Between a Wolf and a Dog

by Georgia Blain

  The bottle shop attendant waited.

  ‘Oh God,’ April smiled at her. She shifted from foot to foot. ‘I have become completely incapable of deciding.’ She grimaced, reaching for a bottle and then drawing her hand back.

  The woman looked at her, bored.

  Shiraz. One.

  And then she went back to the shelf.

  ‘You know you can bring them all up at once, love.’

  Pathetically, she bought three. Neither here nor there, an each-way bet, a completely useless compromise. Enough to allow herself to slip into the fourth and fifth glass each night, but not enough to save her from having to head back to town sooner than she would like to.

  It was completely dark as she drove back, and she was nervous. She remembered Maurie once hitting a kangaroo, the terrible thud of its body, and the shudder of the car as they came to a stop, steam hissing from the radiator. It had been so cold that night, the briskness of the air slapping her cheeks as they walked, each carrying one bag, up the dirt road, abandoning the car to be dealt with in the morning.

  ‘Did the kangaroo die?’ she had asked Maurie over and over again. ‘Are you sure?’

  When he had finally told her that yes, it had died, she had cried and cried, horrified that they had been responsible for its death, and in the end Hilary had stopped, exasperated and exhausted, shaking her as she told her to pull herself together. ‘It died. This is what happens. It’s terrible. But there is nothing you can do.’

  And she had thought her mother was some kind of alien, her harsh pragmatism so very foreign to all the pain she, April, felt for that poor kangaroo.

  She drove slowly now, feeling each pothole and rut, her whole body craned forward as she looked for the dip and bend in the road that she knew so well, but never quite trusted herself to find when it was this dark — and then, there it was, the shack a darker bulk in the distance, one light left on, piercing the night.

  She was back. This time with wine. Ready to begin again.

  The first few mornings, before she hit upon the idea of putting a blanket over the window, April woke earlier than she had in years.

  She slept in an old pair of Maurie’s pyjamas, still there, under the pillow. They were flannel, too long and too loose, but they smelt of her father, easing the panic of loneliness and failure that was nipping at her, sharp little bites that threatened to take a chunk of her flesh.

  She lay there, listening to the quiet, until she began to discern layers of sound: the call of a bird, the creak of a branch, the slow brush of the breeze, her own breath, rising and falling, and, beneath it all, the pumping of her heart.

  She hated sleeping alone, and yet it had been so long since she’d shared a bed with anyone for more than a few weeks. Lex had been the last — ten years younger than her, he’d only just arrived in Sydney from Melbourne. She’d met him at a party, and taken him home for almost three weeks of what she finally had to accept was average sex that rapidly declined to bad.

  But there was a sweetness about him, an eagerness, which had at first meant she was happy for him to hang around. He’d just finished a communications course and wanted to work with a film company. He had a hit list, ringing a few producers a day, his voice loud and jocular, his jokes slightly wrong, his laughter too exuberant as he tried to progress the call to a meeting. And then, after those few attempts, he gave up for the day, thumbing through her record collection, putting on his favourites too loud and dancing around her living room, before suggesting they go out to eat. Like a puppy, she thought, clumsy, cute, and irritating. The same in bed, all over her with a slobbery eagerness that never appealed, and yet when she watched him sleep afterwards, lean and smooth, silky hair ruffled, no hint of a middle-aged snore, she began to see his charms again.

  She was happy to let him stay for a while. And then he got work, and she came home to a note and a bunch of daffodils.

  She felt no rancour; in fact, she was relieved to have her place back to herself, and even though he promised he’d stay in touch — and they did leave a few messages for each other in a half-hearted attempt at catching up — the wisps that had briefly connected them soon spun away into nothing.

  And now she was alone again.

