Between a Wolf and a Dog

by Georgia Blain

  ‘I made a mistake,’ he told her.

  She hadn’t known what he had meant.

  ‘I tried to become someone that I’m not.’

  She hadn’t said a word.

  And then he had shifted, wanting only to brush aside that sadness. ‘I don’t think the swim was meant to do this,’ he smiled. ‘I’m just tired, and hungover, and no good at taking drugs anymore.’

  But as she stood to leave him, he’d pulled her down again, and they kissed, the softness of his lips, the sweetness of the river water, and it had been so long since she’d had good sex, really good sex, that she didn’t care.

  Someone had once told her that the beauty of sex was the loss of self.

  And perhaps that was all they’d wanted. Perhaps it didn’t really matter.

  Now, as he came over to the bed, she reached her hand out from under the sheet, her skin pale, a long scratch down her wrist from the walk yesterday, the taste of him still there on her fingers.

  He lay down next to her, so close that she could see his pores, each dark lash, the line of his mouth, the curl of his hair still damp from a morning swim, and she kissed him again.

  It was only four days. Not long when it’s held up, so very contained, against the great rush of life on either side, but long enough for Lawrence to believe — just briefly — that he had fallen in love.

  The rain had come, washing over the brilliance of early spring, softening it with a grey mist, shaking out the small buds that had begun to appear and leaving them sodden in the dirt.

  That first morning, when he had left April asleep and gone down to the river to swim, he had felt the restorative power she had promised he would find, the shine he had failed to touch the previous evening. Alone, his body heavy from sex and lack of sleep, his heart confused and ashamed, he had stood on the bank and looked across to the steep incline of the other side, the scrub silvery against the deep blue-grey of granite.

  At his feet, the river was perfectly still. Dark slate, pocked by small islands of white sand, each fringed by rushes. He swam out, the cold fiercer than the previous evening, and he drank in the water in great gasps and gulps, swallowing it as he stared up at the flat grey sky.

  He would pack up and go. Make it work with Ester. He and April would never speak of this. He could trust her silence, he knew that.

  But then, as he stood on the bank drying himself, he didn’t want to go home. Opening his front door, calling out Ester’s name, trying to find equilibrium; he didn’t think he could do it anymore. The bracing cold of the river, the softness of the morning; he felt as though his heaviness had been lifted. It was beautiful here. And he was at peace.

  Climbing back up the bank, he gathered what dry wood he could find, twigs scratching his arms and legs. He would chop some logs for the evening.

  Maurie had once tried to teach him how to use an axe, laughing loudly as splinters of bark flew through the air, Lawrence’s fury mounting at what he perceived to be some kind of test that he was failing. Hilary had watched from the verandah, arms folded, a slight smile on her face, until eventually she had spoken, her voice soft but clear: ‘You know, you don’t have to agree to be his amusement. There’s plenty of wood already chopped.’

  He had put the axe down, grinning at Maurie, the release so quick and easy he couldn’t believe he had failed to see it for himself.

  Later that day, as April lit the fire, she asked him whether he was going to go home that evening. Neither of them had touched on what was happening; they had been so careful to not even glance in the direction of what lay before and behind them that her question almost made him jump.

  ‘I wasn’t intending to.’ He looked at her for affirmation that he was welcome to stay, but she refused to give it.

  The twigs and leaves blazed, brightening the dullness of the room, and she stood, stepping back from the heat.

  He had to speak.

  ‘I would like to stay for a few days.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘But it doesn’t have to be like it’s been,’ he hastened to add. ‘I just need a bit of time. You can keep trying to write, and I’ll do the painting Hilary wanted done, I’ll pack up the stuff.’ He smiled. ‘You can pretend I’m not here.’

  ‘Ha.’ Her laugh when it came was loud, and she shook her head, wiping at her eyes, the smoke stinging the corners. ‘What’s that Oscar Wilde quote about losing your parents?’

  He couldn’t remember.

  ‘Losing one is misfortune, both is carelessness? Falling for your sister’s partner once may be misfortune?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I believe we are well and truly in the land of carelessness.’

  He watched as she turned her back to him, carefully placing some of the larger logs on the fire before she closed the door, leaving the flue still open. She didn’t know where to sit, he could see that, and he shifted over so that there was plenty of space, so she didn’t have to be too close.

  ‘Besides,’ and she looked out at the soft mist of rain, ‘it’s hardly painting weather.’

  It was unlike April to be direct. In all the years he had known her, she had danced around and at the edge of every matter of substance, a quality that could be both charming and irritating. But she was different now. There was a stillness to her, a calm he had never seen.

  ‘I have a suggestion,’ he eventually said.

  She reached for her tobacco, the smell of caramel as she began to roll a cigarette, the paper thin and delicate, eyes intent on the task.

