His Brand of Beautiful

by Lily Malone

  caught her eye on the window ledge—a package about the size of a snowboard—wrapped in plain brown paper with orange and yellow bows.

  The next doors off the hall housed linen cupboards, a toilet, and a bathroom the mirror image of hers.

  Bluebeard’s chamber was the final door on the right. It was dark inside and she groped for the light switch. Green-gold carpet the pale colour of sun-ripened grapes smelled new, and she caught a whiff of paint, like the room needed a good air. The mattress was bare. No quilt or pillows. No bedside table. No clock. Black-framed coin-slot windows would have overlooked the manicured square of fake lawn, the pissing boy and the street, had the blinds been open.

  A door slammed in the bowels of the house. Christina pulled the door shut behind her and sped for the stairs.

  She made it into the kitchen just as Tate emerged from the garage. He had two cardboard wine boxes stacked in his arms and a red and white-striped plastic bag perched on top. This slid drunkenly side to side as he walked.

  “Hey careful with that. You’re a bit lopsided. That striped bag has my—”

  Boxes thudded to the bench. He slung the candy-striped bag to the floor where it jack-knifed into her handbag.

  “Hats,” she winced. “Did you unpack my stuff?”

  “Why? Is there a problem?” He pulled each shirt sleeve down to his wrist. There were cardboard fibres on the front of his shirt. She got stuck there for a second, just looking.

  “My clothes have been washed. Everything’s colour-coded,” she said, except instead of sounding ballsy, she sounded breathy.

  “That would be Remy,” Tate said.

  “Who’s Remy?”

  “She’s my cleaner. She wanted to make sure everything was fresh for you. She said sometimes when a person moves house, clothes come out of a wardrobe that haven’t seen the light of day for years.”

  “Oh.”

  Her stomach wailed like a yowling cat.

  “We’ll go out for dinner,” he said. “Anywhere you like on The Parade.”

  “I’m not going anywhere tonight except that couch.”

  “How about pizza? I’ve got the best pizzas in Norwood on speed dial.”

  “Pizza’s no good when you can’t have pepperoni. What’s in your fridge?”

  “My fridge? Nothing to cook with.”

  The stainless-steel Samsung needed a hefty tug before the seals gave. Its shelves rattled. There were two plastic bottles in the door, tomato and barbecue sauce. A block of Coon Tasty cheese. A carton of orange juice. A six-pack of Pale Ale. Milk. From a cow.

  “Didn’t you believe me?”

  She shut the fridge and it started humming at her, as if annoyed it had been disturbed. “If I give you a list, will you go out for it? I’m happy to cook. I don’t want pizza.”

  “Sure.”

  ****

  “I’ve got something for you,” Tate said later, after they’d each had second helpings of Christina’s pumpkin and pinenut risotto. He shut the door of the dishwasher he’d loaded and punched up the buttons for wash. “It’s upstairs. I’ll get it.”

  Christina clambered off the bar stool and headed for the couch. She was stiffening up all over after the Fun Run, Fun Walk, and she wondered how Lacy was feeling.

  Probably floating on an endorphin cloud.

  She shuffled her backside into the corner of the couch and flexed her feet to stretch her calves. Leaning her head against the leather cushions, she closed her eyes to block out the strangeness of her surroundings. Her own clock tocked at her hypnotically from the wall.

  Familiar with the unfamiliar. Surreal.

  Tate wasn’t long. He skirted the couch to sit beside her, took one look at her face and said: “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just tired.” She tried on a smile.

  “I bought you a housewarming present,” he gave her the brown paper parcel she’d seen in his study.

  Her fingers wouldn’t grip the ribbon properly, and they shook as she peeled the brown paper layers away. It felt like her chest was being winched in two separate directions and just being near Tate was marking it harder and harder to breathe.

  The colours hit her first. Brilliant, vibrant colours.

  Her eyes travelled slowly across the canvas. On it, all eight front label cartoons in the series for Cracked Pots had been hand-painted.

  “They’re incredible,” she breathed. “I don’t… I didn’t know you could paint? I mean really paint. Like properly. Not just body-paint your chest type paint.” God, stop me, I’m babbling.

