"Sorry Megan. I'm nearly finished here," Don quietly apologised, forms and cheques strewn before him as he added by way of explanation. "Let me finish the last of these late tour bookings and we're off to breakfast straight away. Give me two minutes. I know you're probably starving."
On the opposite side of the counter in the small office, the attractive brunette in the wrap-around skirt stopped fidgeting with his 'Hostel Manager' sign. Idly turning her head, she noticed it was 7.15 according to the big clock in the park over the road but 8.15 on her watch. The Shire still hadn't changed it over to daylight saving again, and it was already a month into summer.
She recognised most of the early-bird locals milling and socialising outside as she listened to her cousin's pen furiously scrawling away behind her. Any life like Don's spent filling in forms and sitting constantly at a PC would have driven her nuts she thought. Good. He was down to the last two. Her attention fixed on the lone tourist returning from the monument in the park.
Don looked up in surprise when her hand slid blindly back and touched his forearm.
"Look at that girl," he heard the low hiss. "Tell me if that's not the most beautiful face and figure you've seen in a long, long time Don."
The look of utter reverence in Megan's tone made his eyes join hers. The young girl in the usual backpacker faded T-shirt and shorts and sandals was running her finger down the menu in the window of the cafe next door.
"You're the painter. I'm just a hostel owner-manager, remember?" he kidded her over his reading glasses. "That's Ophelia if you'd like a name. German. Checked in here late yesterday afternoon."
Intensely curious, Megan tilted for a better look. "She's five foot four, do you think? Just a little under my height?" Her hand lightly disturbed his arm again. "Just have another quick look and tell me, as a red-blooded man, what she hasn't got, Don."
"You accuse me of being married to my job!" he scoffed, triumphantly grounding his pen as he went on. "And here you are, just after 8 in the morning, checking out potential models if my guess isn't right. Well, I'm finished here. To breakfast!"
"Hey, she's getting breakfast from the cafe," Megan observed. "We're off there to breakfast instead, as of right now. Find some way to introduce me, will you? I want to see her close up and hear what her voice sounds like. You know, accent and all that. Does she speak any English? Tell me everything you know about her?"
"That's not much. Educated in England she said, when I complimented her on her fluent English," he replied, clicking the last form into his ring binder. "Quiet but friendly personality. Oh, and waiting for someone named Gerhardt to arrive so they can continue touring Australia."
As Megan all but propelled him through the cafe door, he recovered enough to return the wave from the girl sitting alone in a booth for four by the side wall.
"There, told you she was friendly," he said to Megan under his breath. "She's seen me with you and she wants us to sit with her."
"Ophelia, this is Megan," he started as they arrived. "Even if she wasn't my cousin, I'd tell you she's the best portrait painter in the nation. And she lives right here, on the outskirts of our small country town."
"I have a small mud brick house with a studio, just where forest starts," Megan joined in, willingly drowning herself in the wide pale blue eyes that had transferred to her.
"That isn't your painting on the wall over there by any chance?" the girl offered, pointing across the room. "That one of the beautiful girl holding a glass of champagne to her lips. That's usually a representation of celebration, yet she seems to have a really lost, wistful aspect to her."
Megan nodded, impressed that the girl had not only noticed it, but had correctly interpreted its essence. "I did do that. Two years ago. The model's name was Theresa. She died recently."
"You've already ordered breakfast, Ophelia?" Don joined in. There was a nod. "I'll put our order in too. I don't have to even ask Megan what she's having. It's been the same every week for years."
As he dictated to the young fellow scribbling behind the counter, the girl's face lit up as she smiled nervously at Megan. The artist became even more captivated by her natural innocence and modesty, and ached to do this portrait. Over her tea and raisin toast, whenever Ophelia looked down to eat or focused on what Don might be saying, Megan stole glances at parts of the youthful figure, obsessing about what she would dress it in. Victorian lace blouse and formal dress? Ball gown? Tennis outfit? The T shirt and shorts she had on? They all popped into her mind one after another. This girl would look good in almost anything with that well rounded behind, lightly-muscled limbs, narrow waist and almost pointy bust.
