Fog a Dox

by Bruce Pascoe

  One warm evening when the moon was three-quarters full and rose just after sunset the vixens didn’t come home.

  Albert looked for them the next day although he wasn’t really expecting their return, but he wanted to reassure himself that they hadn’t fallen victim to wild dogs or eagles.

  No, they’d just gone off. Off to be wild, Albert thought with approval, not without a pang of loss, because they were charming animals, a delight to have around with their bright-eyed intelligence and outright beauty.

  They’d gone because they were fully weaned and independent. Why Fog remained was a mystery. Were the males slower to develop and leave home or was there something else?

  Brim took to sleeping on Albert’s bed, as much to ease her arthritis as anything, but perhaps also to declare her rights above those of Fog, a mere fox.

  A fox or a dox? Albert wondered, looking at the animal lying in front of the wood stove. Even though the evenings were warm Fog liked to be near the stove or more particularly the coat, which Albert hung on the back of his fireside chair whenever he came inside.

  It was a peculiar family. Albert found there were plenty of people who disapproved, most of whom had never even seen Fog, but this didn’t stop them from accusing the dox of having stolen their chickens and ducklings.

  Unlike his two wild sisters Fog hardly went anywhere on his own. He learnt to be content with whatever food Albert provided, and he was happiest when Albert wore his coat. Fog was a homely dox.

  But people can’t abide anything different and many can’t relax until the difference is destroyed. Fog would have got blamed if the cat had kittens. As far as Albert was concerned Fog had decided he was a dox and that was good enough for Albert. Albert’s heart was a very decent piece of machinery.

  I know this is a story and the hero of a story usually has to be good, kind, brave and good-looking, but the truth of the matter is that while Albert was demonstrably good and kind, in his mind they were just habits he couldn’t break. And as for courage, how do you know if you’ve got it until you need it?

  But Albert certainly was not handsome, teetering on the edge of ugliness – if it weren’t for his smile. He definitely was not young, and to be a respectable hero you have to be young. But the truth is that Albert isn’t the hero. He’s just a kind man and I don’t know about you, but I reckon that’s a good-enough reason to include anyone in a story – even an old man whose blunt features could be described as plain if not a bit coarse.

  But if you’d met Albert, as I have done, you might see Albert’s face as interesting. Because if a person can’t have a beautiful face they can make their face interesting by gazing out of it with intelligence and kindness. When I first saw Albert’s face that’s what I saw, not the crooked nose, craggy jaw and dodgy teeth, but how he quizzed me with those kindly dark eyes, looked into my soul, looking for my goodness.

  I’m sticking up for Albert because he suffered other people’s unkindness with never a mean remark in return, never a bad deed done to make his detractors fall on their face. Once those fox cubs had licked his fingers, mewled in his ear and nuzzled his neck, he could no more ignore their plight than hurt any human.

  Sometimes, after Albert had cleaned up the evening dishes and poured himself a big mug of tea, he’d stare into the firebox of his stove and more often than not catch the earnest gaze of Fog, searching his face with the devotion of a dog and the acute enquiry of a fox.

  ‘So, Fog, my dox, what do you think about the world and its people?’

  Fog studied Albert’s face and considered the question but said nothing.

  ‘You see, my young dox-cub-pup, there are people who will hate you simply because someone else said you were to be hated. Never seen you before, never sat by the fire and had a chat with you, just determined to be afraid of you and hate you because you’re different.’

  Albert drained his tea. Fog thought Albert made a little more noise sipping his tea than was entirely necessary and felt sure there was no need for him to dunk his nose in it while he was at it. It was a fairly big nose, Albert’s, and as we’ve just discussed his face, you get the picture. But have you ever seen a fox with dirty whiskers? Fog’s point entirely.

  Fog wasn’t judging Albert, but foxes are so neat in their habits that the gorging and slobbering that some dogs and humans went in for remained an unpleasant surprise. Brim was neat and finicky for a dog but still managed to get more of her dinner on her whiskers and chops than Fog thought becoming. Still, he tolerated that – she was his mother.

