Love Is Blind (7 page)

‘Your sister is a truly beautiful person,’ was all he said.

‘Yes. She is. Of course,’ Anthea blurted, snapping out of her dreamy mood, her voice light and falsely cheery. The extent of his rejection hit her like a blow to the chest. A kookaburra bird cackled with contempt.

Anthea tried to smile but found she could not. She tried to apologise but her lips felt numb, as though she’d been to the dentist’s. Jacko kept up his impression of a monk who has taken a
vow
of silence. He examined his hands with great attention to detail. A fraught hush fell over them both like red Outback dust.

Why on earth had she tried to kiss him? The desire had only lasted a moment before being swiftly replaced by the crippling shame of his rejection.

At the low rumbling sound of an approaching car, Anthea felt a knot of remorse in her stomach. She wanted to remind Jacko that he’d said thinking was over-rated and to go with her impulses … But his eyes were unreadable beneath the brim of his hat, his body language rigid and his disgust clear.

Jacko signalled to the police van. It was a dirt-covered utility truck with a cage on the back. It ground to a halt, with a squelch of mud. Jacko bounded over to greet the policeman. He wrenched open the truck door and shook the outstretched arm of the large uniformed man who was lumbering out of the driver’s seat. The officer had long, scrawny legs, but a large belly shaped like a ball. He rolled when he walked, neck thrust forward like a bird of prey. Yet when he spoke to Jacko it was with affection.

‘Jesus Christ, Jacko. What the bloody hell’s
been
going on? Where’s that shit heap you call a car?’

‘Probably in the Indian Ocean by now.’ Jacko pointed to the swollen waters of the creek. ‘Flash flood. Inland tsunami. Washed the old rust bucket right away.’

‘What drama! The weather today’s had more twists and turns than a bloody soap opera.’

‘Just Mother Nature’s mood swings … We even had a bolt from the blue. Can you believe it?’

‘Jeez. No kidding? Hence the bush fire. We saw the smoke from town.’

‘Luckily the storm put it out or we’d have been deep fried. Yep … It’s been quite a day, one way and another.’ Jacko cast a sidelong glance in Anthea’s direction.

‘Oh, hello there, Missy. I didn’t see you there. And you are …?’ the officer asked her, screwing up his eyes with interest.

‘Anthea. Jane’s sister. From London,’ she managed to say.

‘Jane. Top bird! Can’t believe she let you get into a truck with this maniac though,’ the big man teased. ‘He’s an ugly bugger, isn’t he? Looks as though his face caught fire and somebody tried to put it out with a shovel.’

‘Not as ugly as the emu after it hit our windscreen. The truck rolled,’ Jacko explained.

‘Jeez. You were both lucky not to be killed. No broken bones?’ Anthea shook her head. ‘We’d better get you to the hospital for a check up. Just talk me through the accident first.’

While the officer took notes, Anthea tried to concentrate on his questions. She managed to reply but her mind was on Jacko. He was walking up and down the dirt road, scanning the horizon. When he saw another car crest the hill, he waved his arms in the air.

Jane leapt from the front seat while the wheels were still spinning. She threw herself at Jacko in joy and relief.

‘Annie!’ she yelled then, running to her sister’s side. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, yes, fine,’ Anthea said in a quiet voice.

Jane laughed with relief, squeezing her close. ‘Thank God! What a welcome to Australia! Are you sure you’re okay?’

Jane was so concerned about her sister that the old tensions between them evaporated. Her warmth only served to increase Anthea’s feelings of shame and guilt.

‘I’m fine. Really. Fine.’ Anthea’s voice was
clipped
and brittle, like a World War Two radio announcer.

Jane’s face when she turned back to Jacko was naked in its love for him. She threw her arms around his neck again and hung and clung there.

‘What a way to meet your brother-in-law. Don’t judge him by this accident though. Jacko really is the most capable, clever, gorgeous man.’

‘Yes,’ Anthea said in her friendly sister tone, which sounded slightly false from disuse. ‘I know.’

‘I think I should get you to the hospital, young lady,’ the policeman said to her. ‘I’ve finished taking the statement. Unless there’s anything else you want to tell me?’

Anthea’s eyes were fixed on Jacko. Was he going to betray her?

