Between a Wolf and a Dog

by Georgia Blain

  She signed the contract three weeks ago, with settlement in ten days.

  Looking out the doors towards the house, she watches the rain running down the glass, the light from her desk lamp revealing her own reflection, the face of a seventy-year-old woman surprising her, because she still thinks of herself as so much younger than she is.

  Inside the house, April is up. She sits at the kitchen table, wrapped in Maurie’s old robe, her beautiful golden hair knotted at the base of her neck. In a rare moment of stillness, she too is watching the rain, raising a hand in greeting as Hilary opens the studio doors, an old newspaper held above her head to protect herself from the downpour.

  April had turned up the previous evening, the sweet smell of wine on her breath, cigarette smoke clinging to her wet clothes, her voice loud as she came in, calling out: ‘Hello, are you home?’

  She’d met a friend for a drink at the pub around the corner, and thought she’d walk down here and crash, rather than try and get a cab. Opening the fridge and pulling out some scraps — cheese, pickles, cold meat, pasta sauce — she’d begun to pile them on a plate, talking, talking, talking.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about taking myself off to London. Meet up with people that I recorded with, you know?’ Her mouth was full of food, and she grinned that beautiful, wide smile as she realised how she looked. ‘Sorry,’ she laughed. ‘Starving. Josie — you remember her? — she’s over there doing back-ups, and Simon, he’s producing again — and the timing is right. I’m not working at the moment —’

  Hilary had to interrupt: ‘At the moment?’

  April ignored her. ‘I could rent out my place, and just go — there’s no reason why not. And you’re coming to Paris — we could hang out, mother-daughter time, it’d be fun.’ She kicked her wet boots off, and ran her finger around the edge of the plate, then licked it, her eyes alive with the energy of a new idea. ‘It’s what I need,’ she said, and then as her phone chimed, she looked down at it, and pushed it away. Moments later, it chimed again.

  ‘Someone wants you,’ Hilary said.

  April shook her head, eventually picking the phone up and texting back. ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘If it’s what you want to do.’

  April looked at her. ‘But do you think it’s a good idea?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ Hilary told her. ‘You’re a grown-up, and you seem to be very good at doing whatever you want to do.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ April’s pale-green eyes were glittering now, glass and razor.

  ‘Nothing,’ Hilary told her. ‘No hidden agenda.’

  April’s phone went off again, this time it was a call. She pressed silent. ‘If you’re referring to Ester —’

  ‘I’m not.’ Hilary cut over her, exhausted at the prospect of another argument. ‘I’ve said all I can say. I don’t want to say anymore.’ And then, wanting calm, she sat down opposite her daughter and took her hand. ‘I love you. You’re both my daughters and I love you.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ April told her, eyes welling with tears now. ‘You know I have. I fucked up. But I’ve tried to fix it.’

  Hilary helped herself to a slice of cheese. ‘Do you want to look at my film?’ She wanted to change the subject, but she also wanted April to see it.

  ‘Do we have to go out there?’ April nodded in the direction of the doors. The rain poured down the glass, pooling in the courtyard and then forming a river that rushed down the side stairs that led to the street.

  ‘I’ve used a recording of you in the soundtrack.’

  ‘Which one?’

  It was a favourite of Hilary’s, one of the first songs April had written as a child: a delicate song that was principally voice and guitar, the husky crack in her daughter’s voice almost breaking several times. Listening felt like walking a tightrope — dangerous, too vulnerable.

  ‘I’ll show you in the morning.’

  ‘Sure.’ April had picked up her phone again, wanting to check the previous message, and then she stepped out into the lounge room to return the call.

  Now, as Hilary comes in from outside, she sees how tired April looks. She has no make-up on, and the light from the excitement of the previous evening’s plans has gone. Her face is thin, the pale honey of her skin looks washed out in the grey morning light, and there is a smudge of mascara under her eyes, a black thumbprint, like a bruise.

  ‘Coffee?’ Hilary asks her.

  She holds up her cup, rubbing at her temple with her other hand.

  ‘How are the girls?’ she asks, not looking at Hilary as she speaks but at the drawings pinned on the wall. ‘Are they okay?’

  There is a momentary ease in the rain, a silence, and Hilary glances outside. It hasn’t stopped; she can see the surface of the pools of water, pocked by the lightness of the fall.

  ‘They’re good,’ she tells April. ‘They both had a haircut and insisted that it be exactly the same.’

  ‘Do they ever ask after me?’

  ‘Probably,’ Hilary tells her.

  ‘I miss them, you know.’

  There is so much Hilary could say. She looks around the kitchen, April’s dinner plate still left in the sink, along with an empty bottle of wine that she’d stayed up to drink after Hilary had gone to bed, her wet boots by the back door and her coat draped over the end of a chair. She colonised every space within moments of arriving.

  She remembers the brief period April and Ester had shared a flat. Ester had moved home after two months.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ she’d complained. ‘She wears all my clothes, she uses my shampoo, my sheets — and if I say anything, she tells me I’m uptight, ungenerous, that she would happily let me use anything of hers. Which she would. But I don’t want to. There’s no space between us.’

