I have no recollection of this. But if Rose says I did, then I did. I take a moment to consider the ramifications of this. It’s been four days since Rose went away. Four days since Alfie has been without food or walks. I search my brain for information on how long dogs can survive without food. But I don’t know. I think I might be sick.
Rose is clicking her tongue in that way she does when she is panicking. ‘What are we going to do?’ she says.
I look at Wally, who is watching me intently. ‘You said your van is down the road?’
He nods.
‘Rose,’ I say into the phone. ‘I’m on my way to your house.’
*
Wally is very efficient with time management, as it turns out. After I explain what has happened, he offers to run and get his van (and he does, indeed, run) while I pack up the picnic. By the time I shove everything into the bags and get to the gate, Wally is waiting for me in an orange vintage-looking kombi van. He opens the passenger door from the inside.
‘Where to?’ he asks, and I direct him to Rose’s house, a fifteen-minute drive from the Botanic Gardens. He leaves the radio off as we drive and does me the favour of not talking, which I appreciate as I need to keep my brain space clear to focus on Alfie. Not that I can think much. I feel wobbly with the anxiety of it all. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to keep myself calm. I will be of no use to Alfie unless I can stay calm.
When we pull up outside Rose and Owen’s house, it looks the same as always. Someone must be collecting the mail because there isn’t any sticking out of the letterbox. I wonder why Rose didn’t ask whoever was collecting the post to feed and walk the dog too – if she had, maybe Alfie would be all right.
Wally gets out of the car first. ‘Where will he be?’
‘In the backyard,’ I say.
Wally races up the side of the house and flings open the gate while I walk more slowly behind him, arms still wrapped around myself. When I get to the backyard, I see Alfie is lying on his dog bed on the back verandah. He’s utterly still. I try to take a step toward him but find myself frozen on the spot.
He’s so still. Unmoving. I see him. I feel his skin and hair in my grasp. Wet, dead flesh.
I’ve done it again.
Wally kneels at Alfie’s side. ‘He’s alive. It’s all right, Fern, he’s alive.’
I nod, but relief is slow to come. Alfie’s alive. Not everyone has been as lucky.
‘His water bowl’s dry,’ Wally continues. ‘Where can I find the hose?’
I don’t reply. Wally looks around and finds it himself.
‘We need to take him to the vet,’ Wally says to me, filling the bowl. When I don’t reply, he says, ‘Fern? Fern, I need you to listen to me, okay?’
This appears to be a circuit-breaker, and I snap to attention. ‘Yes. Okay. The vet.’
Wally places the filled water bowl in front of Alfie. When he doesn’t drink, Wally cups water in his hands and holds it to Alfie’s snout. After he’s had a drink, he picks up Alfie as if he were a newborn baby.
‘Fern,’ Wally says. ‘Can you get the car door?’
I do. Once I’m strapped into the passenger seat, Wally passes Alfie to me, positioning him so Alfie’s head is supported by my elbow. The whole process means that Wally is required to touch me several times, and while I am aware of it, I don’t recoil.
The vet has thick grey eyebrows. I am staring at them as he tells us Alfie is lucky. He’s dehydrated apparently (Alfie, not the vet), but he has been rehydrated on intravenous fluids for hours and he’s doing much better now. In fact, most of the vet’s concerns are about how the mix-up happened in the first place. He tells us that in these sorts of cases he usually calls the RSPCA, who then check to ensure the dog is in an adequate home, but Wally manages to convince him that Alfie will be fine in our care. He is impressively convincing. By the time he is finished, even I almost believe him.
‘I assure you,’ he says, ‘it was all a misunderstanding. Alfie could not be in better hands.’
I look at my hands. When I look up again, the vet is looking at me.
‘Do you work, Ms Castle?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m a librarian.’
‘So you’re out of the house most of the day?’
‘Yes, but–’ I say.
‘I’ll be with Alfie when she’s at work,’ Wally cuts in. ‘I’m the dog-sitter. Alfie won’t be alone for a moment.’