  ‘We are so deep in the land of carelessness, let’s stay here, just for a few days. There’s nothing we can do to make it any worse, so let’s allow ourselves to enjoy it. To pretend that nothing else exists, and just be bad, roll around in it, and not even attempt to deal with any of the ramifications. Just be.’ Oh god. He looked across at her, still staring at the cigarette paper in her lap, surprising himself with how strong the plea was, the need. Because they were the bad ones. The ones who hadn’t grown up. Although he had tried — all that time in Paris, with the job and the twins, and all that time since, pretending that he was a responsible man when, pathetic as it was, he didn’t want any of that. Or maybe he just had to turn his back on it briefly, be as bad as he knew how, to be able to willingly become the man he should be. He didn’t know. He just wasn’t ready to go home. Not yet.

  He remembered that night at the lakes, how different it had been. Both of them drunk, all the while knowing that this was not what he wanted. He had woken the next morning and crept out of her bed, his flight leaving from London that afternoon. The note he had left had been curt — a simple ‘See you soon, Lx’ — and he was gone, every part of him craving the calm of Ester.

  But this time, he hadn’t been drunk.

  This time, he wanted to stay.

  After three days, the rain stopped.

  They hadn’t left the shack. In the morning light, April saw the kicked-back bedsheets, their clothes on the floor, the dishes in the sink, and she covered her eyes with her arm. She smelt of him. His skin, his tongue, the bristles on his chin, the grasp of his palms, his thighs, he was all over her.

  She was going for a walk. He should pack up the trailer.

  She suddenly felt as though she had been sinking with a drowning man, and she was exhausted.

  She took herself upriver, cutting through the scrub to a small bridge to the other side. She wanted to climb out of the valley. The incline was steep and slippery, and she found herself scrambling, hauling herself up with her hands. Above, the sky had cleared, a watery wash of blue, last tufts of clouds speeding south, and the air was rich with mud and mulch and twigs.

  Finally, she emerged on the dirt road that looked down over the river that curled below her, silty with days of rain. Beyond that, she could see the shack, the strange pitched roof that Maurie had constructed, a shape that seemed impossible, and yet had a
beauty to its rise and fall. She could see the poplars, a delicate line of feathery branches, jewelled with new spring leaves, and, at the end of the grove, Lawrence loading up the trailer.

  She looked away.

  The shame made her feel ill.

  As the day became hotter, she followed the road that led to the valley, a good ten kilometres that would take her downriver from home. There was no sound but the scrunch of her boots on the gravel, a beat that kept time with her breathing, and occasionally, an echo of a call from somewhere far away.

  High overhead an eagle followed her, floating on the wind, disappearing and then arcing up into the sky again. She watched its flight, the great breadth of its wingspan a beauty to behold.

  Finally, as the sun began to shift further to the south, April reached the end of the road. She was back at Les’ orchard.

  She could see him in his shed, fixing machinery, and she walked towards him, exhausted now.

  ‘Still here?’ he looked up at her, a smear of grease across his chin.

  She nodded.

  ‘Hazel made some marmalade she wanted to give your mother. Was going to bring it over this afternoon.’

  April looked up to the house. ‘Is she there now?’

  He nodded.

  The house was dim, the wood-fire stove burning, everything quiet. She knocked and called out, until eventually Hazel came around the side. She’d been feeding the chooks.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ she offered, and April said that yes, she’d love one. The walk had been longer than she’d expected. She was buggered.

  ‘You’re looking a bit worse for wear,’ Hazel agreed, and April felt ashamed. ‘Sit yourself down and I’ll run you home.’

  They talked briefly, mainly about Hilary, and then Hazel asked her how Ester and that handsome husband of hers were.

  He was here, April said. Clearing out furniture. She hoped she didn’t blush.

  ‘Did he bring the girls?’

  April shook her head.

  ‘They’re a handful, those two,’ Hazel smiled. ‘They look the spitting image of you when you were their age. I remember when your dad first bought you here. Hard to believe you were the same age they are now.’

  April smiled weakly.

  It was darkening on the drive home, the last of the sunlight smeared across the southern ridge. It would be cold tonight, April thought, and she looked out the window, through the fine film of dust, the scrub a soft blur as the ute bounced over the potholes and corrugations in the road.

  ‘I’ll jump out here,’ April told her, ‘no need for you to turn in.’

  Hazel reminded her to take the marmalade. ‘You need to feed yourself up. You’re looking peaky.’

  She waved goodbye and walked alone up the track to the house, its lights on, smoke from the chimney, and Lawrence’s car with the trailer fully loaded out the front.

  ‘All packed,’ he told her. ‘I’ll leave in the morning.’

  That night, as they lay in bed together for the last time, she should have counselled him to keep his silence, to say nothing, to realise this for what it was: a brief escape that they both needed to forget. But she didn’t. She thought there was no need.

  They didn’t have sex.

  They just lay side by side, skin on skin, their sleep fitful, the haze between dream and wakefulness thick and smothering, until eventually April got up, the night still heavy outside, the last embers of the fire burnt right down. She opened the flue a little, placing a few of the smaller twigs on top, and watched the flames rise.

  She didn’t hear Lawrence as he came into the room. He sat next to her, still naked, his skin cold. His face was so familiar and strange, and as she turned to face him, she began to cry, shushing any attempts of his to talk, not wanting soothing words but instead just to let herself cry for what she had done, the terrible mistake of it all, the sheer folly of having laid waste to so much, all of her now out on a limb, miles from safety, alone with her shame.

