by R. M. Corbet
‘You don’t fool me, Harriet. But if you can get Dave out of his bedroom, I’ll buy you a nice big bone.’
Not a problem, says Harriet, with her doggy smile.
When we get home, I knock loudly on Dave’s door, but he doesn’t answer.
‘Dave! Come and see who’s here!’
Harriet barks in excitement, but there is still no answer. This time, when I try the door, it opens. But the room is empty and on the bed there’s a note in Dave’s big, neat handwriting:
MIA
The wallpaper is gone. I have pulled down the curtains. The bedspread is packed away, ready for the op shop. Next on my list is the hideous chandelier.
I get a stepladder from the laundry and climb up it for a closer look. If it is possible to unscrew the crystal monstrosity, I will be happy enough with just a dim light bulb for now. I’m up on the stepladder, deciding how not to electrocute myself, when there’s another knock at the front door.
‘I’ll get it, Mum!’ I call out, assuming it must be Will, returning Harriet after her walk. I take off my glasses and neaten my hair, but when I open the door I get a shock.
‘Dad?’
Last night, as a doctor, my father was comfortable and relaxed. Now, as a father, he looks nervous and uncertain. When I go to kiss him, he doesn’t know whether to hug me or not. I don’t know if Mum wants me to invite him in or not. I don’t think I want him to see my room in such a mess, either.
‘It’s the big day!’ he says.
‘Yep.’ I nod. ‘The big day.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ he says.
‘Me, too.’
‘I got you something,’ he says.
‘You didn’t have to.’
My father goes to his car and comes back with my present. It’s in a long, rectangular box, wrapped up in plain brown paper. The card simply says: Sorry, love Dad.
I sit down on the doorstep and fumble with the wrapping paper, while my father watches nervously. Inside the box is a beautiful new viola.
WILL
‘You’re a bloodhound, Harriet! That’s what bloodhounds do – they pick up the scent and run with it. They hunt foxes and rabbits. They catch drug smugglers. They track down escaped prisoners. Now, help me find Dave!’
Harriet sniffs at Dave’s T-shirt then leaps into action. She tears down the hallway and disappears under the kitchen table, looking for food scraps.
I knew it was a dumb idea.
Dave has run away. He might be just around the corner, or he might be on the train to Alice Springs. Surely, because of his wheelchair, he can’t have gone too far. How can someone run away from home when they can’t even walk?
MIA
Mum invites Dad in and together they watch me tune my new viola and play a few arpeggios. My new viola is splendido e magnifico! The wood is darker than the old viola, with a finer, less distinctive grain. The bridge is cut differently and the f-holes are longer, but the feel of the neck and the tone of the two instruments are remarkably similar. My dad has gone to a lot of trouble in choosing it.
I close my eyes and pretend I am playing my old instrument. I pretend that nothing bad has happened – that my mum and dad still love each other and that the three of us are a normal, happy family. I play the arpeggios with more feeling and the tone of the instrument changes, becoming richer and more resonant. I realise, with tears streaming down my cheeks, that no two violas can ever be the same.
WILL
Harriet’s nose is a heavy-duty, industrial vacuum cleaner – a super-sniffer, sucking up smells, searching for clues. The first place we look is the tennis court. The Sunday lessons are on, and while I ask around, Harriet lets the kids play with her. By the time I am done, a tennis ball has been mauled, a toddler is crying and a four-year-old is throwing a tantrum: ‘I want a dog, Mummy! Tell Santa I WANT one!’ There has been no sign of Dave, though, so with no time to waste, we leave to continue our search. Harriet has no idea where we are going, but she’s dragging me there anyway.
At the shopping centre there is a sign on the automatic glass door. It shows an outline of a dog’s body inside a red circle with a red diagonal line crossing it out. It might mean NO DOGS, but it doesn’t actually say so. And the more I look at the dog in the picture, the less it looks like Harriet. Some breeds of dog are obviously banned from the shopping centre, but surely not tracker dogs here on urgent business.