  Brim’s summer habit of sleeping on Albert’s bed became a very determined winter habit. She wasn’t a young dog, the years were taking their toll, and on some particularly frosty mornings she feigned profound sleep and forgetfulness so that it was just Fog who escorted Albert into the forest to watch over the lunchbox and his coat.

  Brim would be waiting in front of the hut when they returned with an air of sham irritation that they hadn’t waited that extra one or two or … lotsa minutes for her to get ready so that she could have left with them in the morning.

  She wagged her tail and inspected Fog, sniffed the axes, the lunchbox and Albert’s trousers to make sure nothing had gone awry in her absence, but ah, the luxury of dozing away by the fire with only the baleful stare of the owl to reprimand her. And it was nearly tea time already! Life was good.

  BIRTHDAYS

  One Sunday morning Fog and Brim lay in the sun beside Albert’s outside chair where he liked to drink his third cuppa. Suddenly the dog and dox pricked their ears and looked toward the forest path with tension and expectation. Brim began a couple of uncertain wags of her tail before remembering that she was a fierce guard dog and bristling the hair about her neck in a show of threat. But soon she could not restrain her tail because she felt sure she knew who was coming.

  Cranky Dave stepped into the clearing with his perennial grumpy self-effacement, Queenie Bess heeling beside him. Brim dashed forward and gave the nervous young dog such a sniffing exploration that anyone would have been a bit intimidated.

  ‘She’s four,’ Cranky Dave announced, as if everyone should know exactly what he meant. ‘Queenie Bess, she’s four today. She wanted to come for her birthday.’

  Blimey, Albert thought, he’s got worse.

  ‘Ah, now that’s good, Dave, glad to hear it. Almost slipped me mind when the pups were born.’

  Dave was staring at Fog who was sitting up like a good dox, all attention and good manners. But it didn’t matter which way you looked at it, he was still a fox.

  ‘That fox there looks pretty tame, Albert.’

  Albert passed Dave a good strong cup of tea, marvelling at the extent of Dave’s new found sociability. ‘Yes, very quiet, doesn’t worry the birds and animals, comes to work every day, never misses a beat.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do with him?’

  ‘Nothing, he’s a mate. Just like your Queenie.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dave thinking about it for a moment and deciding that if Albert thought there was no harm in it then there probably wasn’t. ‘Well, that’s good then, to have a mate.’

  The two men sat surrounded by the two dogs and the fox and drank their tea in companionable silence. Dave seemed to relax and expand. It’s true that his burst of conversation had dried up but he was like a man practising having a friend. He sat forward in his chair cradling the cup in his big hands and settling his feet in a more relaxed position.

  ‘It’s good to catch up, Dave,’ Albert said at last, ‘have a cuppa and a chat.’

  Dave made a bit of a noise in his nose that sounded like agreement and shuffled his feet.

  ‘Here,’ Dave said after a long silence, ‘I brought you this. For your fox.’ He handed Albert a small parcel.

  Albert peeled the coloured paper off carefully. He didn’t get many wrapped parcels so he wasn’t going to rush this one. He wanted to show his friend he appreciated it. Whatever it was.

  Inside he found a collar made from thon
gs of kangaroo hide, and in a neat capsule of leather Dave had secured a red stone the size of a two dollar coin.

  ‘It’s not a real ruby,’ Dave rushed and fumbled his explanation, ‘garnet, it’s garnet. I found a big one in the creek and kind of cut it on me wheel. Bit rough but it shines all right.’

  Albert turned the collar in his hands and saw that Dave, Crazy Dave, had cut holes in either side of the pocket that clasped the gemstone so that light could shine through. It was a work of art, of friendship, of love.

  ‘Me an’ Queenie thought ya fox might like it.’

  ‘He’s called Fog. I reckon he’s a dox.’

  ‘Dox?’ Dave let it tumble through his mind, ‘like a sorta cross between a dog and a fox?’

