The Ex Factor

by Laura Greaves

‘Kitty Kat!’ Adam calls as he unleashes his three-legged Australian Shepherd, Ringo, who races over to Reggie and Dolly to begin the intricate butt-sniffing routine. ‘What an unexpected pleasure. What’s got you up before the lark?’

  I can’t help but smile at Adam’s vaguely seventeenth-century turn of phrase. He may be a thirty-four-year-old veterinarian with his own state-of-the-art clinic, but I’ve always suspected he’s a frustrated bard at heart. As well as the occasionally flowery language, he has the strong, Roman nose and bow-shaped lips of a Shakespearean actor. I often expect to see him in a ye olde ruff and breeches instead of the jeans and hoodies that are his uniform when he’s not wearing surgical scrubs.

  ‘This one,’ I nod toward Rama, sniffing contentedly away at the end of her retractable leash. ‘She decided to, how do I put this delicately, leave Frankie a little calling card in the wee hours. Wee being the operative word.’

  ‘Nice work, Rama!’ Adam says in his booming voice. He drops to his knees and gives her a hearty scratch behind the ears. Bananarama laps it up. ‘I dare say you couldn’t have chosen a more deserving candidate.’

  But then his tone becomes serious. ‘How’s Rama’s eyesight these days?’

  ‘You mean did she mistake Frankie’s rug for the back lawn? Er, no. I think she knew exactly what she was doing. Or rather, where she was doing it.’

  ‘Want me to pop over after work tomorrow and give her a check-up, just in case?’

  I give his shoulder a squeeze. ‘That’d be great. Thank you.’

  Adam ramps up the scratching. ‘You’re a clever little thing, aren’t you?’ Rama looks positively rapturous now. ‘But try to give her both barrels next time, eh, old girl?’

  ‘Adam . . .’ I say warningly. He’s never been my sister’s biggest fan.

  He stands and meets my gaze, trying to look abashed. ‘Sorry,’ he says without a hint of remorse. ‘I just don’t know how you put up with her, Kitty. I bet she totally flipped out, right?’

  ‘She . . . was less than impressed.’

  He shakes his head wearily. ‘Remind me again why you upped and left me for her?’

  ‘I hardly left you, Adam! All I did was move out of the apartment we shared and into the house my mother left me and my sister. My baby sister, who was only nineteen when she suddenly found herself without parents, may I remind you.’

  I can hear the note of fire in my tone. I know Adam is being facetious, but I hate being expected to justify my choices. Especially to my best friend. I’m not so different from Bananarama: blindside me and I’m liable to bite. ‘And besides, it was high time I got my own place. It was a bit sad to still be in a share house at twenty-eight.’

  Adam’s face falls at my little dig; he’s had a succession of flatmates occupying my former bedroom ever since I left his apartment two years ago. He still has one now: Danielle, the sweet vet nurse at his practice. I suspect he’d like her to be more than his nurse/lodger, but I haven’t been able to get him to admit it.

  Adam could afford the mortgage on his place by himself, but he works irregular hours and likes to know there’s someone at home to keep his animals company. As well as Ringo, his menagerie includes Beryl the haughty Russian Blue cat, Midget the Cockatiel and two goannas whose names I never bothered to learn because they creep the hell out of me. If I’m a crazy dog lady, Adam’s the Dr Doolittle of crazies.

  ‘I just think you deserve to share your home with someone who appreciates all you do for them,’ he says, wounded. I feel instantly contrite.

  ‘Like you appreciated me, Mr “I don’t know where the vacuum cleaner bags are so we’ll just live in a home carpeted with dog hair”?’

  At last, Adam’s smile returns. ‘Dog hair is a totally legitimate floor covering. It’s cost-effective. It comes in a wide range of colours. It’s warm in winter, cool in summer.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘In fact, I must make a note to call Frankie and tell her about the benefits of dog hair carpeting. I bet none of her fancy house magazines are onto it.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll appreciate the tip,’ I say, glad he’s come out of his funk.

  We fall into companionable silence as we watch our dogs bound around the park. The first rays of tangerine sunlight are peeping above the horizon and we’re no longer alone; a handful of dogs and their owners have joined us. It’s still too early for the wider world to have stirred, but I know both Adam and I are thinking about the day ahead.

