Between a Wolf and a Dog

by Georgia Blain

  And he would tell her to avoid black, and the librarian look or the lesbian golfer, unless, of course, this date was a man who went for a more uptight get-up.

  ‘Which you do well,’ he would say, one eyebrow raised, the old Lawrence again, the one from their early days, teasing her as he used to, such a long time ago.

  HALFWAY TO APRIL’S HOUSE, the nausea that Lawrence feels gets the better of him. He has the heater on too high, and he winds down the window, the chill slap of the rain on his skin a relief. Sticking his head out, he breathes in deeply, only to quickly recoil as a truck passes, the fumes and oil and rush of wind sudden and fierce.

  He doesn’t know how he will act as though everything is normal. He doesn’t know if he should. He wishes he could ring Ester and ask her advice. She was good at listening and guiding him to a decision. But eventually he began to recoil from that, wary of the therapist in her, and feeling that she was turning their relationship into client and counsellor, which made him behave badly.

  ‘Red rag to a bull,’ he would say when she accused him of drinking too much, and he would pour another wine without flinching from her gaze.

  He turns the news on, the results of a rival poll making headlines. The issue is climate change and whether the government should do more to combat the effects. He switches to music, not wanting to hear the tedium of the analysis, knowing that if he does, he will pick holes in the questions. Besides, what does it matter what people think? What does it fucking matter? The world is dying, and we are still asking the opinions of every person on the street while failing to listen to what our experts are telling us. He finds he is crying, his eyes as blurred as the windscreen, everything awash, wiping the tears with the back of his hands as the blades go back and forth across the glass.

  By the side of the road, he winds the window right down and puts his head out to vomit. The hazard lights tick, a steady rhythm over the hiss of other cars as they rush past. The music is off. When he closes the window again, there is only silence, and he sobs, the salt of his tears diluted by the rain, everything fogged up so there is just him and his terrible sadness.

  ‘Okay,’ he says to himself in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Enough.’

  He puts the key in the ignition and turns back onto the road, wipers flicking back and forth, back and forth, breathing slowly to calm himself before he gets to April’s.

  Catherine has always been the artist. She lies on the floor, sheets of newspaper spread out in front of her, crayons and textas to choose from, her legs swinging behind her in rhythm to the music as she contemplates which colour to use next.

  Lara is on the couch reading, although her boredom is evident; half her body has slipped down toward the ground, and he can see she is ready to start causing trouble.

  ‘Daddy,’ she calls out, and she jumps up, Catherine right behind her.

  He hugs them both tight.

  ‘So who hurt herself?’ he asks, and they look momentarily confused — the whole accident at school forgotten — and then they point at each other, while he shakes his head in mock disapproval. ‘Have you been good for your Auntie April?’ He grins at them.

  ‘Angelic,’ April says, and she sits back on the old leather couch, feet up on the coffee table as she asks him whether he wants a cup of tea.

  ‘And a piece of cake,’ Lara adds.

  ‘Or something stronger?’ April glances at the clock. ‘It’s getting to that time. Besides, it’s so bloody dark and miserable outside it might as well be night.’

  Why not, he thinks, and he tells her a whiskey and cake is just what he needs.

  ‘Lara, you be the barmaid,’ April points to the cupboard where the bottle is. ‘And Catherine, you serve the cake. I’m shagged.’

  Lawrence shakes his head. ‘I don’t think you’re meant to ask young children to serve alcohol,’ he says, aware that in the absence of Ester, he becomes very like her.

  April smiles. ‘I’m not asking her to drink it. Just to make it. Ice and a dash,’ she adds to Lara. ‘Pouring a drink is a useful skill.’

  ‘For an alcoholic.’

  April raises an eyebrow. ‘Shitty day at the office?’

  He smiles at her, aware of how like a parody of a married couple they are, and then he looks down at his jeans, still damp from the dash across the street, and steadies himself because he remains perilously close to tears. ‘Thank you for getting them.’