Harriet and I sneak into SportsWorld and begin sniffing around for traces of Dave. We snoop around Swimwear and creep through Cricket. We slink past Skiing and tiptoe through Tennis. There are racquets on special so surely Dave must be here, hiding in a change room or eyeing off a new pair of trainers. SportsWorld is a big, busy store, but when Harriet starts making new friends, it’s not long before we’re noticed by the staff.
‘Excuse me,’ says the girl. ‘Your dog is not allowed in here.’
‘She’s not my dog,’ I say, hoping to buy some time.
The girl gets the section manager, the section manager gets the store manager, then the store manager gets the security guard. By the time the guard arrives, I have staked out the entire store and Harriet is tearing around the astroturf with a gang of squealing children.
‘Let’s go, Harriet. We’re done here.’
Outside the sports store, the food court is thundering with noise as people clatter their cutlery and slurp their cappuccinos. Out of desperation, I buy a two-dollar pair of sunglasses, hoping that people will think Harriet is my seeing eye dog. The trouble is, seeing eye dogs are known to stay cool in a tense situation, whereas Harriet is a dead giveaway – jumping up on tables, trying to lick kids’ ice-creams. There are too many different smells here for an innocent young bloodhound. Harriet’s nose is in danger of being overloaded. She could rupture her sinuses or blow a nose-gasket.
Instead, I tie her up outside the door and wander among the tables, searching without much hope for a sign of my runaway brother. How ridiculous am I, to be taking Dave’s note so seriously? But time is slipping away and I am starting to panic now. What if Dave really means it? What if he really has run away? Dave might have even made plans – a refuge for the disabled, a motorised wheelchair, a getaway van with a ramp up the back. Or worse, Dave might be in trouble. He might have done something stupid.
When I return, Harriet has wound her leash round the pole, until she can’t move her head. As a prisoner of her own stupidity, she is paying the price – a boy and his sister are mercilessly tickling her tummy and Harriet’s hind leg is scratching the air in ecstasy.
I unwind her leash and we’re away again, with Harriet relentlessly dragging me on.
At the swimming pool she makes her grand entrance, barking madly at the startled swimmers and wanting to leap into the water to join them. Surely Dave will be here, arguing with the lifeguards or wrestling with the vending machine? As I survey the lap-swimmers, the rowdy kids doing bombs or the soakers in the spa, I can hardly bear to look. At any moment I expect to see Dave, floating lifelessly in the water.
But no, he’s not here, which means he’s somewhere else. But where?
I am running out of possibilities.
The park, of course! Of course, Dave is in the park – doing his chin-ups, proving to himself, yet again, that he’s stronger than his big brother. The park is the place I should have looked first. Dave isn’t running away. He’s in the park, waiting patiently to take Harriet for a walk.
The park seems like a long, long way from the pool. It’s a sunny afternoon and by the time Harriet and I get there we are both panting loudly and soaked in sweat. The park is deserted. There is nothing but trees and grass in every direction. Out of desperation, I let Harriet off the leash and she runs away, spurred on by some unknown excitement. I follow her at a distance, doing my best to keep up as she speeds towards the chin-up bars, barking with excitement.
There, on the ground, I see something that lifts my hopes like a wave, then smashes them against the rocks.
I
t is Dave’s empty wheelchair, collapsed and lying on its side.
MIA
‘Should we call the police?’ Mum asks, on the way to rehearsal.
‘Definitely not!’
‘What about Harriet? What if something has gone wrong?’
‘Will is probably . . . caught up in something,’ I say, trying to sound convinced.
‘Is he coming to the concert? Does he know when it starts?’
‘He knows . . . He’s coming.’
‘Well, I hope he’s not late. Remember, he’s already let you down once.’
‘He won’t be late, Mum . . . He’d better not be.’
WILL
Dave has disappeared into thin air. Dave has evaporated. He has been abducted, assassinated, sold into slavery, murdered. Harriet is barking up a tree, but it’s the wrong tree. There is no sign of Dave in any direction.
‘Dave!’ I shout. ‘Where are you?’
No answer. Not even an echo.
