Brothers & Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page A

park, young fielders were flopping down on the ground and sucking twigs and peering longingly towards the river or the party table that Anthony’s mother and aunts were setting up under the peppermint trees. The kids had given up on having a turn with the bat and now they wanted to swim or eat; at this rate there’d soon be an uprising. Oblivious to the general restiveness the three Miller sisters were drinking their customary spritzers and laughing while they blew up balloons and tied them to the trees’ branches, special balloons that said Happy 8th Birthday Anthony!
    I was wicket-keeping. Because I wanted him to succeed, and I wanted the cricket set to be an appreciated gift, I was torn. But eventually I said, ‘You’re really out, my man. Give someone else a turn.’
    He swung at another slow underarm ball from Brian, and missed again. I trudged uphill after the ball while he thumped the grass in frustration. But he still didn’t give up the bat.
    Unusually for a Perth summer afternoon the sea breeze hadn’t arrived and the day gave off a sullen chalky glare that stung the eyes. In the river below us, other shrieking children were bombing and diving off the jetty—non-party guests having a better time than us—and becalmed yachts lolled in a deepwater bay as smooth as oily glass. Ageless impressionist subject matter. You’ve also spotted the scene in a hundred atmospheric summer photographs: skinny showoff boys caught mid-air, spread-eagled between jetty and water. Even at my age I envied them. Already my shirt was sticking to me from all that trudging after the missed balls. The buffalo runners had an annoying way of gripping the ball and stopping it from rolling back down to me.
    ‘Don’t be a bad sport,’ I told him. I was feeling disheartened as well as hot. Anthony was ruining the party mood. As I threw the ball back to Brian, I said, ‘Don’t bowl any more until the spoilsport walks.’
    Brian looked for direction to the women with the spritzers and balloons. In the shade of the peppermint trees the Miller sisters had taken off their sunhats, revealing three different hues of red hair in gradations from vivid orange-peel to mercuric-sulphide pigment to dark rust. They had cigarettes going, too, which interfered with their balloon-blowing efforts, and every now and then one of the women would gasp and giggle and her half-inflated balloon would escape, spinning, blurting and farting crazily over their heads.
    The dark-rusty one, Liz, Anthony’s mother and my stepmother, glanced at us. ‘I hope you’ve got sunscreen on, Ant,’ she said.
    Brian looked back at me uncertainly. ‘Show him again how to hold the bat.’
    Jesus, Brian was being avuncular . He was twenty-eight, married to the youngest Miller sister, Jeanette, and in our occasional dealings the seven years he had over me seemed to give him the advantage. But in the matter of Anthony, I felt I had the upper hand. Brian was only Anthony’s uncle by marriage, and even less related to me, not my family at all. Anyway, I had deaths on my side. Two deaths gave me the edge.
    ‘Here we go again,’ I said. I gripped Anthony’s narrow shoulders and spun him side-on to the bowler. The panther emblem was stamped on the bat as well. I twisted the bat handle around in his hands. ‘This is your last ball,’ I said. ‘Keep a straight bat. See that panther on the bat? It should face your right leg. Defend your wicket. Take it easy. Don’t swing like a dunny door.’
    He squirmed free of my hands and shuffled back to his incorrect stance. If he swung the bat from there he’d not only miss the ball again but knock his wicket over. His eyes had an oddly familiar shine. My father’s old Dewar’s glint, his Johnnie Walker midnight-aggressive glint. ‘Go shit-fuck-shit away!’ Anthony growled. ‘I don’t have to take any notice of you!’
    My God, he needed a smack. ‘That’s not even proper swearing, Paleface,’ I said as I walked off.

    When I