The Best Kind of Beautiful

by Frances Whiting

  Florence ducked under the lookout fence and its sign saying Do not pass, and passed it, going down the back spine of the hill where she would see nobody except the odd mountain biker flying out of nowhere to shoot past and shout ‘Sorry’ through a dirt-spattered helmet.

  She felt better with each step, breathing in the sharp smell of eucalypt and the occasional honeyed waft of wattle, much nicer, she giggled, than the old Amorphophallus titanum.

  The heat gathered under the trees, settling on her back and shoulders as she strode through the bush, listening to the crackling march of her boots on the path.

  Florence walked for a couple of hours, cutting through the marked paths until she rejoined the main track to the car park. She felt much more relaxed, and when a hiker got into his car beside hers, she smiled at him.

  Not the full horseshoe, but at least half.

  She had picked a little of the wattle for Isolde and a small clump of wood sorrel she could use for dinner, finding a nest of its heart-shaped leaves between some rocks.

  It would have to be only a couple of tiny shreds, the plant’s oxalic acid deadly in large quantities but delicious in smaller ones.

  Amanda and Puck were both coming over. It was one of those rare nights when none of them was performing – at least officially, Florence smiled to herself.

  Amanda would probably put on some sort of show during the evening.

  She got into her car and put on some Gloria Shaw, with whom Florence felt a fond affinity as a fellow choker.

  Then she put down all the windows and swung out of the car park.

  Driving down the curving road, she felt much lighter than she had driving up. It didn’t really matter if Albert had told Lydia et al about the corpse flower. Perhaps one day she could make them a nice wood sorrel salad, with plenty of leaves. Florence smiled as Gloria played to the breeze.

  *

  ‘Why didn’t you just ask him to the movies?’ Isolde asked that night as Florence filled her glass of wine.

  ‘You could have taken him to Night of the Living Dead, darling,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Or the morgue,’ Puck offered.

  ‘Well you three aren’t doing much better,’ Florence said. ‘I don’t see any of you out on a date tonight – now why do you think that might be?’

  ‘I’m too tall,’ Isolde said, raising her glass.

  Florence leaned over and clinked it. ‘I’m too prickly,’ she said.

  ‘I’m too unreliable,’ Puck said, shrugging.

  They all looked at their mother.

  ‘And I’m too . . . expensive,’ Amanda Saint Claire said.

  Everyone laughed, and drew their glasses together in a toast.

  ‘To us,’ Florence said. ‘The Too Tall, Too Prickly, Too Unreliable and Too Expensive Saint Claire Swingers.’

  ‘Without the swinging,’ Isolde said, as a thought struck Florence.

  ‘What would Dad have been?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s easy, darling,’ Amanda answered. ‘Too Much.’

  They ate dinner together, sitting cross-legged on the floor, their backs against the couches, except Amanda who sat at the table, by herself, setting out a placemat and drinks coasters.

  ‘Mum, that’s ridiculous, come and sit with us,’ Isolde said, and Amanda answered, not unreasonably, Florence thought, ‘Or you could all get off your bottoms and come and sit with me.’

  But none of them moved, Amanda’s three children all schooled in small acts of rebellion.

  Puck stayed the night, sleeping on the couch, and was gone by the time Florence got up the next morning. Where he had gone, she was not sure. Puck lived in a triangular circuit, sometimes at her place, sometimes at their mother’s and sometimes at Lance Bueller’s, and always in a place no one else inhabited.

  Florence wished she could know her brother better, but Puck’s world was solitary, and unlike Isolde, she couldn’t accept he was happy there. ‘He’s fine,’ Issy told her. ‘He’s fine.’ Amanda said the same thing, and once when she had approached Lucas about his son’s mostly nocturnal wanderings, he had patted her shoulder and said, ‘He’s Puck,’ as if that answered everything.

  ‘Shouldn’t we try to get him seen by a doctor or something?’ she’d once asked both her parents when Puck had been living in a tent in the backyard for weeks on end.