Harriet suctions the folded wheelchair for clues, then suddenly takes off across the grass in the direction of the lake. There’s a big clump of reeds growing by the water’s edge. Maybe Dave has crawled in there or been dragged in there by some mutant urban THING! Harriet is almost to the reeds when she hears another dog barking. From across the park, a mongrel comes running – a big ugly bruiser of a dog without a collar. Harriet stops. With her tail in the air she turns to face the new dog, which wastes no time in sniffing her out. But before Harriet has time to return the compliment, the brute is snarling. Harriet’s tail drops. She yelps and tries to run, but the heavyweight mongrel grabs her by the throat and starts to shake her violently, trying to break her neck.
‘GET AWAY!’
I pick up a stick and run towards them. When the mongrel sees me coming it releases Harriet and bares its teeth. Instead of turning to run it snaps its jaws again and – like Iron Mike Tyson – bites off a piece of Harriet’s ear. Only after I hit it hard across its back and kick it does it finally run away.
Harriet is instantly on her feet, barking excitedly with blood streaming from her mauled ear. From a tree beside the lake, I hear a wild thrashing of leaves. I look up and see Dave, half-falling, half-climbing down from way up high. A twig snaps and I watch in horror as he topples head over heels, clears the lowest branch and lands, somehow, on his feet! For what seems like forever, he stands in that miraculous position, screaming at the fleeing mongrel, before finally sinking to his knees.
‘Dave!’
‘Call an ambulance, Will! We’ve got to get Harriet to hospital!’
MIA
I show Ms Stanway my new viola while the orchestra is setting up on the stage. Ms S inspects it briefly, plays a few bars and tells me I am a lucky girl. The musicians are tuning their instruments, playing their scales and running through their different parts. There is no sound on earth so chaotic yet so full of expectation as an orchestra tuning. Ms S runs through her reminder notes, then she has a pink fit about how we will take our bows and in what order, who will carry their instruments and who will leave them behind. In the time remaining, we play the Vivaldi – all twelve movements – stopping only once, when the woodwinds launch in two bars early. I play my parts without a mistake, but even on my new viola it is hard to play with passion. My eyes follow the notes without reading them and my fingers go through the motions. Whenever anyone arrives or leaves the hall, I look up hoping to see Will.
WILL
Dave and I sit in the waiting room while behind the white door, the vet stitches Harriet’s ear. I have never seen Dave so worried. He wriggles and fidgets and keeps asking questions.
‘Will Harriet have a general anaesthetic, Will, or just a local?’
‘I don’t know, Dave.’
‘Will it hurt, Will? Will she be scared?’
‘She’s a brave little dog, Dave.’
‘Will she be okay, Will? Will she still be able to hear?’
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
‘Will you miss the concert? Will Mia be mad at you?’
‘I hope not, Dave.’
‘It wasn’t our fault, Will. It was that other dog. Why was it so angry?’
‘Some dogs are bred to fight, Dave.’
‘Why do people have dogs like that, Will?’
‘Some people are like their dogs, Dave. They’re bred to fight.’
‘But we weren’t scared of it, were we?’
‘I was a bit scared, Dave.’
‘Me too, Will.’
‘You didn’t look scared, Dave. You looked angry.’
‘Dogs know it when you’re scared, don’t they, Will? They can smell fear.’
‘Everyone can smell it, Dave.’
‘Is that why you lost the tennis match, Will?’
‘I guess it is.’
‘But you’re not a choker, Will. You weren’t scared of those boys at the party.’
‘I was a bit scared, Dave.’
‘Did you ever feel like running away, Will?’
‘I think everyone feels like running away sometimes, Dave.’
‘It would be pretty stupid if everyone ran away, Will. Where would they all go?’
‘How did you get up that tree, Dave?’
‘I climbed, of course.’
‘But how did you get there without your wheelchair?’
Dave grins. ‘What? Do you think I’m disabled?’