  ‘So how’s Danielle working out at the clinic?’ I ask in what I hope is a casual way.

  ‘She’s, ah, she’s good. She’s pretty green, but she’s got the passion and she’s a quick learner.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? And what passionate things are you teaching her?’

  I thought the ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ was implied, but from the corner of my eye, I see Adam shoot a sharp glance in my direction.

  ‘What are you working on?’ So he’s determined to give me nothing on the Danielle front. Damn him.

  ‘I’ve got a new gig starting today, actually,’ I reply, pulling out my phone to check the time. ‘In fact, I’d better get going. Call time is six-thirty.’

  ‘Movie or commercial?’

  ‘Movie. Some post-apocalyptic blockbuster. One man and his dog against an anarchic world. The usual stuff.’ I let out a piercing whistle and Reggie, Dolly and Ringo all come running. Fleetingly, I wish Frankie were there to see it. That’ll teach her to impugn my skills as a trainer. Reggie can’t even hear me, but he knows when he’s wanted. ‘It’s called Solitaire.’

  ‘Oh right, I read about it. That’s the new Mitchell Pyke one.’

  I whirl around to face Adam. ‘What? Mitchell Pyke?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re saying it’s his Oscar flick. Which strikes me as a bit presumptuous, since it hasn’t been made yet.’

  ‘Mitchell Pyke is in Solitaire?’ I repeat.

  ‘Yes, Kathryn. The actor Mitchell Pyke is in the movie Solitaire, and I assume you’ll be wrangling his canine companion.’ Adam looks at me strangely when I don’t react to his pointed use of my loathed real first name. ‘I think the lack of sleep’s getting to you. Bloody Frankie and her histrionics. Are you going to be okay on set?’

  I ponder Adam’s question as my mind once again replays a saucy slideshow from my dream. Here comes that blush again. And I’ve got to spend the next six weeks working one-to-one with this guy.

  Am I going to be okay on set? Am I really?

  2.

  ‘Ohmigod! Look at all the lights! Wow! Is that the catering truck? There are so many people! I wonder what they all do? Ooh, there’s one of those fancy motorhomes. D’you reckon Mitchell Pyke’s in there?’

  My head is spinning and it’s not from lack of sleep. Or the three espressos I’ve had to try to cancel out the lack of sleep. It’s not even because that name has come up again for what feels like the hundredth time today. Although the mention of Mitchell Pyke may have something to do with the way my heart is thumping like a kick drum in my chest. (Then again, that could be the caffeine, too.)

  No, my poor brain is reeling because the woman squirming like a sugared-up toddler as we pull up to the Solitaire set has not stopped talking since she heaved her corpulent frame into the passenger seat of my van an hour ago. She literally hasn’t paused for a moment, not even to draw breath. It’s really a wonder she’s still alive.

  ‘Where do you think the dogs go? Do you need to, like, check in with someone? Are there other animals in this movie? Oh, I hope there are no rabbits. Or reptiles. Zulu just goes crazy at the sight of scaly skin.’

  It’s Martha McGuire’s first visit to a movie set, and she’s really, really excited about it. She thinks she’s keeping a lid on her glee. She’s not.

  ‘Oh, my giddy aunt! Look at the size of that camera!’

  I arrange my face into a tight smile. ‘Sorry, Martha, could I just have a little bit of quiet for a sec? These places are like mazes and I need to concentrate on where we’re headed.’


  Martha mimes a lip-locking movement and drops the imaginary key in her shirt pocket. I wish I could grab it and stuff it in an imaginary landfill, never to be seen again. It’s not that I want to rain on Martha’s parade; I understand her elation. I know it’s not every day that a fifty-five-year-old dog breeder gets to rub shoulders with A-listers like Mitchell Pyke. And I remember how thrilled I was when I turned up to a film set for the first time six years ago. Even now, with a dozen feature films and more than a hundred TV shows and commercials under my belt, I still feel a little buzz every time I’m booked to train or supervise the canine cast members on a new project. There’s just something eternally alluring about ‘the business’, even though I know the reality is often about as far from glamorous as it’s possible to get, especially for the weirdo whose job is to hang out with dogs all day.