  Catherine has two plates of cake on a tray. She curtsies and giggles. ‘May I serve you, oh lord and lady?’

  Behind her, Lara waits with two very large glasses of whiskey in her hands. She inhales deeply and then curls her lip. ‘Disgusting.’

  ‘This lady is going to renounce her cake and give it to the serving girls,’ April says. ‘Why don’t you take it through to my bedroom and watch some television?’

  ‘I’ll come and get you soon,’ Lawrence adds. ‘We need to get home for dinner.’ He knows he is saying this to April really, to let her know he won’t be staying, and he takes a long gulp of the whiskey, ice cold, burning in his throat.

  ‘What’s up?’ April’s pale eyes are focused on him.

  He shrugs, lying badly. ‘Just tired.’

  She doesn’t buy it. ‘I’ve known you for a while. In some very trying circumstances. Is it the girls being here?’

  He shakes his head. ‘They shouldn’t be here, but I appreciate what you did.’ He takes another slug of the whiskey and then puts the glass down. ‘I’ve got to drive.’

  In the soft light from the lamp next to the window, April’s long, fine arms are golden, her fingers delicate, two heavy silver rings on each hand. The glass is sweating in her grasp, and she too puts her drink down, running her damp palms through the curls in her hair before standing slowly and coming over to where he sits. ‘I’m not going to bite you,’ she says, and she leans down and kisses him gently on the cheek, her touch warm and kind. ‘Nor am I going to try and make you stay. You just look sad.’

  He shifts in his chair, wanting to pull her towards him and hold her close, to cry and tell her everything; he doesn’t know what he wants, really. It’s been so long since he’s had any idea; he can’t even remember when he knew, or what it was he desired. It’s all shifting, and he is seasick with the motion, so he closes his eyes, letting in the sound of the rain, the low hum of the television from the other room, the softness of the couch. There is a velvet smell — roses — heavy and funereal above the richness of the cake and whiskey, and, last, the touch of April’s hand resting warm on his arm.

  ‘Has something happened?’ she asks. ‘Are you ill?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Ester? Is Ester ill? Is no one telling me?’

  No, no, no.

  And then he tells her — not about Hilary, not that — he tells her about Edmund and being caught out, and he probably does it to avoid relaying the news of her mother, and because it’s all too much now. He says it all — how he fiddled with the last three polls, just slightly, why, he didn’t know. He hated the government? He was bored witless with what he did? Did it make any difference? No. It was a puny misdemeanour, really. There were many legitimate ways he could, and did, meddle — the questions he chose, the timing, the slant on his interpretation of the responses. As he talks, he finds it hard to understand his actions. He finds it hard to understand anything.

  ‘Fuck me.’ April looks at him and grins.

  He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  He doesn’t mean to kiss her, but he does; it is like a default mechanism, kicking in as a response to desperate floundering; her mouth is soft, whiskey-warm on his, and it is like hovering above the edge of a deep pool, only to be stopped by her hand on his shoulder, pushing him away as Catherine asks what they are doing, her voice clear above the rain and television.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says too quickly and loudly.

 
‘Why are you kissing April?’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ he lies.

  ‘Well, you were, actually,’ April responds, the only one keeping her head, and she is laughing now. ‘Which was stupid of your father, but sometimes too much rain and whiskey makes idiots of us all.’

  Catherine just stares at them.

  ‘Come over here,’ Lawrence says, and he pats the arm of the chair.

  She turns and runs out of the room.

  In April’s bedroom, he tries to sit Catherine on his lap, but she continues to resist him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he tells her. ‘There’s nothing happening with April. It was a mistake,’ he says. ‘I had some bad news today, and I’m not behaving how I should.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk,’ Catherine says, fingers blocking her ears.

  Lara is transfixed by the television.

  ‘Okay.’ Lawrence sighs. ‘We’ll head home in a few minutes.’