I look at Wally in surprise. He studiously avoids my gaze.
The vet looks from me to Wally and back again. Finally, he exhales. ‘He’ll need to be given small sips of water every hour for the next few days. I’ll also give you some electrolyte powder. If he isn’t keeping anything down, give him ice cubes to lick. I’d like you both to bring the dog back in a couple of days so I can see for myself that he’s being taken care of. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Wally and I say in unison.
‘Make an appointment at the front desk. Two days.’
We both nod. And a few minutes later, reluctantly, the vet releases Alfie into our care.
On the way home, we stop at Rose’s to pick up Alfie’s food, lead and water bowl. Then I call Rose. It goes better than I expect. Rose is calmer once she knows Alfie is all right. She apologises for being frustrated and says she blames herself – she should have checked Alfie into the kennel like she planned. I tell her that I’m taking Alfie back to my flat and will keep him there for the rest of the time Rose is away. I’m not sure why I didn’t suggest that when Rose asked me. I wish I could remember.
‘How is Owen?’ I ask.
‘He’s great. He says to say hello.’
‘Tell him I say hello back.’
‘I will.’
‘So, you’re having a good time?’
‘A perfect time. Just wonderful. I’m missing you, though.’
‘I miss you too.’
I wrap up the phone call quickly, partly because I expect that Rose will be busy with Owen and partly because it feels like it might be rude to chat while Wally is sitting right here in the car. When I hang up, though, I’m still feeling heartsick about the whole thing. It could have been so much worse. Just another few hours and . . .
‘Stop thinking about it,’ Wally says.
‘I can’t.’
‘The important thing is that Alfie is okay, right?’
‘For now,’ I say.
‘For now?’ Wally laughs. ‘Are you planning on hurting him?’
You don’t always have to plan it, I think.
‘I don’t remember Rose asking me. It doesn’t even ring a bell. That’s what scares me the most.’
‘Well,’ Wally says, ‘maybe she forgot to ask? She was preparing for an overseas trip – she probably had a million things on her mind. It probably slipped her mind.’
I shake my head. ‘Rose doesn’t forget things.’
‘Do you forget things?’ Wally asks.
‘Yes. With great regularity.’
‘That surprises me.’
It surprises me too, I think. All the time.
‘It can be distressing at times,’ I admit. ‘Always worrying about what I might have forgotten, or what I might do wrong if left to my own devices.’ This is more emotional than my typical conversation, and I don’t feel entirely comfortable with it. I wonder if it is a side effect of being on a date.
‘What makes you think you’d do anything wrong?’ Wally asks.
‘Past experience,’ I say, as we turn into my street. I point to my block. ‘This is my place here.’
Wally parks in front. He pulls up the handbrake and then pushes his glasses back up his nose, something that is fast becoming a trademark of his. ‘How do you live your life with that fear?’
There’s no good answer for this. ‘I just . . . do. What choice do I have?’
‘Wow,’ he says. ‘That’s brave.’
I don’t know what to say to that. It feels like a good time to change the subject. ‘Did you mean it when you said
you would watch Alfie for me while I’m at work?’ I ask.
‘I don’t say things I don’t mean.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘In that case . . . see you Monday morning? Nine am.’
Wally agrees and I slide out of the car, Alfie in my arms. As I watch him drive away, I realise I feel something akin to content. It makes me worry for a world where someone like me can feel content after what I did.
I fall asleep quickly, but I wake with a gasp.
I am instantly oriented. There is no buffering period, no momentary confusion. I know where I am. I know it was a dream, even if I can still feel the cool wet flesh beneath my hands, the kicking and writhing, my fingers gripping so tightly that they tremble. I also know it wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory. A warning. Most of all, it’s a reminder. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Fern. Remember what you’re capable of.
As if I could forget.
I glance at the alarm clock – 3.43 am. There are still a few more hours until daylight. If I roll over and go to sleep quickly, it’s possible I might still get some sleep. God knows I need it. Three more weeks without Rose.
Will I survive it?
JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE
I’m living in a dream. Owen met me at the airport with open arms – and a bunch of peonies. You know how couples often have a song? Well, we have a flower, and it is peonies. He gave me a bunch on our first date, and I carried them in my wedding bouquet. Over the years – four years this spring – whenever there has been a special occasion – a promotion, a birthday, an anniversary – it was always celebrated with peonies.
After dropping my bags at his Fulham apartment, we went straight to dinner – a really fancy place in Chelsea. When we got back to his place afterward, I checked the medicine cabinet and the sheets in the laundry for scents of perfume. Clear on both counts. It feels too good to be true. Owen said all the things I had hoped for: that he missed me, that he had been miserable without me, that he wanted to try ‘us’ again. We made love the first night, and the next morning, and the night after that. The sex was better in London, we both agreed. Something about the Northern Hemisphere. Everything was perfect.
Except for the Fern situation.
I blame myself. I should never have left her in charge of Alfie. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have tried to keep things as simple as possible for her – nothing that strayed from her routine. But Fern could seem so high functioning that even I could be lulled into a false sense of security. Still, even with the Fern situation, it’s hard to be too upset when things with Owen are going so well. I try not to think about the fact that soon I’ll have to go home.
Leaving has always been a trigger for me. Because . . . you guessed it! Mum. From around the time we were eight, leaving was always her threat. It might have been in response to something we said or did – like being ill or being stressed about a test at school (not that we ever admitted to either, we’d learned by then that we weren’t allowed to have troubles of our own). Sometimes, it was for no reason at all.
‘Looking a bit glum today,’ Mum would say. ‘If everything is so bad, maybe I should just leave? I’m obviously making your life terrible.’
I knew I shouldn’t, but every time she threatened to leave, I cried. Real throat-clogging tears, the kind that came from the depths of my soul. A couple of times, I cried so hard I vomited. Make no bones about it, I was terrified of Mum. I dreamed of her being kinder, more loving, more like other mothers. But I never, not even once, dreamed of her leaving.
‘What are you crying about?’ she’d snap. ‘I thought you’d be thrilled to have me gone.’
She’d act like she was frustrated, but I think she liked it when I cried. The tears validated her, made her feel worthy. When, after the drama, Mum would agree to stay, I would count it as a victory. I assumed it was my devotion to her that was keeping her around.
But the older we got, the more volatile she became. It didn’t take long before Mum’s moods began to dictate my day. And it didn’t matter what she was feeling – whatever it was, I was terrified. If she was happy, I was terrified I would ruin it. If she was unhappy, I was terrified she’d blame me. If she wasn’t around, I was terrified that she had left for good. Any other mood, and I was terrified she was dreaming up some new way to be cruel.
One of her favourite things was to mock me about food.
‘Back in the kitchen, Rosie Round?’ she’d say whenever possible, a playful look in her eyes. ‘You know what they say: a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.’
If I had the audacity to look even slightly upset by these comments, she’d say I was being too sensitive, which, in Mum’s eyes, was an unforgivable thing to be. It was before I was diagnosed with diabetes, and I was constantly hungry and thirsty. I tried not to eat too much and I certainly didn’t want to do anything to invite Mum’s criticism, but I couldn’t help it. Inevitably, I would end up right back in the kitchen. It didn’t matter that Fern ate as much as I did, Mum never said a word to her. Once, I asked her why she never said anything to Fern, and she shrugged as if it was obvious: ‘Because Fern can afford to eat what she wants, she has my metabolism.’
She was right; Fern was a clone of Mum physically. They were both tall and the kind of skinny where a stray elbow could puncture flesh. Fern also had Mum’s hair, a crowning glory of tumbling honey-coloured waves. It felt unfair to be twins with her. Next to Fern, I felt like a frumpy interloper, even before Mum decided to point it out.
