tease her until she’d chase them, ornery as an angry bee and almost as fast. If she caught you, her pinches stung.

  When she got boobs they made up the name Miss Pointer. Sometimes she’d get so mad at their teasing her cheeks would puff-up bright red and she’d chase them until she couldn’t scream, and then until she couldn’t speak, and if she still hadn’t cornered them to deal her own brand of justice, she’d run to their father, never Margaret. Gilbert Newell could stop their teasing just by setting his weathered hands to the buckle of a belt almost as gnarled, and saying: “Now you two boys, that’s enough.” He didn’t even need to raise his voice.

  Jolie had always been Gilbert’s little girl.

  The photo had been taken at sunset. Red dust swirled like steam. Jolie rode a coal-black quarter-horse in a gallop after a steer, giving the horse its head, the animal’s ears hard back against its skull. The determination on her face was etched there for anyone to see.

  He rested his fingertip against the photo frame so he wouldn’t smudge the glass.

  I’m so sorry, Jols.

  She’d have been thirty-five this year, his baby sister. Same as Christina. The niece he never met would have been six. There’d have been birthdays and milestones, playground visits, first teeth, first steps, first day at school.

  But Ian Callinan got in the way, and Tate hadn’t stopped him. You boys oughta look after your sister. For a moment it was as if he heard his dad’s voice echo in the hall.

  He shook his head, once. Margaret and Gilbert had the campervan down at Lake Eyre. Last time it flooded, Margaret had three kids under seven tripping over her feet.

  He heard the chink of glass from the kitchen. Somewhere, far away in the house, a door clicked shut.

  ****

  Tate and Shasta leant against the island bench in Binara’s kitchen, their thighs against timber marked by three decades of use: slipped knives, coffee-cup rings, red wine stains and the odd dent from a cast-iron pot. Copper pots hung from a frame attached by chains to a hook in the ceiling; frying pans, saucepans of every size, a long-handled copper colander.

  Lily Malone

  “Do you remember when Dad put this up?” Tate asked Shasta, reaching up to touch the cold metal.

  His brother snorted. “Jesus, do I? Thought my arms were going to drop off holding the damn thing up.”

  “Mum couldn’t use the kitchen all day.”

  They both chuckled.

  “So have you seen Ben?” Tate sucked white froth from the top of his second Pale Ale.

  “Not since he graduated year ten. The Shrew says he doesn’t want to see me so I have to take her word for it.” Shasta popped the seal of his beer against his forearm.

  “How old is he now? Fifteen? Alicia can’t control him forever. He’ll want to know his father, his grandparents. Our family.”

  “He turns sixteen in September and I’ve seen him one week, twice a year at best, for fifteen years. That’s it. I’ll never get that time back. Alicia fills his head with crap that his old man’s just a country hick with cow shit on his boots.

  “Doesn’t matter what time I call, she says he’s out. Sunday night. Saturday morning. I know she’s lying. I offered to have him here this July for the school holidays. Said I’d pay for the ticket, meet him in Adelaide. We could fly up. I thought I’d teach him to drive the Pajero, you know? He’s old enough and I thought he’d think it’d be cool. Guess what she said?”

  “What?”

  “Why would Ben want to spend his holidays in a hell-hole with no Broadband when he could be chasing girls at Manly Beach with his mates?” Shasta mimicked Alicia’s voice and it sounded like Darth Vader doing Shirley Temple. “Sometimes I wish I’d married Alicia, you know? Courts pay more attention to a father when he’s a husband. Least if I married her, I could have got the satisfaction of divorcing the snaky bitch.”

  “You’re talking about Alicia again.” Bree bustled into the kitchen and disappeared into the depths of the huge pantry. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell Christina you’d be gone overnight, Tate? She’s got nothing with her. No fresh clothes, no pajamas, no… Not even a toothbrush… just plain rude.” Her words faded in and out, she probably had her head in a storage box.

  Tate called towards the pantry: “It won’t hurt her to wear the same clothes two days running.”

  Bree emerged like a salesgirl in a beauty shop, slender arms overflowing with bottles, packets and potions. “It won’t hurt you to be more considerate. Women have needs.” She swept from the kitchen, reddish curls bouncing. “Moisturiser is but one.”

  “You woulda thought it was Christmas when I told Bree you were bringing a girl up here,” Shasta drawled. “Never brought us a lady client to visit before.”

  “She’s not my client. Not yet. My jury’s still out. She runs her family’s winery and she wants me to consult on a new brand.”

  “Last I looked that was your bread and butter, what’s the problem?”

  “She thinks she wants something outdoorsy and wild.”

  “You make it sound like she wants a wolf for a lap dog.”

  Tate shrugged. “You’ve seen her, what do you reckon? She’s about as outdoorsy as Ivana Trump in Steve Irwin’s khakis. Brands have to be believable.”

