Love Is Blind by Kathy Lette

Chapter One
    Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
    ‘THE OUTBACK? WHAT do you
mean
you’re moving to the Australian Outback?’ Anthea’s startled words were lost on her sister as Jane barrelled down the stone steps to stash another suitcase into the boot of her car. ‘
Why
?’
    ‘The man shortage,’ Jane grunted glumly. ‘All the men in London are married or gay. Or married
and
gay.’ She pushed back up the stairs past her perfectly groomed elder sister to fetch more belongings from her flat.
    Anthea tottered in sky-scraper high heels towards her sister’s car which was parked half up on the kerb. The uneven pavement of inner-city Soho made her feel like a toddler taking to the ice. ‘Weren’t you even going to tell me?’ she asked.
    ‘Why bother? I knew you’d just try to talk me out of it,’ Jane replied, as she strapped her cello case into the back seat. Anthea thought crossly that it was just so typical of her sister to take up the cello as a child, when a clarinet or flute would have been so much less fuss.
    ‘Oh, well, that’s just lovely, isn’t it? Thank God I happened to drop by on the way home from court then … Otherwise I wouldn’t even have known that my sister had fled the country. My legal case was settled by the way. Thanks for asking,’ she added, sarcastically.
    ‘I thought of writing to you, Anthea, but what could I say? “
So glad your life’s perfect … engaged to a legal eagle. Great job. Mortgage as small as your waist. Designer genes inherited from Mum and Dad … But I’m buggering off because I’m thirty-two and my eggs are rotting in my ovaries
.” But there just didn’t seem to be a greetings card to cover that,’ Jane said, sharply.
    Though separated in age by only thirteen months, Anthea and Jane were not the type of sisters to sit around exchanging polite remarks. Instead they’d spent their youth using each other as dartboards. Basically the two siblings got on as well as a gun-toting hunter and an Animal Rights supporter. Anthea felt duty-bound to express a desire that her less successful younger sister should make a go of things out in the Colonies … But found she secretly wanted to load Jane down with heavy weights and drop her in piranha-infested waters.
    Jane, on the other hand, felt sure that if her oh, so perfect, control-freak elder sister ever ended up in a lifeboat, the other passengers would eat her by the end of the first day. Even if they had plenty of food and water and land was in sight. Just because she was so damned annoying.
    Anthea stepped gingerly over the dog turds which dotted the pavement. She couldn’t understand why Jane insisted on dwelling in this seedy, inner-city area. She could have bought a nice house in the outer suburbs for half the price, using the money their parents had left. It was typical of her little sister’s lack of common sense.
    After the tragic death of their beloved mother and father, in a boating accident in the Red Sea two years before, Anthea had tried to encourage her sister to act like an adult. But there were times when she was secretly tempted to put Jane up for adoption. ‘Where exactly are you moving to on the other side of the world, if it’s not too much to ask?’ Anthea enquired crossly.
    ‘Broken Ridge. Mining town. West Australia.’ Jane leant on the car bonnet to catch her breath. The suitcases had been heavy. Hands on stout, denim-clad hips, she faced her slender sister. ‘As you know, I’ve been on so many blind dates, I should be given a free guide dog. But I’ve been looking in the wrong places!’
    Her face came alive with excitement then. ‘In the Australian Outback,’ she chirped, ‘men outnumber women ten to one.’ Jane retrieved a scrunched-up newspaper article from her pocket and thrust it at her sister.
    Anthea perched her sunglasses on top of her highlighted blonde locks. She smoothed out the blurred print with her manicured claws. Then she read aloud very slowly, as though