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By Root 784 0

was trying to squeeze the life out of Leo, his hands around his brother’s neck, and how Leo would not submit, how he kicked and struck and scratched like a wild animal. The argument had started in their bedroom. They had punched and kicked each other into the kitchen and rolled into the laundry where Saverio’s hands were around his brother’s throat and Leo’s hand had landed on a hammer and it was in raising this hammer to Saverio’s face that the battle had ended. He had blood in his mouth and had fallen across the laundry door and Leo was on top of him, the hammer raised, ready to strike another blow. Don’t, Saverio had screamed. Don’t! Leo dropped the hammer, his lips were trembling. You’re bleeding, he started to whimper. It’s okay, I’m alright. His anger, his brother’s anger, had disappeared in an instant.

When he got back to the table, the woman who had been at the end of the beer garden was sitting across from Anna. They were both smoking and looked up, smiling, as his shadow fell across them.

‘Saverio, this is Melanie.’

‘Call me Mel,’ the woman said. Her voice was shockingly nasal and broad, almost a take-off of a rural Australian accent. Her grip was tight, firm. She wore sunglasses with big round lenses so he could not see her eyes but he guessed she was in her mid-forties. The skin around her mouth was wrinkled, her lips thin, and her hair was dyed a chemical yellow. She wore a black T-shirt a size too small for her full breasts and pot belly, and black jeans a size too small for her expanding arse and thick thighs. She was obviously what Matty and Adelaide would derisively call a bogan, and what his parents, with equal derision, would have called an Australiana. She was a woman who could not take root anywhere else but in this enormous infinite landscape. Unabashed, unashamed.

‘He’s better-looking than Leo.’

‘Mel knew Leo,’ Anna rushed to explain.

‘Yeah, he was a good bloke, your brother.’ Mel stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’m really sorry for your loss.’ It was the expected phrase, it came from a stranger, but she had said it with unforced sincerity and they were the first words since hearing of Leo’s death that brought home the finality of the event. His brother was no more. From now there would only be past.

‘Thank you.’

‘When I first left Brendan and began seeing Suzanne, Leo was the only one who I could talk to about things.’ Mel was obviously continuing a conversation she had begun with Anna while he was in the toilet. ‘Small towns are fucked. Everyone knows you and Brendan’s really popular with everyone. He’s done work on most people’s pipes or plumbing so you can imagine what they thought of me when I took off with a woman.’ Mel was shaking her head. ‘I thought they were going to kill me. Kill both of us. Leo’s was always a safe house; he’d let us come and stay, sleep over. Talk to us about gay rights and shit. Suzanne loved him. She’s devastated he’s gone.’

Saverio was horrified. Mel had started to cry.

‘Fucking bitch, I hate her!’

Anna had wrapped her fingers around Mel’s hand. Saverio, confused, looked away. A line of surfers, black and grey and silver strokes, was visible against the vast blue of the ocean. Mel blew her nose into a tissue one more time then glanced down guiltily at Anna’s cigarettes.

Anna nodded.

‘I shouldn’t.’

‘Today doesn’t count.’

Mel laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

She was looking at Saverio. He couldn’t smile, he didn’t know what she wanted from him. All he could think was what an unlikely lesbian she seemed. He had thought she was a bikie’s moll, an ex-stripper, a small-town mum. Of course it was possible she was all of those things. And a lesbian to boot. Though Dawn wouldn’t find much communion with her. Just like him, Dawn wouldn’t know what to say to Mel.

The woman was rising. ‘Thank you for the smokes.’

Anna jumped to her feet and hugged her. ‘You’ll look after yourself?’

‘Of course.’ Mel seemed embarrassed by the spontaneous affection. She slipped out of Anna’s embrace and held out her hand to Saverio, who had also risen.

‘Mate, again, I’m really sorry.