  Lawrence had Hilary’s checklist in his hand. The trunk, a cupboard, an easel, a box of crockery, and a crate of books. There wasn’t all that much. The rest could just go with the house, she’d told him.

  WIWO, April had said.

  He’d looked at her quizzically.

  ‘Walk In Walk Out,’ she’d explained.

  He shook his head.

  ‘I love a real-estate acronym.’

  She’d gone for a swim, running down to the river in just a towel, jumping in with a whoop that echoed out across to the cliff and all the way back up to the house. He heard her, the loud throatiness of her scream, and then she was running back across the stretch of lawn and straight under a hot shower in the bathhouse.

  He was almost fooled by her spirits, by the way she sassed past him without a stitch of clothing, by the clothes she chose — a short denim pinafore, an old Sherbert T-shirt, and a bright-green cardigan (cute and cheerful to an extreme) — and by the way she told him it was high time he left. She needed to get on with her writing.

  ‘Not that any was happening, but there’s plenty of fuel for a tortured love song or two now,’ and she’d raised an eyebrow.

  He’d kissed her on both cheeks, on the tip of her nose, and on her forehead.

  ‘Well,’ she’d said, stepping back from his embrace. ‘What can I say? Drive carefully? See you back in town?’

  With his hand on her arm, he tried to draw her close, but she pushed him away, shaking her head, and there was something harsh in her smile; it was a little too bright.

  Out on the dirt road, the trailer jarred and banged behind him, a loud clanging that accompanied him all the way to where the dirt levelled into flat grey bitumen winding along the river flats, past the first houses in the valley, the horses again, and it was so very strange to be re-entering the world. It had only been four days, but when he caught sight of himself in the rear-vision mirror, still unshaven, eyes hooded from lack of sleep, a nick on his bottom lip from where April had bitten him, it was the face of a man he didn’t know. His phone beeped several times, messages coming up on the screen. Two from home, both from the girls, one from Hilary with further instructions just in case she caught him before he was out of range, one from Jim asking him out for a drink, and another from a client wanting research into what women want from a mascara. The crowd of demands depressed him. He pulled over to the side of the road and sent a text to Ester — On my way, see you soon — and then turned his phone off.

  On the outskirts of town, he considered a coffee, but the memory of his last stop those few days ago made him change his mind. He would just keep driving. He needed to get home.

  Home.

  The realisation of where he was headed sank in.

  He saw other cars, and people shopping, and children and prams, and families squabbling, and he wound the window up, wanting to block it all out. The petrol gauge was low, and he pulled over at a service station.

  There, he noticed that his hands were shaking. Trying to still himself, he breathed in deeply, twisting the plain gold ring on his finger before taking the keys out of the ignition.

  He and Ester hadn’t believed in marriage. Sometimes late at night, in the early days of love, they would propose to each other, elaborate declarations of love and fidelity. He had never lived with anyone before, a fact that made him slightly ashamed. In her, he saw the possibility for stability, calm, maturity — states of being that he felt he should embrace at this stage of life. But it didn’t have to entail marriage. Neither of them had ever really wanted that. And then, when he was offered the job in Paris, he was told it would be much easier for her to come if they were husband and wife.

  They had made their vows before a marriage celebrant, words they’d chosen from the various options on display in plastic folders, each of them trying to find one that came as close as possible to how they saw themselves and the o
ccasion. Nothing was quite right.

  They’d been told they could write their own vows, but in the end they didn’t. Nor did they have any photos of the celebration itself. It wasn’t that kind of wedding.

  Wearing a red wool dress with a plain square neckline, her dark hair tied back in a simple ponytail, Ester had been as she always was — elegant, beautiful, cool, and calm.

  ‘I love you,’ he had whispered to her, moments after the ceremony was over.

  ‘I love you, too.’

  The few friends who were there hadn’t known. It was just a Sunday lunch, or so they’d been told.

  ‘We weren’t sure how to do this,’ Lawrence had said in his speech. ‘Weddings aren’t our thing.’

  ‘Well, don’t start making them your thing,’ someone had called out.

  ‘We could have just left it at the registry, but that seemed strange. And yet we didn’t want all the fuss and the presents, and so we decided to just surprise you.’

  Their friends had cheered and whooped as they kissed in the clear sweetness of the day, their small garden home to a party that had been better than they’d expected.

  Later, as the afternoon became chill, Micky and Louise suggested they all kick on. Micky was drunk and she stood unsteadily, lurching slightly as she clutched at the table before losing her balance. Two months earlier, she’d made a move on Lawrence. He’d been at a party, Ester had gone home, and they’d been dancing. She’d run her hands up and down his sides, leaning in to kiss him. And he had kissed her back, forgetting, as he was so capable of doing, that those days were over. He had almost gone home with her, but then he’d stopped. The music was too loud, her eyes were pinned, and the sweat on her skin had smelt stale.

  That afternoon, as she fell, she pulled everything onto the ground. The shattering of glasses and plates and the crash of cutlery rang like bells, and then, on top of it all, a long stained tablecloth, bringing the lunch to a resounding end. Micky looked around dazed, hoisting herself up as everyone began to laugh.