“Are you upset?” he asked.
Whiskey snorted, as a horse snorts, through his lips as well as his nose. “There’s plenty of fish in the sea,” he said.
x x x
After he hung up, Charlie tried to sort out his thoughts about Whiskey and Juliet, himself and Juliet, himself and Whiskey. Though he knew that cocaine did not have hallucinogenic properties, he could only conclude that what had happened with Juliet in the study had been exactly that, an elaborate hallucination—the lucid dreaming of a mind addled by vodka and whatever he had put up his nose.
He did not allow himself the luxury of even considering the other option: that Juliet had actually written down his phone number and then kissed him good-bye. He stuck with his theory until five o’clock, when the phone rang and he heard Juliet’s low, melodic voice at the other end. She asked him to meet her for a drink in St. Kilda, and he tried on five shirts before he left the house, finally returning to the one he had begun with, ashamed of himself.
At the bar, he sat beside her in a booth, and she looked as perfect when he was tired and hungover as she had when he was high. He couldn’t believe she might be interested in him.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” Juliet said without preamble. “I’ve been feeling absolutely sick about it all day. I know you must think very badly of me, and I don’t blame you if you do, but I wanted to at least try to explain.”
Charlie had tried, earlier that day, to put the events of the previous night into some semblance of order, without much success. There were great gaping holes in his memory, whole chunks of time in which he had no idea who he had been with, what he had said or done.
“Which part, exactly, are you sorry for?” he asked Juliet.
She took a breath. “I’m sorry that we—that I—I’m sorry for what happened in the study. I know it was wrong, but I was angry with Whiskey. I was…drunk.”
A memory came to Charlie then, of the night more than ten years earlier when he realized that Louise Barker’s interest in him was purely for Whiskey’s punishment. He was embarrassed that he had allowed himself to think that a girl like Juliet might be attracted to someone like him.
“You used me to get back at Whiskey,” he said bitterly.
“I wasn’t using you!” Juliet said. She looked as though she might cry.
“You kissed me because you were drunk and angry with Whiskey. That’s what you just said.”
“No,” she said. “No.” She gulped at her drink. “I kissed you because I…liked you. I like you,” she corrected herself. “I allowed myself to do it because I was drunk and angry.”
She kissed him because she liked him? Charlie wanted to ask her to repeat that statement, to clarify it.
“Why were you angry with Whiskey?” he asked instead.
Juliet shook her head. “There’s no point in me telling you that,” she said. “I don’t want to come between you and Whiskey.”
“Well, you needn’t worry about that,” Charlie said.
Juliet looked anguished. “Are you very close?” she asked.
“We’re not close at all. I thought Whiskey would have told you we don’t get along. I don’t know if that makes you feel any better about what happened.”
“That makes me feel worse,” Juliet said. “I’d hate to be responsible for driving you further apart.”
Charlie looked at her. What she was saying made sense, but he found that he didn’t care. All he could think was that she must not leave, she must not leave.
“I should go now,” she said, reading his mind.
Charlie put his hand on her wrist. “Don’t go,” he said. “We don’t have to talk about Whiskey. But we’re here now. Let’s at least have a drink.”
Juliet looked with embarrassment at her empty glass.
“I’ll get you another one,” Charlie offered. “What are you having?”
“Campari and orange juice.”
Charlie went to the bar. He was almost certain that when he returned she would be gone; it took all his resolve not to keep looking back at her. But when he came back with the drinks, she was still there.
Charlie sat back down, tried to think of something neutral to say. “What did you think of the party?” he asked her.
“I’m tired of those parties, Charlie,” she said. “I’m tired of that whole scene. It looks appealing from the outside, but when you live in it, it’s empty; nothing means anything. That’s why it was so good to talk to you. You live in the real world, where things matter. You do a job that makes a difference. That’s the world I want to live in.”
“Do you want me to see if I can get you a job?” Charlie asked lightly.
Juliet laughed. “You really do look exactly the same, don’t you?” she said, studying Charlie. “I know that sounds silly. I mean, I’ve seen identical twins before, on television or in magazines, but it’s different to meet two people and actually see that amazing similarity for yourself. It’s uncanny.”
Charlie had taken part in some version of this conversation more times than he could remember. Usually he found it extraordinarily tiresome to be examined like a creature in a laboratory, but it felt different now that it was Juliet who was performing the examination. It was wonderful, in fact, to have her eyes rest for so long on his face.
“You’re a little thinner in the cheeks,” she said, still looking at him.
“And somehow more handsome in a way that you can’t put your finger on?” Charlie suggested.
She laughed again. She seemed to be thinking about whether to tell Charlie something.
“You wanted to know why I was angry with Whiskey,” she said eventually.
Charlie nodded.