  ‘No.’ Amanda Saint Claire had surprised her with the swiftness of her answer. ‘No, we should not. I will not have anyone prodding at him like some dairy cow,’ and Florence resigned herself to asking, ‘Where the fuck is Puck?’ for the rest of her life.

  Isolde appeared in the kitchen, where Florence was making some tea, and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Morning,’ she said, ‘that was fun, last night, all of us together.’

  Florence nodded, it had been fun, and as the evening had wound down to half-empty wineglasses, Amanda had finally descended from the table to sit and sing with her children on the floor. Puck had sung with his eyes closed, his head against the couch, Isolde beside him, her legs swung over his, and Amanda’s and Florence’s voices met somewhere in the middle. It had always been this way, her mother’s voice and her own finding each other across rooms and stages, their voices so similar it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.

  ‘You’re really good,’ Isolde said. ‘I wish you’d sing more.’

  Florence headed her off at the pass, knowing that what Issy really meant was, ‘I wish you’d sing more with us.’

  ‘Tea?’ Florence asked, but Isolde, now doing some sort of complicated stretching movement, ignored her.

  ‘You’ve got the best voice out of all of us, even Lamanda, we sound so much better with you, it feels so much better with you, why can’t you just get over whatever it is you need to get over and sing with us again?’

  ‘I sang with you last night, Issy.’

  ‘I mean on stage and you know it,’ Isolde snapped, swinging her arms up to the ceiling and sending the low-hanging kitchen lights swaying.

  Florence reached up and steadied them.

  ‘Not now, Issy. I’ve just got up, my head is sore, I’ve got to clean up from last night – you can help – and I’m just not in the mood to talk about it.’

  ‘You never are.’

  ‘Well take the hint,’ Florence said, half shouting, although it could be that the words just sounded a lot louder in her aching head.

  ‘I’m not interested in joining the Swingers again, and you are doing perfectly well without me. This constant carping by you and Mum drives me crazy, so just stop, Issy, just stop.’

  Issy paused mid-stretch. ‘The thing is, Florence, it’s all about you. You never think about us. We’d do much better with you in the group, you know it, you heard us last night. When you sing with us all the pieces come together, it’s like leaving an ingredient out of a . . .’

  Florence waited. Isolde did not cook, she would have no idea what ingredients went into the meals Florence made her.

  ‘Out of a what, Isolde?’ she asked.

  ‘Out of a sandwich,’ Isolde shouted. ‘Out of a sandwich, Florence, it’s like leaving the bread out of a tomato and lettuce sandwich.’

  ‘Well then you’d have a salad, wouldn’t you, and you’d have to make do with that.’

  The sisters tracked each other beneath the still swaying lights.

  ‘I hate salad,’ Isolde said finally. ‘And I will have some tea, thank you, with the teabag and the water and the milk and the sugar . . . See Florence, I do know how to make something.’

  Florence felt the stirrings of a pulse at the base of her skull . . .

  ‘Look, Issy, it’s too early to fight. Can we just put this away for another time?’

  But Isolde, grumpy and hungry, kept tugging at the thread between them, determined to unravel it.

  ‘Actually no, Florence, we can’t put it away for another time, there’s never another time with you, you’re always stomping around that forest in your stupid workman’s boots tryi
ng to pretend you’re not a singer. Well, you are a fucking singer, Florence, and you fucking know it.’

  Miss Suki shimmered in front of Florence’s eyes, wearing a full-length emerald gown with silver stilettos peeping out from the hem, twin stars uncloaked behind a cloud.

  ‘You’re throwing away your life out there, Florence. You’re a star just like Lamanda’s a star, more than me, more than Puck, you’ve got it. I have to work at it, so does Puck, hours of bloody rehearsal and breathing exercises, and then last night you just open your mouth and you’re better than all of us . . . even Dad.