  Tate grinned, pleased with her reaction. “Leesa did this. These are her originals. She mixes sand and chalk with acrylics and paints layers upon layers of colour and it creates all this texture.” He leaned across her shoulder to touch the red earth in Killer Heels. She felt the pressure of his fingertip all the way to her thigh.

  “Look at it.” His breath warmed her cheek. “Don’t you feel like you could have sand between your toes?”

  She set the canvas on the armchair of the couch so a salty tear wouldn’t ruin it.

  Her eyes locked on the full line of his mouth. “Yes.”

  “Christ. Don’t look at me like that.”

  The unfulfilled hunger he’d stoked in the bath had been gnawing at her for hours.

  She felt hot from nipple to toe, molten and heavy. She laid her fingers to the rasp of stubble on his cheek, slid them around his ear to where tawny hair curled into his collar, and pulled his face to hers.

  Their lips pressed together. Once. Twice. Warmth radiated from his mouth. The smell of him filled her head and every cell in her body ached for more.

  “Christina?” He lifted his head, breathing hard, muttered against her lips. “I have something else for you, too.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Somehow, she knew exactly what came next. “I’d really rather you didn’t.”

  He huffed, amused. “You fill me with such confidence.”

  Tate reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box the same deep forest green as his Jeep. Or at least how the Jeep would have been when it was shiny and new. He slid to one knee on the perfect, gleaming floor, eyes bright.

  Lily Malone

  “I don’t want to be someone’s wife,” she blurted.

  “Good. I don’t want you to be someone’s wife, either. I want you to be mine.”

  “I don’t want to be yours. I don’t want to be anyone’s. I’m not good forever material.”

  The fridge hummed. The clock tocked. He held the box up, but didn’t open it.

  “The very best I could offer you is a maybe, Tate. At best. A maybe. Not even a very probable maybe.”

  He shook his head. “Will you please be quiet for just a moment?”

  She nodded, heart beating like a drum.

  “Christina Clay, all I ask is that you love me and our child as much as I know you can, every day we’re together. So will you please make me the happiest man and father in the world and marry me?”

  The blood drained from her face and began pumping faster and faster through her veins, until it felt like her body was a test circuit for the V8s.

  “Maybe.”

  He smiled. “That’s enough for now.”

  “An improbable maybe,” she added.

  Tate slid back up on to the couch and kissed her once, a sweet kiss by his standards.

  Still, desire bubbled through her, instant and hot, and she opened her lips beneath his, tasted his bottom lip with her tongue.

  “No way, Miss Clay.” He ended it.

  She sighed. “This really is crazy. Why get all noble now? I’m already knocked up.

  Most men would jump at the chance, no strings—”

  “I’m not most men.” He pocketed the green box. “And strings with you don’t scare me.”

  “Do I at least get to see what’s in there?”

  “On an improbable maybe? Not a chance.” He kissed her again, lightly, on the nose.

  “I bet i
t’s a Coke-can ring.”

  “There’s only one way you’ll find out.”

  Chapter 25

  The morning of the Bush Bash dawned icy and overcast.

  At Semaphore Road, a heaving wind blew white-tipped waves off the Southern ocean, carrying with it the stinging smell of salt and seaweed. It made the fat-cheeked granddad manning the Lions’ Club sausage sizzle grouch that the wind was blowing his heat away, so how could he cook the bloody snags?

  Christina, leaning back against the sand-coloured bonnet of Richard Clay’s 1973

  Landrover, crossed her red leather boots at the ankle. She adjusted a beret two shades darker than the boots and scanned what she could see of the crowd over the shoulder of the man who had his camera pointed at her.

  Across the street the owner of the newsagent watched a clown on a unicycle juggle fire-brands in front of her store, arms folded over her mountainous chest, as if calculating the fire-risk he posed.

  “My face aches,” Mikey grumbled, one arm behind Christina’s back, his shoulder pressed tight to hers.

  The camera flash made a strobe-light in the churning air. Overhead, Bush Bash sponsor banners snapped.

  “Keep smiling,” Christina said through her teeth. “Jammo’s made a special trip. He has the most followers for a wine blog in Australia.”