  In the lounge room, April looks up at him. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘Just don’t make too big a deal of it.’ And then she picks up her glass and shakes her head. ‘You need to grow up,’ she tells him. ‘And stop falling onto whoever is closest when the shit hits the fan.’

  That’s rich, he thinks. Coming from her.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Confess,’ he eventually says. ‘I don’t have any choice.’

  ‘I would have thought you’d have dreamed up something more interesting than that. Tell them Edmund has lost his mind. Or that you’ve fired him and he’s seeking revenge.’ She pours herself another glass. ‘Or go brave. Tell them the polls create their own truth.’ She smiles. ‘Become a political rebel.’

  He’s had enough.

  ‘I’m not a kid anymore. This is my work.’

  The clock chimes behind him. She doesn’t shift. ‘You hate it. You’re miserable. You have been for years. If you’re going to fiddle the results, at least have some guts about it, shout it out loud. You’ve got nothing to lose.’

  She doesn’t get it.

  ‘And live off what?’

  Her eyes remain fixed on him. ‘What else is going on?’

  He ignores her, standing to leave, calling out the girls’ names as he does so.

  ‘So I presume I won’t see you again for a while,’ April says. She begins gathering the twins’ bags, putting them next to their raincoats by the door, and then she scans the chaos of the room one last time to see if there’s anything she’s forgotten.

  He, too, surveys the mess. Records and newspaper spread out across the floor, cake plates on the carpet. The rain is soft against the windows.

  ‘Do you think we could have been happy together?’

  The question is without rancour or sadness. Her voice is soft so the girls won’t hear, but still he looks quickly to the closed bedroom door.

  He doesn’t know the answer.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says.

  ‘I’d like us to be friends. I’d like to see the girls. But more than anything, I want to have Ester in my life again.’

  He can see the need in her eyes, and he looks away.

  ‘I’m going to call her tomorrow. And if she won’t answer, I’m going to go to her.’

  He doesn’t reply. But in that instant, he wants, more than anything, for her desire to be realised.

  He calls the girls, loudly now: ‘Come on, you two,’ his voice too harsh, startling enough to make them both obey, Catherine still refusing to look at him as she picks up her school bag and waits for him in the hall.

  HILARY DOES NOT know why she has always felt a greater vulnerability around Ester. She is afraid for her, and slightly afraid of her. And yet, by all measures, she’s the more sensible of her daughters, the one who considers before she acts, who listens and usually responds with reason. She doesn’t fall into great drama over an event of little incident, nor display a lack of interest to an important moment.

  Perhaps it is Hilary’s sense that this calm simply covers all that Ester hides, a shield to cloak her frailty, just as Hilary hides behind a stern facade. They are alike, and that is what makes her more afraid for her younger daughter.

  Ester sits at the table now, the smooth sheen of her dark hair rich in the softness of the lamplight, her skin pale. She looks beautiful this evening, dressed in a silvery-grey sweater and black jeans; she is also wearing make-up, which for her is unusual, the dark around her eyes and the red on her lips bringing out the delicacy of her features. Like Hilary, she wears little jewellery — just a fine gold bracelet and a beaten-gold ring that has a dull shine.

  She is translating the program notes, reading them aloud, head bent in concentration, one finger running along each line of text, but Hilary is not listening. All she can hear is the stillness of the evening — the rain has eased — and, floating above the silence, the gentleness of Ester’s voice darting over and around the steady beat of a drip drip drip, the last of the previous downpour earthbound from gutter to ground.

  Ester looks up, waiting for Hilary to comment, to demand certain changes — which is what she usually does — or to signify her approval.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Hilary tells her.

  ‘Even being called “elderly”?’

  Hilary just nods. She no longer cares about the film or the program. She just wants to drink in Ester, take her fill. ‘Where are you off to this evening?’

  Ester hesitates before answering, and then a smile escapes the corners of her mouth, and she folds up the translation. ‘I think I’ve met someone,’ she says. ‘We’re going out to dinner.’