MIA
Boys are unreliable. They are fundamentally, genetically and primordially unreliable. They will do anything to try to meet you, but then they can’t talk. They will invite you to the tennis, even though they can’t actually be there. They will trample your flowers. They will treat you like cattle. They will sleaze around with your ex-best friend. They will promise to come to the most important event in your life, but instead they will steal your dog and never come back. Will Holland is unreliable – he cannot be relied on. If this were a tennis match; if I was an athlete, instead of a musician; if there were any gold medals to be won or toe-sucking to be had, I’m sure things would be different.
Slowly but steadily, the clock ticks down to starting time. The doors open and people begin to stream in. They take up their seats and start reading their programs – all the mums and dads and brothers and sisters and grannies and grandpas and aunties and uncles, come to see the concert, come to be reliable. Mum and Dad arrive together, but not together, if you know what I mean. I give Mum a hopeful look and she shakes her head grimly. No Harriet. No Will. Nothing to rely on.
The lights of the house go down and Ms Stanway walks onto the stage. She welcomes the audience and tells them about the composer.
‘Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in the seventeenth century. A prolific composer and a virtuoso violinist, he was rich at the height of his fame but died in poverty. Of the 500 concertos he wrote, the most popular were four known as Le Quattro Stagioni – The Four Seasons.’
The audience applauds as Ms S takes up her baton and turns to face the orchestra. We raise our instruments and with a nod from Ms S we’re away! Allegro – the first movement of ‘Spring’. It’s the catchy, melodic, swingy, springy movement that everyone instantly recognises and the orchestra knows off by heart. There are a few tricky bits where the violins spin and weave like butterflies, then a fast bit for the strings, which we play almost perfectly. Ms S is smiling. All her hard work is paying off.
When the first movement ends, there’s a brief pause before the second – largo e pianissimo sempre. As the players turn the pages of their sheet music, preparing to start, there’s a sound as explosive as gunshots, coming from the back of the hall.
Someone is clapping!
WILL
Dave and I sneak in the door as the orchestra is starting. There are no empty seats. If Dave hadn’t been in a wheelchair, we might not have been let in. We move to the back corner without being noticed, but when Dave starts clapping at the end of the first movement, people turn around in disgust. When they see who he is, their an
gry stares change to amusement, which in my book is even worse. Instead of telling Dave to stop clapping, I join in.
The second movement of ‘Spring’ is a quiet, gentle number. It’s impossible to say for sure what the music is all about, but because it’s called ‘Spring’, I imagine a garden. The sun is shining and bees are buzzing all around between the brightly coloured flowers. One bee is going about its business when it notices a particular flower. The more the bee looks at this flower, the more and more beautiful it seems. In the third movement, the tempo picks up and the bee starts to go a bit crazy. It buzzes around and around the flower, but doesn’t have the nerve to land. In the end the bee returns to the hive, sad and honey-less.
When ‘Summer’ comes, everything slows right down. The orchestra has a siesta while the first violinist kills a few blow-flies, turns on the fan and grabs a cool drink from the fridge. In the second movement, he puts his feet up and watches the cricket, then in the third everyone piles into the car and heads off to the beach. The sky is blue and off in the distance two white yachts are racing across the sparkling water. When they get to the floating buoy, one turns around while the other keeps on going. It’s all very deep and meaningful.
‘Autumn’ starts with a bang. It’s as if there’s a big game of football between two old rivals. After getting off to a good start, the game begins to get messy. Someone kicks the ball out of the stadium, then the players start fighting and the umpire accidentally gets flattened. The second movement is slow, like falling leaves. The footy game has been abandoned and now everyone is out in the park, helping to rake up the leaves. They make a pile as big as a bonfire, then in the third movement, someone lights a match and the whole thing goes up in smoke. It makes a beautiful blaze, though.
When ‘Winter’ comes, the scene shifts to Antarctica. There are mountains of ice and glaciers breaking up into icebergs. In the howling wind, weary explorers are trudging knee-deep through the endless snow. In the second movement, one of the explorers falls down a crack and has to be thrown a rope. It’s a tense situation, but they finally get him out, unharmed. By the third and final movement they’re all back at base camp, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate. It’s a bit of an anticlimax, really.