  She couldn’t see Tate anywhere. He wasn’t in the crowd cheering the clown, nor down toward the Esplanade where the admin tent was trying to escape its pegs and the clouds over the ocean broiled purple-grey.

  A couple dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf skipped by the Cracked Pots car. The wolf’s tail poked the photographer in the butt.

  “Hel-lo!” Mark Jamieson whipped around, camera bag a blur.

  “Goosed by a wolf, Jammo, I think your luck’s changed,” Christina called above the wind.

  “Doubt it, CC. If my luck changed I woulda got goosed by Little Red, not the wolf.”

  She smiled. “Nevermind, Jammo. The wolf is more fun.”

  Christina twisted the belt of her coat tighter to hide her stomach—she was through her first trimester and its bulge was more definite now.

  Lacy, hovering out of camera range on the sidewalk, balanced two handbags, three takeaway coffees and her phone. She wore a long black leather biker’s jacket and an aviator-style helmet with straps that flapped around the point of her chin. A badge in the shape of an upside-down pot was pinned to her left breast, black with Cracked Pots by Clay written in big block orange letters.

  “Help me up on the bonnet,” Christina told Mikey. “Quick. There’s a Channel 10

  camera coming.”

  He lifted her up and once she was there, she re-crossed her legs so a boot pointed at the bright blue daisy medal of Tate’s launch cartoon. Best Wine Not In Show. The cameraman spotted her, hesitated and swung his lens round.

  “Good idea, CC. I like it,” Jammo called, finger poised mid-click. “One last question.”

  He shoved the camera back in its protective case and swapped it for the black rectangle of his audio recorder. “What’s with the line about wine shows are for wankers?”

  “Told you he’d ask,” Michael said between gritted teeth.

  Lily Malone

  Christina smiled. “You know how Clay Wines don’t enter wine shows, Jammo?”

  The journalist nodded.

  “We think Cracked Pots is about what you like to drink, not what a wine judge tells you is good. People shouldn’t worry about how many medals or stars are on a label, or whether it says you should taste chocolate or gooseberries or fresh-cut hay. If you like the wine, that’s all that matters. It’s all that other stuff that gives wine wankers a bad name.”

  “Are you saying winemakers who enter wine shows are wankers?”

  Michael interrupted. “Not all of them—”

  “But some have permanent cramp,” Christina finished. “They know who they are.”

  Mark Jamieson threw back his head and laughed. His glasses slipped. “Can I quote you on that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Off to the side, Lacy rolled her eyes.

  “You’re always good for a headline, CC. Good luck with the Bash, folks. Thanks for the tasting pack.” Jammo shook hands with each of them, hefted his three-pack gift box of wine, and wandered towards the sausage sizzle van.

  Lacy stacked her coffees in a tower on the sidewalk and snapped a photo of Christina and Michael sitting on the bonnet of Cracked Pots car 35. “I’ll take a pic so you can upload it to your blog later, CC.”

  The Channel 10 cameraman panned out and turned to get a shot of the unicyclist who had swapped his fire-brands for skittles. Christina took one a last look for Tate before Mikey helped her off the bonnet.

  They huddled out of the wind, in the protection of the Landrover. Lacy handed Christina her handbag and coffee. The Styrofoam slipped in her gloves but the coffee warmed her throat.

  “Where’s Tate?” Lacy asked.

  “I wish I knew. I haven’t seen him since he dropped me at your place this morning.

  He has to be here somewhere, hopefully with an old car.” She bounced on tiptoes, looking for Tate’s blue hoodie above the crowd.

  Elvis Presley gyrated past them with both sideburns and loudspeaker blaring. He called all drivers and passengers to marshal at the admin tent and set off with a river of people trailing him down Semaphore Road. At the Esplanade, the miniature train that ran passengers on half-hour trips along the beachfront was out, and a queue of parents and children waited its return. Toddlers jostled for space on the overworked playground slides.

  Elvis swapped his loudspeaker for a microphone and cleared his throat, white cape blowing. It took him two tries to get the microphone height right and in the end he gave up and stooped, which made his wig pitch forward as he thanked sponsors and special guests.

  “Who thinks the sideburns are real?” Lacy said quietly, leaning around Michael.

  “Pretty sure the paunch is real,” Christina answered.