  “Hmm. And if any woman’s gonna stow her slippers under your bed for more than a couple of months, she has to be wild. I get it.”

  “You don’t get shit,” he said to Shasta with just a touch of heat. “Christina’s about as wild as my fucking backyard.”

  “Ah, but you could dig that whole garden out. Start again,” Shasta said, folding his arms, beer bottle glistening in the crook o
f his elbow. “Or sell the damn house. You even unpacked those boxes yet?”

  Tate shook his head. “It’s close to the office.”

  “It’s a fucking monstrosity.”

  “That monstrosity has won architecture awards.”

  Shasta grinned. “So has my dick.”

  Tate spluttered around his beer. “Jesus.”

  “Her shoes are sure wild,” Shasta said, staring all the way down his hairy shins to his thongs.

  “You should have seen the looks they gave her at Coober Pedy airport.”

  They both laughed. Sunlight angled low into the room, through eight-paned timber windows, turned spinning dust motes orange-gold.

  “So what’s the problem with working for her, other than she’s not wildcat enough for you? You don’t want to get mixed-up with a client again?”

  “That’s part of it,” Tate admitted. The weekend he’d taken Lila camping in the Flinders, she’d been attacked by sandflies and ended up at Hawker hospital on a diet of anti-histamine and hysterics. Since then, Outback to Lila was best served as a brand of pergola.

  She wasn’t alone. He’d only met two other women he liked enough in the last ten years to want to share with them the Australia he loved. Both had been wildly enthusiastic planning for the trip, both toasted marshmallows like champions that first night beneath the stars. By four o’clock the next day, they started begging him to take them home. Not with words, exactly. But he could see it in their eyes. They’d been fed up with blisters, flies, dust.

  They wanted a one-way ticket to their hairdryer and a café latte.

  Shasta’s question was a good one.

  There were easy answers he could deliver with a leer and a wink. About how a girl could never be too wild or too rich. About how it never paid to mix business with pleasure.

  Sometimes with Christina, the reasons to push her away shuffled in his head until it felt like a game of pick the box.

  “She reminds me of Jolie.” It slipped out before he could stop it.

  Shasta’s beer stopped part-way to his lips. “She’s nothing like Jolie.”

  “Not her face. It’s something in her voice. The way she speaks. How she goes after what she wants—she’s stubborn as all hell and so damn persistent. Every time she opens her mouth, I think about Jols, and that makes me think about what happened with Ian Callinan. And I feel like I want to kill the prick all over again.”

  “Ah.” Shasta crossed one size-eleven thong over the other. “Just when you were getting over it.”

  “Dickhead,” Tate said, punching his brother’s arm.

  “We all wanted to kill him, mate. You. Me. Dad. He’s gone. You gotta let it go.”

  “Yeah.” Tate picked at the Coopers’ logo with his thumb.

  “So you asked about the horses when you rang from Coober Pedy?” Shasta said.

  “Sunshine could use the work. She’s in foal and she’s getting fat. A bit of exercise will do her good and if you really want to go the whole hog, take Charlie and Rocket too. No one needs them for a few days.”

  “Who’s going riding?” Bree entered the kitchen.

  Lily Malone

  “Romeo here wants to take Juliet camping to the east boundary so she can bitch to him about the lack of five-star accommodations on this trip and he can prove to himself she isn’t the girl for him,” Shasta grinned and added: “He’s taking her on the scenic route.”

  “Scenic route?” Bree swivelled. Her T-shirt was red with a white stripe and it was like watching a candy stick twirl. “That’s a sixty kilometre round trip, Tate. Two? T’ree nights?

  Can Christina even ride?”

  “I haven’t asked, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll be back by lunchtime tomorrow. She’s used to a comfy office chair and a German car that couldn’t find a bump on a camel. Four hours in the saddle and she’ll be begging me to turn around. She hears something in the grass? She’ll scream snake.”

  “A hundred bucks she lasts one night,” Bree challenged. “I t’ink she’ll surprise you.”

  “You’re on.” They shook hands.

  “Can you stake two hundred, Breezy? I want some of that action,” Shasta said.

  “Your money’s as good as his.” Bree shook.

  “You’ll have to carry enough food for four horses tomorrow night though, just in case,” Shasta added. “East Hut will have more feed. I had a team out there a couple of weeks back. Branding.”

  They heard the slap of sandals in the corridor outside.

  Christina pushed through the kitchen door and smiled and Tate felt like some chunk of his chest he hadn’t known was missing, had returned. He caught himself before he smiled back at her like a teenager.

  Beside him, Shasta stiffened.

  Towel-dried chestnut hair crinkled about Christina’s shoulders and Tate watched it swing against her skin where her creamy neck was bare. She turned to stop the kitchen door before it could slam shut.