“When I first met Whiskey, he told me he wanted to give up advertising, do something for the community, maybe become a teacher. When he said that, I felt like we were at the same point in our lives, like we could understand each other. It took me a while to realize he didn’t mean any of it, that he was totally caught up in advertising, that he’d never give it up. He just told me what he thought I wanted to hear. It wasn’t until I met you last night that I realized the story he told me was your story, and I knew that the person I wanted to know wasn’t Whiskey—it was you.”
Charlie had thought that falling in love was a gradual process, that it happened suddenly only in Hollywood movies and airport bestsellers. He didn’t know what to say to Juliet. He hadn’t read his part in the script. He pushed all thoughts of Whiskey out of his mind, leaned over, and kissed her.
Kilo
Juliet found the dog on a Saturday morning. She had gotten up early to go for a run, and when she opened the front door, he was huddled on the doorstep, so small and disheveled she thought at first he was a guinea pig. She shouted for Charlie, who was still in bed.
“What’s the matter?” Charlie called, groggy with sleep.
“There’s a guinea pig. It must have escaped from somewhere.”
Charlie yawned. He didn’t feel like getting up so early, but he remembered that Juliet was scared of guinea pigs. Not long after they met, she had told him about being bitten by a guinea pig when she was small. Charlie regularly forgot all sorts of important information, but for some reason, he remembered every detail of this story, even down to the guinea pig’s name, which was Olive. He rolled out of bed and went to the door.
“It must belong to one of the kids in the neighborhood,” Juliet said. She had tied her hair into a ponytail, which made her look younger than she was. She sounded panicked. Charlie kissed the back of her neck and then bent down to look at the animal.
“It’s soaking wet.”
Juliet disappeared and came back with a towel. “Use this,” she said. “Poor little thing. It’s probably been wandering around all night in the rain, trying to find its way home. It might belong to those children in the blue town house.”
“You’re not putting it in one of my shoe boxes.”
“Why not? You’ve got at least a hundred,” Charlie teased. “Surely you’ve got one to spare for this little fellow.” But when he picked the creature up, he saw that it wasn’t a guinea pig at all.
“It’s a puppy,” he said, “but he’s not in very good shape.” He held the little dog up for Juliet to see.
“Oh, Charlie, look at the poor thing. It looks half dead!” She burst into tears.
“Don’t get upset,” Charlie said. “It’s probably just cold and hungry and a bit bewildered. It’ll work itself out. Why don’t you take it, and I’ll see if I can get hold of a vet.”
Charlie drove to the animal hospital in North Melbourne while Juliet held the dog on her lap. Charlie had a sudden sharp memory of sitting in the back of Mary Partridge’s car, sick with anxiety, after Bravo had been hit by the car. He didn’t say so to Juliet, but he didn’t think the dog was going to make it. It was limp and trembling, with glazed eyes and matted fur, had barely lifted its head since they found it, hadn’t even sniffed at the bowl of warm milk they put under its nose. Charlie put his hand on Juliet’s shoulder.
“It’ll be all right,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
According to the vet, the puppy was some kind of spaniel, about seven weeks old, who had almost certainly been abandoned. He weighed just under a kilo—about two pounds, less than a bag of flour—which was about half the average weight for a healthy spaniel of that age. There were no broken bones or serious injuries, but he was in shock, as well as suffering from dehydration and hypothermia. He explained that there was no obligation for Charlie and Juliet to do anything more, that the animal hospital would clean him up, keep him warm, and try to get some food into him, and if he recovered, he would be put into the hospital’s adoption program.
Charlie thanked the vet and put his arm around Juliet, who was still looking at the puppy.
“I think we should take him,” she said suddenly. “He’d have a much better chance if we took him home. I could look after him. He probably just needs some love, doesn’t he?” she asked the vet.
“It’s probably true that a bit of nurturing would do him more good than anything we could administer here,” the vet said cautiously. “But as I said before, there’s no obligation.”
“Oh, Charlie, let’s take him. He’ll probably die if we don’t, and I’ll feel awful.”
“I know it’s difficult,” Charlie said, “but I think it’s better to leave him here.”
“Not better for him, the poor little thing.”
“This is the animal hospital, Juliet. We’re leaving him in the best hands. And I’m sure they’ll find a good home for him. There’s always lots of demand for puppies.”
“But you heard what the vet said, Charlie. Our taking him home will give him a much better chance.”
“I know you’re upset, Juliet, but you don’t go out and get a dog, just like that.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” He realized he should have seen this coming. “Getting a dog is something you have to think about carefully,” he said.
“But he needs us, Charlie. He found us. Why leave him here when we can give him a good home ourselves? We’ve got a garden. There’s nothing to think about.”
Charlie coughed. This was not a conversation he wanted to have in front of the vet. To his relief, the vet seemed to realize where things were leading.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” he said. “I need to check on something.”
“Please, Charlie,” Juliet said as soon as the vet had left the room. “Why don’t you want to?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to.” He felt around for the right words. “I don’t think we’re really ready for a dog. We’ve never even talked about it before.”