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ Isolde now in full, flapping flight, ‘what about helping us to keep his name out there, don’t you think you should think of him? What about his musical legacy, Florence? Don’t you think Dad would just love to see us all together again? Do you ever stop to think about more than fucking edible plants, and think about how much your singing meant to him?’

  Isolde looked at Florence, Issy’s face tilted upwards, her head shaking a little.

  ‘Enough, Isolde,’ Florence said, and walked out of the kitchen, up the narrow stairs to her room.

  Then she changed quickly, grabbed her bag and keys and headed to the library, ignoring Isolde still pacing in the kitchen.

  ‘I’m sorry, Florence,’ she said, but Florence kept on walking, slamming the door behind her.

  So childish, Florence thought, all this shouting in kitchens and slamming doors, but that was the way her family was.

  The Saint Claire children could unsettle each other with words that, if someone else said them, they would not even notice. But said by a sister, or a brother, or a mother, they arched in the air and took aim wherever they might hurt the most.

  What was that? Florence thought, then supposed it must be family. Were other families like her own? She thought of Laurence and Georgina Flowers with their Sunday dinners and thought that no, they probably were not.

  It was Sunday, the library would be shut, but she had a key to the side entrance, and the passcode to the alarm system, and the less Monty Rollins knew about that, the better.

  Florence liked going to the library on a Sunday, parking her car a couple of streets away then strolling towards it and ducking in the side door when she was certain the coast was clear. She wasn’t sure what would happen if Monty caught her, probably nothing except a long lecture about security and insurance and the need for all of them to follow the rules, but Florence wasn’t sure whether she was actually breaking any and had decided it was easier not to find out.

  She walked to the library’s entrance then around the side and quickly let herself in, punching in the security code for the alarm. Then she walked through the Green Team’s office and out into the main library itself, settling herself into one of the big armchairs tucked away behind the biographies.

  Usually Florence came to the library to work on the set list for the Nightshades, or to talk with Veronica or Orla without anyone listening in.

  I am like a spy, Florence thought to herself, not displeased with the idea. I am like an espionage agent with her own secret hideout.

  But today Florence just wanted the library to do its job, to do the job that all libraries did beneath the surface business of lending out books and photocopying pages for assignments. Florence wanted the library, as it did for generations of quirky kids who found the playground with all it rules and mini regimes overwhelming, or all the mothers who fled their homes with their small children to sit in one of its armchairs beside the picture books, to comfort her.

  Florence sat in the chair and closed her eyes, breathing the books in.

  It was quiet, no chattering, no teenagers giggling against the shelves, no Monty shushing them with his finger to his mouth, no hum of the photocopier, no mother and toddler groups singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ in one of the activity rooms – and no air conditioning unit creaking into life. Florence never turned it on, sure that Monty would somehow notice a spike in usage on Sundays and launch a full-scale investigation. Instead there was silence, just Florence and the books, keeping all their secrets bound up together.

  Florence’s eyes flicked to the pictures hanging in a row at the windows. Pegged to red string, the white sheets of paper looked like prayer flags with their crayoned sentences in waxy, bright colours. Across the top of each was written – in varying degrees of penmanship – What people don’t know about me is . . . and each child had answered in their wonky, going-up-the-page writing.

  What people don’t know about me is . . .

  I am good at drawing.

  I am a fairy.

  I hate the library – Pedro Perkins, she smiled.

  I like to play soccer.

  I can make pancakes.

  Florence came to the end of the line, and then hung her own, imaginary picture along the red string.

  Then she wrote her own secret, her finger tracing the words in the air.

  I killed my father.

  Bit dramatic, thought Florence, but there it is.

  *

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Florence,’ Lucas Saint Claire said from one end of the window seat, while she sat at the other, their outstretched legs somehow fitting on the narrow green cushion.

  ‘Oh don’t do that, Dad,’ she teased, ‘that way leads to madness.’

  They were in the music room, where Florence had brought up a cup of tea for Lucas after his practice.

  Lucas smiled. ‘I’ve been thinking about you not wanting to be in the band any more.’