‘He’s a rugged old bush cop, but he’s kind,’ Jane assured her sister, mistaking her anxiety for fear of a stranger. ‘But we can take her to the doctor, Officer. In my car.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ the policeman agreed. ‘You should get the doc to give you a once-over too, mate,’ he advised Jacko. ‘I’ll get the main road cleared.’

Jacko nodded. He and the policeman slapped each other on the shoulder. As they said goodbye, Jane helped Anthea into the back seat of the car. She padded her head and back with cushions, strapped her into a seat belt, then slipped behind the wheel.

Anthea stretched her legs out along the back seat and pretended to sleep. Through half-closed eyes, she saw Jacko climb into the front passenger seat. She felt the car take his weight. She saw her sister’s hand on Jacko’s big meaty leg, her fingers covered by his strong hand. The engine started and Jane swung the car around. As they jolted and bounced over the rough bush track, Anthea listened to her sister, babbling happily, a brook of words, her laughter vibrant with affection and relief.

They drove on as night filled the car. Her sister’s words washed over Anthea. She must have fallen into an uneasy sleep because when she opened her eyes it was to see Jane’s smiling face directly above her. The neon hospital signs hurt Anthea’s eyes, questioning her hard, accusing her of betraying her only sister.

‘Help me, Jacko,’ Jane asked. Together, they levered Anthea out of the back seat. Despite her
remorse,
as Jacko slid his strong hands under her armpits, she thrilled to his touch.

‘Are you okay?’ Jane asked again, disconcerted.

Anthea forced a smile. It was as sharp and sweet as icing, and as hard as the nails she was now digging into her palm. Jacko wouldn’t catch her eye. Why had she tried to kiss him? She was engaged to the most perfect man on the planet.

Anthea, normally so clear-sighted, found that everything had blurred slightly for her. It was the shock of the crash obviously. But that didn’t stop her from feeling that the mayor of this town had been right. Here Jane had become a beautiful swan and Anthea an ugly duckling. As soon as Jacko told Jane about her sister’s behaviour, things would get very ugly indeed …

Chapter Eight

Love At Second Sight

IN BETWEEN BEING
poked and probed by doctors, Anthea tried to ring Rupert. No answer. Where was he? She needed to speak to him so that she could take her romantic temperature, and soothe her nerves. Hearing his voice would remind her how much she loved him. The doctor gave her the all clear. If he’d used an emotional stethoscope he’d have seen her damaged heart. Despite the big, high room she was in, guilt pressed in on her like a low ceiling.

On the drive to Jacko’s farm, silence wrapped her in its dark cloak. The tarmac was slick after the rain. Jacko put on the headlights. They reflected back harshly from the shining surface of the road.

Anthea was surprised by Jacko’s quaint wooden farmhouse. It tilted slightly, as though
tipsy.
The corrugated iron of the roof creaked companionably in the wind. Once inside there were more surprises. The rooms were full of books and paintings and sculptures, with the music of a string quartet playing softly on the stereo. It was not at all what Anthea had expected. It also seemed to have been Jacko who had prepared the meal. As Jane unwrapped the kangaroo steaks, she raved about his gourmet cooking skills. There were lychee and lemon grass cocktails, with fish fillets to follow which he’d marinated in Thai spices. The only food Jane had made was the dessert – an old-fashioned bread and butter pudding, their mother’s favourite, to remind them of home.

Anxious about leaving them alone, Anthea showered as quickly as she could and put on some of her sister’s clothes. During dinner, Jacko and Anthea exchanged knowing glances. Anthea wondered desperately if Jacko had told Jane what she had done. But then surely her sister would not be so friendly now? Anthea arranged her face just so – not smiling, not sad, just attentive. Her usually sleek, blow-dried hair had frizzed up in the humidity. The big wavy mass allowed her to hide behind a curtain of hair.

Blaming jet lag, she finally gave up her vigil and retreated to her cool room above the courtyard and collapsed, sobbing into an old wrought-iron bed. Whenever she closed her eyes, the painful moment when she had tried to seduce her sister’s fiancé was replayed endlessly on her mental screen. Her mind whirred and stopped, whirred and stopped, like a broken clock. Until, finally, she cried herself to sleep.

Anthea woke in the morning to the sound of her sister laughing. She looked into the courtyard to see Jane obviously telling a story and making over-the-top gestures as she did so. Jacko cackled delightedly, patting her hair and kissing her hand. Jane was one of those big, jokey girls with broad shoulders and chewed nails and cuticles. Yet the light around her seemed warmer somehow. Alluring.