“What do you mean, not ready? It’s not like having a baby, Charlie.”
“Well, it’s not so different,” Charlie said. “It’s a serious long-term commitment.” He could not look at her as he said this.
“I’m ready for that kind of commitment, Charlie,” Juliet said in the voice she used when she was about to cry.
Charlie knew she wasn’t talking about the dog anymore. He looked out of the window. He thought of her earlier that morning, how animated she’d been about the guinea pig. He didn’t want to make her cry.
“You know that he might not pull through, don’t you?” he asked carefully.
Juliet nodded.
“You’re sure you want to take him home anyway?”
She nodded again.
Charlie put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “Let’s go and find that vet then,” he said.
x x x
The vet said the dog might respond to Juliet’s heartbeat, that it would remind him of his mother. So when they got home, Juliet made a sling out of a sarong, and for the rest of that day, she carried the dog around with her like a baby. She talked to him softly and stroked his head, and every hour she squirted warm milk into his mouth with a pipette the vet had given them. When he peed on her, Juliet took it as a positive sign. Charlie refrained from saying that wetting themselves was often the last thing people did before they died.
When they went to bed that night, Juliet tucked the dog into a cardboard box with a hot water bottle and an old sweater and put him on the floor next to her side of the bed. Despite her ministrations, the dog was still showing very few signs of life, and Charlie felt sure they had found him too late, that the dog would die in the night. But Juliet got up three times to feed him, and in the morning, he was still hanging on. Juliet kept him in the sling all day on Sunday, and by that evening, he was starting to show signs of recovery. The glazed look had gone from his eyes, and he was sniffing at Juliet when she gave him the milk. By the time Charlie got home from work on Monday, the dog was looking considerably better. Juliet had bathed him, and he was lying on a towel in front of the heater to dry.
“He looks better now I’ve cleaned him up, doesn’t he?” Juliet said.
Charlie knelt down to have a look at him. He was chestnut colored with a round face and floppy ears, and when Charlie put out his hand, he lifted his head and began to lick Charlie’s fingers.
“He reminds me of an Ewok,” Charlie said.
Juliet laughed. “He does look a bit like a bear,” she said.
“It looks like your Florence Nightingale routine did the trick.”
Juliet nodded. She looked so happy. Charlie put his arm around her. He didn’t know what to feel. He hadn’t wanted the dog to die, of course, but that didn’t mean he wanted to keep him. Since they brought the puppy home, neither he nor Juliet had mentioned their dispute at the animal hospital, but it was still on Charlie’s mind.
It had been difficult enough when Juliet had asked Charlie to move in with her. On the surface, the suggestion had seemed logical. But they had started talking about it when they’d been together for six months, and it had taken another six months for Charlie to actually make the move. He hadn’t been attached to the house he officially lived in, nor to his housemates, whom he had found through the paper. And it was not that he had feared the loss of his independence; he knew Juliet respected his independence and valued her own.
Initially he had put his reluctance down to his experience with Kristy. He’d been burned, he had told himself, and it had made him wary. But Juliet hadn’t accepted that explanation. She had said her house was much bigger than Kristy’s flat, and they would still be able to have their own space, that Charlie wouldn’t have to put anything into storage, that he could bring everything he owned with him and make the place his own. Her arguments made perfect sense. Charlie agreed with everything she said. But he still didn’t want to move in with her. And eventually he realized
his fears had nothing to do with Kristy, that what it boiled down to was that Charlie had no faith in his relationship with Juliet.
There was no question about his love for her. Charlie was smart enough to know that Juliet was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And that was the problem. It was too good to be true, and Charlie was sure it couldn’t last—exactly like his own parents’ marriage—that eventually Juliet Katrina Robertson would realize she was far too good for plain old Charlie Ferns.
Charlie couldn’t see the point of moving in with her when it was only a matter of time before he would have to move out again. He thought their living together would accelerate the inevitable. And that having lived with her would only make things harder when he had to go back to a life without her. He didn’t want to get used to opening the wardrobe and seeing her clothes hanging there. He didn’t want to get used to the smell of her shampoo or the color of her toothbrush because he knew that one day he wouldn’t have them anymore. One day Juliet’s house would stop being his house. He would have given back the keys and would have to ring the doorbell when he went back to collect the things he had accidentally left behind when he moved out. Juliet would have put them in a plastic bag, as though she didn’t want to touch them or look at them, and they would be waiting inside the front door when he arrived so there would be no need for him to go into the house.
And it would be the same with the dog. You couldn’t divide up a dog the way you could with other belongings. The dog would have to go one way or the other. And Charlie already knew which way it would go. He loved dogs. He had loved Bravo, and he would love this little bearlike dog just as much, would treat him with fresh minced meat, walk him, and let him sleep on the bed, spend hours throwing a stick or a ball for him. And then Charlie would move out and leave him with Juliet in the house that was no longer his. But how could he begin to explain that to Juliet?
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