  Outside, the days were perfection. Sitting on the verandah, April spoke to the grass, the trees, the flat blue sky, the magpie that watched her, the spider catching flies between the posts and the roof, and the ants that crawled across her toes, tickling the winterwhite of her skin. She told them what she was having for breakfast, the meal she was contemplating for lunch, and then — when she was absolutely convinced they weren’t listening — she confessed her fear.

  ‘I am going to leave here having written nothing.’

  ‘Nothing!’ She shouted at the magpie, whom she’d come to dislike, frightened it would swoop each time she walked to the stove or bath-house.

  It regarded her for an instant and then flew away.

  ‘Do you hear me?’ she asked the spider, as it dropped a thread, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, until finally all was steady enough for it to begin its ascent back to the heart of the matter.

  She picked up her guitar and told them she was going to sing them a song, and they’d better be honest when she asked for their opinion. She strummed aimlessly, her voice touching on the possibility of a tune only to dart away immediately.

  Inside the house, it was darker. Built to capture the early morning light and then provide shelter from the heat of the summer days, it was always a little gloomy. She made toast with the last of the bread, and yet another cup of insipid herbal tea. She’d buy coffee when she went back into town, and chocolate. This idea of purity was clearly a failure, she told a cockroach as it scurried across the floor.

  Sitting on the floor of the bedroom, she opened the old shipping trunk under the window, taking out the clothes that Hilary kept. Heavy cotton summer shifts with huge lurid flowers, caftans, a knitted pantsuit. April used to dress up in them when she was little, and she would have pilfered them years ago if it wasn’t for the fact that Hilary was at least six inches shorter than her, and they made her look like she had tried on a doll’s outfit rather than her mother’s clothes.

  At the bottom of the trunk were old notebooks, drawings, and letters. With bright fabric strewn around her, April sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled them all out. She knew the letters between her parents, and she put these aside. Some were in Maurie’s dark scrawl, others in her mother’s strong slanting pen. She had once started reading them and then felt embarrassed, ashamed, the intimacy too close, and with it the familiarity of both her parents distorted — they became young and in love and passionate, people she did not, and should not, know.

  She liked the cards she’d written home when she’d toured Europe. They were tied together with red ribbon, and as she sat and read them, she remembered. It was too simplistic to just say she’d been happy then. She hadn’t known how momentous that time was; it had simply happened, and she’d floated along. It was only now that it was gone, she realised how special it had been.

  Hilary had also kept drawings they’d done as children, and April took these out as well. Ester’s were so much better than hers, which were invariably messy and unfinished. She laid a couple across the floor, remembering the afternoon they’d done them. They’d been on the verandah, and Maurie had given them paper and crayons. ‘See that tree?’ They’d looked up at it. ‘Drink it in,’ he’d instructed. ‘Now, run inside and draw it.’

  She’d scrawled a few branches, and then, bored with the task, had covered them in birds, bright, ridiculous birds with feathery crowns and jewels and fans, and even pipes they were smoking.

  It wasn’t what they were meant to do, Ester had complained when Maurie had seized April’s picture in delight, laughing at the expression on the rooster she’d placed right at the very top.

  She looked at Ester’s now, a
nd there was a beautiful grace to the lines, an elegance and symmetry. Ester had always drawn well; she was the one destined to become the next artist. And then she’d turned her back on it. Hilary had told her it was a shame. That being a counsellor was dull. Surely she didn’t really want to spend day after day listening to dreary people talk about their problems.

  Ester had been furious.

  At the bottom of the trunk were diaries, the ones they’d kept as little girls. April’s rambled from strange fantasy to strange fantasy, tales of animals taking her to live with them, an outpouring of passionate love for a new friend she’d made, a plan to run away and sail around the world (not that she’d ever even been on a boat) — and no mention of Ester.

  Her sister’s on the other hand, were filled with April’s name, anger in every page, as she recounted slights and injustices in fine detail. How could April have done that? Why hadn’t she got into trouble? Surely their parents could see what a liar she was. April had read it once, completely surprised by the resentment that Ester had carried within her. She hadn’t known — and she’d called Ester right then and there, saying they needed to talk. She loved her. She didn’t understand how Ester could have misjudged her. It was awful, too awful — and she’d cried into the phone, Ester silent on the other end.

