His Brand of Beautiful (18 page)

She’d watched CC and Muddy Pot, aka,
The Cracked Pots
, come to life all week in Tate’s skilled hands. Watching now, her hands gripped the stone bench so hard her knuckles ached.

He pressed enter over a play arrow icon and the video ran and she was thrown back to watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, lying on her stomach on the lounge‐room floor with Michael; Saffah yelling that if they didn’t get in the car
right now
they’d be late for hockey or football. Driving into McLaren Vale like a maniac—the Clays always the last kids to run out on the pitch.

CC and Muddy Pot hovered over a fat recipe book, pages weighted down by a bag of carrots and a salt‐shaker. CC Pot wore an elfish green cap perched above a swish of fringe. A rope of chestnut braid swung at her back and she had a gun holstered at her hip.

Muddy Pot had big bushy eyebrows that zig‐zagged across his face, only never in the same direction at the same time, so that they looked like two furry cats trying to escape a pack of killer hounds.

Both characters had triangular‐shaped upside‐down pot bodies the ochre‐orange colour of desert sand.

“Add a decent‐sized knob of butter,” CC Pot ordered her brother, scanning the recipe with her index finger.

Lily Malone

“How big is a decent‐sized knob?” Muddy Pot demanded, skinny arms thrown wide.

“Never mind,” CC Pot said, rolling her eyes. She cut a dollop of butter on a knife and scraped it off against the side of a casserole pot. She added a chopping‐board‐load of vegetables and meat.

“Add one big glass of decent red wine.”

Muddy Pot stalked to the pantry and pinwheeled his arms as he worked through shelf after shelf. Finally he dove into a box and came up coughing dust.

“Voila!” He wiped the bottle with a checked towel. “This one’s decent!”

The bottle character said ‘France’ faster than the Eiffel Tower. She wore tight‐fitting long pink gloves, one of which held a gold cigarette case. When the camera panned in, dreamy eyes snapped open and she threw an arm over her face like a vampire dragged into sunlight.

“I had ten more years to rest in the cellar! Unhand me you Australian imbecile!”

“Just hop in the bloody pot, Giselle,” Muddy growled.

The French bottle’s gloved hand fluttered to her chest. “Moi?”

CC Pot stepped from behind the kitchen counter wearing high‐heeled black boots. A garter of fresh daisies clung to her thigh. She drew her gun. It got stuck in her holster and she swore. She drew it again with deliberate care, twitched the weapon meaningfully.

Giselle sidestepped, nearer the cooking pot; peered over the rim.

She leapt back. “You cannot cook wiz me. I’m too good for a
casserole
!”

“It’s not a bloody casserole ya arrogant frog. It’s a bloody stew!” Muddy mumbled as he and CC grappled with the French bottle.

Giselle dug her heels in, sobbing: “But... if you cook wiz me... what will you drink?”

Both Cracked Pots burst out laughing. Giselle’s pink heels kicked as the Pots upended her over the rim of the pot.

CC re‐holstered her gun. It stuck and she swore.

Big black block letters appeared on a terracotta screen:
Cracked Pots by Clay. Only
the wine is decent.

Christina swiped at the tears running down her face. “Everyone said you were a genius, but I never imagined…” her mouth worked, but she couldn’t find the words.

Goosebumps covered her arms. “Michael and Lacy will freak out about this. But what’s it all going to cost?”

Tate’s hands burrowed under her shirt, spanned her waist. “Well, you
are
in the personal hands of a truly great animator with a permanent hard‐on for CC Pot. Play your cards right and I’ll throw in my genius for free.”

The skin of her waist quivered and she swatted his hands away. “Be serious for a second. I need a ball‐park figure.”

“I didn’t think money was a problem?”

“It’s not to Mikey and me. It will be to Saffah and Richard. Marketing to them means mail‐merge and a mailing list.”

“Okay. Ball‐park and don’t quote me: animation, voice‐over—we want to get professionals, not just me doing crap accents—production, technical stuff, website, label designs. I’d say around $30,000 plus the label print‐run, depending whether you want everything at once, or you want to roll it out in stages. I have a great idea for a screen‐saver game.”