  Hilary holds her daughter’s hands in her own and lifts them slowly, kissing the smooth skin, and squeezing them a little before she lets them go.

  ‘He’s a lucky man,’ she eventually says. ‘You are a beautiful young woman, and so easy to love.’

  Ester blinks and stares up at the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t doubt it for a minute,’ Hilary leans closer, about to continue, but Ester shifts back. She never wants to talk about this.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Hilary continues. ‘I’m elderly so I do know some things. I forget others, but what I remember has some value. You’ve been hurt, I know that. And your anger was understandable. But now it’s time to let it go and enjoy your life. It’s so short. Don’t waste it.’ She stands because the throbbing pain is too much. Her hands shake as she pours herself a glass of water. ‘Shall we have a wine to celebrate?’ She shouldn’t drink on the painkillers, but what does it matter? She could down the whole bottle if she chose. She could do anything tonight — and with that realisation comes a strange vertigo that makes her clutch the fridge door a little tighter to steady herself.

  Ester notices. ‘Are you all right?’

  She is tired of lying. ‘I haven’t been feeling well,’ she says.

  ‘You should see a doctor.’

  And there she is, balanced on the point — I have, she could say. And I don’t have long to live. But as she opens her mouth, her throat dries up, and fortunately Ester is too distracted by the evening ahead to press the point.

  ‘Just one glass,’ she tells Hilary.

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  Ester always avoids discussing herself. And so she too stands and looks out the window at the courtyard, glistening under the light from the kitchen. ‘Didn’t you want to show me your film?’

  Hilary no longer cares. But if it means she can keep Ester here for a little longer, she will.

  She has tidied the studio, cataloguing all her stills and working drafts into neatly labelled boxes. April hadn’t noticed this morning, but Ester does. ‘God, you’ve been busy. Why the big clean-up?’ She walks around, reading the notes on top of several boxes, and then she turns to Maurie’s drawing of the horse. ‘I think that’s my favourite work of his.’

  Hilary looks at it. She
smiles. ‘Mine, too.’ It is the arch of the neck that she has always liked best. ‘No one will be able to keep it when I’m gone.’

  In the silence that follows, she can feel Ester watching her for a moment, hesitating, and so she turns quickly to the computer and loads the film. ‘Here,’ she pulls out a seat for her daughter and dims the lights.

  She had been nervous at the prospect of showing Ester the footage of her and April, but she no longer cares. There’s nothing she can do. It’s up to Ester now. And so she presses play, and the first of the images floods the screen, starting with suitcases, her own from when she was young, her school satchel with her name written on it, and the bag she took when she came to Australia, leading down to the story of all she chose to keep from her past when she began her new life here.

  It wasn’t much.

  Clothes, a diary, two novels, and a camera.

  Cracked leather, frayed cotton, yellowed paper, and a hard Bakelite shell.

  She stands, washed out by white sunlight, hair like fairy-floss in the stiffness of the sea breeze, that camera pressed to her eye.

  And the images build — negatives, prints, too many to contain, kept in files, digitised, catalogued, weightless and yet so very weighty — until, finally, they settle on a photo of Maurie, a man without suitcases or bags, just paints and pencils and turpentine, canvas and wood, colours waxy and oiled, palettes overrun with hues, splattered floors and walls, and paintings stacked up against walls, in storage, digitised, catalogued, and valued.

  Hilary glances across at Ester, who is leaning forward, listening to her mother’s narrative, her voice weaving a tale of a life, of all that is amassed in such a short period of time, all that is purchased, created, swapped, gifted, lost, and forgotten.

  And now the sisters sleep — two young girls, one dark, one fair, lying next to each other in a hammock by the river. Hilary would like to touch the downy hair on those legs again, feel the curl of a small, sticky finger in her own, and breathe in the sugary sweetness of milk teeth and plump cheeks.

  They are older now, in dress-ups from one of the suitcases, dancing on the verandah of the river house, behind them a hazy drone of insects buzzing in the grass and the sky, everything wilting under the summer heat.