  When she finally spoke, her words were dismissive. ‘Oh, April. We were children. I don’t know why on earth you need to talk about it.’

  Like her parents’ letters, she didn’t read the diaries now. Instead, she took out the drawings that Maurie had done of each of them, rough sketches on scraps of paper that he would have thrown out if Hilary hadn’t kept them. April liked these. She’d meant to take them with her last time but had forgotten, instead throwing everything back into the trunk in her clean-up, because she’d faced both Ester and Hilary’s anger when she’d left the shack a mess, and it was easier to just put it all back rather than sort through.

  But this time, she put the drawings straight into her own bag, and then she wandered back outside to where she’d left her guitar, abandoned on the old daybed.

  Under the texta-blue sky decorated with tiny puffy white clouds, she followed a yellow-dirt track. If she drew herself now, she would be a stick figure, she thought, dressed in a red cotton dress, the only person amidst the bold colours of this country. Because it was bold today, the sky sharp and bright, the gums stark, the wattle coming out in golden puffs, the green almost iridescent. Nothing but the sound of her boots scrunching on the gravel, and then, as a bird swooped low overhead, the whoosh of its wings.

  She should give up and go home.

  At the end of the track, there was a truck, engine running, and choking black clouds of diesel rising into the sky. Les, who had an orchard on the river flats, raised his hand in greeting.

  ‘Didn’t know you were here.’ He squinted into the harshness of the midday sun, closing the gate behind him.

  April smiled. ‘Been keeping to myself.’

  ‘Hilary still interested in selling?’

  April guessed so, although she hadn’t spoken to her mother about it recently.

  ‘Nice bit of land your dad bought,’ Les told her. ‘Just a bad time to be on the market.’ He handed April an orange from the front seat, and she held it in her hand, smelling its sweetness for a moment, before she began to break the peel with her thumb, the juice spurting up into her eye.

  ‘Last of the crop,’ Les said.

  Looking down to the river, April told him she was thinking of going in.

  He shook his head. ‘You’re bloody mad.’

  Mouth full of orange, she just grinned.

  ‘Guarantee you’ll get no further than your feet.’

  She swiped at a fly. ‘I’m going to run straight in, fast as fast. Right under.’

  Back in the truck, he took his hat off and threw it on top of the oranges next to him. ‘Want a lift?’

  She smiled. ‘Need to walk. Get the heat up.’

  And he shook his head again, raising a hand in farewell, as he put his foot on the accelerator, the truck groaning as the engine began to tick over, each panel shuddering as he drove slowly along the corrugated road, leaving a cloud of fumes and dust behind him.

  April waited, and then followed in his wake.

  The river was still, the banks winding in great curves and loops below the sheer cliffs on the other side and the more gentle incline on this. If she shouted, her voice would hit the grey boulders opposite and bounce back, loud but hollow. Somewhere, a long way upriver, she thought she heard a child, a high-pitched squeal, followed by laughter, and then silence again.

  She was alone.

  Kicking off her boots and letting her dress drop to her feet, she looked around her once, twice, and then ran naked, straight into the icy chill, the grip of its cold ferocious on her legs, her arms, her chest, until she was completely submerged, all of her encased in ice, expanding, ready to explode.

  ‘I did it,’ she shouted at the top of her lungs, perhaps loud enough for Les to hear miles downriver, hopefully loud enough to startle that bitch of a magpie and the cow of a spider. And she shook herself, diamond drops of river water, pure and clean, flying through the air, sparkling in the sunlight, her flesh white and goose-pimpled, before seizing her clothes in her hand and running, as fast as she could, up the bank and across the grass to the bathhouse.

  LAWRENCE HAD NEVER found it easy to say no to Hilary. Few people did.