Anthea joined them warily. Over brunch, Jacko’s luminous eyes fleetingly held hers in a look of polite contempt. But Jane’s eyes stayed summery with laughter, meaning he hadn’t told her of their close encounter.

After they’d eaten, the sisters left Jacko cleaning up – another surprise, for Anthea, as Rupert
never
did the housework – and strolled by the creek. She had to lean on her younger sister because of her bandaged ankle. This reversal of roles unnerved her even more.

‘So, you’re happy for me?’ Jane asked.

‘I … I am.’ They were shielded from the sun by the dappled shadow of some gum trees so Jane couldn’t see the confusion in her sister’s eyes.

‘Jacko’s house has a lot of character doesn’t it? Like him.’

‘Yes. Although I thought you’d be in a bigger place …’

Jane laughed. ‘He doesn’t know about my money. We’re happy just the way we are.’

Anthea listened as if through a fog. ‘I was wrong about Jacko,’ she blurted suddenly. ‘I was too quick to judge him,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe you were right about something else too … You don’t need to grow up, Jane. I think I need to grow down.’

Jane looked at her sister with astonishment. ‘You must be the first woman in the world who has been reincarnated
while still alive
,’ she said.

Anthea and Jane smiled at each other, in a
cautious
way. No longer enemies, they were unsure how to speak to each other. And so they hugged, instead.

Chapter Nine

A Sight For Sore Eyes

FOR DAYS ANTHEA
lived on her nerves, waiting for her crime against her sister to be exposed. But Jane kept right on smiling. On the Sunday Jacko met up with his mates to take part in what they called the ‘Undies 500’. The local miners and shearers, men Anthea had dismissed as selfish yobs, had dyed their hair red, blue, green and yellow, to raise money for a children’s cancer charity. Locals had sponsored them to drive around all day in their underwear only. Anthea laughed, finally starting to appreciate the Aussie sense of humour, which was drier, she now realised, than the encroaching desert.

None of the racism she’d seen in the cab driver was apparent here. Jacko’s mates included Aborigines, Asians, Pacific Islanders. These men, stripped down to their underpants, possessed
the
kind of strong, muscular frames rarely seen in London lawyers. Especially one young miner called Jimbo. Watching him flex and strut in nothing but a pair of skimpy undies (or what the locals called ‘budgie smugglers’), Anthea understood why the tourist brochures boasted of the spectacular local views.

‘I hope you’re gonna come back for the wedding and give your sister away,’ Jimbo encouraged her.

His choice of words seared Anthea. Jacko hadn’t given
her
away. She had misjudged him so completely. Anthea could almost see her glib, unknowing, former self. Oh, how she despised that woman, with her foolish prejudices and pretensions. She knew nothing.

‘Actually, it’d be kind of nice for us all if you could spend some more time out here,’ Jimbo flirted with her. ‘Your sister’s already begun to think of Australia as home. Maybe you could too?’ The handsome young bloke had a big grin, a firm handshake, a long stride and a wide smile. Not to mention his more private attributes. Put it this way, Jimbo filled out his underpants so well, she could detect the man’s religion.

‘I don’t know. I’ve yet to be persuaded of the
charms
of bush tucker,’ Anthea found herself joking back. ‘And it would be kind if certain people would stop teasing me about my accent.’

‘What accent?’ The handsome man grinned at her.

Driving back to the airport, the town didn’t look as bad as it had done on first sight. There was a raw beauty to it that Anthea hadn’t noticed before. The pub verandas were delicately fringed with iron ‘lace’. The streets, originally built wide enough to allow old-fashioned carts drawn by bullocks to turn in them, were elegantly laid out. The red earth and blue sky reminded Anthea of paintings she’d seen by Salvador Dali. She half expected a face on stilts or a dripping clock to erupt from the landscape.

At the airline check-in desk, Jane embraced Anthea. ‘If you can’t make it back for the wedding, maybe you’ll come for the christening …’

‘You’re pregnant?’ Anthea was stunned. She felt a mix of emotions, joy and jealousy. She had always taken a secret pride in being more successful than her wayward little sister. But now it turned out that it was Jane who had made the real success of her life.

‘We just found out. It’s terrifying actually! But one thing I know for sure is that Jacko’s going to make a great dad … I just wish Mum were around to hear the news,’ Jane said sadly.