  Michael said: “Give the guy a break.”

  Elvis soldiered on. “Ladies and gentlemen. The rules of the Bush Bash are: there are no rules. There’s not a single man, woman or child on this trip including my fine self who cannot be swayed by bribery or corruption. We all accept cash, card and wine;” and his eyes settled on the Cracked Pots party and he gave them a set of hip thrusts that made the crowd cheer.

  “I love Elvis,” Lacy said.

  Christina gave the man on the stage a big thumbs’ up.

  “That will cost you later,” Tate’s deep voice rumbled close to her ear and Christina had the strangest sense that all was now right with her world.

  Tate tipped his chin toward the stage. “The King and I play tennis every second Monday. I told him there’d be a bottle of wine for him for every plug he gives Cracked Pots on this trip. He’s partial to Shiraz by the way.”

  “So it gives me great pleasure to declare this year’s Bush Bash officially open.

  Everybody, let’s rock. See you all at Wilpena Pound tonight and—” Elvis’s sideburns wobbled: “Thank you very much.”

  “Elvis has left the building,” Michael said.

  Lacy stared up at the stage, wide-eyed. “Are you kidding? Elvis left the planet.”

  ****

  Christina balanced Tate’s laptop on her thighs and giggled. She’d been doing that a lot in the last ten minutes. The race had finished day one of the Bush Bash in the Flinders Ranges and they’d all stopped to camp for the night. Mikey and Tate were now cooking dinner on one of the campground barbecues.

  “Do I even want to know what you’re laughing at this time?” Mikey waved his barbecue tongs at her. Flames ignited from the steaks on the greased plate, lighting the grin on his face.

  “I do!” Lacy enthused from the deckchair alongside Christina, her second glass of Cracked Pots Rosé on the way to empty in her hand, aviator’s hat spread over her knee like a skateboarder’s helmet.

&nb
sp; Christina scrolled through Mark Jamieson’s wine blog and read the first few comments. “About three people say Muddy Pot looks like Elmer Fudd. Jammo reckons you have eyebrows like Brooke Shields. The crew at Jester’s Feather says they’re not wankers and their eyebrow vote goes to Groucho Marx. Shall I keep going?”

  “Brooke Shields has great fucking eyebrows.” Michael flipped the steaks. He turned to Tate, who tossed sliced onions and potatoes on the hot plate alongside and said: “How come she gets a gun and you draw me with fuzzy eyebrows?”

  “Luck of the draw, mate. I wasn’t trying to get in your pants.”

  Christina shut Tate’s laptop, feeling her heart swell with pride. “It’s really happening.

  Finally. I can’t believe we’ve done it.”

  “Way to go, us. I’ll drink to that,” Lacy toasted with the Rosé.

  “You’ll drink to anything,” Christina said.

  Somewhere nearby a woman started singing American Pie.

  Lacy reached across to lay her hand on Christina’s baby bump and rubbed. “Poor baby. Your mummy’s such a grump when she can’t have a drink. Lucky your daddy’s cool.

  When you’re old enough I’ll tell you all about my Hens’ Night when your daddy let me paint his—”

  “Keep it up, Lace, and I swear you’re not Godmother.”

  “I’m going to be Godmother?”

  “Not at this rate.”

  “Does that make me The Godfather?” Mikey called from the barbecue.

  Christina laughed at her brother and pushed out of the deckchair. The air was ripe with the scent of radiator-roasted insect and barbecued meat, the two not easily Lily Malone

  discernible. In the orange glow from the fire and the white light of gas lanterns strung on the roof, Tate’s XR Falcon glowed bronze.

  She smiled to herself. Okay, GT Gold. Tate and Mikey insisted on that name for the colour like it was some kind of password to the gates of auto heaven.

  She put the laptop in its case and left it on the XR’s front seat.

  Tate’s tent sat off to the side, different from the snug two-man dome they’d camped in at Binara. This one was green canvas, square with a pitched roof and a shallow annex on sturdy steel poles and fly-screened windows to let in air and light. Just looking at the tent warmed her thighs. Tonight Tate couldn’t tuck her into her own queen bed while he slept on the pull-down sofa in his study. Tonight she could reach out and touch him.