The dream instantly evaporated as soon as she heard the words explaining to Don that Gerhardt was her husband, and that they were newlyweds. A distinct "Damn!" instantly crossed her mind. Yet despite the crushing words, she couldn't stop the daydreams of garments and poses involving this lovely creature creeping back. She soon had to regroup her thoughts though. Ophelia turned to her to ask about her latest art projects.
By the time Megan hopped into her car to go home, Ophelia had made her promise to come back that very afternoon with a favourite portrait to show her.
When she arrived in Don's office with it under her arm, he pointed out the side window to the pool. There she saw the newlywed couple, the older husband standing with his wet back turned to his young wife climbing up the poolside steps.
"For such a pretty girl, she doesn't like to show her body off, does she?" Don remarked. Megan ignored his observation about the awful brown one-piece swimsuit she was wearing. That body would look amazing in a wheat sack. She watched the shapely dripping legs pause behind her husband's. He ignored her hinting kisses, finishing drying himself before allowing her to take the towel.
"He seems a bit of a cold fish to me," she observed turning to Don beside her. "Don, do you think if I killed him here and now, a court would acquit me on the grounds that I needed to do it so she would come out and pose for me?" she mused.
The girl's long arms were taking turns at drying each other, the silky blonde hair swaying to and fro along her shoulder blades.
"There may be no need for a murder," he mused. "They were arguing in German in front of the tour counter just before you arrived. Since the wife speaks English fluently and he hardly knows a word, he needed her to book their next tour tomorrow," He paused then continued. "It seems our Gerhardt wants them both to head to the Wilderness Coast for four days of estuary fishing."
Megan was all ears as he continued. "She of course doesn't fancy spending time in the middle of some crocodile- and mosquito-ridden mangrove where all you can do is camp and fish with a lot of increasingly smelly men," he continued. "She also doesn't want to be left here all alone either, or travel on without him. So when I interrupted to say you constantly needed models and might be prepared to offer free room and board while he was away....."
"You are an absolute angel Don," Megan exclaimed. "How did they react?"
"The girl especially seemed interested, but him?" Don said adding a shrug."Well, judge for yourself when you meet him. He apparently gets to decide yes or no though. Ready?"
Megan nodded, nervous butterflies rising in the pit of her stomach as she left the painting there and followed him out into the hot summer light. The next minute, she was confronting his grim features poolside as Don introduced her to him.
She took over and explained to him that country-based artists like her usually had to comb the city to find the right models for portraits. Ophelia was an outstanding subject who she really wanted to paint if she was willing. Would they like to come out and inspect her property, just a few minutes from town? They could decide if they liked the set-up, and whether they were both comfortable with Ophelia staying there for the next four days.
There was only the slightest glance swapped and a few words of German before he off-handily agreed to Ophelia's repeated requests to at least go out and have a look.
The couple went off to change. Ophelia was back first, looking over Megan's painting. It was her only nude, one of Theresa full frontal. The girl loved it but apologetically whispered she couldn't pose naked like that, warning Megan not to even think about showing it to Gerhardt.
Just over a half hour later, Megan was showing them through what would be the girl's bedroom, then over the rest of her large mud-brick house. In her large studio, they thumbed through some more frames on the floor, a varied selection of her past portraits. While she went back to the car for the painting in her boot, they both kept wandering about. As she tried to act blasé and put the painting behind some others the couple had already seen, her heart went into her mouth when Gerhardt strolled back and picked it up. He held it out and stared at it before making a terse negative statement in German, jabbing at it as he dictated a long rebuke to a blushing Ophelia.
Embarrassed, Ophelia hesitantly half-turned to Megan wringing her hands before her, trying to mentally paraphrase the loaded question he had dictated at the very end of his tirade. Megan prepared herself for the worst. His indignant stance as he still held it before him suggested to her the dream to put his young wife onto canvas may be about to vanish.