  There was never any space with April.

  ‘Do you think …’ and then April shakes her head at the foolishness of the thought.

  ‘What?’

  She bites on her bottom lip before continuing. ‘Maybe when they are over at your house, you could let me know. I could come over. Just quickly. Just to say hello.’

  Hilary sighs. She does not want to be pulled into this discussion again. With her back to April, she rinses the plates. When she turns around, she ignores the question.

  ‘The river shack settles soon,’ she says. ‘I’m going up there tomorrow. Just to have a last look.’

  April glances across at her. ‘Do you want me to come?’

  Hilary shakes her head. ‘I’d like to see it for the last time alone.’ She runs her hand down the softness of April’s cheek. ‘Let’s go look at the film. There’s footage of the house that you’ll like, of Maurie, all of us.’

  In the studio, April stands next to the image of the horse, while Hilary finds the files. April hums under her breath, the sweetness both honeyed and rough, and when she comes to sit next to Hilary, the musky smell of her is unwashed but good.

  My beautiful child, Hilary thinks, leaning over and kissing her. My messy, beautiful daughter.

  The voiceover is Hilary’s own, and the opening image a close-up of her hands holding a camera.

  Like all of her works, it demands trust from the audience, that this seemingly random scatter of images will find a narrative order. From cardboard suitcases carried by children sent to the country during the second world war to Maurie’s paints; from her own cluttered studio, and memories of their life together, to footage of a local hoarder’s house; from the girls when they were young to herself and her work — the film asks questions of what to keep, what to discard, what clings despite all efforts to dispel it, and what slides away.

  On the screen now, Maurie sits on the verandah of the shack. He is eating an apple, chewing slowly, while he stares out across the field of poplars, grey eyes focused on the distance, dirt on his cheek (and Hilary c
an almost feel the warmth of his skin when she looks at him, the roughness of the stubble, and the lean line of his jaw), his arms stretched out along the back of the bench, long legs crossed. At his feet, April and Ester are fighting — just a slow niggle at first that builds and builds, until Ester hits April and April screams, Maurie oblivious, and as for her, well, she was behind the camera, letting the girls fight because she wanted the footage. And then the camera pans down to the dolls they have been playing with, made by Hilary’s mother and posted over from London, still kept, finally dissolving into an image of them as they are now, in the trunk in the hallway.

  ‘I miss him,’ April says.

  Hilary doesn’t reply.

  She knows the girls sometimes wondered at how she felt, how calm and practical she had appeared after his death. Ester in particular had urged her to talk more about it, recommending counsellors, giving her books about grief.

  She didn’t want to.

  All that he was and all that their life had been together was pulled inside, a great condensed force, dark and roiling, leavened moments later with a purity and joy that was as sweet and restrained as the crisp clarity of an autumn morning. It was hers, to be savoured and brought out when she needed it, to hold and marvel at, not to be flattened with banal words and sentiments.

  As the film comes to an end, Hilary turns to April. Her daughter is sitting in front of the screen, absorbed and still. Hilary takes April’s hand in her own and asks her if she is all right with the footage.

  ‘Of course I am,’ April tells her.

  She had liked the later images of her and Ester going out, wearing Hilary’s fifties frocks, the cotton stiff, a twirl of flowers as April spun for the camera, so aware and yet so unaware of the fact that her image was being recorded, while behind her Ester stood, self-conscious and trying to hold her stomach in.

  ‘I still have that dress,’ April says. ‘Somewhere.’ She smiles, standing now, her gaze focused on the rain. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says to her mother. ‘You always capture something — the elusive that you try to hold, and can’t. You do it.’ She tucks Maurie’s dressing gown tighter around her body, and tells Hilary she’s going to have a shower and head home.

  ‘But you’re not taking that with you,’ and Hilary tugs at the sleeve because she knows April’s tendency to secret what she likes into the cavernous space of her handbag. A pick-pocketer’s bag, Hilary has always called it.

  ‘Can you drive me?’ April asks, one arm stretched out to the rain.

  When Hilary says no, she asks for money for a cab.

  ‘I have no money,’ Hilary tells her. ‘Get a bus.’

  And she watches as her daughter walks down to the house, not even bothering to shield herself from the steady drizzle, letting it soak into Maurie’s gown and ruin the old socks that she stole from Hilary last night, letting it fall on her hair, a mist on the tangle of gold, and she knows that April will stay in the warmth of the shower for ages, before rifling through Hilary’s cosmetics to find the moisturiser she likes, perhaps slipping it into her bag, as well as the lipstick that has always been her favourite.

  Hilary turns back to the computer screen, the image locked on the credits. This is her last film. She hadn’t begun it knowing this, nor has she told Ester or April; she hasn’t told anyone. She doesn’t want their grief or anxiety, or attempts to fix her with surgery or chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or any of the therapies the doctors have suggested. She is seventy years old and she has been loosening herself, trying to unpick the grip of life from her limbs, aware of how quickly time has been pushing her forward, shoving her now, relentless and sure, into this tiny space — the last moments — where she needs more strength than she has ever needed before.