On our ninth birthday, there was another blow-up, this time over a cake Mum made us from the Women’s Weekly cookbook. Mum made us a fancy cake every year – yet another of the contradictions that was our mother. It was a source of great pride for her; she loved anything that made her feel like a good mother. It was always a big production: selecting the cake she wanted to make, shopping for the ingredients, looking for tips and tricks. That year, she decided it was going to be a unicorn cake – the most difficult she’d attempted. In the lead-up, she’d been to three different shops to find the right cake tin and yet another to get the icing and the gold edible horn. It was a nice time for all of us, not because Fern and I cared much about the cake, but because Mum’s mood was always buoyed by the cake-making.
As usual, we weren’t allowed in the kitchen while she made the cake, we were only invited in for the exciting ‘reveal’ when it was done. The unveiling was Mum’s favourite part. We were required to squeal with joy, thank her profusely and ask a million questions about how she did it – even Fern seemed to understand how we were to act. On this birthday, we performed our roles with aplomb and Mum seemed very pleased, which in turn meant I felt torn between being happy and being terrified that something would happen to mess it up.
After we sang ‘Happy Birthday’, Mum took a photo of Fern and me in front of the cake before I was dispatched to get plates. Peering into the cupboard, I agonised over whether to use the ‘good’ plates or the plastic for so long I was sure Mum would snap at me, asking what the heck I was doing. When I finally produced the good plates, she merely nodded her approval. The relief was so great I went weak with it.
It almost went off without a hitch. Almost. But when I reached for my piece of cake, I felt Mum’s cold finger poking me in the stomach.
‘Not too much now, Rosie Round!’ she said with a snigger.
It might have been the fact that my nerves had been stretched taut all day. It might have been that it had been so close to being a good day. It might have been that it was a hard poke, and Mum’s nails were sharp.
The tears came in a flood.
‘Oh, for god’s sake! It was just a joke. Why can’t you take a joke, Rose?’
I willed myself to get it together, but the tears showed no sign of abating. I tried looking at the roof, dabbing at my eyes. Even smiling through tears. But nothing worked.
This just annoyed Mum more. ‘So, I’m a bad mother now, am I? After I’ve I spent weeks planning this cake for you? Perfect.’
‘No!’ I said, at the same time as a sob escaped. Fern, who’d been obliviously tucking into her piece of cake, paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. I stood beside her, tapping my bracelet gently against hers. She knew this was a warning. Something is coming. It was the best I could do.
Mum flung up her arms. ‘And now you’ve ruined Fern’s birthday too! Great work, Rose. Really great work.’
Mum stormed off, leaving Fern and me alone. Five minutes later, when we heard a noise, we crept into the hallway to find Mum was dragging a suitcase toward the door.
‘Where are you going?’ I cried.
‘What’s it to you?’ Mum hissed. ‘You clearly don’t want me around, even with everything I do for you. You’ll be fine without me.’
Instantly, I was shaking. ‘No. We do want you around. We need you. Don’t go, Mummy, PLEASE!’
She locked the door behind her. I banged at it, screamed for her to come back, pressed my ear against the door to listen for movement. When it became clear she wasn’t coming back, I sat in the hallway. Fern sat beside me, silent but serious.
I quickly figured out that we couldn’t call the police – if we did that and Mum returned, she’d be furious. We couldn’t go to the neighbours for the same reason, and, besides, Mum didn’t like us talking to strangers. We couldn’t do anything. We just had to wait.
After a couple of hours, I went to the kitchen and checked the cupboards, determining that we had enough food to last us a week or so if we cooked the pasta and rice and defrosted the frozen food. If Mum wasn’t back by then, I’d have to make a new plan. I kept making plans well into the night, long after Fern was asleep, her head lolling against my shoulder.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep too, because when I woke up it was light outside, Fern was sprawled on the floor beside me and Mum was there, standing over me. It took me a few seconds to put everything back together – what happened, where we were, what day it was. When I realised she was back, I flew into her arms so fast I nearly knocked her over. Of course, I burst into a fresh flood of tears. But this time, when I cried, it didn’t seem to upset Mum. On the contrary, she fell to her knees and held me, rubbing my back in rhythmic circles.
The Good Sister Page 6