“Give me two options. Make option one the strategy you recommend. Then give me option two that’s more conservative but still good. That gives me something to put in front of my board: that’s Michael, me, Saffah and Richard.”

“Done. Now do you plan to feed me or is all that just for show?”

She cooked zucchini, leek and cherry tomato frittata smattered with parmesan that Tate grated fresh. Grilled golden brown, the smell of melting cheese filled the cottage. Later, feet resting beneath the sport‐fishing magazine Tate had on his lap, she channel‐hopped, half listening, thinking about how she’d pitch Cracked Pots to her board. When the magazine slipped from Tate’s lap to the floor and he tore the remote from her hands, jacked up the volume, she came back to the present with a sickening jolt.

Her first thought was there’d been an accident in the news headlines, something terrible had happened to someone he knew.

“Tonight in an Australian exclusive we reveal shocking cruelty in the live cattle export
trade. Animal Rights activists smuggled a camera into Indonesian abattoirs to capture never-before‐seen footage. There are calls for the Australian Government to immediately ban live
cattle export trade to Indonesian abattoirs. And a warning, some of these scenes may
disturb some viewers...”

May disturb some viewers?
Five minutes later Christina left the room, unable to watch a moment more. Seconds later, Tate’s phone began an incessant ring.

He was on the phone two hours straight. To Shasta first, making plans. She heard him booking fuel for the Jabiru at Parafield, booking flights. She didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know. Grainy images flashed behind her eyes, of terrified cattle and men with knives.

They didn’t make love that night though Tate held her close and touched her often, as if reassuring himself she was there. It felt like she’d only just closed her eyes when her clock radio buzzed.

He stopped the alarm and sat beside her on the bed, already up and dressed. “Don’t get up,” he said, kissing her lips and the top of her head. “You look way too comfortable. I’ll call you when I get to Binara tonight.”

“Be careful,” she mumbled through the heavy mist of sleep.

She heard the cottage door click shut, listened to his steps on her path. She strained her ears, holding on to the last sound of him. He shut the wrought‐iron gate too quietly. A car door opened then closed on the street. She listened until the Jeep’s engine was lost to her, its revs slowly swallowed by the waking city traffic.

That night he told her something that stayed with her through the next lonely weeks.

“I think I left something at your place, Christina,” he said, voice as clear as if he’d been calling from next door.

Automatically she started looking around her kitchen bench, walking to the couch, lifting cushions, searching for keys, a wallet: any vital thing that he needed.

“What? I haven’t seen anything.”

“I left you my heart.”

“Oh.” The icy fear was still there—she felt it—hanging over her like a curse. But it was fainter now. It was as if for the first time, she could believe the warmth in his voice might be enough to melt the ice away.

Lily Malone

Six weeks later.

They’re pruning the Cabernet Block today, Christina noted in the small part of her brain not rehearsing her boardroom pitch. Through her office window, contractors worked in the vineyard rows on the western hill, like brightly coloured ants in fluorescent orange vests. If she looked past them she could see all the way down the valley to where the rolling hills met distant sea, bright spring blue today instead of the grey it had been for weeks.

It was tempting to open the window, but the wind coming up the valley still held winter’s icy whip and Saffah hated the cold. Today of all days, Christina wanted Saffah comfortable and warm. Saffah had to vote yes for Cracked Pots.

From the corner of her eye she saw Mikey drain the last of a double latte. He leaned on the far corner of the glass‐topped table the family used for its board meetings, crossed his stocky legs at the ankle and spun his empty mug. She knew he was just as jazzed as she.

He’d been speed‐talking for ten minutes, bombarding their father with news of an Italian screw‐press he’d seen at a Bordeaux trade show. Richard was fascinated but trying to be cool; sometimes retirement was a heavy yoke around his neck.

Saffah sat serene as always, woollen wrap tight around her shoulders, clay‐specked finger tracking an open newspaper page. She’d come straight from the studio and her clothes told Christina she intended to return to her potter’s wheel.

“Others may struggle with change. But for you, it’s not only wise, it’s necessary,”

Saffah announced, jabbing the horoscope page before sitting back in her chair. A smudge of clay shadowed her cheekbone.

“That’s Cancer?” Christina queried, turning from the window.