  ‘Yes, a dox. He’s a good dox, don’t ya reckon?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I do. Like my Queenie here, real good. I come ta thank ya for the pup, Albert. I got no money so me an’ Queenie thought a collar for the … dox would kinda say … you know, thanks.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Dave, I’m just glad ya like the dog. Glad to see Brim’s pup well cared for and healthy.’

  ‘She’s a mate, see, goes everywhere with me. Keeps me company at work, someone to talk to –’ His jaw clamped shut and his eyes sparkled with panic. He hadn’t meant to say that he talked to the dog like a person, like someone. That was the problem with conversations. You sometimes said things that got you into trouble. After all the years of being the butt of smarter men’s jokes he’d developed the habit of saying almost nothing in company.

  Albert saw the panic in Dave’s eyes and realised he hadn’t meant to expose his dreadful secret of talking to an animal.

  ‘Oh, they like a bit of a yarn, don’t they?’ Albert said. ‘Even the dox here likes to hear a story or two, and the maggies and pigeons, they stick their head on the side an’ listen as long as I’ve got stories to tell.’

  Dave stared at Albert and relaxed in his chair but said very little else. He accepted another cup of tea and a bit of companionable silence while he stroked Fog’s head tentatively, thoughtfully.

  Before long he stood, thanked Dave for the tea, accepted Albert’s thanks for the collar with a grunt that would have sounded rude if you didn’t know him, and then stalked into the forest like a shambling scarecrow on the loose. He would have looked alarming if there hadn’t been a completely normal dog trotting faithfully by his side.

  Maria lay on her side, her damp hair sticking to her face like spider webs. She was too weak to lift a hand to tuck it behind her ear. She was watching Discovery Channel again. Otters. Beautiful slinky, swimmy mammals. Their undulating movement was like unrestrained joy. The joy of being alive. And that made Maria’s heart sink.

  Her mother did everything the nurse asked, believed everything she said. Too cold to risk going outside in the sun. Even if it was almost summer. There’s a breeze the nurse proclaimed and that was that. Discovery Channel. Maria had pleaded with them both.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Mrs Coniliopoulos cajoled, ‘maybe the chemo will have worn off enough. Just one more day.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘If the nurse …’

  Maria tried to turn away but couldn’t. Her eyes strayed back to giraffes nibbling the foliage off African thorn bushes, like construction cranes having afternoon tea. Delicate.

  ‘Please, Maria, just one more day, and we’ll ask …’

  Nurse, nurse, curse the nurse, Maria thought. No-one who prefers being inside can ever understand how suffocating it is for people who like being outside.

  One more day, just one more day, she thought and wondered with brooding gloom if giraffes ever got a thorn up their nose. One more day.

  SPINEBILLS

  Just because Brim missed going to work some frosty mornings doesn’t mean her diligence had evaporated. Most mornings she watched for the signs of Albert’s departure and was by his side when he stepped into the forest.

  But there were some mornings when she just didn’t feel like it. Occasionally her hips would play up or she would sigh once too often, glance about the comforts of the hut and decide it would be too hot, too cold or too far for an ageing lady to be gallivanting about on the mountain. And Fog was there to make sure Albert was looked after. Just as well … there had to be some use for a dox.

  Albert wondered if there would come a time when he too couldn’t drag himself from the hut to go to work. Not if, he supposed, but when.

  Still, he was fit and it was an absolute pleasure to be out in the bush. The work was hard but he was used to it and it was satisfying to see the sweet slippery posts leap out of the log after he’d split them out with the wedges. He usually had two mates, Fog and Brim, but not this morning. It was one of Brim’s rostered days off. He was thinking this over as he drank his tea at smoko and entertained the devilish thought of having another one.

  The tree he was splitting had a dense twisty grain. Most of what he cut was stringy bark but this tree was a kind of hybrid. He came across them from time to time and they usually made splitting difficult. They had a tight strong grain with a bit of a wave in it that prevented the log from splitting freely.