  So I know where Martha’s coming from, and she’s a perfectly nice – if slightly hysterical – lady. My problem is that Martha is here at all. When it comes to my work, I definitely prefer to be a solo act. Behind the scenes of a movie is a unique type of semi-organised chaos. It’s a demanding work environment for anyone, let alone someone who also has a gaggle of excitable dogs to wrangle. Some people find it hard to get their pet dog to sit on command – try persuading a hyperactive hundred-kilogram English Mastiff to drool on cue thirty-six times in a row while fifty cast and crew members look on. The fewer distractions I have to contend with, the better. And something tells me Martha’s going to be a big distraction.

  Slowly, I inch the van through the crowds of people and narrow alleyways that crisscross the set. In Hollywood movies, film sets always seem to be neat and ordered, with ample parking and helpful security guards ready to give out useful directions. In Sydney, at least in my experience, not so much. If the movie’s being shot at the city’s main production facility, Fox Studios, it’s just a ramshackle collection of warehouses with about three parking spaces for a cast and crew numbering in the hundreds.

  But if the movie is shooting on location, like this one, the set is inevitably even more haphazard. Today we’re at an abandoned industrial complex in the outer western suburbs – the windswept, barren brownness of it is very post-apocalyptic. There are coaches and trucks and portaloos parked willy-nilly, actors’ trailers arranged bumper to bumper, transportable hair and makeup studios squeezed in next to catering vans and acres of cables, lights and rigging just waiting for someone clumsy to take a tumble. Probably me.

  I silently curse myself for allowing Martha to blackmail me into having her tag along. Now, as well as managing her dogs, I’m going to have to make sure she doesn’t get lost in this labyrinth. But it’s not as if I had much of a choice. Pharaoh Hounds are hard to come by, and the only three in Sydney right now that are the correct age and have the filmmakers’ desired ‘look’ belong to Martha.

  My dream jobs are the ones that call for a ‘family dog’ or a mongrel, because then I can just use Dolly or Reggie, who are both consummate performers. Sometimes the film people will want a working dog or a toy breed, and those are easy enough to cast from the network of breeders and rescue groups I work with. But every now and then, some picky producer will want a rare breed that’s nigh-on impossible to find. And when I do find it, I have to do whatever it takes to persuade its owner to let me ‘hire’ it and train it for the role. Even if that means subjecting myself to Martha’s stream-of-consciousness commentary all day.

  I can’t see anywhere that looks like a logical spot to set up the dogs’ corral, so I pull the van up next to a harried-looking woman with a headset and a clipboard.

  ‘Hi, I’m Kitty Hayden.’

  She looks at me blankly.

  ‘The animal wrangler.’

  Not a flicker of recognition.

  ‘I’ve got the three Pharaoh Hounds playing Mitchell Pyke’s dog?’

  Beside me, Martha squeaks at the sound of Mitchell’s name.

  Finally, a flicker of recognition from behind the clipboard. ‘I don’t care! Just get it done!’ Headset Lady barks at me. She fixes me with a fiery gaze.

  ‘Oh! Sorry. I’m not —’

  ‘Not you, darling. Eric.’ She points at her headset, as if this explains everything. ‘First assistant director. Couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. Take your next left.’ I’m pretty sure this last instruction is intended for me. ‘You’ll see Mr Pyke’s trailer there. I’m Elspeth, his assistant. I’ll be right with you.’ She turns away and presses her index finger to the earpiece. ‘I fucking told you, Eric . . .’

  I turn to Martha, ready to exchange a ‘get a load of these movie people’ eye-roll. But Martha is ashen.

  ‘Mr Pyke’s trailer,’ she breathes. ‘Oh my. Oh dear. Do you think he’ll be there? Am I about to meet Mitchell Pyke?’ She utters the question in a register so shrill it’s a wonder the dogs don’t start barking.

  The van glides to a stop in front of an enormous Winnebago with blacked-out windows. A laminated piece of card tacked to the door says ‘Solitaire’ in bold black lettering, with ‘Mitchell Pyke – Jack’ underneath.

  ‘Who’s Jack?’ Martha asks.

  ‘That’s the name of the character Mitchell Pyke’s playing,’ I explain as I jump out of the van. Sensing imminent activity, in the back of the van Martha’s dogs simultaneously stand up on their hind legs with their dainty paws against the rear window.

  ‘Jack . . .’ she repeats dreamily, rolling the word around on her tongue like a boiled sweet.