“Capricorn.” Saffah tilted her head toward her husband. “I’ve been trying to tell your father the world won’t end if we paint our front door bright red. It’s great feng shui.”

“Feng shui my arse,” Richard said.

“We can paint that red too, Dickie.”

Mikey groaned. “Too much information.”

Christina stifled a giggle. No one else ever called Richard Clay Dickie.

Saffah shut the newspaper. The milk jug on the Nespresso on the corner cabinet whirred. Mikey ejected the old pod and clicked another capsule home—black, the strongest.

He caught her eye and pointed at a mug.

“No thanks.” Nerves had her stomach already on edge and a headache nagged at her temple.

For a moment, her eyes settled on her father. Richard Clay could be sold on passion—something car salesmen could spot a mile away—a trait she’d been manipulating since before she could walk. He was easy.

Saffah was the tricky one. Her step‐mother—a careful Cancerian—liked fine print and detail. Expenditures. Projections. Profits.

One negative vote would veto Cracked Pots at a stroke.

“One of the benefits of being all‐round Big Kahuna of your own business,” Tate had said on one of the rare occasions since he’d left Adelaide when she actually caught him on a landline where the connection didn’t drop out. “The only arse I ever have to kiss for a vote is my own.”

Christina felt a raw‐onion prickle of tears. She missed him. He’d been gone a month,
more
, flying between Binara, Darwin, Brisbane, Canberra, lobbying to get the live cattle export ban overturned. She faked a loose eyelash, rubbed at her eye and told herself to get a grip.

There’s a boardroom to blitz.

In reception, a telephone buzzed. Richard’s grey head jerked toward the sound.

Michael said to his father: “You’re retired now. Remember?”

“It’s all the caffeine you’ve been feeding me. I’m bouncing off the walls.”

The phone buzzed again as Mikey poured frothed milk into his coffee. They heard Marie’s voice in reception, muted through the closed door.

“Good to see someone in this company still answers a phone inside three rings,”

Richard grumbled.

Before her father could launch into Richard Clay’s Principles of Customer Service, she caught Mikey’s eye and saw him nod. She adjusted her beret, purple today for luck, and picked up the pages from her printer. They were still warm and they smelled of toner.

Tapping once to get a neat edge, she straightened her shoulders.

Only losers deliver a pitch sitting down
. She’d read that in a book. It was a line that stayed with her forever.

“So if you’re all comfortable, I’ll make a start.”

Moving to the head of the table, she laid a hand on the stitched leather across the top of a high‐backed black chair. Richard and Mikey pulled out chairs and sat. Saffah folded the newspaper.

“I have a copy of a business plan here for each of you,” she said, sliding the pages across the glass with a whispered swish. Her brother’s copy smacked the Sensei‐style pot Saffah had given her when she became CEO—glazed blue to match the window frame. It was too big to peer around so she’d shunted it to the far end of the table where water glasses clustered at its base.

Saffah studied the stapled pages. Blonde hair shot‐through with white teetered in a loose knot on top of her head.

“Saff, love, you’ve got clay on your face. Here.” Richard pointed to the corresponding spot on his own clean‐shaven cheek.

“For goodness sake, Dick. The kids don’t care if I have clay on my face. Leave it alone.”

Yeah, Dick, leave it alone.

“In my time we had standards.” Richard shifted in his seat and glared at Michael’s leather jacket, slung over the back of a chair.

Her father straightened his tie, fished his glasses from his breast pocket and slid them down the bridge of his nose. Glancing once at the title page he laid the papers flat, folded the spectacles and shoved them back into his pocket with a practiced flip. It was like watching one of those music clips where they ran the tape in reverse.

He looked up and smiled, his cheeks a mass of lines. “Cracked Pots hey, Christina?”

Christina’s lips curved.
That’s you in the bag.

“Did you ever get the feeling we’re being buttered up, Saff? How much money do you think they want?” Richard said.

Saffah shook the business plan like she could make it rattle, stirring scents of coffee and ink. “Wait till you get to the marketing page, Dick—cartoons, screensaver games, blogs—”

Lily Malone

Christina interrupted; the knot of her scarf feeling suddenly tight. “I’ll talk you through it. But first, Mikey and I want to introduce you to Cracked Pots. We think it’s time Clay Wines had a new addition to the family.”