  So, another cup of tea before he set about the task with his wedges and mallet.

  He allowed his eye to roam about the clearing. There was usually something to catch his interest. When he arrived this morning he’d watched an echidna breaking open an ants’ nest, peering around comically from time to time in its nearsightedness. Albert supposed we’d all be near-sighted if we spent our life with our snouts in a hole looking for ants.

  And look at that, one of his favourite birds, the eastern spinebill, was good enough to keep him company right on smoko. He’d have to have that second cuppa now.

  They were a beautiful bird, fine curved beak like an ebony darning needle and the most elegant costume. The eyes were deep chestnut and the black cap on the head continued as two narrow ribbons on either side of its chest. Above the ribbons it had a snowy white vest and below the beak a bib of cinnamon. The nape and belly were the same colour. Some people preferred the showy crimson rosella or the bold and vain golden whistler; others raved about the prima donna lyrebird or the theatrical bowerbird. Albert loved them all but the spinebill was so neat and its voice so clear and spirited it always cheered him to hear it.

  One of the most charming things about the bird was the way it could hover in front of a flower to extract nectar with its fine curved bill, just like a humming bird. He never got sick of watching it and this morning it put on a great display, hovering from flower to flower of a mountain grevillea.

  At last Albert turned his eye reluctantly to the log waiting for him. Fog followed his gaze and dropped down onto the old man’s coat, reading the signs that the splitting was about to begin and his job was to guard the lunch box.

  Albert slapped his hands on his knees, pushed himself up from the stump and approached the log with resolute determination.

  He tapped the first wedge in and sap oozed from around the opening it made. Mmm, he thought, sappy little critter, must be all that rain we’ve had over winter, got a real good sap flow going.

  He tapped in a second wedge and gradually opened a crack through the middle of the log and stood back to examine it.

  ‘Bit slippery this one, Fog. They’re a bit like that after rain. Don’t like the way the wedges keep slipping. I’ll put a couple of extra ones in the side to keep it open, what do you reckon?’

  Fog was used to being consulted about Albert’s progress. He cocked his head on one side, yes, probably a good idea, he thought, not knowing a hell of a lot about fenceposts and timber.

  Albert worked away carefully, gradually opening a yawning gap at the end of the log. The wedges kept slipping in the sluice of sap, one even popped straight out and flew ten metres before it crashed into a currant bush. Albert always made sure his campfire and lunch box were off to one side so that an event like that didn’t hurt Brim or Fog.

  At last he had the log to the po
int where he’d be able to drive in his largest wedge and split the entire log in half. But just as he tapped it in one of the side wedges loosened and slipped into the jaws of the log.

  He stood back and looked at it. He’d have to get it out. Couldn’t risk it being fired out like a missile if the log snapped back into place.

  He knelt beside the log and reached between the gaping jaws but couldn’t quite reach the wedge. So he got down on both knees and reached in a little further. But as he did so the hammer he was carrying in his other hand bumped the main wedge, which spat from the log like a vicious little assassin, and the log slammed shut on Albert’s arm.

  His reflex was to wrench his arm free but he was too late and instead was flung down beside the log, the hammer spinning from the grasp of his free hand.

  He’d heard of this happening. It wasn’t good. He’d worked hard to avoid it ever happening, but it had and now he was trapped. Think clearly now, Albert. Which wasn’t as easy as it sounded because the pain in his arm was as if a blowtorch was strafing it with a naked flame.

  Fog leapt to his feet in alarm. He didn’t like those logs one bit. He was a smart dox but had never worked out why Albert bothered with them at all.

  Albert twisted himself about so that he was kneeling beside the log. He tugged at his arm but knew exactly what the result would be. Useless. He’d have to try and drive a wedge in beside his arm to open the jaws of the log again. He could see that the hammer was out of reach but there was one wedge not too far away, and, of course, the one he still grasped in his trapped hand.

  He turned to look at Fog. The dox was staring at him, waiting to see what Albert would do. Or say.