  WHEN LAWRENCE GETS to the school, there’s nowhere to park. His windscreen wipers sweep backwards and forwards at a furious pace, and still he can’t see. He opens his window slightly, and the rain drives in. Last time he double-parked, he was caught by the camera at the crossing and sent a ticket.

  ‘You’re going to have to run,’ he tells the girls. ‘Really fast.’

  ‘Oh bloody hell.’ Catherine looks out and shakes her head, her expression so like Ester’s that he’s momentarily taken aback.

  ‘It’s a shit of a day,’ Lara adds, always wanting to take it one step further.

  He doesn’t bite.

  ‘Quick,’ he tells them, leaning behind to open the door.

  Catherine is out first, her bag tangled in Lara’s. He gives Lara a quick push. ‘Just go with her.’ He sees them, straps caught, having to run right next to each other, across the playground and into the school.

  And then it’s just him and Otto, who is panting in the back seat.

  Neither he nor Ester had wanted Otto when they separated. It was one of the few things they agreed on. He looks at the dog now — wet, smelling like earth and rotting leaves and old meat — and he knows Ester won’t have walked him in this weather, and that he really should take him out before he heads into work.

  He drives to the park at the end of the street: a miserable square of weedy grass, frequently covered by rubbish. It’s the flocks of scabby ibises that cause the carnage; they pick out food scraps from the bins, spreading the rest of the garbage in their wake. Lawrence hates them.

  He lets Otto out, telling him to ‘chase the birds’, but Otto just stands there, bedraggled in the downpour, and refuses to participate in the charade that this is some kind of walk.

  There is a barbecue shelter about 50 metres away and Lawrence makes a run for it, giving the dog brief joy. He huddles under the tin awning, while Otto sniffs out the food scraps and takes the occasional bored piss against the play equipment. He’ll give him ten minutes, Lawrence decides, and then bundle him back into the car, smellier than ever.

  An email alert flashes across his phone, and he supposes Edmund has sent through the numbers from the latest poll. It’s a standard one on the government’s approval rating, which he can guess sits only slightly lower than last time. He hates this government — they appal him — and he knows he will try to spin the results to make them appear even more unpopular, phrasing his press releases to emphasise any bad news.

  That’s what he always does.

  But sometimes he goes a little further.

  He feels a strange sense of vertigo, almost nausea, at the thought of adjusting down again, just very slightly, and only for one of the questions. Leadership unpopularity. Just the smallest correction to the figures. Not enough to put him noticeably out of line with the others, and always staying within the three per cent margin of error, but perhaps a little more than he’s done in the past. The first time was just a matter of rounding percentage points the wrong way, so small as to be insignificant. More the action of a peeved and bored child, who acts because he can. The second time he was a little more daring, going up a percentage point in a couple of questions. Last time, he’d nudged a question about the Prime Minister further than he had in the past, hoping he might spur one or two different kinds of stories, secretly glad when there was an article about whispers of a leadership challenge again.

  He mustn’t.

  He swore he wouldn’t again.

  But there is something about knowing he can mess with the figures that he finds hard to resist.

  Lawrence used to love doing the polls. They were a sideline, fun, work he did to alleviate the boredom of designing endless questionnaires ranking customer’s delight (or lack of delight) with their latest car or fridge or holiday experience. Work he hoped might bring in more interesting research briefs. He ran a couple a year for the paper, before the research company transferred him to Paris. On his return, the editors of the paper wanted him back. The junior who had filled in for him was ambitious, and happy to let the polling go. It didn’t bring in much revenue and it didn’t look good on his performance review. No one factored in the value of
the media coverage — coverage that increased with the return of Lawrence, a man who looked good on camera and knew how to frame a quote.

  And so when Lawrence received the call from HR shortly before he and Ester separated, he managed to negotiate taking the polls with him when he left. His job no longer existed, he was told. The latest restructuring had left them without a place for him. HR had put together a package for his approval.

  As he was packing up his desk (which didn’t require much work — it had been reduced to a 700x500 hot-desk space since his unrequested return from Europe), he received a call from the newspaper. Negotiations were quick, a plan made on the run — if he took this one client with him, it might be enough to tide him over while he tested the waters with music again. He was the face of the polls, the client wanted him, and, as he stressed to the company, the revenue they brought in was miniscule, and a lot less than lawyer’s fees for the wrongful dismissal action he was tempted to commence.

  At first it wasn’t enough work, not nearly enough to survive on, but the media coverage soon brought in other clients, bread-and-butter marketing surveys that he’d always hated and could do in his sleep, research that paid the bills. Polls were reserved for elections, or the occasional divisive policy issue.

  The change was gradual. An extra one here and there, increasing as leadership in both parties became more and more unstable, and slowly building into a monthly sport, the results eagerly awaited by journalists across the country.

  Otto flops at his feet as he scans for the email attachment from Edmund, a collating of the phone responses. He needs his glasses, but it seems that Edmund has forgotten to send it — which is unlike him.

  The dog has found an old chicken carcass, and he cracks the bones noisily as he bites into them. Lawrence tries to kick it away, but Otto lunges for it, displaying no reluctance to go back into the downpour if there is rotting meat to be had.