  I lift the van’s tailgate, expecting a twelve-legged whirlwind to burst out. No matter how well trained a dog is, it usually wants to leap to freedom the moment a car door is opened. But the three Pharaohs retreat from the window and sit, patiently awaiting their next instructions. I allow myself a brief flicker of pride. Pharaoh Hounds are often aloof and stubborn, but they can be very biddable when they know who’s boss. It looks like the two months of training I’ve done with them has paid off. It should be smooth sailing.

  The dogs are panting in the March heat, so I decide not to secure them in their individual crates. Best to take them straight into Mitchell Pyke’s climate-controlled palace on wheels, where they can have a drink and chill out. It’s not really the done thing, but they are his co-stars, and it’s not safe to leave them sweltering in the sun.

  The stifling air is getting to me, too. I pull my hair away from my sticky neck and twist it into a haphazard bun. My requisite denim cut-offs, tank top and boots may not be super stylish, but at least I can feel the weak breeze on my skin.

  I clip leashes to the dogs’ collars and knock on the trailer’s door. There’s no answer.

  ‘Is he there?’ calls Martha, who still hasn’t moved from the passenger seat.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  I look around for Elspeth, but there’s no sign of her. Tentatively, I push down on the door handle. The door to Mitchell Pyke’s inner sanctum swings open.

  ‘Hello?’ I call into the cool interior, but silence is my only reply.

  I should wait for Mitchell or his assistant or someone to appear. But I have Martha’s dogs to think about, and standing idly in direct sunshine on a thirty-degree day is definitely not the best place for them.

  The Pharaoh Hounds don’t appear to share my worries about social conventions. They’re practically falling over each other in their hurry to scramble up the three steps into the trailer. With a shrug, I drop their leashes and let them go for it. It’s not like they’re going to cock their legs against Mitchell’s flat-screen TV. I ‘Kitty trained’ them myself and I know they’ve got it down pat. Martha’s dogs are house trained, but plenty of pooches who would never ‘go’ in their own homes just can’t resist the urge to scent-mark in unfamiliar territory – and that’s the biggest no-no of all on a movie set (and in a movie star’s trailer). Kitty training ensures that definitely won’t happen.

  The moment her dogs disappear into the trailer, Martha is up the steps behind them. I hadn’t even heard her get out of t
he van. For a hefty woman, she sure can be stealthy when she wants to.

  By the time I’ve retrieved the dogs’ food and water dishes, locked the van and ventured inside the trailer myself, Martha is sprawled across the couch with her nose buried in a magazine. My magazine, I realise on closer inspection. She’s found Frankie’s soiled gossip rag, which, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I’d hastily shoved into the glove box when I left that morning.

  ‘Did you know that Mitchell was actually born in England, although he’s lived in America since he was a young boy?’ Martha says as she flips feverishly through the pages. ‘Did you know he hasn’t spoken to his father in ten years because he wouldn’t support Mitchell’s dream to become an actor? I can’t believe his own father didn’t realise what a talent Mitchell is. He’s such a wonderful actor.’

  ‘What’s that you’re reading, Martha?’ I ask pointedly.

  ‘It’s your Starz magazine. Look!’ She holds the magazine aloft as if it’s the Holy Grail, but all I see is the warped, brittle cover.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. I, um, I spilled coffee on it.’

  ‘No, look who’s in it!’ She jabs a pudgy finger at the coverline I’d first read through bleary eyes in the middle of the night: Living without La Vida: How Mitchell Pyke is moving on.

  The dogs lap noisily as I set their brimming water bowls on the floor. ‘What’s La Vida?’

  ‘You mean who,’ Martha says meaningfully.

  ‘Okay, who is La Vida?’ I perch next to her on the sofa, sipping from my own water bottle.

  Martha looks genuinely aghast. ‘You’re not serious?’ She lets out a single hoot of laughter. ‘Oh my! You’re so out of touch, Kitty. And I’m supposed to be the old bird!’

  I look irritably at my watch. Where is that assistant?

  ‘Vida Torres is a Brazilian supermodel-slash-actress-slash-humanitarian,’ Martha says importantly.

  ‘Humanitarian? That’s a job now?’

  ‘It is if you’re famous. But she’s done some wonderful things for the street children in Brazil. And she paid out of her own pocket to have planeloads of food sent to Helsinki after the earthquake.’