Free Who Sings for Lu? by Alan Duff

sometimes wants a hand lifting sacks of oysters or trash moved. He gives you a feed of prawns, fries. I’m starved.’
    Trailing behind, Lu wondering why she felt so suddenly miserable. Surely the chick hadn’t done it to her?

Chapter nine
    Anna wondering if to say anything about the disturbing look the girl gave her back at the fish market. Her father would say something like,
If we reacted to every look we get from strangers we’d be forever distracted and likely reading it wrong, anyway
.
    So she was supposed to go around with her eyes closed?
    A daughter understood a certain predictable pattern to her father’s voiced opinions: he often gave homilies which, much as they made sense, were also irritating. Even from a father she loved. Genetically, to use Daddy’s most frequently used word, she was close to him in looks, attitude and outlook; nonetheless she was her own person. And for starters, without the slightest intention of following in his horse-breeder footsteps — hoof-prints. Soon, no more talk of bloodlines and conformation, head and wither, the endless permutations of mating up this quarter bloodline with that half-sister-to, no more pretending to love it with near his passion. The animals themselves, yes, but not the business. Too complex and everything to do with winning and out-thinking the other breeders. Close to a crowing contest even if her father did not crow in public nor, even, much in private; just a quiet little comment at the dinner table, given he could find time to sit down and eat with his family, the human one.
    Turning and grinning, him the same back. They didn’t have toexchange words, though he did reach out a hand from the steering wheel to run it over her hair and say, ‘I love you, my darling.’
    He needn’t. ‘You too, Dad.’
    ‘Next time at the fish market let’s have a muddie each, Singapore style’ — a large mud crab cooked with garlic and chilli. ‘We’re not allowed to leave until each has finished. Okay?’
    ‘You’re on.’
    The stereo system in this new hybrid Lexus 600 perfect for two music lovers, engine whisper-quiet, Anna just old enough to remember not having such luxury. Still, no less appreciative. Eva Cassidy, the singer who had died of cancer, was on. Anna always thought of the tragic loss: who wants to die young? But at least the beautiful singing voice was alive. Her father said there was a pull-down television screen in the back seat. Anna didn’t say she thought that a bit over the top. More for younger kids. Feeling not at her usual ease.
    Wondering if that glaring girl back there might have got her emotions stirred up. Why would she look at a perfect stranger with such hatred?
    ‘Did you notice a group of three by the boats, a girl about my age and two men who looked like hoods?’ she asked.
    ‘I did.’ The look he threw said the homily might be about to follow. ‘Why?’
    ‘Oh, nothing. Just she gave me the real evils.’
    ‘As she would.’ Her father surprised her.
    ‘Why would that be if I don’t know her?’
    ‘Envy. Something you’ll have to get used to. One of the seven deadly sins.’
    Like lust, she thought but would hardly say. Knew her father had an eye for the women, didn’t like it one bit, though no hard evidence to say he actually crossed the line. Just clues here and there like wafts of perfume not her mother’s. How he would step away to take certain cell phone calls. Certain her mother had no idea.
    ‘Envy of what?’
    ‘Surely you know how striking you are?’
    Not something she thought about. Blessed with looks, guess so, but growing up in a rural setting surrounded by testy, highly strung if delightful animals, living in view of a national park and a minorbut beautiful mountain range, the bush trilling and cawing with birds and loudly competing insects, minimal human company when not at school, the mirror was last place one went to. Just as country living took her out of the image contest which she saw, once