  She’d hired the trailer and given him a neatly printed list of everything she wanted brought back.

  ‘I would have asked April to do it, but you know what she’s like.’

  He didn’t really mind. It wasn’t as if he were busy at work. And now that the time had come, he was glad to be getting away from home for a few days.

  The previous evening, he’d been out until four in the morning. It had been an album launch, a crush of people in a small bar in Redfern. He’d spent the day half-heartedly working on a customer satisfaction survey, followed by discussions around the next poll. He’d intended to just stop by the launch on the way home, or at least that was what he’d told Ester, but he had a restlessness inside, an emptiness at the pit of his stomach, a thirst he knew was dangerous.

  The night was chill, and he’d walked to the bar, where everyone had spilled out onto the pavement, the speeches behind them forgotten, the launch itself irrelevant really (he didn’t really know any of the band members) and he’d found himself leaning against a brick wall, talking to Jerome and Rebecca, before leaving with them to go to their place.

  They lived around the corner, in an apartment above a shop, the traffic faint below, the rooms spacious and empty. He’d had a brief relationship with Rebecca when they were both young, and when Jerome was out of the room, she said she’d always regretted letting him go.

  Which wasn’t how he remembered it.

  She’d taken too much of something; her whole body was agitated, her eyes darting nervously, her long, fine fingers moving too quickly as she brushed her hair out of her face, scratched at her arm, reached to pour them both another drink and then forgot to complete the action, leaving him to do so.

  ‘I think Jerome might be gay.’ She leant close to him as she whispered the words, and then pulled back nervously. ‘But I don’t know how you tell.’

  ‘Perhaps just ask him.’ He raised an eyebrow, bemused by where this was going and how he’d managed to find himself here having this conversation.

  ‘Oh God,’ she laughed loudly, unable to meet his eyes. ‘As if I could do that.’

  He wondered whether she had some kind of mental illness, his memory of her no more than a faint impression; they’d just gone out a lot, drank a lot, taken a lot of drugs, had sex often, and found they had nothing in common on the rare occasions they were together sober.

  ‘You did it all the right way. Stopped all this,’ and she picke
d up the bottle and set it down again, too heavily, on the coffee table between them, ‘got a proper job, found a good woman, had a family. Good on you.’

  He really should have left then.

  But Jerome came back with lines of coke, and, being the drug pig that April had always accused him of being, Lawrence once again failed to say no, the acrid taste cutting through the alcohol fog as he lit another cigarette and grinned.

  ‘Are you gay?’ he asked Jerome, who laughed loudly, and then poured himself another drink before looking at Rebecca and telling her she was a stupid fuck. ‘Just because I don’t love you anymore doesn’t mean I’m gay.’

  She’d started crying, and then she’d turned to Lawrence and hit him, a rain of angry slaps and punches coming down on him as she’d told him he was spineless, a man with no moral fibre, a fucker, in fact.

  He’d tried to stand, the couch so bloody soft it was hard to actually lift himself out of it and get out of there.

  He couldn’t remember where he’d put his coat, and then he saw it on the other side of the room, but Jerome had stopped him, pulling him back.

  ‘You can’t just take my coke and go.’

  Unsteady on his feet, Lawrence tried to find a hold on the evening, something to grasp, and he looked directly at Jerome, speaking as though he were talking to the twins when they were naughty, his tone fatherly, sensible — ludicrous in the surreal drift — as he said it no longer seemed appropriate for him to stay, there was clearly something going on between them, and he pointed at Rebecca, who had slumped off to sleep, and then turned back to Jerome, who was laughing.

  ‘There’s always something going on,’ Jerome replied. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake. What are you going to do, wander the streets coked up? Or drink with me?’

  Neither option was particularly attractive, and Lawrence almost laughed as he weighed the two choices up, wishing he had never got himself to this point in the first place. He’d promised Ester he wouldn’t be too late. He should have sent her a text ages ago.