  Florence looked out the window at the tree and wished she could climb out onto it, down to the street, and pedal away on someone’s BMX. That way, she thought, she wouldn’t have to disappoint her father.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I just can’t do it.’

  ‘It’s okay, I understand that. I wish you would, but I can’t force you, no one can force you . . . except maybe Richard,’ he smiled, and Florence giggled. ‘But I was also thinking that there’s always a lot of noise here, isn’t there? Lots going on.’

  Florence nodded.

  ‘So I was thinking . . .’

  ‘So much thinking, Dad!’ Florence smiled.

  ‘Don’t interrupt me, Florence, all this thinking is quite hard, you know – I was thinking that maybe you felt a bit lost.

  ‘I don’t spend as much time with you as I should. When you were little, before Isolde and Puck came along, before I went away so much with work, we spent a lot of time together, do you remember?’

  Florence remembered, not so much the detail, but the feeling of walking with her father with her hand in his, or riding high on his shoulders, bobbing up and down streets with Lucas theatrically yelling out, ‘Tree!’ whenever she had to duck her head beneath a branch.

  ‘So, I was wondering if you’d like to spend a bit of time with your old man, just the two of us.’

  Florence grinned.

  ‘I would love that,’ she answered, ‘although I’m probably a bit old now to ride on your shoulders.’

  ‘Never!’ Lucas smiled at her. ‘So here’s the plan. I’m meant to be going to a recording session in town next week, on Wednesday afternoon, but I’m going to wag it.’

  ‘Wag it?’

  ‘You know, skive off, don’t show up. Don’t tell me you’ve never wagged before.’

  Florence shook her head.

  ‘Well you should, everyone should, at least once. Have I taught you nothing? So, what I am proposing is that I wag recording and you wag your singing lesson, and you meet me after school in town at the Java Lounge where I buy you an obscenely large milkshake.’

  Florence was thrilled; she loved the Java Lounge with its deep booth seats and picture windows out onto the street. It was the place they went for family celebrations – birthdays, shows that had sold out, the time Isolde got her braces off. Florence remembered Isolde walking in, holding Amanda’s hand, and looking, for the first and last time that Florence could remember, shy. ‘Come on, Issy, show us your choppers,�
� Lucas had called, and Issy had broken into a smile, the clunky train lines gone.

  The family always sat by the front window if they could get it, and they usually could, particularly if Lucas was there, hovering by the table until someone on it recognised him and gave up their seat. ‘No, mate, really we were just leaving,’ they’d say, and Lucas would smile, ‘That’s really spectacularly kind of you,’ and they would feel the warmth of him long after they had gone home and told the story to all of their friends.

  But the family hadn’t gone there for months, missing both Puck’s and Amanda’s birthdays. Lucas had been away touring, and even if they nabbed the booth by the front window, it didn’t feel the same without him sliding in beside them and saying, ‘What shall we have? I know, let’s order one of everything!’

  Now Florence was going with Lucas by herself, and she thought she really didn’t care where they sat, or that at sixteen she also considered herself a bit too old for milkshakes. Lucy Venables, she knew, was already drinking Bacardi Breezers.

  ‘You’re on, Dad . . . What time?’

  ‘Well, I figure if we meet there at four, we can stay for about an hour and walk home together.’ He winked. ‘As far as anyone else knows I’ve been to my recording, you’ve been to your lesson and we just happened to meet outside the gate.’

  ‘What about your recording?’

  ‘I’ll tell them I can’t make it.’

  ‘What about my lesson?’

  ‘I’ll write a note – Oh and Florence?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’ll be wearing a blue feather in my hat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That way you’ll know it’s me.’

  Florence laughed. ‘And I’ll wear . . . well I’ll be in my school uniform, but I’ll wear one sock up and one sock down.’

  ‘Genius. I always said you were a very talented girl.’

  Florence put out her hand.

  ‘Deal.’

  ‘Deal.’

  They both leant forward to shake hands, and Florence felt the giddiness of secret-keeping.