  His blood headed south.

  He’d never seen Christina in jeans. These were a size too tight and inches too long and they sucked at every sweet curve of her hips and arse. She’d rolled them at the ankle but he didn’t want to focus there, the view was too good higher up.

  Shasta tipped the bottle in his hands, almost spilled it, and Tate wondered what the hell was with his big brother. Bree was standing right there. The way Shasta stared, you’d think Pamela Anderson just waltzed into the kitchen and asked if he’d like to try her muffins.

  Christina pulled the screen door slowly to, and turned back into the room.

  Only then did Tate notice the shirt. It was vibrant cornflower-blue, sheer and flowing, with an embroidered splash of white daisies cartwheeling across the left breast like snowflakes in a storm.

  His beer bottle added a new dent to Binara’s kitchen bench.

  Chapter 8

  There was a violent crack and froth overflowed the bottle like a chemistry experiment gone wrong. The front-bar spilled-beer smell burned Christina’s nose.

  Bree’s face turned waxen white.

  And Tate? The veins in his forearms, the big muscles of his neck, they looked carved from stone.

  “What?” It was all she could manage. Her brain felt like glue. One minute she’d been minding her own business in the hall, cruising the photo gallery on the walls. The next she’d overhead something about her car and a camel and bets that she wouldn’t last one night at something. Now they were looking at her like she’d grown a second head and horns.

  Shasta glanced sideways at his brother and cleared his throat. “That’s… That was Jolie’s favourite shirt, Christina. I didn’t think I’d ever see it on someone else.”

  Tate erupted into motion, swiped spilled beer with the tail of his shirt, pulled his arms from the sleeves and arrowed the soaked shirt across the island bench where it landed in the sink. It rocked, but didn’t topple, a glass tumbler Bree instinctively reached to save.

  “I’ll be outside,” he said, crossing to the kitchen door and pulling it closed at his back.

  The front door squealed and they heard a dog bark in joy.

  The air in the room quivered itself still.

  “I don’t know about you, Christina, but I could use a wine.” Bree ghosted to the fridge.

  “Make that two,” Christina said as her brain thawed and she tried to remember if she’d ever heard Tate mention anyone called Jolie.

  Sauvignon Blanc glugged into a glass and a sweet whiff of stonefruit grappled with the smell of beer.

  “Jolie’s shirt looks good on you, Christina.” Shasta forced a smile. A mountain of a man, he made his wife look like a twig. He squeezed Bree’s shoulder once and said simply:

  “He’ll be okay.” Then he took two more beers from the fridge, juggled both in the bucket of one massive hand and followed his brother.

  Bree wiped her palms on the frayed front pocket of a pair of white cargo pants. “I’m so sorry, Christina. I should have known that shirt might cause trouble. Jolie wa
s more your size. None of my clothes would fit you right.” Her gaze dropped to where the jeans climbed Christina’s ankle.

  “Should I take it off?” Christina said, picking up the hem and pinching the cotton between her fingers. The shirt wasn’t something she’d usually choose, but something about the colour fit out here, in a land where blue sky stretched forever.

  Bree shook her head, took a sip of wine and rolled the stem of the glass. She spoke as if to herself. “I wish he’d stop feeling so guilty. It doesn’t do any good.”

  “Who is Jolie?” Christina held her breath as she waited for the answer.

  Bree’s forehead wrinkled. “For whatever reason, I keep thinking you’re more than a client to him, and you must know all these things. Seriously? He hasn’t told you?”

  Christina shook her head.

  “It really isn’t my place to tell,” Bree said. But Christina could sense her inner debate.

  “Jolie was their little sister. She died in Africa, some six years ago now.”

  His sister. “Africa?”

  “Uganda. She worked there for a while. He really hasn’t told you?”

  Lily Malone

  “Not in so many words,” she hedged. “Why does Tate feel so guilty about a shirt?”

  “It’s not about the shirt. It’s about—” The hum of the fridge thermostat cut through the room. The sound interrupted Bree’s flow and she stopped with an apologetic smile. She walked to the kitchen door and held it open. “Tate will tell you if he wants to, Christina, I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. It’s the Irish in me. I can talk through a yard of wet concrete when I get started. Ask anyone. What I can say is: he should have got over it a long time ago. None of it was his fault.”

  Which left Christina more mystified than ever.

  They found Tate and Shasta slouched on matching canvas deckchairs, long legs stretched out on the deep verandahs. Afternoon sun fired through the kelpies’ coats and only the flick of their ears as the men spoke betrayed the three dogs’ rapt attention. Tate rubbed the sole of his boot back and forth across the youngest dog’s ruff of red fur and when the women approached, all the dogs’ tails drummed in unison. Any tension over Jolie’s shirt seemed forgotten.